History Main / AirstrikeImpossible

** The Israeli Air Force conducted an encore against Syria in 2007's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Orchard Operation Orchard]], where they destroyed what is now suspected to be a covert nuclear reactor.

* While it is a side-scrolling shump, the ''{{Area 88}}'' game (''UN Squadron Stateside) has the player fly into canyons and caves for a few missions.

* While it is a side-scrolling shump, the ''{{Area 88}'' game (''UN Squadron Stateside) has the player fly into canyons and caves for a few missions.

* ''TheDamBusters'', (based on a RealLife example)
* ''StarWars Episode IV: ANewHope'', directly referencing ''TheDamBusters''. Also done by Lando and Wedge in ''ReturnOfTheJedi''.

** ''Ace Combat 6'' had a particularly ludacris example: during the final mission (''after'' the standard "fly underground to destroy something" bit), you have to fly down the barrel of a giant railgun ''as it's firing''. Time it wrong and you get vaporized by the shot.

[[AceCombat http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/AC4_AirstrkImpssbl.jpg]]
[[caption-width:350:[[AceCombat Mobius One]], ItsUpToYou to fly down this tunnel. And [[HeroicMime don't give me lip]] about ViolationOfCommonSense.]]

->''"The approach will not be easy. You're required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to [[AchillesHeel this point]]."''
-->-- ''General Jan Dodonna'', '''StarWars'''

->"[[{{Understatement}} The approach will not be easy]]. You're required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to ''[[AchillesHeel this point]]''."
---> '''General Jan Dodonna, StarWars'''

The ImpossibleMission, but with high-speed strike craft: Bombers or strike fighters if it's an air mission. Heavy fighters, corvettes or torpedo craft if it's in space. Occasionally, a submarine or a torpedo boat will take such a mission at sea.

The target is heavily guarded with a flawless radar-net. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ack-ack Ack-ack]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-to-Air_Missile SAM]] emplacements pepper the approach. Nearby enemy airfields are manned with elite pilots and are expecting the attack. Our hero's only chance is to fly [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nap-of-the-earth nap-of-Earth]], possibly through a [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Trench_run nearby canyon]], in the meantime [[ImprobablePilotingSkills dodging any patrols]].

Or worse yet, the target is [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Endor underground]] and our [[AcePilot intrepid pilots]] will have to fly through tunnels and scaffolding to reach their intended target, and then get out [[CollapsingLair before the tunnels bury them alive.]]

Our hero will fare better if her CoolPlane has been [[SuperPrototype tricked out]] to suit her flying style, but that doesn't so much as even the odds.

These missions usually require a combination of strategy, stealth, maneuvering, [[ChuckYeager cool]], [[LuckBasedMission luck]] and [[SpiderSense using the Force]] to complete.

Since ''TheDamBusters'', or rather, ''StarWars'''s [[{{Expy}} homage]] to ''The Dam Busters'' for the fight against the [[ThatsNoMoon Death Star]], there has been in increasing chance such missions will require flying though a canyon, shaft, city, or other form of trench or absurdly long and spacious corridor.

See also BattleshipRaid. In games these almost always become {{Scrappy Level}}s and ViolationOfCommonSense.

* ''GundamSEEDDestiny'', Shinn finds himself having to fly though a cave in the separate parts of his Impulse Gundam, trying to get past Earth Alliance defenses to take out a WaveMotionGun built into a mountain.
* ''{{Gunbuster}}'', The Battle Of The Solar System's Absolute Defense, where the {{Gunbuster}} singlehandedly takes on a swarm of Space Monsters measuring several ''billion'' miles across in order to deliver a bomb into their midst.
* ''SuperDimensionFortressMacross: [[TheMovie Do You Remember Love?]]'', here, after the [[HeelFaceTurn allied Zentradi forces]] and the [[HumongousMecha Macross]] itself have [[BattleshipRaid punched into]] [[BigBad Boddol Zer]]'s moon-sized fortress, [[AcePilot Hikaru Ichijo]] flies his [[TransformingMecha VF-1 Valkyrie]], alone and armed to the teeth, into the very heart of the installation. He [[ImprobablePilotingSkills must weave through]] {{Laser Hallway}}s, twisting corridors, and [[BeamSpam impossibly thick laser barrages]] --all [[ThemeMusicPowerUp set to]] the movie's [[TitleDrop titular]] [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome song]]-- until reaching [[LoadBearingBoss Boddol Zer]] himself... and [[BeamSpam blasting]] [[MacrossMissileMassacre him]] [[MoreDakka to atoms]] [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill point blank]].

