We Have Reserves: Difference between revisions

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

* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''{{'}}s Gendo Ikari.

* In ''[[ToA AruCertain Majutsu noMagical Index]]'', Fiamma of the Right doesn't care about his teammates in God's Right Seat. He declares that as long as he lives, he can get new members.

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

** While temporally displaced in ''[[Discworld/Night Watch (Discworld)|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.

* This is the default tactic of both Saruman and Sauron's armies in [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]]'s ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. Of particular note is the command style of the Lord of the Nazgul during the Siege of Gondor: "Yet their Captain cared not greatly what they did or how many might be slain; their purpose was only to test the strength of the defence and to keep the men of Gondor busy in many places." The passage also notes that as he's riding on his horse he deliberately tramples the fallen (who would mostly be his own men), which says something about his attitude.

* [[The Draka]] use their slave soldiers (called "janissaries" in reference to the Ottoman military units) in attrition situations that their [[Super Soldier|elite shock troop Citizen army]] cannot finesse, thereby saving the much more precious lives of the [[Master Race]]. A Draka officer is reprimanded at one point for showing ''too much'' concern for the lives of his janissaries.<ref>Specifically, he's chewed out for acting to minimize Janissary casualties out of an emotional concern for their well-being, as opposed to a pragmatic motive of avoiding wastage.</ref> Eventually the Draka [[Evilutionary Biologist|engineer]] aggressiveness out of their slaves, and the janissaries are replaced by the [[Mix-and-Match Critters|part-baboon, part-dog, part-human]] [[Petting Zoo People|ghouloons]] who serve much the same purpose.

** The Imperial Guard of ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' 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 40,000]]'', 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.

*:** The Gretchin have several other [[Sarcasm Mode|great]] jobs, such as being stepping stones in rough terrain, bullet shields, and EMERGENCY RATIONS

*:* Some of the Tyranid flavor text has them sending [[Mooks]] to assault enemies, just to make them use up their ammunition before sending in the big guns. As a matter of fact, those same mooks have no digestive tract; they are not intended to survive the battle they're built for, and if by some fluke they do, the more important creatures just eat them when their purpose is served. Of course, any Tyranids that the hive fleet sends to attack a planet are just going to be digested and recycled into new Tyranids, so it's not quite as asshole-ish as some of the other examples.

*:** The 4th edition Codex even gave Gaunts (The Nids' ranged [[Mooks]]) the Without Number rule as a buyable upgrade; if a unit with the rule was wiped out, you were allowed to put a new unit just like it on the field.

*:** The 5th ed fluff for the Gargoyle describes a siege on a heavily guarded fortress world by the Tyranids. The gribblies won because they sent in so many flyers that their corpses blocked laser cannons capable of punching through a moon.

*:* The Lost and the Damned faction of Chaos is explicitly employed this way, as it is essentially composed of gibbering mutants, demons (who can't be killed, only sent back to the Warp), and human traitor rabble. Generally they run at Imperial forces who waste ammunition gunning them down. More disturbingly they usually do so with a smile on their face.

*:* In fact, out of the whole 40k universe, the Tau and the Eldar are remarkable for the fact that they ''don't'' have reserves. The Tau get around this by using someone ''else'' as their Reserves, while the Eldar cope by using [[Difficult but Awesome|stealth, guerilla tactics or - even better - just tricking someone else into fighting their battles for them]]. For everyone else, though, it's mainly just [[Crapsack World|lots and lots of reserves]].

*:** The Necrons also don't have reserves, since they have no way of making more of their own kind outside of converting the rare blank into a pariah. They make up for this with teleportation and auto-repair technology, ensuring that no Necron is ever permanently destroyed.

*:* Even the Dark Eldar have reserves, in a weird way (though not usually in tabletop terms). Almost all of the Dark Eldar race are clones quickly and cheaply, with live born children (called Trueborn) are considered special and are pampered and taken care of (and get their own unit). Oh and if you kill one of the leaders, so long as they get some of the corpse (not all, some) back to the [[Torture Technician|Haemonculi]] within a certain amount of time (usually a day) then the Haemonculi can regenerate their entire body. So even if you kill the leaders, they'll be back later. Some Haemonculi have consider death to be an interesting experience. Reserves indeed.

