Hard-target search

Soft target is a military term referring to unarmored/undefended targets needing to be destroyed. For example, a soft target would be an automobile, a house or assembly of people while a hard target could be a main battle tank or a well defended installation. A soft target can GeneRally be overcome from any direction with typical ordnance in use by line units, while a hard target may necessitate attack from a specific direction, with particular planning, en-masse, by special units or by ordnance made for the purpose. Hardening a soft target can be achieved by addition of armour or use of additional construction, camouflage, mobility, co-location with defenses or another defended location, or even a less humane approach such as utilizing a human shield or by placing in a sensitive location like a well-populated city.

Thus a hard target search should be a search for something fortified, and or difficult to destroy.

This term was first created for the 1993 movie "The Fugitive" Starring Tommy Lee Jones.

It entered use in the popular culture, and was subsequently used in the 1995 Seinfeld episode "The Sponge"