soft ordnance

English

Noun

soft ordnance (uncountable)

1. (US, military, euphemistic) Napalm or cluster bombs (for use against soft targets), as opposed to high explosives (for hardened targets).
   • 2000 December 31, Dale Andradé, America's Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi's 1972 Easter Offensive, University Press of Kansas, →ISBN, page 364:

     Some of the planes were loaded with "soft" ordnance—cluster bombs or napalm—others with "hard" ordnance such as high explosives. The planes were scrambled according to what the troops on the ground called for. If enemy soldiers were in the open, soft ordnance was on the menu; […]