[[/folder]]

* ''MemphisBelle'', the first [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-17_Flying_Fortress B17]] crew to achieve twenty-five missions in the European theatre in WWII. Because of the propaganda needs, the crew hopes for a milk run (a propaganda drop in occupied France). Nope. They're bombing a factory (wedged between a hospital and an orphanage, of course) deep in Germany.

* ''XWingSeries'' prefers mostly OldFashionedDogfighting and daring commando missions, but highly improbable airstrikes have a place too. There's a mission that requires heading through mountainous territory and hitting a large pipeline with a proton torpedo. A rookie Tatooine pilot even says it's not ''impossible'', and Wedge lampshades this.

* ''{{Ace Combat}}'' Series. [[OnceAnEpisode At least once per game]], you will fly through a tunnel.
% This huge natter pile was moved to the discussion. Please give a better description that isn't a pile of natter and bullet points.%

* StarFox, several missions could be considered this. The mission "The Space Armada" in the original SNES game, Star fox 64's penultimate boss fight on [[spoiler: fake]] Venom comes to mind.
** Starfox Assault's final mission has you flying [[spoiler: into the core of the Aparoid home world, where the Aparoid Queen waits for you.]] Its subverted, IMHO, though, by the wide space of the tunnel, and that enemies somehow figure the odds are in their favor if they fly in front of you, where you can blast them to hell, instead of behind you, where the opposite is true. And then, after [[spoiler: firing the antibody into the Queen which is supposed to blow all the Aparoids up, she suppresses it and tries to escape, leading you into ''another'' one of these as a Sequential Boss Fight.]] Whether the walls are closer together then the first set, I don't remember. Its been a while since I played.

* ''StarWars Episode I: Starfighter'', the ''training mission'' falls into the trench category of AirstrikeImpossible, thanks to an [[InvisibleWall invisible ceiling]] keeping the player inside a wing-scrapingly narrow canyon. The self-same canyon (complete with ceiling) is reprised in an escort mission filled with Trade Federation baddies to make ThatOneLevel. Interestingly, while ''tunnel fighting'' appears in the final level (attacking a [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lucrehulk-class_battleship Fed Battleship]]), side-tunnels actually provide time to hide and recharge shields, hence subverting the trope into a tactical advantage.
* ''{{X-Wing}}'', the player is ''encouraged'' to fly down the trench due to the turbolaser towers above, and an arbitrary speed boost given only within the trench. But obstacles and turrets still make this approach AirstrikeImpossible. Still, nothing ''requires'' one to run the trench, hence the mission can be completed easily by approaching the target area at high altitude (outside effective range of the towers) and then dive-bombing the thermal exhaust port with an approach attitude nearly perpendicular to the surface. True to most scenarios in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totally_games Totally Games]] sim missions, the way to succeed is exactly the way one would ''not'' expect.
* ''SecretWeaponsOverNormandy'', at least in the [[TheDamBusters Dambusting]] mission, which is of reasonable difficulty. Later missions tread a jot into AirstrikeImpossible territory, though.

* ''AirForceDelta'', as Konami's answer to Ace Combat, of course has to attempt to one-up it at every opportunity, but the original takes the cake by being an homage to UN Squadron of all things. There's just barely enough room to dogfight inside of a girder-strewn cavern you have to blow multiple targets in, and, if you're being followed when you enter, you'll probably have to. (as the AI Macross missile spams as soon as it gets tone) Oh, and that target? Most of its pieces are on the ceiling. Hope you have enough missiles left after fighting your way in! And this isn't even the hardest level. The supercarrier level seems to have more SAMs than planes. Despite taking place in open air, it feels just as cramped as the cavern raid level. Another particularly nasty level in Air Force Delta Strike involves a grid of lasers that demonstrate their unerring aim by toasting the {{Buttmonkey}} US pilot team. (the wingmen are two former bargirls with slightly-exotically-foreign-accents like most roleplaying strippers would use while the team leader sounds like a stereotypical big-chinned comic book superhero.)

