Harassing fire

[1] As the name suggests, harassing fire is undertaken as an extreme form of nuisance without a major effort to produce significant casualties or to support a larger attack.

Since such a siege could drag on for months or years if the attackers were unable to forcibly breach the walls, an alternative plan called for patience coupled with regular harassing fire in an effort to induce the defenders to surrender due to low morale, disease, and starvation.

Harassing fire entered a new phase following the widespread mass-production of cheap, long-range high-explosive artillery in World War I, assisted by the static, inflexible nature of the defensive positions faced.

Whole batteries on all sides of the conflict were dedicated to harassing fire (especially prior to a planned infantry attack) and the concept was refined to a science, complete with formulae for shells-per-hour and pattern density to ensure sleep and resupply were statistically impossible for the targeted force.

In most cases, resupply and relief was already nearly impossible during the day due to artillery observers, and the addition of random harassing fire at night meant even fewer replacements and supplies could reach the front.

The otherwise obsolescent-for-combat wood-and-fabric plane also proved both highly resistant to standard armor-piercing anti-aircraft ammunition, as well as invisible to modern radar, leaving the Germans with no option but blind saturation flak and searchlights, neither of which were particularly successful and helped further ensure nobody in an encampment could get any restful sleep.