History Main / WeHaveReserves

After a moment like this, the character might as well have '''''asshole''''' printed on their forehead. Bonus points if they refer to his troops as being trash or [[{{Dehumanization}} somehow subhuman]], or if they do it not because [[IDidWhatIHadToDo they sincerely believe that doing this is necessary to win]], but [[GloryHound in pursuit of their own glory/making a name for themself]]. A We Have Reserves commander is very much a BadBoss, and a reason why there is such a high mortality rate among [[RedshirtArmy Redshirt Armies]], FacelessGoons, {{Mooks}}, and the like.

Callousness is necessary for it to be a suitable KickTheDog moment. A general who throws troops into a battle [[ColdEquation knowing they will all die but also knowing a victory here will save more lives]] can be pardoned for it [[TrialByFriendlyFire if they show that they are aware of the cost]] (DrowningMySorrows and PastExperienceNightmare are popular tropes for demonstrating that awareness). After all, one cannot get through a real war with zero casualties, and some number of losses must be accepted. The same thing applies for a commander of a stricken vessel who sometimes must seal off sections of a ship and doom the crew inside lest the entire ship is lost. An [[EnsignNewbie inexperienced officer]] who inadvertently does this may only be a moron or having a moment of panic while in command for the first time, and might still be redeemable if they show CharacterDevelopment because of it or improves their tactics.

** Both Commander Erwin and Commander Pixis, despite being [[AFatherToHisMen fathers to their men,]] often have to employ this mentality with their own soldiers and even civilians as any and all sacrifices are acceptable if it means saving humanity as a whole. They know their efforts has caused the deaths of countless of people and believe [[ImGoingToHellForThis there is a spot in Hell waiting for them]].

* This is present in the early chapters of the ''Manga/BarefootGen'' manga, which takes place shortly before the end of World War II and features scathing criticisms of the Japanese military, the endemic brutality and abuse within it, and their use of this trope. This is particularly true of the Navy's kamikaze pilot program, as illustrated when a young pilot overhears a high ranking officer ranting about the lack of success in the kamikaze attacks.

** MadScientist Mayuri Kurotsuchi of is a particularly horrific example. He turns a number of subordinates into living bombs without them knowing it, and tells them to simply convince two protagonists to come with them. Instead, he detonates them while they're standing around the protagonists, including one who survives his comrades exploding because "A bomb isn't supposed to come back after being used".

* Subverted in the ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'' manga: [[spoiler:It is eventually implied that the adults who were assigned to assist the main-character children in their battles for the fate of the universe are actually there to kill any children who refuse to fight, because under the series rules such a refusal would otherwise doom the universe, while killing them will just automatically switch control to their replacement. A subversion, because it is implied that this is the right thing to do; the one child who figures it out (on his own) agrees that he might not be able to fight, and tells them to kill him quickly if it comes to that point.]]

** [[spoiler:This doesn't really count since they are not throwing them against those opponents because they do not care if they die but because ''they want them'' to die because they are too problematic. This trope still applies for this series, however, since the slaughter at Pieta was this (the organization throwing all of its "less valuable" warriors into a battle they could not survive without hoping for them to accomplish anything aside from slowing the enemy a little).]]
* During the final arc of ''Anime/CodeGeass'', [[spoiler:Lelouch (the protagonist)]] takes this trope to an extreme, having {{Mind Control}}led an army into being his slaves (making them all wear masks that make it clear that these are not longer human beings, just pawns) and then using them in battle in ways that would ensure their deaths (using them as bait, or sending them to be used as shields against nukes) without concern. [[spoiler:How bad this makes him look is exactly what he is pretending to be, for the sake of uniting the world against him and bringing about world peace.]]

* In the third volume of ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'', Tubalcain Alhambra sends waves of Brazilian police officers to attack Alucard, fully aware that they are no match for him, so that he will use up most of his bullets to make it easier for Alhambra to fight him.

** In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'', the Earth Alliance activates a cyclops system hidden beneath their Alaska base when it comes under attack by ZAFT. The system nukes everything within 6.25 miles of the base and kills nearly everyone defending it. This actually helps the Atlantic Federation as it kills off most of the Eurasian political moderates and allows the Earth Alliance to pursue a more genocidal path towards ending the war. This is what causes the Archangel crew to finally defect from the Alliance.

** Played straight with other pilots. In the Unit 03 incident where he casually orders it destroyed with the pilot [[spoiler:(Touji in the series, Asuka in the ''[[Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion Rebuild]]'' films)]] still inside, and activates the Dummy system when Shinji won't do it [[spoiler:and based on his comments about needing Shinji and Rei together in ''Rebuild'', it's hinted he deliberately took the chance to eliminate Asuka, so she wouldn't become a unknown extra factor in his plans.]]

** Even if they aren't necessarily the villains, some of the Marines show this behaviour too, as the doctrine of "Absolute Justice" implies that any evil should be eradicated at any cost. This is shown during the Buster Call in Enies Lobby, when one warship was destroyed (along with one thousand marines) by the others in order to kill only one criminal; one of the captains even shot a marine who hesitated in following the order. In the Marineford arc, Akainu is seen dousing one of his own men in lava because that soldier wisely knew he didn't have a chance of inflicting any damage on the pirate army they were facing, and ''begged'' to be taken off the front lines so he could live another day to support his wife and family. Akainu then tries to do the same to Coby because Coby dared to point out that marines were dying because they were being neglected treatment while the other marines were off chasing pirates that were trying to either withdraw or surrender, having lost all reason to fight. Never mind that Akainu completely ignores Blackbeard, who not only betrayed his own commander, Whitebeard, and murdered his comrades, but betrayed the Marines too, and made himself a very real threat by stealing, and using Whitebeard's "Quake Quake" fruit.

** Soldiers of Germa 66 are trained to jump in front of the leader and act as a meat shields, whenever said leader says "wall". This isn't only used for defense -- the leader of the family once used this command to block his opponents attack, and then ''stabbed him through his own soldier''. Their disregard for soldier lives are motivated by the fact [[spoiler:that all their soldiers are [[CloneArmy clones, artificially grown in Germa's laboratories]].]]

* In the manga of ''Literature/SoImASpiderSoWhat'', the Anograchs (monkey-like monsters) and especially their higher-tier leaders the Bugragtachs follow this mentality; in their mad urge to kill Kumoko, they storm her web by the hundreds, and just use the ones who get caught as stepping stones. Triple-digit deaths matters little as long as they get to kill one little spider who didn't even provoke them in the first place.

* ''Anime/SSSSGridman'': Alexis Kerib shows no concern over the destruction of any of his kaiju, since they're simple clay statues made by his partner Akane. He can make an infinite number of kaiju whenever he wants, in fact; the only reason he even needs the clay statues in the first place is because he's not very creative and needs someone else to design them for him.

* ''ComicBook/BlackScience'': Peterson's dimensionaut team returns from a successful foray. During the debriefing one of their finds breaks free and begins slaughtering the team. Mr Block seals the door instead of allowing them to escape or fighting back against the beast. He then calmly orders a backup team out on a new mission.
* ''ComicBook/BlakeAndMortimer'': Olrik's forces take heavy losses when they attack the British's secret base, much to the protest of one of his officer. Olrik brush it off was they have plenty of reserves.

* Played perfectly straight by the Russian military in ''ComicBook/ThePunisherMAX''. Where one particular arc sees Frank Castle tasked with infiltrating a nuclear missile base in Siberia and rescuing a six year old girl whose blood contains an experimental super virus. However the mission goes awry and Frank has to fight his way out of the missile base. And the Russian military's attempts at trying to prevent his escape amount to sending out as many conscripts as humanly possible in the hopes that it will work. ''It doesn't.''

* Played absolutely straight by Jhiaxus in the ''ComicBook/TransformersGeneration2'' comic, in which his reponse to staggering losses is to throw another wave of troops into battle with the Warworld and the Swarm.

* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'': This is outright stated to be the entire basis of British tactics in the First World War. [[KickTheDog Bonus Bastard Points]] for the instructions, "Climb out of the trench and walk very slowly towards the enemy," the phrase "Operation Certain Death", the apparent fact that it's taken Field Marshall Haig three years to realise that, "Everyone gets killed in the first ten seconds," and the portrayal of Haig formulating his battle plans in the last episode by setting up toy soldiers on a table and sweeping them off. It is best to avoid making comparisons between this fictional portrayal and the real life Haig.

** When the three wrathful goddesses are unleashed by the Slayer army against Twilight's soldiers, the general immediately wants to retreat. Twilight tells him no, since he wants to see what the goddesses will do to the soldiers.

** The series takes place in the future, and humanity has colonized Mars, which has since broken away from Earth and become a military rival. There’s a cold war between the two planets and a delicate balance of power; everyone knows that the Martian navy has the technological advantage over Earth’s fleet, but Earth has ''so'' many more ships and soldiers that in an all out war it’s still likely that Earth would prevail. However both sides are also aware of the limitations of this trope; as of the start of the series it’s estimated that in another 5-10 years Mars will have expanded its navy enough that it will negate Earth’s numerical advantage. For that reason {{Warhawk}}s on Earth want a chance to go to war and subjugate Mars before that day can come... [[spoiler:sure enough when open war breaks out between the two planets Earth relies on this strategy. The cost to both sides is devastating and the conflict is still hanging in the balance when the various protagonists manage to bring the fighting to a stop.]]
** This is also in effect in the very first battle of the series. Captain Yao, commander of the ''Donnager'', (one of the most advanced and powerful Martian warships) confidently predicts that the fleet of mystery stealth ships that seem bent on attacking the ''Donnager'' are engaging in a SuicideMission by even trying to take them on. One on one she'd be right; as advanced as the stealth ships are, they are absolutely no match for the ''Donnager'' without a major numerical advantage. However, there are at least six of the stealth ships and they just keep coming and coming despite their losses, and bit by bit they beat down the ''Donnager'' until the Martian ship can no longer effectively fight back.

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'': One episode had a teaser sequence with Lex Luthor testing his latest experiment. The test involves the SuperSoldier charging down a hallway, killing mooks, breaking into a heavily fortified room and assassinating a target. When it's over, what does Luthor say with glee? "Get fresh guards... I wanna see him do it again."

** In ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', the original series, Kirk and Spock subtly accuse Lokai of having slipped into this mentality in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" -- Lokai saying they won't put where their money where their mouth is -- how they won't "fight or die" for the justice he asks.

** The Draconis Combine and the Lyran Commonwealth suffer from this trope in the classic timeline. The Combine combines a strong HonorBeforeReason warrior culture with favouring quick, aggressive assaults with fast and light 'mechs. As such, they tend to throw away men and resources on undergunned attacks without sufficient support, which fail to obtain their objective and then are too proud to retreat in time when things go south. The Lyrans, by contrast, are a strategic MightyGlacier: Extremely wealthy, populous and led by [[GeneralFailure Social Generals]], they ''always'' have enough men and materiel to throw away on massive offensives and have a tolerance for losses that gives even the Combine pause. The two factions are also neighbours and major rivals; Combine/Lyran wars tend to be bloody affairs.
** The Clans have an... interesting relation to this trope. Clan society ''abhors'' waste, but it also has an even more hidebound honour system than the Combine and puts no value whatsoever on individual Clan lives. As such, any formal battle between Clans tend to be solved extremely quickly and with very little blood spilled before the losing side accepts ''hegira'' (an honourable withdrawal offered to a defeated enemy), but on the other hand when the Clans ''do'' go all-out they are expected to fight to the death and bring as many enemies down with them as possible. This includes any time ''solahma'' units gets involved, which are Clan CannonFodder made up of washed-out warriors who couldn't make the cut in their AsskickingLeadsToLeadership ranking system. To Clans, ''solahma'' units cannot, by definition, be 'wasted' because they already ''are'' by dint of existing.

* ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' may or may not count for this. Given that actually [[DeathIsCheap dying isn't that big of a deal]], and that a fair amount of character types (robots, nano-swarms, etc) probably couldn't feel pain anyway, there is certainly a healthy disregard for the value of individual life, even though the players work for a conspiracy dedicated to preventing the extinction of transhumanity. Within the fiction of the rule books grazing team mates with plasma rifles to hit the bad guys, sacrificing yourself to buy time, straight up murdering a friend and exploding your head with an anti-matter bomb (all for the sake of the mission) shows up. And that's just in the first short story. Everyone is expendable and people dying is an accepted part of the trade and just not a big deal.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': Surprisingly averted in a bit of flavor text. Some Dragon-Blooded officers care about the lives of their mortal subordinates and some don't, but regardless of that throwing mortals at Celestial Exalted is just wasting them to no purpose. When the Anathema show up, it's time for the officers to order the mortals to stand aside and enter the battle themselves.

* YOU, the player, in TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}. Your life in Alpha Complex will inevitably result in you [[SuperpowerMeltdown dying in]] [[UnfriendlyFire a number]] [[PhlebotinumOverload of horrible]] [[YouHaveFailedMe ways]], but it's okay, because you have plenty of [[CloningBlues backups where that came from]].

* The minion-heavy decks in ''TabletopGame/SentinelsOfTheMultiverse'', such as Voss, The Chairman or the Matriarchs, use this as a strategy, with numerous ways to bring mooks to the forefront, and even revive them from the trash. Outright stated in the flavor text of one of Expatriette's cards, which allows her to automatically damage any villain target the moment it enters play: A Blade Battalion Commander, apparently admonishing his troops with, "Get out there! She can't shoot ''all'' of you!"

** This is a bit of an interesting example in that sacrificing their own troops is actually a necessity. Skaven are designed for it, breeding like the rodents they are based off of and eating more than the average human due to their high metabolisms. If not for this they would suffer from severe overpopulation and political instability (well, more than usual) as a result. This doesn't mean they aren't evil -- indeed, a key reason ''why'' such tactics are tolerated is because every Skaven [[ItsAllAboutMe is so self-absorbed]] that even the ones sent in as blatant CannonFodder are willing to take their chances for some time due to all the other Skaven with them that they don't really care are also around to die in their stead (not to mention the higher-ups [[AnOfferYouCantRefuse just directly threatening their lives]])...and Skaven morale in battle is still pretty poor anyway.
** In the background Dark Elves do this with slave troops (one story has them herd their recently captured slaves onto the battlefield where they shoot them down to serve as cover, interfere with the enemies' cavalry and to demoralize the enemy (it works)) though it doesn't happen in the game itself.

** The Imperial Guard 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:

** Then there is the Skitarii Legions of the Adeptus Mechanicus. While Skitarii are cybernetically enhanced to extreme levels and have better armor than the Imperial Guard the Mechanicus doesn't care what happens to them and neither does the Skitarii themselves. They are usually cloned or artificially grown and their emotions are reduced. Death of a Skitarii is nothing more than a way of learning about the enemy. The Skitarii vanguards carry Radium weapons that poison them by just carrying them despite their radiation protected armor slowly killing them. It gets worse in Onager Dunecrawlers where the driver is connected to the machine and is placed in a electro-amniotic tank where he is slowly killed by harmful energies and is soon replaced like replacing batteries.

** There is one faction that largely ignores this trope: the Alpha Legion. Most Chaos legions simply use cultists as fodder, meant to run at the guns and reduce their ammo so the enemy have less to fire when the traitor astartes turn up. The Alpha Legion actually ''train'' and arm their cultists, and they are frighteningly effective, especially at guerilla warfare. Alpha Legion doctrine states that [[CombatPragmatist every resource must be used to its fullest potential and never be wasted]], [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness unless sacrificing the resource is the surest way to achieve the long term objective]]. The Alpha Legion are, in a tactical sense, Chaos' OnlySaneMan. Oddly enough they're seemingly the only Legion that actually does have reserves; during the Heresy they suffered devastating defeats that seem like they have taken them out of the war on three separate occasions, only to pop up at full strength later. Nobody has any real idea of their true numbers, where their recruiting bases are, or how they train and equip new Marines so quickly.

