History Main / OrbitalBombardment

** In the films themselves, the original plan to deal with the Rebels in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' was to bombard the base with Star Destroyers. When Ozzel screwed up and the Rebels got a bombardment-proof shield up, they resorted to going under the barrier with a ground side assault.
** In ''Film/TheLastJedi'', the Resistance base on D'Qar is promptly evacuated at the beginning, right before being obliterated by an orbital strike from the First Order's ''Mandator IV''-class Siege Dreadnought, which specializes in that kind of things.

** In the backstory of ''VideoGame/StarCraftI'', the Terran Confederacy nuked Korhal into radioactive desert, killing all of the planet's humans and a good number of its other flora and fauna, which led to the restrictions on nuclear weapons that resulted in Terrans only using very weak tactical nukes that have to be guided by ground soldiers with laser pointers. The "glassing" of Korhal was said to have involved [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill over a thousand]] strategic high-yield ''Apocalypse''-class missiles, despite Korhal only being inhabited by 35 million people. Later, the Protoss "purified" Terran colonies that were infested with Zerg during the first campaign. In both cases the planets were recolonized later on.

-->'''Starbase Commander Hayes:''' From their positions in orbit, the Dreadnoughts blew away a kilometer of land in central Iraq, vaporized several targets in the Amazon rain forest, punched a big hole through the antarctic icecap to destroy something deep under the surface, and melted a broad swath of the ocean floor in the south-eastern Atlantic.

** In the backstory of ''VideoGame/StarCraftI'', the Terran Confederacy nuked Korhal into radioactive desert, killing all of the planet's humans and a good number of its other flora and fauna, which led to the restrictions on nuclear weapons that resulted in Terrans only using very weak tactical nukes that have to be guided by ground soldiers with laser pointers. The "glassing" of Korhal was said to have involved [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill over a thousand]] strategic high-yield ''Apocalypse''-class missiles, despite Korhal only being inhabited by 35 million people. Later, the Protoss "purified" Terran colonies that were infested with Zerg during the first campaign. In both cases the planets were recolonized later on.

* ''VideoGame/StarControl2'':

* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'':

** In ''[[Literature/NightsDawn The Reality Dysfunction]]'' a special forces team floating down a river through enemy territory get some sudden and unexpected support when 5,000 precision-guided kinetic energy harpoons fired from a spaceship slam into the banks on either side. The harpoons are falling so fast no-one hears them until after they land. Then they ''really'' hear them.

* ''Anime/YakitoriSoldiersOfMisfortune''. When Unit K-321 request this trope, their commander insists that another member of the unit confirm the request before allowing it. They discover why on seeing the sheer destruction that ensues. After it's all over, Unit K-321 then find themselves being court-martialed for genocide after there's a public outcry.

** Some time after you ally with the Zoq-Fot-Pik, a lone Kohr-Ah Marauder will attack their homeworld. After you defeat it, they will comment that while they were able to shieldñ populated areas entire ecosystems were annihilated.

* ''Anime/YakitoriSoldiersOfMisfortune''. When Unit K-321 request this trope, their commander insists that another member of the unit confirm the request before allowing it. They discover why on seeing the sheer destruction that ensues.

* ''Anime/YakitoriSoldiersOfMisfortune''. When Unit K-321 request this trope, their commander insists that another member of the unit confirm this before allowing it. They discover why on seeing the sheer destruction that ensues.

* As might be expected, the ''Literature/{{Lensmen}}'' [[LensmanArmsRace get into this particular Arms Race]]. If you're ''lucky'', they're just tossing bombs at you. If you get them ''really'' mad, they target you with a couple of planets moving at several times ''c''. With diametrically opposed vectors. It's called the "nutcracker", and the results are described as the creation of a new, temporary star.
* In ''Literature/LineOfDelirium'' the three Imperial colonies in the Shedar (Alpha Cassiopeiae) system were invaded by the fast-breeding [[LizardFolk Sakkra]]. Civilians were evacuated (mostly women and children, although not all women left), while most men chose to stay and fight. Instead of trying to retake the planets, which would result in huge casualties, TheEmperor decides to bombard them with meson bombs. The invaders and the defenders were killed, and the planets were made uninhabitable. TheEmpire proceeded to retaliate and [[DisproportionateRetribution wiped out the entire Sakkra species]]. The protagonist mentions visiting his home planet Shedar II decades later, revealing that the oceans are still boiling.

** ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamIronBloodedOrphans Iron-Blooded Orphans]]'' has a non-ColonyDrop version of this: [[spoiler:in the final episode, Gjallarhorn launches a [[KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter Dainsleif]] bombardment on Tekkadan's remaining mobile suits during their last stand. This ends up doing incredible damage to the Barbatos, but Mikazuki keeps fighting for a few more minutes out of sheer [[{{Determinator}} determination]].]]
*** A briefly seen map at the end of Season 1 shows that in the past (presumably during the Calamity Wars) something, presumably large and dropped from orbit, wiped out Sydney, Australia. ''[[RunningGag Again]]''
* Hostile aliens destroy Earth's bases through showers of meteors in ''Anime/SpaceCarrierBlueNoah''.
* Midway into ''Anime/{{Robotech}}''[='s=] Macross Saga, [[BigBad Admiral Dolza]] amasses the Zentradi armada above Earth's orbit. The crew of SDF-1 join forces with [[FourStarBadass Breetai]] and [[LadyOfWar Azonia]] to smash through Dolza's defenses and succeed in killing him, but not before the order is given to annihilate the Earth. The Zentradi [[NoKillLikeOverkill open fire]], [[ApocalypseHow devastating close to 90 percent of the planet's surface, killing two thirds of its populace.]]

