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Harassing fire is a form of psychological warfare in which an enemy force is subjected to random, unpredictable and intermittent small-arms or artillery fire over an extended period of time (usually at night and times of low conflict intensity) in an effort to undermine morale, increase the enemy's stress levels and deny them the opportunity for sleep, rest and resupply. This lowers the enemy's overall readiness and fighting ability, acting as a force multiplier for the harassing force.
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. The intent is to merely ensure the enemy can never fully rest or attend to non-combat related tasks and must always be alert and in cover from incoming fire. For this reason, harassing fire is often conducted at night (or around the clock if resources allow) and by a small number of guns or artillery pieces rather than the whole contingent. The denial of sleep and constant alert state it induces is physically and psychologically unsustainable by infantry forces for any length of time, and eventually causes severe degenerative stress and degradation of the force's combat abilities. For this reason, it has been a standard and efficacious tactic used since the introduction of the projectile weapon.
Although initially sneered at by the Germans, who called the Po-2 Russenfurnier ("Russian plywood") or Die Nähmaschine ("the sewing machine"), it proved unexpectedly effective at night harassment attacks on rear areas of the German lines, flying so low and slow the German fighters were unable to locate or engage them. 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. Soon the Germans frustratedly dubbed the women pilots Die Nachthexen, "Night Witches", and Luftwaffe pilots and anti-aircraft gunners were promised the Iron Cross if they managed to shoot down even a single Po-2. The Germans themselves began using their own obsolescent aircraft for similar raids against the Soviets, first with the Störkampfstaffel-named squadron-size units, then banding those together into Nachtschlachtgruppe units for this purpose, using similarly simple, widely available planes like the Gotha Go 145, the Henschel Hs 126 or the Arado Ar 66.
Early in the Pacific Theater of World War II during the Guadalcanal campaign, American forces defending Henderson Field from the Japanese were periodically harassed by a small number of Japanese military aircraft on night harassment raids, with their engine(s) deliberately adjusted to run in a manner that would awake American troops at night.
Harassing fire also expanded to civilians as terror bombing of cities became the norm. In a 1944 report on the recent introduction of the V-1 Flying Bomb, Time Magazine magazine referred to the attacks on London as a form of harassing fire, since they were random and frightening attacks (usually at night) designed to damage English civilian morale rather than directly disable members of the British military. A tired, frightened worker would produce less war material at their daily factory jobs, they opined.
During the Korean War, the Po-2 was once again used for "Bedcheck Charlie" night harassment attacks, this time by the North Korean People's Air Force against the UN forces defending South Korea – successful raids by the KPAF on UN air bases even managed to destroy small numbers of F-51 Mustang and F-86 Sabre fighters early in the war.
(Texas A&M University Libraries) accessed 22-Jan-2024 The bulk of H&I fire was aimed at river crossings, paths and trails, junctures, gullies, ridgelines, or where river valleys left the highlands and entered the coastal plain. American, Australian, and New Zealand artillery batteries also regularly shelled the likely approaches to bases, fire support bases, and night defensive positions.
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