* ''Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily'' has a comic that shows the contrast between the ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' tactician and the ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' one. The former focuses on his troops' continued survival (being in a video game where [[CastOfSnowflakes any one of the unique units]] [[AnyoneCanDie can die]]), while the latter encourages aggressive tactics without caring about his troops' casualties, because he "can always buy more troops." [[http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/comic/title-559/ The full comic can be seen here.]]

** Xykon's [[TheDragon Dragon]] Redcloak, who is a goblin, takes over a very large group of hobgoblins after he succeeds in ChallengingTheChief. ([[PlayingWithATrope Well, sorta]]). Since goblins have a long running feud with hobgoblins, Redcloak feels little hesitation about giving the hobgoblins dangerous orders likely to result in many of them dying. First he orders a group of hobgoblin {{mooks}} up [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0190.html a dangerous trail]] so they would cause an avalanche that would kill them and ensure the safety of the others following after them. Later rather than trying to kill a potentially dangerous guard monster, he sends in troops armed only with [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0192.html garnish clubs and cracker shields]] against it, so it will fall asleep after eating them. And during the Siege of Azure City, he orders a human-wave style attack against the fortified walls, obviously not caring about the fate of the hobgoblins at all... until one of them [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0451.html dies saving Redcloak's life]], at which point he realizes what he's been doing, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone reacts with horror at what he is becoming]] and promptly stops the wasteful spending of lives.

* This is Freeza's MO in WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged. While he does show concern for his higher level men (even planning to send gifts to the Ginyu Force's family), his lower level men... not so much. In his first on-screen attack, he shows indifference when the Namekians are slaughtering his troops, but panics when they start targeting his equipment. Once he reaches Earth, he even kills his last henchman for no real reason. This infuriates his father not because of the loss of life or the senselessness of it, but because now they have no one to fly them home (flying is for the help).

* ''LetsPlay/{{Mahu}}'': The Biluan Mind uses this tactic quite often, both when it comes to its armies and its fleets. Driven by their need to consume, they care little about loses, to the point where worker and half-formed drones are used as cannon fodder.

--->'''Brannigan:''' Whatever you mission is, I'm willing to put wave after wave of men at your disposal. Right, men?\\

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'': Grand Admiral Thrawn has a reputation for being willing to sacrifice any number of troops to achieve his goals; in fact, the battle that got him promoted had more civilian deaths than rebels. However, while he is willing to ''spend'' lives, he hates ''wasting'' lives. He goes to some extremes to preserve not only as many of his allies as possible, but also his enemies. [[PragmaticVillainy After all, captured enemies can be interrogated]]. Furthermore, [[spoiler:the civilian deaths he is supposedly responsible for were actually the fault of an Imperial civilian who screwed up his plan. Thrawn was actually incensed about the whole thing]].

*** One Jem'Hadar mentioned that they are combat ready days after their "births" and managing to live to twenty makes a Jem'Hadar an honored elder. In the several thousand year history of the Dominion, no Jem'Hadar has ever lived to be thirty ([[WeAreAsMayflies though that might have a different explanation]]).
** The Borg in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' and ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' have no regard for the lives of individual drones, any more than a human would fret the loss of a few cells. If they die, the Collective learns from their deaths and adapts, making those that remain less likely to die and more likely to assimilate those that felled their comrades.

** ''Manga/DragonBallSuper'': Moro's general attitude towards his men. Among other things, he pumps Saganbo full of energy and forces him to fight Goku until he undergoes a SuperpowerMeltdown and drops dead and [[DevourTheDragon eats Seven-Three alive]] for a power boost. He even flat-out tells Goku as such after Saganbo's death, much to the latter's outrage.

* MadBomber Kimblee of ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist'' turns fellow soldiers into living bombs in the anime and indiscriminately used one as a human shield in the manga.

* ''Series/DontHugMeImScared'': {{Implied|Trope}} with [[spoiler:[[GodGuise Lesley]], the woman in the attic]]. When Yellow Guy accidentally destroys their figurine of Duck, they opens up a cabinet containing a bunch of copy figurines of the characters and quickly switch him out. Considering that [[spoiler:they can seemingly control where the characters go through the figurines, and one version of Duck had been killed in Episode 2]], this seems to indicate that [[spoiler:she can easily switch the characters out for duplicates when the situation calls for it]].

-->-- ''Film/{{Avengers Infinity War}}''

* ''Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily'' provides the current page image, in a comic that shows the contrast between the ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' tactician and the ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' one. The former focuses on his troops' continued survival (being in a video game where [[CastOfSnowflakes any one of the unique units]] [[AnyoneCanDie can die]]), while the latter encourages aggressive tactics without caring about his troops' casualties, because he "can always buy more troops." [[http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/comic/title-559/ The full comic can be seen here.]]

** The Seperatists created an army of {{Robot Soldier}}s and MechaMooks specificsally so they could be replaced quickly and cheaply, allowing them to [[ZergRush drown the enemy in a tide of bodies]].
** The Republic struggles to keep itself from viewing its Clone Troopers in the same light, largely because, whils they can be manufactured in short periods and large quantities, they're both more expensive than droids and they take much longer to produce.

* ''Fanfic/StarWarsVsWarhammer40K'':

** The Iron Warriors had such a reputation for using attached forces as sacrificial pawns that they were nicknamed the "Corpse Grinders". This was ''before'' the Horus Heresy, and falling to Chaos just made even worse. Eventually Horus gave the order that Iron Warriors forces would be accompanied by penal battalions, enslaved rebels, and other units the nascent Imperium could live without. The Iron Warriors are arguably one of the more unpleasant legions because even if the other legions are amoral and often insane bastards, they still value brotherhood and honour: when the Iron Warriors march to war, ''everybody'' is expendable; fellow astartes are to serve before they become a statistic at best and rivals at worst, and humans are slaves, expendable conscripts and things to be chewed up and spat out by the war apparatus. At the Siege of Castellax, the Iron Warriors actually referred to their mortal servants simply as "flesh".

* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', Fiamma of the Right doesn't care about his teammates in God's Right Seat. He declares that he is the only important member and as long as he lives, he can get new members.

* In the manga of ''LightNovel/SoImASpiderSoWhat'', the Anograchs (monkey-like monsters) and especially their higher-tier leaders the Bugragtachs follow this mentality; in their mad urge to kill Kumoko, they storm her web by the hundreds, and just use the ones who get caught as stepping stones. Triple-digit deaths matters little as long as they get to kill one little spider who didn't even provoke them in the first place.

* In ''LightNovel/SwordPrincessAltina'', the preferred tactic of most commanders is to just send more and more soldiers at a problem until it goes away. When Regis points out the flaws of this to another strategist, one who defeated him in mock combat and should know better, Regis is told to go away "lest [his] cowardice affect the troops." Note, this is in volume 5 after Regis had already '''successfully''' led an assault to capture an "impregnable" enemy fortress, and fought that enemy's army just to get to the engagement that the "brave" strategist is planning to fight.

** The Clans have an... interesting relation to this trope. Clan society ''abhors'' waste, but it also has an even more hidebound honour system than the Combine and puts no value whatsoever on individual Clan lives. As such, any formal battle between Clans tend to be solved extremely quickly and with very little blood spilled before the losing side accepts ''hegira'' (an honourable withdrawal offered to a defeated enemy), but on the other hand when the Clans ''do'' go all-out they are expected to fight to the death and bring as many enemies down with them as possible. This includes any time ''solahma'' units gets involved, which are Clan CannonFodder made up of washed-out warriors who couldn't make the cut in their AsskickingEqualsAuthority ranking system. To Clans, ''solahma'' units cannot, by definition, be 'wasted' because they already ''are'' by dint of existing.

* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'': This is outright stated to be the entire basis of British tactics in the First World War. [[KickTheDog Bonus Bastard Points]] for the instructions, "Climb out of the trench and walk very slowly towards the enemy," the phrase "Operation Certain Death", the apparent fact that it's taken Field Marshall Haig three years to realise that, "Everyone gets killed in the first ten seconds," and the portrayal of Haig formulating his battle plans in the last episode by setting up toy soldiers on a table and sweeping them off. [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement And let's avoid making comparisons between this fictional portrayal and the real life Haig]].

