Suppression of Enemy Air Defences

Military Acronym: Supression of Enemy Air Defenses, pronouced "seed" or (rarely) "see-add". This usually implies destruction of the target; if you're just jamming their radar, the mission is referred to as ECM or EW--Electronic Countermeasures or Electronic Warfare. To "suppress" a SAM site, one usually requires anti-radiation missiles like America's HARM or the Russian Raduga Kh-15 (NATO name: AS-16 KICKBACK). One usually wants to be flying something maneuverable like an F-4 or an EA-6B Prowler, because the mission is basically to attack a mousetrap with a mouse: the target that you're trying to "suppress" is equally eager to suppress you, too, and better-equipped to do so in many cases. SEAD missions are all about good planning, good intelligence, and good luck.

When debriefing SEAD missions, pilots and planners usually classify the mission outcome as either a "soft kill" or a "hard kill".

The term "hard kill" speaks more or less for itself. It implies the destruction of one or more of the enemy air defenses and the successful completion of the friendly mission.

"Soft kill" also denotes a successful friendly mission, but no destruction of enemy air defenses. The idea behind this being a kill, is simply that in order to avoid destruction of their air defenses, the enemy shut it down or kept it non-operating for the duration of the attack.

During Operation Allied Force, most kills by allied SEAD aircraft were soft.