direct fire
1
7.7
- noun
- Specialized
:
fuego directo
- Those who weren't hit by direct fire were struck by rounds ricocheting off the desks and tile floor.
Examples
-
Some turned southwest toward solid ground only to be stopped by direct fire from Bradleys and Abrams positioned to deny that egress.
Fiction book (1999) -
How does an officer with no personal experience of direct fire combat in Panama or Desert Storm become a division commander in 2003, a man who shamelessly reinforced whatever dumb idea his superior advanced regardless of its impact on soldiers, let alone the nation, a man who served repeatedly as a sycophantic aide-de-camp, military assistant, and executive officer to four stars get so far?
Blog text (30) -
They take direct fire from AK-47s from about two feet away.
Blog text (12) -
Just so you know what to expect, in the 7 months they have been there, the Colonel said he could count the number of times of direct fire on one hand, but it was probably the first or second most heavily IED'ed area in the country.
Blog text (33) -
Dragged himself across the direct fire of three enemy machine guns to pull two of his wounded men to safety amid 69 dead and 203 casualties.
-
As boom fruit and full auto weapons were specifically excluded, the most effective crowd dispersant is a shotgun due to the fact that it puts a lot of objects in the air, and that effect increases each time it's fired; that's just direct fire.
Blog text (26) -
"Further, an official said, 'No one ... believed that the mortars, indirect and direct fire, and the RPGs were just the work of a mob—no one.'"
Blog text (9) -
How does an officer with no personal experience of direct fire combat in Panama or Desert Storm become a division commander in 2003, a man who for 35 years shamelessly reinforced whatever dumb idea his superior advanced regardless of its impact on soldiers, let alone the nation, a man who served repeatedly as a sycophantic aide-de-camp, military assistant, and executive officer to four stars, get so far?
Blog text (13) -
The soldiers were instructed to provide direct fire to cover their advancing troops during the assault.
-
During the battle, the troops faced intense direct fire from enemy positions, forcing them to find cover.
Antonyms
- Specialized
1
8.2
Shooting at a target you cannot see using calculations or people who watch
How Direct
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'direct' (straight/immediate, no intermediary) combined with 'fire' (the firing of guns) yields firing aimed straight at a visible target. Although the phrase has technical military nuances (e.g., flat-trajectory weapons), the core sense is predictable from the constituents and would be understandable to a B1 learner who knows both words.
Etymology
Direct fire comes from soldiers and gunners firing straight at a target they can see. The word direct means 'straight' and fire means 'shooting', so the phrase now refers to shooting at a target in your 'line of sight' rather than lobbing shots over obstacles.