As this is a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.
Uriah Gambits in Anime and Manga.
- The plot of Area 88 starts with Kanzaki tricking Shin into enlisting in the Aslan Foreign Legion in the middle of a civil war, in order to have a shot at Shin's girlfriend, Ryoko.
- Aruosumente: When threatened by an approaching enemy army, Oracle Kian decided to send out Dante — who he had decided was uncontrollable — to face the army alone, putting Dante's non-combatant brother in front of the gates as well for added motivation. It backfired badly, with Dante not only surviving but killing 300 enemy soldiers, Rucetta's second-in-command getting killed because she tried to save the children, and possibly resulting in Kian's own death down the line.
- Happens more than once in Case Closed, with the most spectacular case being the Diplomat Murder Case. The villain, Isao, fancied a lady named Kimie, who was Happily Married to Isao's rival Yamashiro. So Isao used Yamashiro as a scapegoat in a fraud (with help of his father Toshimitsu), waited until poor Yamashiro died in prison, and then went Comforting the Widow on Kimie. This backfired years later, when... Isao's son started dating Yamashiro and Kimie's long-lost daughter without knowing it, Isao had a Freak Out at that, and Kimie put two and two together....
- In Claymore, the Organization reserves its most dangerous missions for its most troublesome members.
- In Code Geass R2, Lelouch tries to get Rolo killed several times as punishment for replacing Nunnally (it's unknown if he starts to reconsider due to Rolo's competence as a Black Ops agent, but then Rolo just had to murder his near-girlfriend Shirley out of both envy and wrongly-placed knowledge), but the little guy's a survivor. For further irony, when Rolo did die, it was through a Heroic Sacrifice to save Lelouch's life after Lelouch admitted he had been trying to kill Rolo and that he'd never be Lelouch's real brother... and Lelouch ended up genuinely forgiving him.
- The Familiar of Zero: King Joseph of Gallia repeatedly sent his niece Tabitha on dangerous missions meant to kill her. This was partially out of sadism, partially because Tabitha is a threat to his rule because she is next in line to the throne. Tabitha always survived and succeeded.
- In Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), after Lior's Destruction by Scar's Philosopher's Stone Array and Alphonse telling to Roy that Fuhrer King Bradley is a Homunculus, the main villain has Pride send Roy, his squad and Armstrong to another war, so one of the homunculi can shoot them during the battle and blame it on their enemies.
- Gate:
- The corrupt Emperor Molto Sol Augustus sends an army drafted from his allied nations to attack the JSDF, but doesn't send any reinforcements like he said he would. As expected, they are all killed, and he remarks that now his so called allies lack the military strength to threaten him.
- Princess Piña attempts to do this with Third Recon Team by stationing them alone on the south gate of Italica to take the brunt of the bandit's attacks. It doesn't work since they attack the east gate. Itami, for his part, believes this is due to a lack of options on Piña's part as opposed to actual malice.
- Haruhi Suzumiya — what do you do when your Data Interface gains emotions, but you can't kill her off lest the protective Badass Normal called Kyon convinces Haruhi to recreate the world and wipe you out? You invoke the Uriah Gambit, sending the Interface to meet up with the Sky Canopy Dominion and hope she will Go Mad from the Revelation. (We don't have the perspective to know how valid the argument - that the changes in the Interface were exactly what gave her some chance of survival and success in communicating with an alien and potentially deadly threat - was, or how valid Kyon's tendency to take the events personally is. Or even whether the Data Overmind had any interest in killing off its Interface, but it is one hypothesis from the limited observable evidence.)
- Heavy Object:
- Flide arranged for Qwenthur and Havia to be assigned to increasingly dangerous details in hopes of killing them to preserve the reputation of Objects as the only source of military power.
- The 37th gets a special Christmas-themed mission to save some sick children stranded at the North Pole. To do so, they have to fight their way through multiple ice-locked but still active enemy warships on foot across the white ice cap while wearing "festive" bright red uniforms. The other "friendly" forces in the area are under orders to make sure the 37th continues with their mission by killing any who turn back. The higher ups really didn't like them bungling a global PR stunt.
