Hollywood Tactics: Difference between revisions

[[File:hollywoodtactics.jpg|link=DM of the Rings|frame|[http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1282 And yes, they already tried parley].]]

 

 

Let's face it: most writers are not exactly the world's greatest tactical geniuses, so whenever a war's going on, expect a lot of dumb decisions from tacticians. To pour salt into the wound, these tacticians are sometimes [[Informed Ability|explicitly said to be tactical masterminds]]. Some of the less-optimal strategies include:

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ3D4CqHbJM This Philips Carousel spot], which includes, among other things, police looking out the windows after a suspect while several other suspects are firing weapons ''right outside the door''. Don't even try and figure out a sequence of events where police have somehow penetrated ''past'' several of the criminals, and have had time to summon SWAT, but don't have a secure perimeter.

 

* Many of the Contractors in ''[[Darker than Black]]'' are bad about this, apparently buying into the [[Fantastic Racism|"you're just walking guns"]] view and throwing everything at their enemies without bothering to actually make plans about doing so. However, the [[Badass Abnormal|more competent]] ones tend to use better tactics; Wei, for instance, thought to aim for the support his opponent was perched on, and November 11 used his knowledge of his enemy's behavior to set a trap that Hei only barely managed to [[Stealth Hi Bye|ninja his way out of]].

** In fact, the survival lengths of the various contractors may be lampshading this. As a comparison, November 11 has relatively weak powers. Many contractors have one-hit kills, he only has ice powers. {{spoiler|He survives the greater part of a season, by sheer competence with his powers and [[Badass Abnormal]] skills.}} August 7 can {{spoiler|reality warp the area around his body. However, he behaves like a walking gun, and gets the [[Face Palm of Doom]].}}

** Somewhat justified in that a) It was always going to [[Authority Equals Asskicking|come down to the big name pirates and marines slugging it out]] and b) There's only so much you can do when you're knowingly sailing into a trap.

* The SEARRS troops in ''[[My-HiME]]'': Engaging targets on an open field without any attempt to use fire support, not even snipers. Knowing that the enemy has at least one air asset but not bringing your own air cover or even sufficient anti-air. No attempts made to locate and neutralise the enemy's headquarters to force a decisive victory. The list goes on.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

** Justified when you remember that Cap is also responsible for training most of the other Avengers. "Hit them hard and fast" more likely translates as "do exactly what we drilled, and remember your tactical tree so you can adapt on the fly depending on which predicted response the foes give." Remember, he was in the military; he knows the value of training.

** Cap is also consistently portrayed as one of the Marvel Universe's more talented strategists. Whenever there is a multi-team event, if Cap is present he will be the one coordinating the overall battle plan, and doing so very competently.

 

* Played straight, averted, and inverted at the same time in ''[[Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality]]''. Draco's army is based on tight formation and classical wizadry warfare. Hermione's often goes into more basing her entire strategy off of one single action or plan that either wins or loses the battle. Harry goes a route of [[Confusion Fu|mass chaos and randomness to throw off the other two]]. However, each army is usually well run and have well thought out strategies.

* ''[[Tiberium Wars]]'' generally averts this, with characters using realistic tactics like bounding advance, engaging at long range, calling for air support or indirect fire, etc. There are sequences where Nod soldiers charge headlong into well-prepared GDI defensive positions, but they get mowed down frequently and only do this to tie up the GDI defenders, as they have the numbers and the fanatic dedication to make these attacks work, and they only launch these attacks while under supporting fire. Having [[Bottled Heroic Resolve|combat stims that make them berserk warriors who can't feel pain and can keep fighting despite lethal injuries]] helps too.

 

== [[Film]] ==

**** Blockading is already hard enough on a 2D surface without strategic choke-points. In 3D space it's totally impossible. Interestingly, Star Wars universe actually allows for blockading, as the hyperspace routes are 1D pathways. You can just blockade entire systems using them as your focus. But this is disregarded because of the [[Rule of Cool]]: you can't display a nice bunch of mega-spaceships around a planet.

