We Have Reserves: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

'''Longshanks:''' (''pretending surprise'') ...Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. [[Trope Namer|We have reserves.]] Attack!|''[[Braveheart]]''}}

 

* Starr from ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)]]'' does this at least once, sending an entire US tank division against [[Implacable Man|the Saint of Killers]]. Starr's reaction to them being butchered mercilessly by the guy who {{spoiler|replaced the Angel of Death}} is to shrug, say that he didn't really expect it to work anyway, and call down a nuclear strike on the spot.

** Starr's former [[Bad Boss]], D'Aronique, similarly ordered waves of his own men into certain death against the Saint. Although at least D'Aronique had no idea who the Saint was, his callousness to the deaths of his men is horrifying.

'''D'Aronique''': Denied. Instead you will ''lead'' it. }}

* In the [[X Wing Series]] arc "Battleground: Tatooine", the Imperial captain Semtin heads to Ryloth after a criminal he wants; the Rogues follow. The relative sheltering this criminal, bribed by both sides, decides to have them compete in a not-quite [[Combat by Champion]] to see who gets him, and the Rogues [http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/2293/blz21.jpg impress the judge], but the Imperials did fulfill the stated goal. Plus, Semtin bribed the judge, snuck in and grabbed the criminal, and fled with him, abandoning fourteen seasoned troopers on Ryloth, where they faced being sold into slavery. The troopers, who gained a great deal of respect for the Rogues during the contest, immediately pull a [[Heel Face Turn]] and go after Semtin, who had this to say before he was shot.

'''Sixtus''': For the Empire, yes! For the personal gain of its officials... ''never''! }}

* In the "Retreat" storyline of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' Season Eight, Twilight allows his troops to be massacred by the three Wrathful Goddesses because he's curious to see the goddesses in action. When one of his subordinates calls him on it:

** Well to be fair, Twilight {{spoiler|was actually Angel in disguise trying to undermine the plot against Buffy}}, so it's understandable that he wouldn't care about the soldiers.

* Played absolutely straight by Jhiaxus in the ''[[Transformers]] Generation 2'' comic, in which his reponse to staggering losses is to throw another wave of troops into battle with the Warworld and the Swarm.

* In a short appended to a ''[[The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers]]'' tale, Fat Freddy's Cat has a particularly successfull campaign against the cockroaches that live under the oven. From memory, paraphrased:

'''Rommelesque cockroach commander, peering through field glasses''': "There's plenty more where they came from." }}

 

* In the third ''[[X-Men (film)|X-Men]]'' movie [[Magneto]] takes a step away from his usual place as an [[Anti-Villain]] to order a group of weak mutants to lead a charge. When they get mowed down (revealing the other side's secret weapon, [[Abnormal Ammo|guns]] that shoot [[Power Nullifier|Power Nullifiers]]), he comments "That's why the pawns go first".

* ''[[300]]''.

'''Leonidas''': And I would die for any one of mine. }}

* Semi-averted in ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]''. Captain Miller started to fall into this tactic while still shell-shocked from landing on Omaha Beach during D-Day, twice ordering small groups of his squad to try to charge a machine gun position. After this he realizes what he's done, and instead has his [[Cold Sniper]] take out the machine gunner, while Miller risks his life to distract the gunner.

* Slightly indirect version in ''[[The Dark Knight]]''. The Joker pulls a bank job working with what at least some highly skilled thieves, who kill each other one by one under orders leaving the Joker with all the money. Apparently the Joker has no worries about finding other people to work for him.

* ''[[Enemy at the Gates]]'' opens with the Red Army advancing on the German front lines at Stalingrad. When each troop passed the Commissar, they were handed either a rifle or a single clip, and were then forced to charge against the well-armed Germans, and were gunned down by NKVD machine gunners if they tried to retreat.

 

 

** Hugh was also hired to kill a human army captain that had repeatedly over the course of his career sent many men to their deaths while he ran away. While doing this again, Hugh caught him and listed the names of everyone who had wanted him dead before killing the man.

* Lord Hong in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld/Interesting Times|Interesting Times]]''. In the words of Cohen the Barbarian:

** Lord Rust seems to have studied in Hong's class. See what happens with any army he's entrusted to, though his tactics seem to be born from [[Upperclass Twit|blatant stupidity]], rather than malice. One would imagine an army commanded by the troll Sgt Detritus would be more effective, if only because Detritus would lead from the front and scare everyone away.

