History Main / BodycountCompetition

[[quoteright:320:[[Film/HotShots http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hot_shots_body_count.jpg]]]]

* Spoofed in ''Film/HotShots Part Deux''. During a shootout, there is a counter running which declared at different numbers to have a bigger body count as other movies. At the end, the counter declares the movie to be the most brutal ever. The numbers are a joke, but the movie's real body count was still a record at the time with 114. Although they only fall down without any visible wounds (even the guy who gets literally splattered over a wall lacks regular injuries), making the "bloodiest" claim a complete lie. Which may have been a subtle joke in itself.

** A fairly twisted version of this occurs in ''WarcraftIII'', in which Prince Arthas must prevent dreadlord Mal'Ganis from turning the sleeping occupants of a human city into an unstoppable army of the undead by ''finding and killing them himself first''. (In his defense, they had already been infected by a plague which caused undead transformation.) A scoreboard at the top of the screen even keeps track of how many each of them has converted or culled while Arthas and his men set fire to their homes and slaughter them in the street. [[spoiler:Is it any wonder that Arthas ends up becoming TheEvilPrince?]]

* The strict definition of "air ace" is "a fighter pilot who has shot down a certain number of enemy fighters" (usually 5). [[RedBaron Manfred von Richtofen's]] record of 80 kills was unbeaten in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. In all of the history of air warfare, though, the highest scoring ace is Erich Hartmann of the WWII Luftwaffe, who was credited with 352 kills over the Eastern Front. The highest scoring Allied ace is rather farther down [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_air_aces the list of UsefulNotes/WW2 aces]], Ivan Kozhedub of the Soviet Union with 62 kills (the Allied air forces had a policy of rotating out the best pilots to serve as trainers, so this isn't unexpected). Gun-cams were invented to keep track of the fighter pilots' kills, ''[[InvokedTrope for the very reason of invoking this trope]]''. Note that the gun-cams had a purpose beyond kill-counts -- to accurately gauge how much enemy material had been destroyed.

* During the Vietnam War, due to the nebulous nature of the conflict, US Army resorted to body count of dead Viet Cong soldiers as a measure of its effectiveness. Unfortunately, this led to a great deal of abuse.
* The strict definition of "air ace" is "a fighter pilot who has shot down a certain number of enemy fighters" (usually 5). [[RedBaron Manfred von Richtofen's]] record of 80 kills was unbeaten in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. In all of the history of air warfare, though, the highest scoring ace is Erich Hartmann of the WWII Luftwaffe, who was credited with 352 kills over the Eastern Front. The highest scoring Allied ace is rather farther down [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_air_aces the list of UsefulNotes/WW2 aces]], Ivan Kozhedub of the Soviet Union with 62 kills (the Allied air forces had a policy of rotating out the best pilots to serve as trainers, so this isn't unexpected). Gun-cams were invented to keep track of the fighter pilots' kills, ''[[InvokedTrope for the very reason of invoking this trope]]''. Note that the gun-cams had a purpose beyond kill-counts -- it was used to accurately gauge how much enemy material had been destroyed.
* In an example similar to the one about the two Japanese officers, there is an infamous story of how, during their UsefulNotes/WW2 liquidation of Croatia's Jews, Romani, Serbs, non-Catholics, and the like, the Ustaše (basically, Croatian SS, although even the actual SS death camp guards were sickened by their brutality) guards at Croatia's Jasenovac concentration camp used knifes called "Serb Cutters" in sadistic body count competitions to see who could cut the throats of the most newly arrived inmates. One of the guards, Petar Brzica, boasted cutting the throats of about ''1,360'' new arrivals. Even the lower estimates put his body count at ''at least'' 800 murdered prisoners. Other participants who confessed to participating in the bet included Ante Zrinusic, who killed some 600 inmates, and Mile Friganovic, who gave a detailed and consistent report of the incident. Friganovic admitted to having killed some 1,100 inmates.

* Most modern army servicemen, however, look down heavily upon anyone asking how many men they had killed in wars and often reject trigger-happy recruits who would brag about kill counts.
** James Gandofini did research for his role in InTheLoop by going to the Pentagon and talking to some of the Generals there; he encountered one General who ''couldn't remember'' if he'd killed anyone. The writers turned it into a comedic moment between Gandolfini's General and Malcolm Tucker.
* In AncientRome whether or not a general got a triumph was dependant on how many thousand enemies his army had killed.

** This eventually comes from the feudal practice called Kubi-jikken, which is ''literally'' counting heads at the end of battle. This is important, as by the time samurais' pay are directly related to how many and who he killed.
* During Vietnam War, due to the nebulous nature of the conflict, US Army resorted to body count of dead Viet Cong soldiers as a measure of its effectiveness. Unfortunately, this led to a great deal of abuse.

* ''Webcomic/{{Nodwick}}'': [[http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2005-03-31 Yeagar and another fighter]] are competing on how many monsters they kill in a DungeonCrawl.

* The first time {{Wolverine}} appeared in {{Daredevil}}'s comic he invoked this during a mook brawl.