**** Stuff with the Trade Federation is understandable when you consider this was an army commanded by businessmen, who are following Darth Sidious's orders [[Truth in Television|and individuals with no military training often actually do make the kinds of blunders they did when commanding an army.]] Plus they had it easy since Naboo's security force have little to no means in standing against a fully mechanized army.

** ''[[Attack of the Clones]]'' had thousands of infantry in a slowly advancing skirmish line in an open field battle involving lots of heavy weapons, and ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]'' had numerous occasions of clones running headfirst at heavy armed and armored droids (and they were being cut down by the dozens as a result).

*** Apparently, "[[Attack Pattern Alpha|Attack Pattern Delta]]" involves flying directly at the only guns the enemy has. Who exactly wrote with the Rebels' playbook?

** All of the capital ships in Star Wars suffer from a severe case of [[Arbitrary Maximum Range]]. The Battle of Corsucant in ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]'' shows enormous cruisers flying practically right beside each other and trading broadsides like ships of the line did in sailing days. ([[Invoked Trope|Admittedly]], [[Space Is an Ocean|this was probably the point.]])

*** The Battle of Endor in ''[[Return of the Jedi]]'' is a subversion. Ackbar orders his fleet to get so close to the Imperial ships that they can practically [[See the Whites of Their Eyes]], but this is only so that the Death Star can't fire without [[Taking You with Me|destroying their own ships as well as the Rebels]].

** Note that in the original myth the war lasted TEN YEARS, rather than the few engagements depicted in [[The Film of the Book]], extended by Troy having allies continuously joining the fight and preventing the city from being completely surrounded, not to mention it being on a plateau and having a mountain on one side. However, in the myth the Greeks do also run up walls, and Patroclus nearly gets into the city by climbing up the walls.

** In the myth, Hektor's wife begs him to hold off the Greek assaults from inside the city, using bows. The Trojans were well aware that this would be safer, but kept fighting outside. The Trojans fought on the open plains because their city's honor was as important to defend as the walls surrounding it.

***Of course ten years siege of the same city is a little overdoing it and it is hard to think of that many real life sieges that were even a third that long.

*** There were also gods fighting in the myth and I doubt [[Blood Knight|Ares]] would be satisfied sitting around behind a wall.

* Well, lets take ''[[Ultraviolet]]'' as the example, but ''every darn movie'' where the [[Big Bad]]'s minions capture the main character by surrounding them and pointing guns at them. '''Pointing guns at the center of the circle they're standing in'''. At least ''[[Ultraviolet]]'' shows what would actually happen if you tried this {{spoiler|Heroine ducks, minions kill each other, they do this for like three minutes, dumbasses}}.

** Same thing happens in ''[[Total Recall]]'' when Arnie is using the hologram watch thing to fool some Mooks into thinking they found him.

* In ''[[Kingdom of Heaven]]'' the only guy (at least on the crusader side) who even ''tries'' to use tactics is the main character. Everyone else does things like trying to march through miles of desert in full armor without any water to attack people who are threatening your fortified city.

** [[wikipedia:Battle of Hattin|The Battle of Hattin]] [[Reality Is Unrealistic|happened pretty much like in the movie.]] In fact ''Kingdom of Heaven'' is much more faithful to the actual history then the preceding ''[[Gladiator]]'' was. The biggest differences to actual history are the compression of the events of the movie which happened over at least a decade in history; the age of the main character, which in reality was about the same as his father in the movie, and the fact that he is actually a mash-up of the three, I think, Ibelin brothers, that actually existed and neither was born outside of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

** Then there's the film's climax, where an unimportant and replacable bridge is defended at all costs. Major Winters, of ''[[Band of Brothers (TV series)|Band of Brothers]]'' fame, said he never would have done something that pointless, to which he was told [[Reality Is Unrealistic|it wasn't dramatic enough]].

* ''[[The Last Samurai]]''. So after more than a year of training the Japanese army has a well trained officer corps, soldiers who can finally shoot straight, and all the cutting edge military equipment that the late 19th century has to offer. In the final battle, however, once the samurai retreat from the initial artillery barrage, they send their troops over a hill in pursuit and run headlong into a samurai ambush that ends up destroying the majority of the army.

* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' has elements of this in the second two films (such as the climactic battle in the third one), but averts it in the first. The pirates note that the Black Pearl is going to come at the stern ("crossing the T") so that they won't even be able to return fire. It's only some quick thinking by Elizabeth that nets them a 90 degree turn and gives them a chance to shoot back.

* The "using arrows on fire at night" tactic is used in ''[[Timeline]]''. Subverted, though: The point of the fire arrows was so that the attackers ''wouldn't'' be prepared for the "night arrows," which were simply unlit arrows.

* In ''[[Con Air]]'', the National Guard and state police are moving in on the convicts' plane at Lerner Airfield. In long shots, you can see that the airfield is surrounded by open desert on nearly all sides, and the guardsmen have Humm-Vees and other offroad vehicles. They could and should have approached from multiple directions and focused on reaching the plane first. They choose instead to drive directly through an aircraft graveyard, setting them up for an ambush which the cons spring on them, killing dozens and slowing them down enough that the plane takes off again. Perhaps the idea is that the good guys didn't want the bad guys to see them coming, but it's not made clear in the film.

* [[Peter Jackson]]'s ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' movies have been parodied in ''[[DM of the Rings]]'' in this respect (as pictured above).

** In the battle before the gates of Mordor in ''The Return of the King'', the heavily outnumbered and surrounded Army of the West break ranks and charge into the enemy, whereas in the book they hold their formations on higher ground and let the enemy come to them.

*** The Rohirrim charge down on the pikes. Apparently horses are kamikazes.

**** Hobson's choice. The Rohirrim expeditionary force is composed of nothing but cavalry; they have no infantry element, and given how thoroughly they're outnumbered stopping and trying to turn it into an archery contest is only going to get them all killed. At this point, 'hey diddle diddle right up the middle and pray we get lucky' is the best item on a menu of bad options.

*** By the way, why the heck were they carrying the full charge at a gallop? The horses would be winded and the formation disordered.

**** We see that the charge started as a trot, shifted to a canter, and only increased to a full gallop shortly before making contact with enemy lines... which is exactly how you're supposed to be doing it.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

** Firing trebuchets in the middle of a fighting crowd.

** [[Arrows on Fire|Flaming ballista bolts]].

*** This one is (surprisingly enough) averted in the original book, though, where the dwarves do take advantage of collapsing the tunnels to redirect the invaders to choke points. The trouble is that the city is built over a huge network of tunnels, making the process very difficult so they don't collapse the city, too (the real problem here is why a city intended to be the last stronghold of the dwarves would be built over such an unstable network of tunnels, although it's possible the tunnels were created before the city was turned into a fortress).

** Note that in ''Brisingr'', Roran [[Rebellious Rebel|refused orders]] from a superior who insisted on using really stupid tactics. And was whipped for this.

* In S. M. Stirling's ''[[Emberverse]]'' novels, gunpowder and electricity suddenly stop working, forcing the characters to painfully re-learn medieval military tactics. A more specific example: in ''A Meeting at Corvallis'', [[The Lord of the Rings|Sauron]]-wannabe Norman Arminger ignores pointed warnings from his subordinates and, instead of picking off the various factions opposing him one at a time, launches a massive three-pronged attack that instantly unites everyone against him and ends in general retreat.

* The achingly bad [[Novelization]] of ''[[Command & Conquer]]: Tiberium Wars'' has this in ''spades''. Among the most [[Egregious]] examples of tactics in the book is a scene where a [[Humongous Mecha|Juggernaut artillery walker]] attacks a Nod machinegun emplacement. Does it use its cannons to bombard it from a distance as artillery emplacements are ''supposed'' to? No. Does it blast the emplacement directly with its cannons? Nope. It ''charges'' the emplacement and ''steps on it.'' Aside from the obvious stupidity of doing that, what kind of idiotic commander ''puts his artillery close enough to the enemy that it can '''step''' on their gun emplacements?'' Especially when [[Did Not Do the Research|the Juggernaut only has legs because it is supposed to stay out of the line of fire in the first place?]] (We have a trope page for the [[Fix Fic]] ''[[Tiberium Wars]]'', by the way.)