% Please confirm the title. If TomClancy isn't part of the title, it doesn't to be in it.%
** The first, in which you must navigate between radar "pillars" to find and destroy a radar base before a wing of friendly bombers flies over, to prevent them being destroyed. This is pretty much the easiest of the three, apart from having to solo-dogfight a number of enemy planes without ally backup to keep them off your tail. The second, in which you must fly ''under'' three more columns (which are EM fields!) to take out generators. The columns, as one might expect, do ''not'' pick sides, so for once the AI is '''not''' a cheating bastard. The AI is too stupid to stay out of the EM fields, so you can use them to kill the TooDumbToLive enemy pilots rather than wasting time shooting them down. The final mission requires three precomputed routes fed to you via the computer system to evade missile launches and take out the SAM radar network. In reality, following the path doesn't ''actually'' protect you from the SAMs (as far as I could see, at least), it just makes them autodestruct as soon as they start homing on you, because the path is so meandering and ridiculous that the SAMs should nail you sixty times over. But hey, RuleOfCool, right?
** TheStinger mission requires you to fly through a canyon to avoid radar detection so you can successfully ambush your target.
* ''{{Freespace}}'', a fanmade Vasudan installation (the GVI Karnak) includes destructible doors and a hollow superstructure, specifically to allow this trope to be pulled off. The campaign ''SilentThreatReborn'' plays with it by having an enemy fighter attempt to do this, with the player having to fly inside to ''defend'' the station's reactor. Far from being a ScrappyMechanic, most players consider this [[BestLevelEver totally awesome]].
* ''BlueLightning'', has a mission where you fly through a set of narrow canyons to take out enemy bases, complete with an [[InvisibleWall invisible ceiling]] keeping you near ground level.

* While the Argentine defenses around Port Stanley were fairly poor, the first ''"Black Buck"'' mission qualifies for sheer difficulty in getting the near-the-scrapheap Vulcans ready again.
* The Doolittle Raid shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor probably qualifies for this trope.

* And their earlier raid against the heavily-defended Italian battleship harbor. This one is even more spectacular in that it was pulled off with obsolete biplanes.
** I presume this is referring to the Taranto raid? This attack was so spectacularly executed that it inspired the Japanese navy's attack on a certain American naval base.
* There were also a number of "Skip Bombing" missions that bombers would apply to Japanese warships. Basically flying low and skipping the bombs across the water (''ala'' dam busting).
* While not an airstrike per say, the flight of the B-17 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_666 "Old 666"]] could count. During a reconnaissance mission over a Japanese base, the big bomber was attacked by 17 fighter planes and was essentially forced to dogfight, albeit with more and heavier machineguns than any other bomber in existence in a recon mission which meant more spare weight for ammo. The crew even managed to shoot down 4 of the fighters with a specially mounted gun on the nose of the plane! Unfortunately, while the mission was a success, [[BitterSweetEnding the bombardier sacrificed his life to save the plane]]. Jay Zeamer, The Pilot and Joseph Sarnoski, the bombaimer, were both awarded the Medal of Honor and the rest of the crew were awarded the Distinguished service cross making the single aircraft mission the most decorated in US history.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tidal_Wave Operation Tidal Wave]] was the low level attack against the Ploiești oil refineries in the Mediterranean Theatre of World War 2. The Ploiești oil production facilities were of key importance to the German war effort and were highly protected by fighters and ground anti-aircraft batteries. The target was already near the maximum range of the B-24 forces based in North Africa and the formidable defenses lead to the choice of a low level operation that would swing in from the north, the opposite direction that the Germans would expect. Despite lots of advance planning and practice the attacking of 178 B-24's got separated in the final phase of the attack resulting in some groups flying over the best defended areas. The extremely low altitude resulted in gunners directly engaging anti-aircraft batteries and pilots having to maneuver over fence lines and haystacks. The air strike actually did prove impossible as the damage to the targets resulted in only a small decrease of output, while losses amongst the attackers were massive. In fact with 55 planes lost out of 178 and 660 aircrew missing or killed the attack was the costliest single mission in US history. However the attacking force displayed uncommon valor despite the long odds with no fewer than 5 Medals of Honor being awarded.
* On 23 September 1941, German dive-bomber pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel sunk the Soviet battleship ''Petropavlovsk'' / ''Marat'' at anchor in Kronshtadt, [[ImprobableAimingSkills with a 1,000kg free-fall bomb hit which went through either a funnel or an air vent, both about 1.5m/5ft in diameter]]. (It appears there was also another German pilot dropping his own 1,000kg bomb on the target at the same time, because there were two hits counted). Bonus for the 1,000kg bomb being [[CrazyAwesome at least three, if not four times the normal load on a Ju-87B]], and dragging heavily on the already poor performance of the plane.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Focus Operation Focus]] was the opening series of air strikes that Israel used to preempt an Arab invasion at what came to be known as the Six Day War. The attack made use of almost the entire Israeli Air Force with only a handful of planes left in reserve to defend its home airspace and comprised a go-for-broke gamble to disable the air forces of its enemies to pave the way for an Israeli ground strike. Preceded by detailed planning and practice to, especially in the area of quick turning its strike aircraft to make followup sorties, Operation Focus achieved complete surprised and by noon, the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian Air Forces, with 452 aircraft, were completely destroyed.
* In 1981 the [[BadassIsraeli Israeli Air Force]] pulled off another impossible mission in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera Operation Opera]], the long range attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor. A force of heavily laden F-16's and F-15's traveled across Jordan and Saudi Arabia at altitudes as low as 30 meters before popping up to completely destroy the reactor complex. Ground defenses were taken completely by surprise and not a single Israeli aircraft was damaged.