- In Irresponsible Captain Tylor, the Syokaze is sent to the front several times in an attempt to kill Captain Tylor. It doesn't work.
- Tsutomu Nihei's Knights of Sidonia revolves around one long Uriah Gambit against the protagonist Tanikaze. The ship's Omniscient Council of Vagueness doesn't like that he's naturally immortal and wants to get rid of him, so they send him out on every mission that comes up hoping he'll get killed. Of course, this swiftly leads to Tanikaze becoming one of the most skilled and experienced soldiers on the ship, far too valuable to conveniently dispose of. Eventually he's being sent on dangerous missions not as an attempt to get him killed, but because he's the only one skilled enough to possibly succeed.
- Legend of the Galactic Heroes. It Happens to Reinhard twice, courtesy of fleet admiral Gregor von Mückenberger and his belief that Reinhard got his rank only because his sister was the Emperor's favorite concubine:
- During the Fourth Battle of Tiamat in the first movie Mückenberger sent his fleet out to the front of the battle unsupported, then gave the rest of his force orders to not worry about hitting friendlies when the shooting started. Just to make this clear, he was willing to kill over a thousand of his own ships and their crews just to see Reinhard dead. Just like Yang, Reinhard not only survives but turns it around on him and becomes crucial to the Imperial victory.
- The first battle of the series, the Battle of Astarte, had Mückenberger deprive him of most of his talented sub-commanders, and then send him into battle and arrange for the enemy to find out he's coming so they'll send a much larger fleet to stop him. After Reinhard not only wins but inflicts the Alliance ten times the casualties he suffered and comes very close to annihilate the enemy forces, Mückenberger realizes what kind of genius he's dealing with and makes sure to not be in the way when Reinhard starts his political ascension, insuring his own survival when Reinhard takes over the Empire and other High Nobles try and fail to stop him.
- Reinhard's rival and counterpart, Yang Wen-Li of the Free Planets Alliance also suffers this early on. After turning the Battle of Astarte from a rout into an orderly defeat, Yang draws the ire of the politician Job Trunicht. Almost immediately after escaping an attempted lynching by the "Patriotic Knights Corps" — Trunicht's deniable thugs — he's told to take command of a half-sized fleet in order to attack the Imperial fortress Iserlohn. Iserlohn had defeated six full-fledged attacks in the past, so Trunicht's faction was clearly hoping to either have Yang die in the attempt, or be forced to resign in disgrace. Instead, thanks to a Trojan Horse gambit, "Yang the Magician" and his team capture the fortress with virtually no losses.
- The original Mobile Suit Gundam actually displays a rare example of this being from the heroes side. The Federation refuses to send more soldiers to aid the White Base, the ship the protagonists reside on and composed primarily of rookie soldiers and civilians, because of the ships' growing reputation during the War. They find that the White Base is the perfect decoy to distract Zeon from what the rest of Federation is up to.
- Happens several times in Mobile Suit Gundam AGE, the most notable being Zeheart refusing to send reinforcements to Decil, leaving him fight the Gundam on his own. This is a rare instance when the David seems justified, however, as the Uriah had repeatedly demonstrated self-centered insubordination, which had directly lead to the death of several squadmates, so Zeheart can plausibly claim I Did What I Had to Do to his subordinates.
- A large-scale version of this happens in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED at the Battle of JOSH-A, halfway through the series. While the top brass of the Earth Alliance come from the Atlantic Federation, the military as a whole is pretty evenly split between them and the Eurasian Federation. At JOSH-A, the Atlantic Federation sets up a highly effective trap, sacrificing their main headquarters by self-destructing it on top of a massive ZAFT invasion force. While leaving a large force of mostly Eurasian Federation soldiers in the base as unsuspecting bait. This is also roughly the point where SEED ceases to be modern take on the original Mobile Suit Gundam (where both sides are morally questionable but one side is clearly better than the other) and into a flat-out Evil Versus Evil scenario where there is no lesser evil. This eventually prompts the real protagonists to create a third side in the conflict to offset them both.