* Averted and played straight in ''[[Codex Alera]]''. The Alerans, being the descendants of a displaced Roman Legion that ended up in another world, use classical Roman tactics, particularly the famous, highly-disciplined shieldwall. These tactics are, however, adapted to make greatest use of the Alerans' control over their furies, with specialist formations within the Legion made up of troops who are best at a particular discipline. [[Playing with Fire|Firecrafters]] are used as siegebreakers, [[Extra Ore Dinary|metalcrafters]] and [[Dishing Out Dirt|earthcrafters]] are used for shock attacks, [[Green Thumb|woodcrafters]] serve as scouts and snipers, etc. The biggest problem that the Alerans have is that their overreliance on furies, coupled with an extremely conservative mindset that breeds arrogance ensured that the Alerans forgot many mechanical principles and thus tended to discount enemy technology that doesn't rely on furies. When they encountered Canim troops with "balest" crossbows, they were utterly unprepared for how powerful they were, and the idea of using seige engines instead of furycraft to bring down walls or fight massed enemies never occurred to them {{spoiler|until Tavi and his mentor uncovered ancient catapult plans and sent them to Bernard, who did build them to fight the Vord}}.

* The battle tactics used in ''[[The Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' series aren't necessarily bad; they'd probably work pretty well if used by [[Real Life]] generals during ancient times. However, in their world, magic exists, and it can be just as powerful, if not more powerful, than any modern weaponry, something which most generals seem completely unprepared for. Most of the time, marching their soldiers across the countryside in large formations just makes them sitting ducks for High Mages, who can kill hundreds with a single sorcerous blast.

** The real galling part of it is that somehow, the Straight Arrow manages to obviate the very real, pressing infantryman's need for heavy mobile support weaponry. The availability of potent anti-armor weaponry won't take away the fact that the troops on the ground are going to need firepower support when faced with strong, dug-in opposition. But the light infantry don't have any support weaponry beyond man-portable gear, despite the fact that flying, missile-armed drones are available in the setting. One would expect to see cheap, teleoperated, tracked or wheeled drones with support weapons, design to be compact and lightweight (and above all else disposable) to be used to support the infantry in response to the Straight Arrow, with armored vehicles serving as a mobile cavalry outside urbanized areas where they can use their extreme range to bombard targets from outside an Arrow's range.

* In the ''[[Chronicles of Thomas Covenant]]'', the character Hile Troy is hailed as a military genius by the people of the Land (and he was also a brilliant tactician on Earth), but his battle plan is terrible. He relied on only one scouting party to gather intelligence, and even if everything were to go according to plan, he would march his army hundreds of leagues to a canyon in the lower land to ambush the enemy army. Meanwhile his army would be tired and low on provisions, so the enemy would have to be vanquished in a only a matter of days. If the enemy chose not to take Hile Troy's bait in the canyon, then the land would be defenseless with Troy's army holed up at Doom's Retreat. And just like the real world, the best case scenario is not what happens, rather Lord Foul's army is too big and his scouts are delayed in delivering intelligence to Hile Troy.

** They don't bring enough ammo to deal with all the zombies that come, despite knowing the capital importance of that battle. This is Handwaved as the military being overconfident, but the handwaving is unconvincing as it goes directly against the normal US military doctrine which says that There Is No Kill Like Overkill, that is also used as a PR strategy ("Shock And Awe") as well as for serious warfighting.

*** In addition to the fact that mankind wasn't out of the Bronze Age before it became standard military practice to always leave a generous safety margin in your supplies whenever possible.

** While air support of at least some kind is present, it is both grossly inadequate in strength, composed of the wrong type of aircraft, carrying the wrong type of ordnance, and assigned to the wrong mission. They sent advanced high-performance multi-role fighters instead of dedicated ground-attack aircraft like A-10s or B-52s, they used long-range stand-off weapons intended for killing single tanks miles away instead of area munitions intended for killing large groups of infantry right beneath you, and what helicopters were available were apparently all tasked to the job of carrying news media as opposed to, y'know, ''shooting at the enemy.''

