The field of fire of a weapon (or group of weapons) is the area around it that it can easily and effectively reached by gunfire. James H. Webb, Jr. ... The bayonet is used as both knife and spear. ...

These days the term field of fire is mostly used in reference to machine guns. Their fields of fire incorporate the so-called beaten zone.

The Beaten Zone is a concept in indirect infantry small arms fire, specifically machine guns. It describes the area between the "first catch" and the "last graze" of a bullet's trajectory. At the first of these points a bullet will hit a standing man in the head, at the last of these points, as the bullet drops, it will hit a standing man in the feet. Anyone standing within the beaten zone will be hit somewhere from head to foot.

The concept works best as part of a static defence with the area covered by a position plotted out before hand. Usually the machine guns will be mounted on a tripod and indirect fire sights (such as a dial sight) fitted in addition to, or instead of, direct fire ones. Fire can then be called in by spotters to engage specific points in the guns field of fire, even if out of sight of the machine gunners.

Overlapping machine guns, creating a crossfire, using the concept beaten zone, together with the idea of enfilading fire formed part of the geometry of death into which a generation of young men marched during the First World War. A crossfire (also known as interlocking fire) is a military term for the siting of weapons (often automatic weapons such as machine guns) so that their arcs of fire overlap, yay. ... French frigate Poursuivante firing raking fire in enfilade on a British ship of line French frigate Aréthuse and English frigate Amélia exchanging defilade fire on the shores of Guinea, the 7th of February 1813 Enfilade and defilade are military tactical concepts used to describe a fighting units... Combatants Allied Powers: Russian Empire France British Empire Italy United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary German Empire Ottoman Empire Bulgaria Commanders Nikolay II Aleksey Brusilov Georges Clemenceau Joseph Joffre Ferdinand Foch Robert Nivelle Herbert H. Asquith D. Lloyd George Sir Douglas Haig Sir John Jellicoe Victor Emmanuel III Luigi Cadorna...

Beaten zone Can also refer to the area that shells will usually land in when fired from an artillery piece. It is in the shape of a rectangle with the longer sides parallel to the direction of fire because artillery tends to deviate more forwards and backwards than right and left.