[المنتصر]

Target Damage Criteria

Target damage is the effect of fires on a given military target. It results in total, partial, or temporary loss of the target's combat effectiveness. The categories of target damage are annihilation, demolition, neutralization, and harassment.

Annihilation fires make unobserved targets combat-ineffective, needing major construction to be usable. For a point target such as an ATGM launcher, the OPFOR must expend enough rounds to ensure a 70 to 90 percent probability of kill. For area targets such as platoon strongpoints or nuclear artillery assets, they must fire enough rounds to destroy from 50 to 60 percent of the targets within the group. These fires result in the group ceasing to exist as a fighting force.

Demolition refers to the destruction of buildings and engineer works (bridges, fortifications, roads). Demolition requires enough rounds to make such material objects unfit for further use. It is a subset of annihilation.

Neutralization fire inflicts enough losses on a target to-- Cause it to temporarily lose its combat effectiveness; Restrict or prohibit its maneuver; Disrupt its C2 capability. To achieve neutralization, artillery must deliver enough rounds to destroy 30 percent of a group of unobserved targets.

Harassment uses a limited number of artillery pieces and ammunition within a prescribed time to deliver harassment fires. The goal of these fires is to put psychological pressure on enemy personnel in concentrated defensive areas, command posts, and rear installations. Successful harassment fire inhibits maneuver, lowers morale, interrupts rest, and weakens enemy combat readiness.

Counterbattery Fire accomplishes the neutralization or annihilation of enemy artillery batteries. Combat with enemy artillery is one of the artillery's most important missions. It enables ground forces to achieve fire superiority on the battlefield. Combat with enemy artillery requires more than counterbattery fire. It requires the destruction of C2 centers as well as artillery. It also requires the cooperation of other ground combat arms and aviation.

Maneuver by Fire occurs when a unit shifts fire from one target, or group of targets, to another without changing firing positions. This is a combined arms concept in which the artillery plays a critical role. Maneuver by fire masses fires on the most important enemy installations or force groupings. Its intention is to destroy them in a short period of time or to redistribute fires to destroy several targets simultaneously. Another purpose may be to shift the OPFOR’s main combat effort from one axis to another.

For annihilation or neutralization missions against fires as many (or as few) rounds as necessary for the observer to indicate that the target has sustained the required amount of damage. For unobserved fire, a general table of ammunition expenditure norms is used as the basis for artillery fire planning. The following table is an example of such a table for fragmentation high-explosive (frag-HE) rounds required to annihilate or neutralize various targets. This table does not consider time.