Crossfire

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.

However, when combined with land mines, snipers, barbed wire, and air cover, crossfire became a difficult tactic to counter in the early 20th century.

[citation needed] The concept of overlapping arcs of fire drove major developments in the use of cannon in early modern Europe.

The star fort forced attackers approaching the walls into the overlapping enfilade of the protruding bastions;[2] attempts to achieve a similar effect through maneuver on the battlefield were limited by the weight and size of the artillery of the time.

The earliest experiments in mobile artillery, such as the leather cannon, were generally flawed due to the limitations of the materials science of the period, but eventually gave rise to the regimental gun.