plunging fire

American  

noun

Military.

1. artillery or other fire that strikes the ground at a steep angle, as from high ground overlooking the target or from a weapon fired at a high angle of elevation.

---

Etymology

Origin of plunging fire

First recorded in 1870–75

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

plunging fire

This meant it had less armour than a battleship, particularly horizontal armour against plunging fire - shells coming down from on high at a long range.

From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2018

The British artillery now opened at half range, and although the plunging fire scathed and devastated the dark ranks of the Guards, on they came,—Ney himself, on foot, at their head.

From The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 by Ontario. Ministry of Education

The same engineers advised that one gun be sent to the front to drive the Mexicans from the roof of the convent, and thus relieve our troops on the right from a destructive plunging fire.

From Company 'A', corps of engineers, U.S.A., 1846-'48, in the Mexican war by Gustavus Woodson Smith

The northern side of this wedge was lined with heights from which the British artillery was pouring a devastating plunging fire.

From World's War Events Volume 3 Beginning with the departure of the first American destroyers for service abroad in April, 1917, and closing with the treaties of peace in 1919. by Allen L. (Allen Leon) Churchill

For nearly five miles after that they were subject to a plunging fire.

From Captains of the Civil War; a chronicle of the blue and the gray by William Charles Henry Wood