** While temporally displaced in ''[[Discworld/Night Watch|Night Watch]]'', and in command of a barricade that got out of hand, Vimes notes that a thousand soldiers could take it, but only the last fifty would make it up by climbing the bodies of their fallen comrades.

** In ''Shadow of the Hegemon'', this is the strategy used by {{spoiler|the Indian army when invading Burma}}, and everybody is quick to point out how stupid it is. Just because {{spoiler|you have the world's largest army}} doesn't mean your supply lines are up to the task, especially if the enemy keeps harassing them. Of course, this is all part of the [[Big Bad]]'s [[Xanatos Gambit]] in order to {{spoiler|allow China to strike and take India in under a week}} before proceeding to take {{spoiler|Thailand}}. Strangely, the book takes the [[Adults Are Useless]] approach, with no adult seeing how bad this strategy is.

* Jaime Lannister of ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' may be trying to go the route of [[The Atoner]], but when he finds himself caught between two oaths he means to keep (never raising arms against a certain family, and as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, ending that family's defiance of the King), he tries to [[Take a Third Option]] and convince the enemy lord to surrender without a battle by giving a [[To the Pain]] speech full of how he'll win due to [[We Have Reserves]].

** Tywin Lannister also used this at times, for example putting all the least experienced soldiers on the same flank so that enemy will break their lines and rush into a trap. For extra [[Kick the Dog]] points, he set his son Tyrion to lead them ''without informing Tyrion of the plan''.

* The Posleen from [[John Ringo]]'s ''[[Posleen War Series]]'' are genetically engineered just for this tactic.

== Tabletop Games ==

* The Imperial Guard of ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' commonly employ this tactic; Commander Chenkov of Valhalla in particular has a reputation for throwing away the lives of his men, the gaining of which is quite a feat for a Guard commander, though at least he has the balls to dive into the meatgrinder with them and lead from the front. The fluff claims that his bolt pistol has killed more cowards than enemies, and that he once took a fortress that had withstood siege for years without artillery or armoured support at the cost of ''10 million'' casualties (though this is the Imperium we're talking about - they could cover those losses with one round of draft slips). The new Codex highlights his knack for reserves by giving him the special rule "Send in the next wave!", which allows him to call up a new squad of Conscripts once the previous squad has been wiped out, as described wonderfully by 1d4chan:

** Also, the Orks of ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'', whose entire warfighting strategy is "assault the enemy with troops stretching back past the horizon." In ''[[Dawn of War]]'', Warboss Gorgutz is actually ''lauded'' by ''his own troops'' for being willing to hurl countless numbers of Boyz at enemies like the Space Marines and Necrons, fully aware that many are going to die. It helps that Orks consider an exciting battle against a worthy opponent to be [[Attack! Attack! Attack!|jolly]] [[Ax Crazy|good]] [[Blood Knight|fun]].

*** Gretchin are considered even more expendable than Orks. One noted use for Gretchin mobz in past editions was removing minefields in much the same way as a stick removes a bear trap. If there were more mines than gretchin, they died to no notable effect, generally prompting loud bursts of Orkish laughter.

** In Kane's Wrath there is a Nod subfaction, the Black Hand which even encourages this as their main tactic, given how good their infantry is, so you can eventually overwhelm nearly any enemy.

** This trope is pretty much invoked by name in the first level of Red Alert 2's Soviet campaign when you build your first Conscript.

* [[Starcraft|Zerg Rush]]! Ironically enough, the actual Zerg don't count as this as their troops are mindless drones under a [[Hive Mind]].

** The Infected Marines however fit the bill, they are created merely as human bombs to do serious damage to the enemy.

** That said though, avoid getting the green peasants to rout. Too many units rout at once and your Vets will break quite easily.

* In ''[[Call of Duty]]: [[Modern Warfare|Modern Warfare 2]]'', {{spoiler|General Shepherd}} calls in an airstrike on top of his own men to stop {{spoiler|Captain Price}} and Soap from getting to him.

* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'', Darth Malak orders the destruction of Taris despite the presence of his own troops occupying the planet (cut content would have established that the Sith organized a hasty evacuation, but no reference to it remains in the final game).