[[/folder]]

* ''Memphis Belle'', the first [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-17_Flying_Fortress B17]] crew to achieve twenty-five missions in the European theatre in WWII. Because of the propaganda needs, the crew hopes for a milk run (a propaganda drop in occupied France). Nope. They're bombing a factory (wedged between a hospital and an orphanage, of course) deep in Germany.

* ''The Fire Dream'', the protagonist and his fire direction unit have to call down a napalm strike to support the lead company of his brigade, which is being overrun by superior enemy forces. He is several miles behind their position. He cannot see either the enemy or the troops they are engaging. The enemy is almost directly adjacent to the friendly troops. And ''the planes cannot see the ground because of the bad weather''. The spotter is reduced to using dead reckoning, a stopwatch, and listening for the sounds of the plane's engines (a technique normally used in the book for guiding planes to a general area for saturation bombing) to try and drop a precision strike on the advancing enemy without hitting any friendlies, because the situation is so desperate that everyone is reduced to praying for a miracle. Fortunately, he gets one.

* StarFox, everal missions could be considered this. The mission "The Space Armada" in the original SNES game, Star fox 64's penultimate boss fight on [[spoiler: fake]] Venom comes to mind.

* ''Air Force Delta'', as Konami's answer to Ace Combat, of course has to attempt to one-up it at every opportunity, but the original takes the cake by being an homage to UN Squadron of all things. There's just barely enough room to dogfight inside of a girder-strewn cavern you have to blow multiple targets in, and, if you're being followed when you enter, you'll probably have to. (as the AI Macross missile spams as soon as it gets tone) Oh, and that target? Most of its pieces are on the ceiling. Hope you have enough missiles left after fighting your way in! And this isn't even the hardest level. The supercarrier level seems to have more SAMs than planes. Despite taking place in open air, it feels just as cramped as the cavern raid level. Another particularly nasty level in Air Force Delta Strike involves a grid of lasers that demonstrate their unerring aim by toasting the {{Buttmonkey}} US pilot team. (the wingmen are two former bargirls with slightly-exotically-foreign-accents like most roleplaying strippers would use while the team leader sounds like a stereotypical big-chinned comic book superhero.)