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': The titular organization will willfully sacrifice hundreds of its D-Class personnel when observing [=SCP=]s. many of which die in cruel and painful manners, and even if they do survive over a month they get executed anyway. Don't feel too sorry for the D-Class personnel, though -- the Foundation recruits them from death row convicts, i.e. murderers and rapists, to ensure a supply of expendable, unsympathetic {{Red Shirt}}s for its experiments. The idea that they're all killed at the end of the month has since fallen out of favor and the [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2193 trope itself]] is listed as an SCP to justify the inconsistency.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Reboot}}'': The bigger [[BigBad Megabyte's]] army gets, the more okay he becomes with sacrificing them for "the cause", which gets demonstrated when he sends an entire fleet of soldiers to certain death in order to get at (or at least soften the defenses of) the Principal Office and barely reacts when [[KillEmAll they inadvertently fly into a killbox and are all slaughtered]].

* MadBomber Kimblee of ''Anime/FullMetalAlchemist'' turns fellow soldiers into living bombs in the anime and indiscriminately used one as a human shield in the manga.

** Played straight with other pilots. In the Unit 03 incident where he casually orders it destroyed with the pilot [[spoiler:(Touji in series, Asuka in the Rebuild films)]] still inside, and activates the Dummy system when Shinji won't do it [[spoiler:and based on his comments about needing Shinji and Rei together in Rebuild, it's hinted he deliberately took the chance to eliminate Asuka, so she wouldn't become a unknown extra factor in his plans.]].

*** There are a lot of area attacks in 4E that ONLY target enemies. Chilling Cloud for example allows Wizards to target enemies in melee without risking damaging their allies. Invokers, Divine Controlers, specialize in these sort of 'party safe' spells and can benifit greatly from Coordinated Fire without invoking this trope.

* ''Series/DontHugMeImScared'': {{Implied|Trope}} with [[spoiler:[[GodGuise Lesley]], the woman in the attic]]. When Yellow Guy accidentally destroys their figurine of Duck Guy, they opens up a cabinet containing a bunch of copy figurines of the characters and quickly switch him out. Considering that [[spoiler:they can seemingly control where the characters go through the figurines, and one version of Duck Guy had been killed in Episode 2]], this seems to indicate that [[spoiler:she can easily switch the characters out for duplicates when the situation calls for it]].

* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'', this is the attitude of Felix. A mercenary at heart and an AxCrazy bastard in his soul, Felix has no problems letting soldiers under his command die to suit his purposes. "Fewer people, bigger cuts". [[spoiler:Ultimately, this costs the Space Pirates the battle for Chorus on two fronts; One, the Space Pirates lose so many men that their remaining forces are stretched thin, allowing the heroes to prevail. And two, his attitude eventually disgusts his ConsumateProfessional partner Locus so much that he has a HeelRealization and turns on him.]]

* ''Series/DontHugMeImScared'': {{Implied|Trope}} with [[spoiler:[[FalseGod Lesley]], the woman in the attic]]. When Yellow Guy accidentally destroys their figurine of Duck Guy, they opens up a cabinet containing a bunch of copy figurines of the characters and quickly switch him out. Considering that [[spoiler:they can seemingly control where the characters go through the figurines, and one version of Duck Guy had been killed in Episode 2]], this seems to indicate that [[spoiler:she can easily switch the characters out for duplicates when the situation calls for it]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2'', Lord Shen orders to fire a cannon against his enemies, even though they were fighting amongst his soldiers. When the army leader refuses to obey, Lord Shen slashes him and fires the cannon himself.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Franchise/DragonBall'':
** ''Manga/DragonBall'': During the Red Ribbon Army arc, Commander Red has this attitude towards his men, and also has them executed for ''[[YouHaveFailedMe any]]'' [[YouHaveFailedMe kind of failure, no matter how small]]. It becomes even worse when it turns out that he didn't want the [[MacGuffin Dragon Balls]] to TakeOverTheWorld, but just to [[WastefulWishing make himself taller]].
** ''Manga/DragonBallZ'':
*** [[GalacticConquerer Frieza]] has absolutely no concern for the lives of his men, to the point that he takes virtually any excuse he can to kill them himself. A big part of the Namek Saga consists of him sending wave after wave of his mooks after the Z-Fighters until there's literally ''no one'' left. When he returns in the prelude to the Android saga and faces Trunks, he does the same again, even taking the moment to kill off the one mook that Trunks has spared.
*** [[EvilSorcerer Babidi]] considers ''all'' of his minions expendable as long as he gets to Majin Buu. His [[EstablishingCharacterMoment first scene]] has him have Spopovich and Yamu killed on the spot after they give him Gohan's stolen Ki, with the Supreme Kai stating outright that Babidi ''always'' kills any minions [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness he thinks he doesn't need anymore]], and the very second Buu is revived, Babidi immediately casts off Dabura, his loyal right-hand man, and allows Buu to kill and eat him, spelling it out to him that he doesn't need anyone to serve him but Majin Buu. This ends up [[LaserGuidedKarma biting him in the ass]] once Buu realizes, with a little prodding from Goku, [[EvilIsNotAToy that he doesn't]] ''[[EvilIsNotAToy have]]'' [[EvilIsNotAToy to take Babidi's shit]].
** ''Manga/DragonBallSuper'': Moro's general attitude towards his men. Among other things, he pumps Saganbo full of energy and forces him to fight Goku until he undergoes a SuperpowerMeltdown and drops dead and [[DevourTheDragon eats Seven-Three alive]] for a power boost. He even flat-out tells Goku as such after Saganbo's death, much to the latter's outrage.
--->'''Goku''': Wasn't he your friend...?\\
'''Moro''': My friend? I have no friends— those were my soldiers. They may be gone, but I can always collect more.
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'':
** Rei's mantra "If I die, I can be replaced!" is a rare case of a character invoking this trope on ''herself'', which is exploited by Gendo Ikari. [[spoiler:[[CloningBlues She can. We have the technology.]]]]
** Played straight with other pilots. In the Unit 03 incident where he casually orders it destroyed with the pilot [[spoiler:(Touji in series, Asuka in the Rebuild films)]] still inside, and activates the Dummy system when Shinji won't do it [[spoiler:and based on his comments about needing Shinji and Rei together in Rebuild, it's hinted he deliberately took the chance to eliminate Asuka, so she wouldn't become a unknown extra factor in his plans.]].