* The strict definition of "air ace" is "a fighter pilot who has shot down a certain number of enemy fighters" (usually 5). [[RedBaron Manfred von Richtofen's]] record of 80 kills was unbeaten in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. In all of the history of air warfare, though, the highest scoring ace is Erich Hartmann of the WWII Luftwaffe, who was credited with 352 kills over the Eastern Front. The highest scoring Allied ace is rather farther down [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_air_aces the list of WW2 aces]], Ivan Kozhedub of the Soviet Union with 62 kills (the Allied air forces had a policy of rotating out the best pilots to serve as trainers, so this isn't unexpected). Gun-cams were invented to keep track of the fighter pilots' kills, ''[[InvokedTrope for the very reason of invoking this trope]]''. Note that the gun-cams had a purpose beyond kill-counts -- it was used to accurately gauge how much enemy material had been destroyed.
* In an example similar to the one about the two Japanese officers, there is an infamous story of how, during their WW2 liquidation of Croatia's Jews, Romani, Serbs, non-Catholics, and the like, the Ustaše (basically, Croatian SS, although even the actual SS death camp guards were sickened by their brutality) guards at Croatia's Jasenovac concentration camp used knifes called "Serb Cutters" in sadistic body count competitions to see who could cut the throats of the most newly arrived inmates. One of the guards, Petar Brzica, boasted cutting the throats of about ''1,360'' new arrivals. Even the lower estimates put his body count at ''at least'' 800 murdered prisoners. Other participants who confessed to participating in the bet included Ante Zrinusic, who killed some 600 inmates, and Mile Friganovic, who gave a detailed and consistent report of the incident. Friganovic admitted to having killed some 1,100 inmates.

* The strict definition of "air ace" is "a fighter pilot who has shot down a certain number of enemy fighters" (usually 5). [[RedBaron Manfred von Richtofen's]] record of 80 kills was unbeaten in WorldWarI. In all of the history of air warfare, though, the highest scoring ace is Erich Hartmann of the WWII Luftwaffe, who was credited with 352 kills over the Eastern Front. The highest scoring Allied ace is rather farther down [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_air_aces the list of WW2 aces]], Ivan Kozhedub of the Soviet Union with 62 kills (the Allied air forces had a policy of rotating out the best pilots to serve as trainers, so this isn't unexpected). Gun-cams were invented to keep track of the fighter pilots' kills, ''[[InvokedTrope for the very reason of invoking this trope]]''. Note that the gun-cams had a purpose beyond kill-counts -- it was used to accurately gauge how much enemy material had been destroyed.

* The WAR update on ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' did this between the Demo and Soldier, seeing who could kill the most of the other class to decide who would be given the privilege of using the Gun Boats. Individual players were given a kill count at the corner of their HUD telling them how many Soldiers they've killed as a Demo, or vise-versa. [[spoiler:The Soldier won]]. Naturally, most of the players cheated.

** Team Fortress 2 has also the Strange Weapons introduced in the Über Update, those weapons are just like the normal weapons but with counters, the most common counter is "Players Killed", but with "Strange Parts" you can have more counters like "Buildings Destroyed", "Headshot Kills", "Point-Blank Kills", "Long-Distance Kills" and players of a specific class killed.

* ''VideoGame/{{Hellsinker}}'' has a kill counter on the HUD. Interstingly, killing parts of enemies rather than the enemy itself counts as individual kills. You get a special "Breakthrough" extra life at 2,500 kills, or 5,000 if you've already hit the {{S|coringPoints}}pirit Breakthrough. Subverted with the player base, in that those playing seriously generally ignore kill count (for purposes other than Breakthroughs) in favor of Spirits instead.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Thundercats 2011}}'' episode "Old Friends", Captains Grune and Panthro are BackToBackBadasses, quite unfazed by the long odds against them on a battlefield full of their [[{{Lizardfolk}} Lizard]] enemies.

* Bringing both Special Weapons marines in ''AlienSwarm'' will cause competition-specific dialogue.

** Another ''Batman'' Villain, Victor Szasz, keeps an obsessive count of the number of people he's "liberated", by carving marks into his own flesh. These marks are so important to him that, on one occasion when he thought he'd killed the Bat and made his mark, he went crazier than usual when he found out Batman had survived. Ditto when he made a mark for Alfred.

* In ''AttackOnTitan'', Thomas challenges Eren and the rest of the squad to one during their first battle. Instead, Thomas is the first member of the squad to be EatenAlive and no one manages to score a kill before everything goes horribly wrong.

* In ''AttackOnTitan'', Thomas challenges Eren and the rest of the squad to one during their first battle. [[spoiler: Within minutes, the squad ends up being brutally slaughtered, with Thomas the first to be devoured]].

* [[ColdSniper Snipers]]. Simo Häyhä has the largest body count ever, standing at 705 confirmed kills. The next best, Francis Pegahmagabow, had 378 kills. Which like aircraft is more about keeping track of how many enemy forces are left for the spotter to find out if it is safe to go in yet or not. Snipers keeps detailed notes about every kill.

* The opening of Kenneth Oppel's novel ''Literature/{{Silverwing}}'' has a bat named Shade and his friend racing to see who can eat (something like) 600 mosquitoes first.