Editing Crossfire (section)

{{Short description|Deliberately overlapping arcs of fire}}
{{About|the military term|other uses|Crossfire (disambiguation)}}
[[Image:Crossfireguns.svg|thumb|Depiction of crossfire]]
{{wiktionary}}
A '''crossfire''' (also known as '''interlocking fire''') is a military term for the siting of weapons (often [[automatic weapon]]s such as [[assault rifle]]s or [[sub-machine gun]]s) so that their [[arc of fire|arcs of fire]] overlap.<ref> Plainclothes and Off-duty Officer Survival: 0398055289
John Charles Cheek, Tony Lesce - 1988 "Bunching up nullifies any chance of catching an adversary in a cross-fire. Figure 13. Crossfire is a very powerful tactic. It enables a pair of combatants to catch an opponent from two directions at once. Cross-fire can even menace an adversary .."</ref> This tactic came to prominence in [[World War I]].{{citation needed|date=October 2024}}

Siting weapons this way is an example of the application of the defensive principle of ''mutual support''. The advantage of siting weapons that mutually support one another is that it is difficult for an attacker to find a covered approach to any one defensive position. Use of [[Armoured fighting vehicle|armour]], [[Close air support|air support]], [[indirect fire support]], and [[Military camouflage|stealth]] are tactics that may be used to assault a defensive position. However, when combined with [[land mine]]s, [[sniper]]s, [[barbed wire]], and [[air cover]], crossfire became a difficult tactic to counter in the early 20th century.{{Citation needed|date=August 2010}}