** Another example from Malak, at the finale when he learns the heroes are rampaging through his base, he orders all of his troops, including apprentices, to attack. A surprised admiral asks if he really thinks that will work, to which he scoffs and says it is only to slow them down.

* In ''[[Star Wars Battlefront]]'', there's a game mode called Galactic Conquest where either 1 player faces off against the computer or 2 players face each other trying to conquer planets one by one across the galaxy. Each planet conquered will give a different bonus that a player can use in battle. One of these is called secondary reinforcements and it has some elements of [[We Have Reserves]]. The way it works is that at several points in the battle when your troop count falls to a certain number you will suddenly get new troops added to the count, imitating a new wave of troops coming into battle. These troops seem to be [[Surrounded by Idiots|even dumber]] and, (believe it or not) [[It's Up to You|have worse AI than usual]], but sheer numbers will often overwhelm an opponent or at least give the player a chance to kill off all the enemies or capture all the command posts by themself. (As a side note, nothing sucks more than being in a close battle, glancing up at the troop counts for both sides, seeing that both sides have about 40 troops left and thinking to yourself ''Hey, I can still win this'' only to see the other side suddenly get another 20 men added to their count. Cue the [[Oh Crap]]).

* ''[[Star Wars]]: [[The Force Unleashed]]'' sums up Darth Vader's policy this way:

'''Starkiller:''' To sell the deception. Credits, starships, Imperial lives... they're all meaningless to Vader. }}

** In the second game, Baron Tarko has a similar attitude.

** Geth apparently have no survival instinct, due to being a purely software species. The geth don't have a sense of individuality, and the individual perceptions of each geth program can be shared so that all geth experience them together. As a result, geth don't place much value on individual mobile platforms; if one is destroyed, the geth in that platform transmit their memories and experiences to the nearest carrier, and that data is uploaded to the total gestalt geth [[Mind Hive]], effectively making the geth immortal.

*** However, they aren't stupid - they will still try to preserve mobile platforms if possible in order to to maximize combat effectiveness and resources. Not to mention what happens to the programs within mobile platforms not connected to the geth collective.

** If Commander Shepard has the 'Ruthless' background, his/her military claim-to-fame is being the Butcher of Torfan, where s/he ordered his/her men forward, knowing many would be gunned down, also knowing it would ensure victory. Torfan was a base used by batarian slavers responsible for hitting human colonies, and the attack is a response meant to curb this trend: Ruthless Renegade Shepard makes no apologies, as part of the "get the job done at any cost" mentality. Ruthless ''Paragon'' Shepard is somewhat haunted by the experience, but s/he believed sending a message to discourage repeats of Mindoir and Elysium was more important. Even then, Ruthless Shepard [[Your Mileage May Vary|arguably]] crosses the [[Moral Event Horizon]] anyway - s/he also killed the batarians that had surrendered.

** Harbinger's thoughts on losing his own troops:

This form is irrelevant (to his current host) }}

** Well to be honest Harbinger is of a......[[Eldritch Abomination|different mindset]]

*** This seems to be the entire ''modus operandi'' of the Reapers when it comes to their indoctrinated servants - husks can only attack in close quarters and don't know how to take cover. How they treat the loss of actual Reapers is probably different.

** Okeer gives us this wonderful quote:

* In ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'', the [[Armies Are Evil|Blackwatch]] explicitly state that they are using the United States Marines as the "shock troops" for the occupation of Manhatten and the war against the infected. Their purpose is to take casualties and take the blame for the destruction of the city, to cover up Blackwatch's operations. At one point, one of the Web of Intrigue nodes indicates that Blackwatch anticipates Marine casualties per week to be between one thousand to two and a half thousand. Putting that in a perspective of modern military terms, total Coalition casualties during Operation Iraqi Freedom - a full-scale war against an entire ''country'' - were less than a thousand over a ''month-long'' period.

** The current US casualties list from March 2003 to the time of this typing (September 2009) is 4,334. That's ''over six years.'' Blackwatch figure the Marines will lose that many ''in about three weeks''.

* [http://rocr.net/index.php?p=20070604 This webcomic strip], part of the ''Crossover Wars''.