* In ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfLuthor'', ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} visits an alien world which was destroyed by hostile spaceships shooting freezing beams which literally glassed the atmosphere.

* In ''WesternAnimation/BattletechTheAnimatedSeries'', Nicholai Malthus bombards Remus City on the planet Romulus after they assist the Strikers in escaping the planet. The only reason Clan Jade Falcon didn't catch as much flak for this as Smoke Jaguar did for their bombing of Edo city a few months later(see Tabletop Games) was because Malthus forcibly evacuated the population first.

A term frequently used in relation to this trope is "glassing," which originally referred to the bombardment being intense enough to cause the soil to vitrify, or melt into volcanic glass. Such as what happened at the Trinity nuclear test site.

** Between ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' and this series, the Empire engaged in a genocidal bombing campaign against Mandalore, laying waste to the surface with fusion bombs and gunning down any survivors. Long after the Empire's defeat, the surface is marred by massive crystalline formations from the heat of the bombs and the planet's very magnetic field has been destabilized, creating mega-storms.

* While this has obviously never happened, it should be noted that the history of aerial bombardment shows that strategic bombardment of this type [[https://acoup.blog/2022/10/21/collections-strategic-airpower-101/ almost never works]]. It is far more effective to focus on attacking actual military targets that help one win the war directly, what is known as air interdiction or close air support, depending on how close friendly forces are.
** Sadly, that blog post is wrong from beginning to end, and even makes concessions enough to neuter itself. It's not true that the bomber must always get through in order to have strategic impact. It's not true that bombing failed to have strategic impacts in the conflicts where the author makes that claim, it's not true that ground action would have been a more efficient means of accomplishing strategic effect. Look, for example, at the casualties taken in suppressing nazi germany via ground action and at the projected casualties for the invasion of japan. Think of the strategic costs that would have been involved in ground action in north vietnam or yugoslavia. And, for our purposes, the author's concerns about air defenses, imprecision and insufficient destructive impact of munitions, and even skepticism about effects on morale are irrelevant (since if you kill everyone you want to kill with orbital bombardment morale is a moot question).

%%* ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}} 2: Durandal'': [[DiscussedTrope Mentioned to be happening off-screen]]:%%Quotes are not context.
%%-->'''Durandal:''' You should encounter little organized resistance because [[ScaryDogmaticAliens the Pfhor]] are preoccupied. I've been introducing them to the '''magic''' of orbital bombardment.

* In the Season 2 episode "The Tragedy" of ''Series/TheMandalorian'', Din Djarin's ship, the ''Razor Crest'', [[spoiler:gets obliterated by an orbital strike from Moff Gideon's Star Destroyer]].

* ''Fanfic/{{Fractured}}'': Anyone with a sufficiently large [[TheBattlestar Battlestar]] seems to like employing this trope. From the small-scale by comparison nuclear firepower unleashed by an anti-Jakobs alliance to full-scale anti-Reaper blasts from Trans-Galactic Republic fleets or even the last sweep against [[spoiler:the Flood]] using huge numbers of Star Dreadnaughts, many planets have been glassed over the course of the series.

** [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS3E19ZeroHour "Zero]] [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS3E20ZeroHourPartII Hour"]]: [[spoiler:Grand Admiral Thrawn does this to the Rebel base on Atollon, stopping just before their shield fails because he's under orders from Grand Moff Tarkin to take the rebel leaders alive.]] The effects are rather... unimpressive, with each shot from the Star Destroyer's turbolasers being inferior in explosion radius and lethality to a modern artillery shell. ''Film/TheLastJedi'' suggests that this was because turbolasers have an ArbitraryMaximumRange past which they rapidly lose power; Thrawn started bombardment from geosynchronous orbit, while bombardment is presumably usually intended to commence from LEO.

* In ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'', [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1514 SCP-1514 ("Star Wars")]] offers a non-standard example. If the SCP-1514-2 {{Kill Sat}}s do not receive the daily [[{{Telepathy}} telepathic]] signal from SCP-1514-1A (implying a Russian first-strike on the United States), they will attack and destroy their ground targets in Russia, triggering a nuclear war. However, they don't have WMD-level death rays, and instead have Xasers (X-ray lasers). Their targets are unspecified, but is strongly implied to be nuclear launch sites in Russia. Their destruction would ''absolutely'' wipe out all of Russia, making this an example of an orbital bombardment with weak power by itself but WMD-level effects due to their targets.

[[folder:Real Life]