The Collaborative International Dictionary
Overwatch \O"ver*watch"\, v. t.
To watch too much.
To weary or exhaust by watching.
--Dryden.
Wiktionary
n. (context military English) The supervision of one unit or vehicle by another while the supervised unit is firing or moving. vb. To watch over.
Wikipedia
In modern warfare, overwatch is a force protection tactic: the state of one small unit or military vehicle supporting another unit, while they are executing fire and movement tactics. An overwatching, or supporting unit has taken a position where it can observe the terrain ahead, especially likely enemy positions. This allows it to provide effective covering fire for advancing friendly units. The term overwatch originates in U.S. military doctrine (derived from the common expression watch over).
An ideal overwatch position provides cover for the unit, and unobstructed lines of fire. It may be on a height of ground or at the top of a ridge, where a vehicle may be able to adopt a hull-down position. If the overwatching unit is in a position to fire over advancing friendly units, great care must be taken not to let fire fall short. The friendly units should be within tracer burnout (the range at which tracer rounds are visible).
Overwatch can be performed by platoons during company fire and movement, by individual armoured fighting vehicles (especially tanks) or infantry sections, in platoon fire and movement, or even by fireteams or individual soldiers, in the final stages of an assault.
Overwatch tactics and firing at the short halt were especially important in armoured warfare before modern tank gun stabilizers were developed, since moving tanks were unlikely to hit any target. Even in modern tanks, however, it is much easier to spot enemies at a halt.
Overwatch is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. It was released in May 2016 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Overwatch puts players into two teams of six, with each player selecting one of several pre-defined hero characters with unique movement, attributes, and skills; these heroes are divided into four classes: Offense, Defense, Tank, and Support. Players on a team work together to secure and defend control points on a map and/or escort a payload across the map in a limited amount of time. Players gain cosmetic rewards that do not affect gameplay, such as character skins and victory poses, as they continue to play in matches. The game was launched with casual play, while Blizzard added competitive ranked play about a month after launch. Blizzard states that all Overwatch updates will remain free, with the only additional cost to players is through microtransactions to earn additional cosmetic rewards.
Overwatch is Blizzard's fourth major franchise, and came about following the 2014 cancellation of the ambitious massively multiplayer online role-playing game Titan. A portion of the Titan team came up with the concept of Overwatch, based on success of team-based first-person shooters like Team Fortress 2 and the growing popularity of multiplayer online battle arenas, creating a hero-based shooter that emphasized teamwork. Some elements of Overwatch borrow assets and concepts from the canceled Titan project. After establishing the narrative of an optimistic near-future Earth setting after a global crisis, the developers aimed to create a diverse cast of heroes that spanned genders and ethnicities as part of this setting. Significant time was spent adjusting the balance of the characters, making sure that new players would still be able to have fun while skilled players would present each other with a challenge.
Overwatch was unveiled at BlizzCon 2014 in a fully playable state, and was in a closed beta from late 2015 through early 2016. An open beta in May 2016 drew in more than 9.7 million players. The release of the game was promoted with short animated videos to introduce the game's narrative and each of the characters. Upon official release, Overwatch received universal acclaim from critics, with them praising the game's accessibility and enjoyable gameplay.
Overwatch may refer to:
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Overwatch (military tactic), military force protection tactic
- Bounding overwatch
- Overwatch (video game), 2016 video game from Blizzard Entertainment
- Overwatch Battle Group (West), former Australian Army battlegroup
- Overwatch, the forces of the Combine, the primary antagonistic force in the video game Half-Life 2
- Overwatch, the alias of the DC Comics character Felicity Smoak in the television series Arrow
- Overwatch, a company owned by Textron Systems, now operating under the name "Geospatial Solutions"
Usage examples of "overwatch".
As Delineator of the Day for the Overwatch of Therapp, I am requisitioning your services to city administration.
The Overwatch authority has done its best, and is to be commended for doing so, but there was still considerable panic.
On Hyff, a handful of representatives of the defeated Iollth filed silently into the official gathering chamber of the Overwatch of Pedwath.
No, Mossad would not let any of its officers do anything without overwatch for some time.
Half an hour later, they left Chigger to dig for files and ride Matrix overwatch, and Ryan to guard the decker while he worked.
The metal man on overwatch gave her a burst, but the bullets howled away in whining ricochets.
My mother dated almost always on weekends, and since I spent every weekend with relatives, no one was needed to overwatch me.
We have grown accustomed to the constant overwatch of surveillance cameras, in banks, in shopping malls, and convienience stores, in government buildings, office buildings and apartment buildings and airports, on highways, at intersections and in parking lots.
The sensor overwatch AI filtered a possible message out of the interstellar background and passed it through to the controller of Station SSS-900.
Composed of hundreds of local Overwatches, the Great Government would then dictate an appropriate response.
Each of the eight continental Overwatches will determine how best to respond should an Iollth vessel set down in their territory.
The aliens were hardly fearful of anything the lone Hyfft might do, while the assembled dignitaries and representatives of the collective Overwatches of Vinen-Aq could only alternately marvel and gape at the manic boldness of one of their own.
Captain Steve Murphy still had two M-1 tanks, seven Bradley Fighting Vehicles, most of his dismounted infantry, and he had just reported that they had re-occupied their original positions, overwatching the Valley of Death.