** Also, no close air support is even ''started'' until the zombies are already danger close, instead of the Air Force bombarding them the whole way in. Given that a good B-52 arclight strike could have destroyed most of the zombie horde before it even reached Yonkers, this is another one in the 'inexplicably idiotic errors that even Private Dumbjohn could have figured out was a bad idea, yet an entire room full of generals somehow failed to' category.

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

** Considering they broadcast all their plans ''in the form of simple riddles'', never try the same thing twice, never change their stated plans, it's clear they're treating the war as a game. The interesting thing about the series is, despite the limitations they impose on themselves, the Mysterons sometimes manage to win.

*** The Mysterons had declared a "war of nerves," which most of the fandom has decided means the Mysterons were engaging in psychological warfare rather than attempting conventional destruction. If they just wanted humanity dead, [[wikipedia:Kinetic bombardment#Project Thor|well]]...

** In ''The Sniper'', a sniper is terrorizing the 4077th and keeping the doctors from helping the wounded. Hawkeye comes up with the suggestion that they surrender to the sniper. He argues that this would allow them to attend to the wounded, but fails to explain how this makes any sense. No one else seems to notice the flaw in this plan. Blake says he can't surrender because he has to be ordered to surrender, which is not true, either. Hawkeye gets a white flag and attempts to surrender, but it doesn't work out so well, and he's still not surprised. Perhaps this was part of the 1970's values dissonance and his attempt to surrender was an appeal to anti-Vietnam War sympathizers.

*** Also, negotiating battlefield truces to allow opportunities to recover wounded were hardly unknown practice.

** In an early Christmas episode, Hawkeye has to climb down a rope, from a chopper, in enemy territory, ''under fire'', while dressed as Santa, to treat a wounded soldier, and all without being shot once, rather than the pilot landing to drop him off then taking off.

*** There wasn't anywhere to land. The terrain was broken, full of trenches, and possibly mined.

* ''V: The Final Battle'' was full of Hollywood tactics. Some examples:

** The aliens in the movie tend to stand around out in the open in brightly-colored uniforms, despite knowing that there are rebels who will attack them. When shooting starts, they tend to flock together, making themselves an easier target. At least those brightly-colored uniforms were bulletproof in the second miniseries.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

** Until their competence was [[Took a Level in Badass|upgraded]] in recent codices, the [[Redshirt Army|Imperial]] [[Badass Army|Guard]] were infamous for taking the WWI approach to warfare, [[We Have Reserves|favoring wave after wave]] of frontal assaults. Nowadays this trope is either played straight or avoided depending on the regiment or commander in charge. The Armageddon Steel Legion can pull off blitzkrieg-style onslaughts with mechanized infantry, and the Elysian Drop Troops carefully coordinate air support for their tactical insertions.

** While the [[Space Marine]]s ''can'' use fancy tactics to win battles, and certain chapters are known for using a great deal of subtlety and finesse to achieve their victories, the Adeptus Astartes' [[Super Soldier|superhuman physique]] and [[Hand Cannon|formidable]] [[Powered Armor|wargear]] means that a [[It's Raining Men|Drop Pod assault]] right into the enemy's front lines is a valid and quite successful option. Note that since their [[Warrior Monk|military/religious doctrine]] holds that "[[Honor Before Reason|camouflage is the colour of cowardice]]," they're going to be wearing their [[Highly-Conspicuous Uniform|chapter colors]] the whole time.

*** Some chapters do dress in colours that could blend in with certain environments (Space wolves on an ice world). However some chapters have clashing chapter colours (Ultramarine sergeants wear red helmet on blue armour, allowing them to be spotted by their own men and snipers alike. That is, when they decide to wear [[Helmets Are Hardly Heroic|a helmet at all!]])

*** Also averted by them on the strategic level. In response to an Imperium tactic of burning planets the Tyranids are on the Tyranids have started breeding specifically to endure this. Additionally one of the Hive Fleets is attacking the galaxy from below, something that humans unused to thinking in three dimensions didn't even suspect for a long time.