* A number of missions for ''{{Area 88}}''.
* In ''GundamSEEDDestiny'', Shinn finds himself having to fly though a cave in the separate parts of his Impulse Gundam, trying to get past Earth Alliance defenses to take out a WaveMotionGun built into a mountain.
* The Battle Of The Solar System's Absolute Defense, where the ''{{Gunbuster}}'' singlehandedly takes on a swarm of Space Monsters measuring several ''billion'' miles across in order to deliver a bomb into their midst.
* The [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome legendary, iconic finale]] of ''SuperDimensionFortressMacross: [[TheMovie Do You Remember Love?]]''. Here, after the [[HeelFaceTurn allied Zentradi forces]] and the [[HumongousMecha Macross]] itself have [[BattleshipRaid punched into]] [[BigBad Boddol Zer]]'s moon-sized fortress, [[AcePilot Hikaru Ichijo]] flies his [[TransformingMecha VF-1 Valkyrie]], alone and armed to the teeth, into the very heart of the installation. He [[ImprobablePilotingSkills must weave through]] {{Laser Hallway}}s, twisting corridors, and [[BeamSpam impossibly thick laser barrages]] --all [[ThemeMusicPowerUp set to]] the movie's [[TitleDrop titular]] [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome song]]-- until reaching [[LoadBearingBoss Boddol Zer]] himself... and [[BeamSpam blasting]] [[MacrossMissileMassacre him]] [[MoreDakka to atoms]] [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill point blank]].
** And a homage to this sequence at the climax of ''MacrossFrontier'', where Alto must [[spoiler:destroy the [[HiveQueen Vajra Queen]]'s head, and [[BigBad Grace]] along with it]], but first he has to blast his way across the surface of an orbital ring structure and survive the onslaught of the Vajra and the [[spoiler:Galaxy Fleet]]'s assault carriers.

* ''TheDamBusters'' (based on a RealLife example)
* ''633 Squadron''
* ''TheGunsOfNavarone''
** Arguably {{Subverted}} in this case, as the airstrike really ''is'' impossible (an airman says the only way to destroy the guns would be via a kamikaze strike), hence the need for the commando raid that forms the film's actual plot.
* ''StarWars Episode IV: ANewHope'', directly referencing ''TheDamBusters''.
** Also done by Lando and Wedge in ''ReturnOfTheJedi''.
* ''Mosquito Squadron''
* ''Flight Of The Intruder''
* ''Memphis Belle'' is about the first [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-17_Flying_Fortress B17]] crew to achieve twenty-five missions in the European theatre in WWII. Because of the propaganda needs, the crew hopes for a milk run (a propaganda drop in occupied France). Nope. They're bombing a factory (wedged between a hospital and an orphanage, of course) deep in Germany.
* ''DownPeriscope'' A newly appointed submarine commander must take a renovated diesel submarine and evade the American Navy's detection to shoot mock targets in Charleston and Norfolk during a war game exercise. If that weren't hard enough, an admiral is determined to see him fail through any means necessary.

* DaleBrown likes these. The most classic example is ''Flight of the Old Dog'', where a tricked-out B-52 has to make an impromptu flight across the Pacific to destroy a Soviet laser site.
* In the Vietnam novel ''The Fire Dream'', the protagonist and his fire direction unit have to call down a napalm strike to support the lead company of his brigade, which is being overrun by superior enemy forces. He is several miles behind their position. He cannot see either the enemy or the troops they are engaging. The enemy is almost directly adjacent to the friendly troops. And ''the planes cannot see the ground because of the bad weather''. The spotter is reduced to using dead reckoning, a stopwatch, and listening for the sounds of the plane's engines (a technique normally used in the book for guiding planes to a general area for saturation bombing) to try and drop a precision strike on the advancing enemy without hitting any friendlies, because the situation is so desperate that everyone is reduced to praying for a miracle. Fortunately, he gets one.
* Most of the XWingSeries prefers OldFashionedDogfighting and daring commando misions, but highly improbable airstrikes have a place too. There's a mission that requires heading through mountainous territory and hitting a large pipeline with a proton torpedo. A rookie Tatooine pilot even says it's not ''impossible'', and Wedge lampshades this.

* The episode of ''BattlestarGalactica'' in which they attack the Cylon refinery.
%comment% I've not seen it for a while so if anyone can fill in more detail.