* MadBomber Kimblee of ''Anime/FullMetalAlchemist'' turns fellow soldiers into living bombs in the anime and indiscriminately used one as a human shield in the manga.
** In the manga, Amestris' entire philosophy during the Ishval Civil War was this. Naturally, the soldiers like Maes Hughes did not take kindly to this, and Amestris officers were frequently shot by their own men. [[spoiler:This was, however, less a matter of callousness and more a deliberate attempt to kill as many people as possible on both sides to empower the Philosopher's Stone.]]
* In the manga of ''LightNovel/SoImASpiderSoWhat'', the Anograchs (monkey-like monsters) and especially their higher-tier leaders the Bugragtachs follow this mentality; in their mad urge to kill Kumoko, they storm her web by the hundreds, and just use the ones who get caught as stepping stones. Triple-digit deaths matters little as long as they get to kill one little spider who didn't even provoke them in the first place.
* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', Orochimaru [[spoiler:kills the squad of teenage ninja (minus Dosu, who was already dead) he had infiltrating the chuunin exams in order to [[EquivalentExchange use their lives]] to [[BackFromTheDead resurrect]] several deceased ninja leaders, just to help him win one fight. One of the resurrections even ends up failing and kills its component ninja anyway.]] He even explicitly ''told'' Kakashi earlier that he considers any of his subordinates without special worth worthless pawns.
* In the anime ''Anime/NowAndThenHereAndThere'', an insane king orders a superweapon fired on a battlefield where his own men are fighting the enemy. Thing is, he ''didn't'' have reserves (not enough, anyway), and spent an episode or two freaking out over it before deciding to kidnap more people to draft into his army. The fact that they're ''children'' makes the use of this trope even more effective than usual.
* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamThe08thMSTeam'', a Federation commander starts what turns into a string of KickTheDog moments when he deliberately marches mobile suit teams into traps in an attempt to cause a nuclear blast when their reactors go off, destroying or at least uncovering the Zeon base hidden in a mountain.
** Supplementary material from the One Year War-era series indicates this is the entire purpose behind the RB-79 Ball -- a small, unarmored, slow-moving space utility pod made combat-capable by mounting a heavy cannon on it, shortcomings which they attempt to make up for by [[ZergRush producing as many of the little buggers as they can]]. Later Federation Mobile Suits aren't much better -- the GM, a mass-produced version of the SuperPrototype Gundam, has only about half the offensive potential and has no [[EscapePod core block system]] to save pilots that are shot down.
** In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'', the Earth Alliance activates a cyclops system hidden beneath their Alaska base when it comes under attack by ZAFT. The system nukes everything within 6.25 miles of the base and kills nearly everyone defending it. This actually helps the Atlantic Federation as it kills off most of the Eurasian political moderates and allows the Earth Alliance to pursue a more genocidal path towards ending the war. This is what causes the Archangel crew to finally defect from the Alliance.
*** Muruta Azrael and Lord Djibril, leaders of Blue Cosmos, and by default, the Atlantic Federation both use this as their strategy. They believe their men to be expendable, and in Azrael's case, actually classes some of his soldiers as equipment, rather than personnel.
** ''Manga/MobileSuitCrossboneGundam'' has a particularly extreme example. [[TheEmpire The Jupiter Empire]] tends to be very strict with its resources (like air, water, and MS) because these things are a lot harder to come by so far from Earth. This attitude, however, does ''not'' extend to human beings; early on, the heroes learn that their well-intentioned mercy is pointless, as the pilots they capture and release get executed by the Empire as punishment for allowing their MS to be destroyed.

* During the final arc of ''Anime/CodeGeass'', [[spoiler:Lelouch (the protagonist)]] takes this trope to an extreme, having {{Mind Control}}led an army into being his slaves (making them all wear masks that make it clear that these are not longer human beings, just pawns) and then using them in battle in ways that would ensure their deaths (using them as bait, or sending them to be used as shields against nukes) without concern. [[spoiler:How bad this makes him look is exactly what he is pretending to be, for the sake of uniting the world against him and bringing about world peace]].

* Often demonstrated by the villains in ''Manga/OnePiece'', usually in contrast to the protagonists who are shown to be caring for their crewmates and avoid innocent casualties. Examples: Captain Kuro, who [[spoiler:uses a randomly striking killing technique while his men are in the area and planned to off them ALL anyway to cover his tracks ("They are worthless except to further my plans!")]]; Enel, who would [[spoiler:destroy a kingdom full of his own subjects because only he deserves to live in the sky]]; and massive idiot Spandam, who doesn't really care about [[spoiler:(accidentally) invoking ten battleships to obliterate Enies Lobby and all its staff and soldiers]] if it gets him his success. The most multi-layered Bastard award goes to Crocodile, who while posing as [[spoiler:[[FakeUltimateHero a local hero protector of the populace]]]], incites a [[spoiler:civil war]] in Alabasta, and during the climax of which [[spoiler:has a massive cannon aimed at the centre of the warring parties (including his own agents provocateur among them) to wipe them all out in one swoop. More than that, the cannon's giant bomb is rigged with a timer to go off even if it isn't launched, which Crocodile's own elite agents guarding the cannon don't know!]]
** Averted with Captain T-Bone, who rips apart his officer's cloak to make bandages for his men, and when later facing the Strawhats, his first concern is what happened to the troops they had to have gone through.
** Even if they aren't necessarily the villains, some of the Marines show this behaviour too, as the doctrine of "Absolute Justice" implies that any evil should be eradicated at any cost. This is shown during the Buster Call in Enies Lobby, when one warship was destroyed (along with one thousand marines) by the others in order to kill only one criminal; one of the captains even shot a marine who hesitated in following the order. In the Marineford arc, Akainu is seen dousing one of his own men in lava because that soldier wisely knew he didn't have a chance of inflicting any damage on the pirate army they were facing, and ''begged'' to be taken off the front lines so he could live another day to support his wife and family. Akainu then tries to do the same to Coby because Coby dared to point out that marines were dying because they were being neglected treatment while the other marines were off chasing pirates that were trying to either withdraw or surrender, having lost all reason to fight. Never mind that Akainu completely ignores Blackbeard, who not only betrayed his own commander, Whitebeard, and murdered his comrades, but betrayed the Marines too, and made himself a very real threat by stealing, and using Whitebeard's "Quake Quake" fruit.
** MadScientist Caesar Clown in the Punk Hazard arc shows us clearly that he doesn't give a shit about how many people he has to kill for his experiments. Hell, he'll even do so with a huge smile on his face if it means succeeding, [[spoiler:and gloats about the fact that the children he experimented on will not survive five years, all the while being a BitchInSheepsClothing to all of them]]. ''[[{{Jerkass}} Damn!]]''
** Soldiers of Germa 66 are trained to jump in front of the leader and act as a meat shields, whenever said leader says "wall". This isn't only used for defense -- the leader of the family once used this command to block his opponents attack, and then ''stabbed him through his own soldier''. Their disregard for soldier lives are motivated by the fact [[spoiler:that all their soldiers are [[CloneArmy clones, artificially grown in Germa's laboratories]].]]
** During the Wano Arc, one of Kaido's top lieutenants, Queen, outright tells their [[{{Mooks}} non-ability user troops]] that they're absolutely worthless and that he doesn't give the tiniest crap if he accidentally kills them with his manufactured plagues because they're easily replaceable. [[spoiler:They quickly turn against him once Chopper manufactures an antidote and cures them, realizing their ''enemies'' cared more for their lives than their own boss did. Queen ''still'' has the '''audacity''' to call them ungrateful when they switch sides!]]

* In ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'', Shishio sends a group of four monks to recruit [[TheStoic Aoshi]], knowing that they will get drawn into a conflict and probably all die, but it will give him a chance to measure Aoshi's skills. Aoshi picks up on this and calls Shishio's [[TheDragon Dragon]] Soujiro out on it after the CurbStompBattle, saying he thinks both the tactic and Shishio are heartless and despicable. Unusually, Soujiro jabs back at Aoshi, saying that [[WhatMeasureIsAMook it was just as heartless for Aoshi to kill 4 men without hesitation knowing that they were only pawns who were no match for him]].

* In ''Manga/{{Saikano}}'', a JSDF commander orders the evacuation of the regulars but not the reserves before unleashing [[PersonOfMassDestruction Chise]], so that the enemy won't see it coming. [[spoiler:In a moment of perfect {{Ax Craz|y}}iness and LaserGuidedKarma, she taunts and kills the command group a couple pages later.]]