* Prince Ansom used this against Parson in the first book of ''[[Erfworld]]''; and nearly succeeded, although Parson was very good at exploiting the weaknesses of that strategy:

** In the end though, Parson could only defeat the Ansom's forces completely by {{spoiler|having his Dirtamancer and Croackamancer (meaning his earth elementalist and necromancer) work together to reanimate the dead volcano they're in. This ends up destroying both armies.}} It leads to a long [[What Have I Done]] period for Parson.

* Subverted in ''[[Girl Genius]]'':

'''Minion:''' Er... }}

 

* Also played for humor in ''[[Futurama]]'' with Zapp Brannigan, who once sent, in his own words, "wave after wave" of his own men to fight the Killbots, knowing that the enemies had an exact (though horrifically high) limit of how many humans they were programmed to kill. The humor comes in that this was taken as a perfectly viable strategy by others. ("Kif, show them the medal I won.") In another instance, upon realizing that an error in judgment has resulted in ''all his men'' being killed, he reasons that at least they won't have to mourn each other.

** In a deleted scene from ''Love's Labours Lost In Space'' a ''single'' Killbot, Corpse-A-Tron, is shown to have a kill limit of 999,999.

'''Brannigan:''' That's commendable, son, but when I'm in command, every mission is a suicide mission. }}

** Another time in, he actually used this tactic with SHIPS.

* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'': After speaking against a general's plan to throw freshly-recruited troops at the front line, not only does Prince Zuko get half his face burned off, but he gets banished and sent on a [[Snipe Hunt]], too.

* At the end of ''[[Beast Wars]]'' Megatron succumbs to this, killing more of his soldiers than the Maximals ever did. Presumably he assumed that when you have a giant warship and superpowers (even by Transformer standards of being big immortal war machines) you don't need a lot of help.

** By the time of the less popular sequel series, Megatron took this to the logical extreme with his [[Mecha-Mooks|Vehicon hordes]]. He had so many that the Maximals tore dozens into scrap metal every battle without making a dent in his overall forces.

* In ''[[South Park|South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut]]'', the general preparing for battle splits his soldiers into two operations: Operation Human Shield, consisting of the black soldiers, the all-important first attack wave expected to take heavy losses, and Operation Get Behind the Darkies, consisting of everyone else. Naturally, OHS, being lead by Chef, subverts the entire plan--by ducking.

** Not to mention Operation Human Shield members were literally tied to the outside of tanks to supplement their armor!

* In ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]'' special "Dr. Blowhole's Revenge", the titular villain threatens the penguins with his nearly endless supply of minions:

** His lobster minions pause in their cheering at that statement and look a little worried. King Julien however has a similar approach to tactics and doesn't look concerned at all.

 

** The entire point of the WWI strategy of [[wikipedia:Attrition warfare|attrition warfare]] was basically "we have '''more''' reserves than them!"

** General Charles Mangin, a French division commander and Nivelle's right-hand man, is alleged to have given the following pep talk just before an attack:

* Hitler gave orders amounting to no retreat, no surrender to armies in both Russia and North Africa, telling them to fight to the last man. In both cases his generals and field marshals refused to follow these orders.

* Popular belief is that this has been done frequently by the Soviet Army, although both professional and armchair historians question how much of this is truth and how much is image and propaganda.

** While probably not senselessly throwing away troops that were considered replaceable, this actually was the primary reason for the Soviet victory and Germany losing the war. Even with Soviet casualties much higher then the German ones, and the Wehrmacht having far superior equipment in most cases, in 1943 it became clear that the soviets would be able to win just by keeping to press forward until the Germans were exhausted.

* The official policy of Egypt in the War of Attrition 1967-1970, after they lost the Six Day War. As said by President Nasser:

** Note that this strategy failed because the Israelis [[Genre Savvy|could do the math just as well]] and [[Took a Third Option|decided to bomb Cairo from the air]], directly and indirectly threatening the Nasser regime itself.

* During the First Gulf War, Saddam Hussein believed that the lesson from the Vietnam War was that Americans wouldn't support a war that would cost them 10,000 casualites. He, meanwhile had hundreds of thousands to spare and none of his subjects could protest the attrition. It turns out that Vietnam was a very different set of circumstances, and Hussein [[Curb Stomp Battle|suffered as many as 30,000 dead]] and his armies were all but obliterated, while only inflicting 392 deaths on the enemy.