*:* Just about the only faction that doesn't have reserves are the Space Marines. That said, they rarely need them, traditionally being sent in for quick strikes and special operations that the Imperial Guard can't handle alone, (and if they ever ''do'' need reserves, they can just borrow some from the Guard).

* The Skaven from good old fashioned [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] have a racial rule called ''life is cheap'' which lets them bypass the game's taboo for shooting into close combat. Which doesn't seem quite that impressive until you realize they're one of the few armies with ready access to Gatling guns and flame throwers in the game's medievalrenaissance setting.

** Kobolds in ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' tend to use such tactics, since they are possibly the weakest and fastest-breeding humanoid race. The soldiers are proud to do it, too.

** Meta example: Mech Spam tactics. These tactics involve taking advantage of the fact that, at most, one unit can kill a single unit per player phase by using large amounts of cheap, weak Mechs (as in Mechanized Infantry) to block attacks on [[Glass Cannon|strong but fragile]] artillery units, which in turn can be used to kill units who attack the Mechs.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20150429181558/http://rocr.net/index.php?p=20070604 This webcomic strip], part of the ''Crossover Wars''.

*:* 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.

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

** [[Karmic Death|Whereupon the longbowmen shot all of]] ''[[Karmic Death|them]]'' [[Karmic Death|to death, too.]]

* Some [[WWI]] commanders would shoot those attempting to retreat without orders, or who refused to go over the trenches. It was a sort of preemptive punishment for treason. Although the number of men so shot is grossly overexaggerated, there were men who were under ''two'' suspended sentences of death for desertion or sleeping at their posts. The armies on all sides got so sick of this that many of them mutinied late in the war and refused to take place in any further assaults on the enemy, as it always just resulted in piles of bodies and minimal progress.

** The entire point of the WWI strategy of [[wikipedia:Attrition warfare|attrition warfare]] was basically "we have '''more''' reserves than them!", with the result being the "lost generation".

* 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 casualitescasualties. 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.

* In nature, reproductive strategies are split between animals that have a small number of young and raise them carefully, and ones that have lots of young (or, typically, lay lots of eggs) and don't care for them at all, trusting that there are enough that ''some'' will survive. The latter strategy is a lot less energy-intensive and is generally used by more basic and short-lived species, while the former is particularly common among some birds and nearly all the larger mammals..

* A more subtle phenomenon happens in a war between comparable powers: that is powers capable of copying or countering each other, rather then having an inimitable weapon like the [[Hordes From the East]] did, when one starts with a performance advantage and one with a material advantage. The casualty rise on the first will sooner or later reach a point where it will counter the performance, because for instance officers will bleed off and the turnover will include large amounts of [[New Meat]]. In the meantime the second power will start to [[Surpassed the Teacher|learn from]], [[Sink or Swim Mentor|the First]],; the excess of officers who have [[HAD to Be Sharp|seen and survived]] the first power's tricks will end up promoted. As a result performance changes until the materially superior power is also qualitatively superior.

** For instance, in the beginning of the [[World War 2II|Pacific War]], Japan was unquestionably superior in quality (it was also superior in material actually available but more was waiting to come on line for the Allies). They won a number of spectacular victories. In late 1942 through 1943 the odds were even but the Allies were getting better in both quality and quanityquantity. And after that the Allies pretty much had the whip hand.

* In the Strategic Bombing Campaign over Europe in [[World War 2II]] the US Eighth Air Force won by finally figuring out that trying to hit a "pinpoint" target from a heavy bomber was like trying to hit a nearby telephone line from a passing subway train by throwing a golf ball while being hit on the head with a golf club (and in any case the bomb was likely to land on some poor schmuck, which is one reason they headed for cities where there was a multiplicity of poor schmucks). In any event, tactics were changed to make the bombers the bait and provoke as many dogfights as possible on the assumption that Germans would run out of planes and pilots first.