** A minor alien race called the Thyrus has this as their [[Planet of Hats|Hat]]. Their entire military strategy on any scale is based around what looks cool, and as a result they're impossible to predict on the battlefield - an impressive and dramatic defeat is as valued as a total victory, and huge casualties on both sides is their most-desired outcome.

 

* In ''[[Arms and the Man]]'' Captain Bluntschli explains to Raina why her husband to be, Sergius, was totally insane to take his entire division and charge straight into a nest of entrenched machine guns. It turns out that the attack ''worked'' and won the battle for Sergius's side but that was only because [[Rule of Funny|the machine guns]] [[Contrived Coincidence|were sent the wrong ammunition]].

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

'''Val:''' Why are the cute ones always insane? }}

* Here's how to conduct a battle if you're an Orc chieftain in ''[[Dominic Deegan]]'' [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|who is also a Native American]]. Your warband occupies a hilltop overlooking your enemy's camp. Many of your warriors are master archers, while the enemy tribe has shown no ranged weapons and no defenses beyond teepees. You must carry the day, but you're not counting seconds. It follows that you should take your enemy by surprise by leading a charge down the hill. Keep your archers back, but have them hold fire until the ranks have mixed and the enemy is occupied with your fighters. Then pour arrows into the melee, where they only hit enemies. Fight nonlethally with your clubs, hammers, spears, and rain of arrows on a ballistic trajectory, since only the enemy chief is evil. Have all of this work until the chief overwhelms you with his magic, then give the order to kill by yelling it really loud in the middle of a battle. Get rescued by two different groups of allies that snuck up on everybody on what is largely a flat, featureless plain. Celebrate.

{{quote|Maxim 22: If you can see the whites of their eyes, somebody's done something wrong.

Maxim 42: "They'll never expect this" means "I want to try something stupid."

Maxim 43: If it's stupid and it works, it's still stupid and you're lucky.

 

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

** The largest example of this is displayed in the first few minutes of the pilot film. Despite the clones having ample cover and artillery support to hold off the large amount of incoming droids, once Anakin springs his 'ambush' (a staggering ''5 soldiers''), the clones immediately jump out of cover and charge the enemy droids head-on. They predictably get slaughtered.

** However, the combat in ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'' has been getting better. Newer episodes have featured armored units engaging artillery and flak cannons ahead of the main landing zones to ensure the gunships have safe places to deploy. Clones use carpet bombing tactics to uproot entrenched opposition. When sent against armored units without support by the resident [[General Failure]], the clones have been quick to adapt and begin using missile launchers and mortar teams, while two recon troops hijack enemy fighters and provide close air support.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

*** Another theory is that Nolan knew exactly what he was doing. He was a ''proponent'' of cavalry charges against artillery, and saw this as a perfect chance to prove his theories were correct. (And to a certain extent, they were. The charge worked, and the British captured the Russian guns. It was the Russian counter-attack, and the brigade's subsequent retreat, that caused most of the casualties. If the Heavy Brigade had followed the Light Brigade, as they should have, they would have been able to repulse the counter-attack, and the whole incident might have been recorded as a great British victory.)

**** Except they were maintaining formation while in transit, making themselves easy targets.

** It must be mentioned that Lee didn't realize the enemy's disposition when he gave Longstreet the order. Pickett did ask Longstreet whether Lee knew the situation had changed. Longstreet ignored him, and told him to charge anyway. All three blamed Lee in memoirs and such afterwords, Longstreet going so far as to say he and Pickett saw it as suicide from the beginning.

** What makes this especially bad is that, almost seven months prior, Lee had scored a major victory at Fredericksburg when his opponent (General Burnside) did the exact same thing to his own defensive line. A famous quote from that battle: "A chicken could not live on that field when we open up on it."

*** Yet another factor was simply a matter of where they charged from. Halfway to the Union forces, Pickett's men encountered a fence, and this obstacle broke their momentum and under sustained fire at a much closer (and therefore more lethal) range than before it was impossible for the Confederates to regain the lost momentum.