* In ''VideoGame/SengokuBasara'', many of the villains seem to take this attitude, but none more so than [[TheChessmaster Mori Motonari]], who regards all his men (and indeed his opponents' men) as disposable...and for that matter uses the term "sacrificial pawn" far more than any decent commander should.
* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', Fiamma of the Right doesn't care about his teammates in God's Right Seat. He declares that he is the only important member and as long as he lives, he can get new members.
* In the English dub of ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'', America has a "great" plan to defeat the titular Axis Powers. Russia's role? Keep sending in cannon fodder!
* In ''Manga/{{Freezing}}'', Scarlet Oohara may be willing to perform excruciatingly painful experiments on young girls in order to reinforce the only capable fighting force against the Novas, but she ''does'' genuinely care about her subjects and doesn't want to hurt them any more than necessary. Too bad the brass are demanding quick results, even if forcing things could result in the girls' deaths, and always remind her that they could get new girls in. [[spoiler:Even worse, the E-Pandora project was never meant to produce viable results. The recruits were nothing but a means to buy time for Scarlet's ''real'' pet project to bear fruit.]]
* In ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato2199'', the ''Yamato'' attempts to use Gamillan warp gates to save time. Coincidentally, the enemy Field Marshall is holding a fleet review [[spoiler:as a prelude to seizing control of the Empire]] at a major gate hub they must pass through. As the ''Yamato'' breaks through the ten thousand-strong fleet, the Field Marshall orders his ships to open fire. Friendly fire and collisions destroy more ships than the humans do, [[spoiler:at least until the WaveMotionGun destroys the gates' power source while escaping via RecoilBoost.]]
* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'':
** Both Commander Erwin and Commander Pixis, despite being [[AFatherToHisMen fathers to their men,]] often have to employ this mentality with their own soldiers and even civilians as any and all sacrifices are acceptable if it means saving humanity as a whole. They know their efforts has caused the deaths of countless of people and believe [[ImGoingToHellForThis there is a spot in Hell waiting for them]].
** This is standard for [[spoiler:the nation of Marley]], which is more than happy to use this to keep their Warriors in line. Should they ask too many questions, disobey orders, or fail their missions, their superiors will simply [[EatenAlive replace]] them with one of the many reserve candidates.
* Rather horribly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'': A Kushan general doesn't seem to care whether the RainOfArrows initiated by him [[TrialByFriendlyFire lands on his own troops]]. This is however part of the Kushan's tactics, since the soldiers put in the front lines are not actually Kushans but people from the countries invaded by them. This way they can save their own troops, plus it has a demoralizing effect on the opponent. The biggest advantage is that, since the invading Kushans are constantly getting new reserves, they can use tactics like this and still ''keep growing in strength.''
* In ''Anime/VoltesV'', the BigBad does not care if his own troops get within range of his DoomsdayDevice, as long as Voltes V is defeated.

* Leonmichelle from ''Anime/DogDays'' is a big fan of wave attacks, and none too fussy about any damage to her own side that her attacks might cause. Of course, like most war tropes in ''Dog Days'', this is completely PlayedForLaughs, because in such a [[FriendlyWar war where]] [[NonLethalKO nobody gets]] [[NonLethalWarfare seriously hurt]], the only real casualty in a worst-case scenario would be [[ClothingDamage the clothes]].
* ''Manga/NectarOfDharani'': Valento convinces the dark elf generals to shell their own men because ordering a retreat order first would warn the enemy. Then when the battle turns, he casually escapes and leaves them behind.

* ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' has a card called "Human Wave Tactics" that allows a player to replace low-level normal (no effect) monsters at the end of the turn they're killed. (Ironically, all eligible monsters are absolutely useless offensively. [[CombinedEnergyAttack Having hordes of monsters in your graveyard, however...]])
* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering''

* Played perfectly straight by the Russian military in ''ComicBook/ThePunisherMAX''. Where one particular arc sees Frank Castle tasked with infiltrating a nuclear missile base in Siberia and rescuing a six year old girl whose blood contains an experimental super virus. However the mission goes awry and Frank has to fight his way out of the missile base. And the Russian military's attempts at trying to prevent his escape amount to sending out as many conscripts as humanly possible in the hopes that it will work. ''It doesn't''.
-->'''Frank Castle''': Russian military never was too sentimental about spending lives.\\
''Frank finishes slaughtering the current wave of Russian troops''\\
'''Frank''': — I'm not too sentimental either.
* Starr from ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'' does this at least once, sending a US tank division against [[ImplacableMan 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 BadBoss, 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.
--->'''Grail Officer''': Requesting permission to withdraw the next charge, sir.\\
'''D'Aronique''': Denied. Instead you will ''lead'' it.
* ''ComicBook/XWingRogueSquadron'': In the 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 CombatByChampion 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 HeelFaceTurn and go after Semtin, who had this to say before he was shot.
-->'''Semtin:''' I told you the mission would involve sacrifices! You should be willing to give up your very ''life'' for your Emperor!\\
'''Sixtus:''' For the Empire, yes! For the personal gain of its officials... ''never''!

-->'''Twilight''': They're mortals. Got to die sometime.
* In ''Franchise/XMen'' story ''ComicBook/DaysOfFuturePast'', Sentinels don't care how much you kill. Destroy one Sentinel, destroy a hundred, a thousand, it does not matter. Their number is overwhelming.
* ''ComicBook/BlakeAndMortimer'': Olrik's forces take heavy losses when they attack the British's secret base, much to the protest of one of his officer. Olrik brush it off was they have plenty of reserves.
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':
** In ''ComicBook/KryptonNoMore'', Superman and ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} fight a warrior alien race called the J'ai that has this mindset. They don't care for casualties because they reproduce very, very quickly.
** Inverted in ''ComicBook/LastDaughterOfKrypton'': Reign is a blood-thirsty SuperSupremacist, but she cannot afford any of her three henchmen, which is because she reluctantly forfeits a battle when one of them gets poisoned.
** ''ComicBook/AMindSwitchInTime'': [[BigBad Euphor]]'s reaction to his minions getting killed by their own powers is uttering "How tragic! Oh, well-- There's more where they came from!" and transforming another person.
* Played absolutely straight by Jhiaxus in the ''ComicBook/TransformersGeneration2'' comic, in which his reponse to staggering losses is to throw another wave of troops into battle with the Warworld and the Swarm.

* ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'' shows a battle involving a General who states his willingness to sacrifice gladly a hundred thousand men to kill any one enemy, and who demonstrates this by piling corpses against the castle walls high enough for troops to climb all the way up and then taking one enemy's head before retreating.
* A ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'' storyline used it to contrast a CardCarryingVillain with a NobleDemon. When Baron Zemo sent waves of HYDRA mooks to get captured as a distraction while he broke Codename:Bravo out of the Raft, Zemo comments that this is what HYDRA mooks are ''for'', but Bravo replies that he respects the sacrifice of his soldiers.

* ''ComicBook/BlackScience'': Peterson's dimensionaut team returns from a successful foray. During the debriefing one of their finds breaks free and begins slaughtering the team. Mr Block seals the door instead of allowing them to escape or fighting back against the beast. He then calmly orders a backup team out on a new mission.
* Following the Genesis wave arc botching his plans in ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'', Eggman resorts to his plan B of robotising the whole planet. The clincher in this however is that he knows that any machinery that cannot be robotised will explode on exposure, meaning almost certain destruction for all his enemies either way. Sally points out it's suicide as that would detonate all his own troops in the process, which Eggman shrugs off, noting with a SlasherSmile, there's no [[YouCantMakeAnOmelette making an omelette]] "without cracking a few eggs". Even Sonic and Sally, who trash Eggman's goons in droves, [[EveryoneHasStandards are utterly repulsed by this.]]

* ''Series/RedDwarf''. For all Rimmer's obsession with war and military strategy, the one time he leads an army consisting entirely of wax droids, he has almost all of them charge across a minefield under cover of daylight as a distraction while Kryten and Mother Theresa infiltrate the enemy headquarters to take out Hitler and co. The nun dies, but Kryten manages to rig the thermostat to melt all of the wax droids. As a result, Rimmer's actions wipe out everyone on the planet. When he claims that the menace that plagued the planet has been vanquished, Lister counters with "No it's not. You're still here."