- McGillis does this to Carta Issue in Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans to get her out of the line of succession for Gjallarhorn's top leadership spots. He sends her to "restore her honor" in a final bid to stop Tekkadan from bringing Kudelia and a former Prime Minister to participate in elections, since he knows that Tekkadan are Combat Pragmatists who don't think Talking Is a Free Action, and Carta is obsessed with personal honor and antiquated formations (hence her first two defeats). She attempts to challenge Tekkadan to a duel of honor. They would have ignored her speech anyway, but now that she's killed The Heart of the group, Mika immediately enters a Roaring Rampage of Revenge when she and her men turn up. While Gaelio figures out what's going on and tries to save her, the best he can do is get her mobile suit out of battle while she succumbs to her wounds.
- The trope is given an unusual twist in Overlord (2012), where Princess Renner knowingly sends her bodyguard Climb into situations that could easily get him killed... because if he does die, she can have him resurrected, giving the Yandere princess the perfect excuse to keep her "cute puppy" at her side for the months of his recovery.
- On multiple occasions in Pokémon: The Series, Giovanni tries to get Jessie and James out of his hair by assigning them to do something that's either dangerous or has little chance of success. This includes assigning them to a really dangerous airplane flight, letting them start a Team Rocket branch in Hoenn despite the region already having two other villainous teams, and reassigning them to Antartica. It isn't until the end of DP that Giovanni starts treating the trio as actual Rocket agents again.
- In Promare the secret Big Bad arranges for one the main character to become a firefighter in a world plagued by fire-spewing mutants and he even gets him rewarded with a medal and the status of civic hero. Of course, he's more than willing to spell it out his plan to the hero when he decides he can't wait for the Uriah Plot to kick in: he merely hoped to get him so addicted to braving danger and heroism to make him a favour and die.
- Sword Princess Altina has several examples. The most notable are in the very first two volumes. Volume 1 has the 14-year-old title character sent to the front lines with the warring nation of Germain to subdue a "barbarian" tribe. After she succeeds in that, she is given orders to capture an officially "impregnable" enemy fortress with a force that's one tenth of what was used in the last attempt, and that attempt was a miserable failure. To the shock of everyone, including her father, the Emperor, she succeeds without a single on-screen fatality. All thanks to the hard work of her brilliant, yet humble strategist, Regis.
- Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs:
- Leon's Wicked Stepmother Zola sets him up in an Arranged Marriage to an old woman with the goal of getting Leon killed in battle so the woman could collect his widow's pensions, which would be split amongst the Forest of Ladies conspiracy. When Leon goes out adventuring to pay her off and doesn't come back, she figures she'll settle for making his little brother Colin into a slave, but Leon comes back with riches in the nick of time.
- Marquess Frampton had a plot: Conspire with the Principality of Fanoss and some of Angelica Redgrave's disloyal followers to seize a third of the academy students on a field trip, and take Angelica hostage, before they would execute the remaining students. This would have made Angelica's father Vince, Frampton's rival, look like a co-conspirator, since Angelica would have been the sole survivor. All of this was foiled by Leon giving a Dare to Be Badass speech to rally the students and beating back the attackers, but Frampton wasn't implicated.
- In the Alternate Timeline Marie Route, Frampton, in his capacity as commander of the war effort, sent the forces loyal to him against rebels in the countryside, while setting up not only his political opponents, but dead weight from his own faction and some rural nobles to die in battle against the Principality, strengthening Frampton's control over the kingdom. The results are mixed, as Kingdom forces beat the Principality, but the commander Vince Redgrave is injured and takes political heat for his command decisions.
- Askeladd from Vinland Saga uses this gambit to facilitate his Evil Plan to remove a rival from the game.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- In a rare case of a hero doing this on a regular basis, in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Judai uses the strategy described below using his non-Fusion Elemental Heroes (who tend to have low Attack Scores) and the Trap Card "Mirror Gate".
- Yusei did something similar in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds at least once with his Junk Synchron during his Riding Duel with Mukuro Enjo. By using the Trap Card "Give and Take", he was able to summon Junk Synchron from his Graveyard under Enjo's control, and in return, add its level to that of his Quillbolt Hedgehog, enabling him to Synchro Summon the powerful Nitro Warrior and attack the physically weak Junk Synchron.