* The start of [[World War I]]. Pretty much everybody fighting on the Western Front until they [[Took a Level in Badass|learned from their mistakes.]]

**** The creeping artillery barrage was intended to keep the enemy under cover while your own forces advanced. If it succeeded (which usually involved a few casualties due to friendly artillery fire), there was no need to run. If it failed, all the running in the world wouldn't save you. The biggest problem was insufficient damage to the barbed wire and other structures that impeded attacking troops long enough to allow the enemy to start shooting back.

** Lack of a maneuverable strike force able to take advantage of any breakthroughs and attack the rear and flanks of the enemy. In the early stages of WWI there was only one option: honest-to-goodness guy-on-top-of-a-horse cavalry that already became mostly obsolete. Tanks and armoured vehicles would later fill this role, but the first versions weren't powerful enough to field anything faster or better armored than weak infantry support tanks (as in, slowly moving machinegun nests). Consequently, warfare quickly degenerated to the choice between doomed attacks and stalemate of two lines of trenches with artillery behind them. The only major break through the lines was [http://www.worldwar1.com/tlbruoff.htm done by Brusilov]. Which still did not go as far as it could, since Russian army was not ready to support this success on strategical level <ref>unsurprising, with Commander-In-Chief being the same man who first looked forward to the [[Russo-Japanese War]] despite being plainly told it's logistically impossible, and then allowed the other side to strike first</ref> - though the advancing units weren't actually ''stopped'' by hostile forces, once they exhausted and stopped moving, there weren't reserves close enough to move on. The belated support - in the way Brusilov himself opposed - was worse than nothing: by the time more troops arrived, Germans were ready, so the follow-up turned into yet another doomed straightforward march into meatgrinder (half a million of losses, but little result).

** Rather neatly subverted when Hollywood Tactics actually resulted in a ''victory'' for the Australian Light Horse Brigade. The charge was so fast and straight-forward that the Turkish defenders didn't have time to re-adjust their gun sights before they were overrun. The Turks expected the Light Horse to dismount and attack on foot as they were not proper cavalry, but a mounted infantry unit, intended to engage on foot, only using their horses to reach locations quicker than regular infantry.

* Interestingly reversed at Minden (1759) where an unsupported infantry charge in column formation by the British and Hanoverian reserves against the centre of the French force resulted in a victory, rather than a slaughter you'd expect. [[Determinator|Said infantry were under constant bombardment throughout the advance]] [[Badass|and fought off repeated charges by the best cavalry in Europe.]]

* In the Battle of Leuthen (1757), Prinz Charles Alexander of Lorraine formed his troops into a single line about ''three miles'' long and concentrated his cavalry on one end of it. He was practically begging to be flanked. The funny thing is that he did it to ''avoid'' being flanked. [[Captain Obvious|It failed]].

** Also, technically speaking, the Austrian army was for the most part deployed in several lines (two of infantry plus cavalry). And the Prussian position was also very long, with fewer men, only Frederick the Great did a better job of massing forces against the Austrian left while keeping the left and centre busy with feints and holding actions using small forces.

* As mentioned in the ''[[Kingdom of Heaven]]'' example above, [[wikipedia:Battle of Hattin|Hattin]].

* The psychological attacks made by the Whites during the [[Red October|Russian Civil War]]. Involved soldiers marching straight to the enemy lines, without ducking, ignoring bullets. Some generals added twists to the basic tactic: the Volunteer Army men smoked cigarettes while marching, General Slaschev's men ate sunflower seeds. The aim was to intimidate the Reds with the Whites' fearlessness. Usually it didn't work, but sometimes it did.

**# The force with Custer was killed to the last man. The only survivor from Custer's group was a [[wikipedia:Comanche (horse)|horse]].

***Partly justified because any hint that he had a chance to give battle would rightfully make Custer want to seize it. Irregulars usually can't take the stress of a pitched battle as well as regulars who have a [[Vast Bureaucracy]] that can reliably produce [[We Have Reserves|more or less fungible]] troops. The splitting up does sound odd though.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]

[[Category:Hollywood Style]]