* The GrandFinale of ''[[Series/SpartacusBloodAndSand Spartacus War of the Damned]]'' pays homage to ''Film/{{Braveheart}}''. Marcus Crassus orders catapults and ballista to be fired into the melee, and when Julis Ceasar protests that they'll hit their own men, Crassus counters that they have reserves and he is ''tired'' of this war. [[spoiler:Spartacus actually anticipated this, and has Gannicus and Saxa lead a cavalry charge to take the artillery and turn it against the Romans.]]
* In ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek]]'', the original series, Kirk and Spock subtly accuse Lokai of having slipped into this mentality in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" -- Lokai saying they won't put where their money where their mouth is -- how they won't "fight or die" for the justice he asks.
-->'''Captain Kirk:''' After so many years of leading the fight, you seem very much alive.\\

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
** The Vorta Keevan gives the heroes his battle plan because being taken prisoner would be better for him than being stranded and wounded with a bunch of {{Super Soldier}}s about to go AxCrazy from withdrawal. Particularly nasty since his soldiers are ''warned'' that they've been betrayed, but are too loyal themselves to disobey. And the genetically engineered Jem'Hadar were programmed to see themselves as disposable, all willing to attain victory for their gods The Founders at any cost.
** One Jem'Hadar mentioned that they are combat ready days after their "births" and managing to live to twenty makes a Jem'Hadar an honored elder. In the several thousand year history of the Dominion, no Jem'Hadar has ever lived to be thirty ([[WeAreAsMayflies though that might have a different explanation]]).
* The Borg in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' and ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' have no regard for the lives of individual drones, any more than a human would fret the loss of a few cells. If they die, the Collective learns from their deaths and adapts, making those that remain less likely to die and more likely to assimilate those that felled their comrades.
** The Borg Queen takes this to idiotic heights in "Unimatrix Zero". When ''Voyager's'' antics have resulted in a small fraction of the Collective being freed from her control, she tries to coerce Janeway into helping her rectify it by self-destructing Cubes filled with thousands of drones just to kill one or two in each ship. Janeway logically pointed out that she'd have to blow up the entire Collective to get them all with that strategy, so she changed tactics.
** The ship the Borg children were found on was infected by an unknown pathogen. When the children relayed this information, the Collective promptly severed their link and left them for dead, deeming the pathogen too great a risk to consider rescuing a few incomplete drones and a half-functioning vessel.

* Referenced in the Union version of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar song ''Battle Cry of Freedom'':
-->"We'll fill the vacant ranks with a million Free Men more!"
* Music/{{Metallica}}''s "Disposable Heroes":
-->Back to the front / You will do what I say, when I say "Back to the front." You will die when I say, when I say "Back to the front." / You coward, you servant, you blind man, back to the front.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''

** In fact, out of the whole 40k universe, the T'au, Space Marines, and the Eldar are remarkable for the fact that they ''don't'' have reserves. The T'au are rare in that they always calculate if the fight is worth it and happily pull out of bad situations to come back when it counts. This behavior is contrasted with the Imperium, which will funnel millions of lives into a deathtrap or fruitless last stand as a point of honor. The Space Marines are essentially a special operations force with the Imperial Guard acting as the reserves. The Eldar cope by using [[DifficultButAwesome stealth, guerilla tactics or -- even better -- just tricking someone else into fighting their battles for them]]. For everyone else, though, it's mainly just [[CrapsackWorld 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, but there are a whole lot of them to begin with, and thanks to teleportation and auto-repair technology, Necrons are basically impossible to permanently destroy.

* The Skaven from good old fashioned TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} have a SlaveMooks unit with a rule called ''life is cheap'' which lets their player 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 flamethrowers in the game's medieval setting.
** This is a bit of an interesting example in that sacrificing their own troops is actually a necessity. Skaven are designed for it, breeding like the rodents they are based off of and eating more than the average human due to their high metabolisms. If not for this they would suffer from severe overpopulation and political instability (well, more than usual) as a result. This doesn't mean they aren't evil -- indeed, a key reason ''why'' such tactics are tolerated is because every Skaven [[ItsAllAboutMe is so self-absorbed]] that even the ones sent in as blatant CannonFodder are willing to take their chances for some time due to all the other Skaven with them that they don't really care are also around to die in their stead (not to mention the higher-ups [[AnOfferYouCantRefuse just directly threatening their lives]])...and Skaven morale in battle is still pretty poor anyway.
** In the background Dark Elves do this with slave troops (one story has them herd their recently captured slaves onto the battlefield where they shoot them down to serve as cover, interfere with the enemies' cavalry and to demoralize the enemy (it works)) though it doesn't happen in the game itself.
** Chaos Dwarfs also have disposable slave troops, mostly Hobgoblins but other Goblinoid races as well, while they couldn't fire into combat they did have a large amount of area of effect weaponry that was fairly indiscriminate, also in past iterations they had a magic item that caused Hobgoblin heroes to explode...
** Vampire Counts tend to use skeletons and zombies to this effect, often [[AnimateDead the same skeleton or zombie several times over]]. Interestingly the Vampire Counts treat ''themselves'' as expendable because even if you can kill one with a method that would kill a vampire ''and'' they lose their magical resurrection ring to stop them coming back, they can ''still'' come back from the dust they were reduced to by absorbing enough life force. Ironically they ''[[PragmaticVillainy don't]]'' tend to treat their living subjects like this: few living people willingly associate with the undead, and for a vampire lord, having loyal mortal servants who can operate in plain sight (and daylight!) and further your interests is a valuable asset. Not to mention pointlessly sending peasants to their deaths when you can easily send some skeletons or zombies in their place just emboldens the living against the midnight aristocracy. {{Vampire Vannabe}}s beware, as your master can easily find (or make) a new vampire servant, but that [[TheRenfield Renfield]] he keeps around is nigh-irreplaceable.
** Orcs and Goblins in TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy. Green life is cheap.
** As is that of the Bretonnian peasants. Fortunately they have longbows and can kill at distance and run away should things get queasy.
* Kobolds in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' tend to use such tactics, since they are possibly the weakest and fastest-breeding humanoid race. The soldiers are proud to do it, too.
** This is expanded upon in the sourcebook ''Races of the Dragon'' -- Kobolds [[ObfuscatingStupidity intentionally cultivate]] the opinion that they are weak and pathetic so that people will leave them alone or otherwise underestimate them, but at the same time, an individual kobold's outlook on life is that it doesn't matter if ''he'' dies, as long as ''his city'' survives. This pseudo-communist outlook covers all of kobold society from the top down, and influences kobold city defense -- the older (and thus, not as likely to breed) kobolds will happily throw themselves en masse at an enemy to give the rest of the city enough time to escape.
** Goblins are likewise content to get mowed down en masse because they breed even faster than kobolds. Orcs do it too, but mainly just 'cause they're dumb, overconfident, and have no sense of tactics.
** 4th Edition has a feat for ''players'' which increases the power of area attacks if you include allies in the area. Reserves or not, you're expendable if I want my +2.
*** There are a lot of area attacks in 4E that ONLY target enemies. Chilling Cloud for example allows Wizards to target enemies in melee without risking damaging their allies. Invokers, Divine Controlers, specialize in these sort of 'party safe' spells and can benifit greatly from Coordinated Fire without invoking this trope.
* The Cheiron Group in ''TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil'' hire people to go capture supernatural creatures for experimentation... with their only preparations being a book filled with half-truths and outright fables. Hey, with the way the job market is, if anyone dies, we can hire new ones!
* YOU, the player, in TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}. Your life in Alpha Complex will inevitably result in you [[SuperpowerMeltdown dying in]] [[UnfriendlyFire a number]] [[PhlebotinumOverload of horrible]] [[YouHaveFailedMe ways]], but it's okay, because you have plenty of [[CloningBlues backups where that came from]].
* ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' may or may not count for this. Given that actually [[DeathIsCheap dying isn't that big of a deal]], and that a fair amount of character types (robots, nano-swarms, etc) probably couldn't feel pain anyway, there is certainly a healthy disregard for the value of individual life, even though the players work for a conspiracy dedicated to preventing the extinction of transhumanity. Within the fiction of the rule books grazing team mates with plasma rifles to hit the bad guys, sacrificing yourself to buy time, straight up murdering a friend and exploding your head with an anti-matter bomb (all for the sake of the mission) shows up. And that's just in the first short story. Everyone is expendable and people dying is an accepted part of the trade and just not a big deal.
* Pretty much how the original board game TabletopGame/{{Risk}} works. The game mechanics are very simple: capture territory, raise an army, overwhelm your opponents, Lather Rinse Repeat.
* In TabletopGame/{{Chess}}, only the king matters. Players quite often sacrifice multiple pieces on their own side to ensure a checkmate. On the other hand, any half-decent player will only sacrifice pieces willy-nilly when they're damn sure it will result in a checkmate or as part of a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambit gambit]] (which, in chess, refers to a calculated sacrifice to achieve a more favorable position, ''not'' what it means in other contexts). After all, in a game where you only have 16 pieces to work with and no way of getting more, you don't want to throw pieces away unless you get something out of it. Even the pawns. ''Especially'' the pawns, at high-level play.
* ''TabletopGame/StrikeLegion'': How the Imperium. With the Star Republic so outnumbered that all their races pull out every stop to give advantages to their QualityOverQuantity [[EliteArmy Elite Fleets and Armies]], to the point that Imperial doctrine calls for 12:1 superiority against [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Draken]] fleets, and [[RammingAlwaysWorks suicide ramming]] against heavily shielded Cheden vessels, and those aren't even the most dangerous species in the Star Republic. Even so, they're winning, because, well, They Have Reserves.
* ''TabletopGames/VictoryInThePacific'': Averted for ''ships'' of both sides, despite the large amounts of American reinforcements, but played straight with land-based air units, which when destroyed, sit out the rest of that turn plus the entire following turn, and then return to the game good as new. The idea is that a ship sunk is completely sunk, but a flotilla of hundreds of aircraft isn't entirely destroyed, it just takes losses to the point it has to re-form with new equipment before it is combat-worthy again.
* ''TabletopGame/TheDarkEye'': An Admiral Vikos victory is one where you suffer higher losses than the enemy but, unlike them, can afford to do so.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': Surprisingly averted in a bit of flavor text. Some Dragon-Blooded officers care about the lives of their mortal subordinates and some don't, but regardless of that throwing mortals at Celestial Exalted is just wasting them to no purpose. When the Anathema show up, it's time for the officers to order the mortals to stand aside and enter the battle themselves.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Battletech}}'':
** The Draconis Combine and the Lyran Commonwealth suffer from this trope in the classic timeline. The Combine combines a strong HonorBeforeReason warrior culture with favouring quick, aggressive assaults with fast and light 'mechs. As such, they tend to throw away men and resources on undergunned attacks without sufficient support, which fail to obtain their objective and then are too proud to retreat in time when things go south. The Lyrans, by contrast, are a strategic MightyGlacier: Extremely wealthy, populous and led by [[GeneralFailure Social Generals]], they ''always'' have enough men and materiel to throw away on massive offensives and have a tolerance for losses that gives even the Combine pause. The two factions are also neighbours and major rivals; Combine/Lyran wars tend to be bloody affairs.
** The Clans have an... Interesting relation to this trope. Clan society ''abhors'' waste, but it also has an even more hidebound honour system than the Combine and puts no value whatsoever on individual Clan lives. As such, any formal battle between Clans tend to be solved extremely quickly and with very little blood spilled before the losing side accepts ''hegira'' (an honourable withdrawal offered to a defeated enemy), but on the other hand when the Clans ''do'' go all-out they are expected to fight to the death and bring as many enemies down with them as possible. This includes any time ''solahma'' units gets involved, which are Clan CannonFodder made up of washed-out warriors who couldn't make the cut in their AsskickingEqualsAuthority ranking system. To Clans, ''solahma'' units cannot, by definition, be 'wasted' because they already ''are'' by dint of existing.

* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'', this is the attitude of Felix. A mercenary at heart and an AxCrazy bastard in his soul, Felix has no problems letting soldiers under his command die to suit his purposes. "Fewer people, bigger cuts". [[spoiler:Ultimately, this costs the Space Pirates the battle for Chorus on two fronts; One, the Space Pirates lose so many men that their remaining forces are stretched thin, allowing the heroes to prevail. And two, his attitude eventually disgusts his ConsumateProfessional partner Locus so much that he has a HeelRealization and turns on him.]]
* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': The titular organization will willfully sacrifice hundreds of its D-Class personnel when observing [=SCP=]s. many of which die in cruel and painful manners, and even if they do survive over a month they get executed anyway. Don't feel too sorry for the D-Class personnel, though -- the Foundation recruits them from death row convicts, i.e. murderers and rapists, to ensure a supply of expendable, unsympathetic {{Red Shirt}}s for its experiments. The idea that they're all killed at the end of the month has since fallen out of favor and the [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2193 trope itself]] is listed as an SCP to justify the inconsistency.
* Humourously spoofed in ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'''s ShowWithinAShow ''Cheat Commandos'', where Gunhaver shows absolutely no concern for the safety of the "[[RedShirt Green Helmets]]":
-->'''Silent Rip''': Uh, shouldn't we go help him?\\
'''Gunhaver''': Naw, he's just one of those Green Helmets. We've got like fifty of them.

* The evil [[FishPeople Kua-Toa]] of ''WebVideo/TalesFromMyDDCampaign'' rely heavily on vast legions of expendable aquatic SlaveMooks to keep their EnemyCivilWar going.
** Also Inverted in the case of the Verandi invasion. The chief reason why the startling amount of resistance the humans put up was so aggravating to the Kua leadership was that the Kua are the only race that can breathe both air and water, meaning that they couldn't use their armies of expendable slaves, and were instead getting large numbers of actual Kua killed trying to hold on to their foothold.
* LetsPlay/SpoilerWarning found it amusing that this is a common way to deal with Combine tripmines in ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', and started quoting the examples from ''Shrek'', ''Cheat Commandos'', and ''Futurama''.
* ''Podcast/PlumbingTheDeathStar'''s Zammit hopes to put the suicide back in ''Film/{{Suicide Squad|2016}}'' in "How Would You Use The Suicide Squad" by sending the squad into areas humans haven't explored because of how dangerous they are. The logic is that eventually one of the squad members will survive and be able to further the sciences with their discoveries; even if the entire Suicide Squad is killed on their adventures into the unknown, odds are Batman will have used that time to capture even ''more'' supervillains to put on the squad.
* In Creator/TeamFourStar's abridgment of the ''Anime/HellsingUltimate'' OVA, the Major laughs off hearing that his forces are getting eaten up, ''because they're Nazis.''

* ''Literature/TheFireNeverDies'':
** Averted by both sides of the [[SecondAmericanCivilWar Second American Revolution]]. The Reds have the numbers to get away with these tactics, but avoid such tactics when possible (largely out of concern for morale), preferring to spend ammunition instead of blood. The Whites, meanwhile, are quite aware of the fact that they do ''not'' have reserves.

'''Canaan-Föder:''' I... I don't know, sir.
-->'''Duke Fried:''' [[RecordNeedleScratch That's easy, you don't!]] You just keep sending wave after wave of men to their deaths! Now, call in the reserves -- we're having a good old-fashioned troop surge!

-->'''Canaan-Föder:''' How does it feel to ''be'' the last man to die for a mistake, asshole?
* In ''WebVideo/SwordArtOnlineAbridged'', a raid leader reads the beta tester's strategy guide for a floor boss out loud. Since the boss will throw wave after wave of monsters at them, the players are advised to... "respond in kind." (To be fair to the beta testers, Aincrad wasn't a DeadlyGame when the guide was written, so murdering players was at worst a dick move.)

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries''. Tony Zucco, (an extortionist who set up the "accident" that killed Dick Grayson's parents), shoots at Batman with a Tommy gun, even though multiple {{mooks}} are likely to be hit as well and beg him not to.

-->'''Brannigan:''' [[GeneralFailure On my signal, all ships will file directly into the enemy death cannons, clogging them with wreckage]]!

-->'''Brannigan:''' How many men did we lose, Kif?\\

-->'''Brannigan:''' Whatever you mission is, I'm willing to put wave after wave of men at your disposal. Right, men?\\
''[complete silence from the entire mess hall]''\\

-->'''Bender:''' Sir, I volunteer for a suicide mission! ...lousy patriotism circuit!\\

-->'''Brannigan:''' Now, assuming the fifteenth pile of children buys us a few seconds...

* ''Webcomic/DragonBallMultiverse'': Bojack's gang was composed of twenty-seven members when it was formed, according to Bujin; according to the novelization, this is the reason why there were only five members left when they met the Z-Warriors.
* ''Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily'' provides the current page image, in a comic that shows the contrast between the ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' tactician and the ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' one. The former focuses on his troops' continued survival (being in a video game where [[CastOfSnowflakes any one of the unique units]] [[AnyoneCanDie can die]]), while the latter encourages aggressive tactics without caring about his troops' casualties, because he "can always buy more troops." [[http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/comic/title-559/ The full comic can be seen here.]]