* Pretty much any ShootEmUp by default.
* The {{Ace Combat}} Series. [[OnceAnEpisode At least once per game]], you will fly through a tunnel. 'Nuff said.
** Don't forget that every Ace Combat also has a mission where you fly through a canyon, and can't climb out of it without wandering into an [[InstantDeathRadius Instant Death Height]]. Hell, Ace Combat Zero has ''both'' canyon-flying ''and'' tunnel-flying in the same mission, though not both at the same time.
** Not to mention all of the other games in the flight combat/simulation genre, though the more arcade-ish ones tend to have the more outlandish examples.
** On the other hand, the trope picture is from ''Ace Combat 04'' which actually has the second easiest tunnel runs (''X'' is even more generous with space); as long as you enter the tunnel at a gentle enough angle that you can adjust in time (slow the plane as much as you need without stalling and use the autopilot to level out), you just fly straight until it's time to climb out. Unlike the others with their twists and turns, the closing doors, an enemy fighter pursuing from behind, ''your own wingmen'', the dark-colored hurdles, or anti-air artillery in the tunnel itself...
*** On top of that, exiting the tunnel doesn't kill you immediately. With 10 seconds between shots from the enemy's WaveMotionGun batteries, you can hop between each area by boosting to full speed and pulling out and up at the same time, towards whatever branch you want to enter. Necessary to learn to get the maximum amount of kills. (by doing this mission with either the XLAA or QAAM, you can kill two of the speeding planes in each wave, one as it flies towards you, the other as it flies away, for a grand total of four extra kills, or an extra 240 points. Although it seems like you can bag all three, the rightmost plane turns too hard at the intersection to keep from crashing into the wall, your missile won't make it. It seems to be a programmed path, as you won't either if you try the same stunt.)
** Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War's second-to-last mission: [[spoiler: you fly down a tunnel. Not so hard, right? Well, you have to destroy switches on the walls inside this tunnel. Still not so bad, right? By the way, you've got enemy fighters behind you, including an enemy Ace, shooting at you. And you have no room to dance around in. Oh, and by the way? There are also enemy fighters coming in from the other end of the tunnel. Yeah, in front of you. Good luck.]]
** The finale for Ace Combat 6 has two of these, [[spoiler: the first being piloting your plane through the tunnel that loads the warheads into the Chandelier, and the second being flying down the Chandelier's friggin ''BARREL'']].
* ''Afterburner Climax'' is one of "all of the other games", but deserves mention for the times the enemy uses FrickinLaserBeams as "tripwires" to damage your plane with.
** The canyon is probably the deadliest enemy in the game.
* The final mission of ''CrimsonSkies: High Road to Revenge'' involves flying through ''two'' zeppelin-eating grinder machines to take out their power cells, before diving ''into a giant rotor'' to blow up more of them. In order to prevent it from using its weather control weapon from levelling Chicago. Hey, RuleOfCool.
* Several missions in the StarFox series could be considered this. The mission "The Space Armada" in the original SNES game comes to mind.
** As does Star fox 64's penultimate boss fight on [[spoiler: fake]] Venom.
*** Starfox Assault's final mission has you flying [[spoiler: into the core of the Aparoid home world, where the Aparoid Queen waits for you.]] Its subverted, IMHO, though, by the wide space of the tunnel, and that enemies somehow figure the odds are in their favor if they fly in front of you, where you can blast them to hell, instead of behind you, where the opposite is true. And then, after [[spoiler: firing the antibody into the Queen which is supposed to blow all the Aparoids up, she suppresses it and tries to escape, leading you into ''another'' one of these as a Sequential Boss Fight.]] Whether the walls are closer together then the first set, I don't remember. Its been a while since I played.
* Several missions (both campaign and single) from the ''{{Il-2Sturmovik}}'' series fit this trope too, [[HarderThanHard especially if you crank up the realism and difficulty settings to 100 %]].
* In the second {{Star Wars}} RogueSquadron, the last mission in the regular campaign is practically impossible. Based on the attack on the Death Star in ReturnOfTheJedi (above), it's not only AirstrikeImpossible but adds components of an escort mission. Naturally, high-speed flight down winding tunnels, [[ZergRush mooks-a-licious]] and [[CollapsingLair getting out before]] it [[OutrunTheFireball all goes boom]] are all featured.
** one of the few times doing it co-op is harder...
* In ''StarWars Episode I: Starfighter'', the ''training mission'' falls into the trench category of AirstrikeImpossible, thanks to an [[InvisibleWall invisible ceiling]] keeping the player inside a wing-scrapingly narrow canyon. The self-same canyon (complete with ceiling) is reprised in an escort mission filled with Trade Federation baddies to make ThatOneLevel. Interestingly, while ''tunnel fighting'' appears in the final level (attacking a [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lucrehulk-class_battleship Fed Battleship]]), side-tunnels actually provide time to hide and recharge shields, hence subverting the trope into a tactical advantage.
* Amazingly, ''deconstructed'' in the Death Star trench run of StarWars {{X-Wing}}. The player is ''encouraged'' to fly down the trench due to the turbolaser towers above, and an arbitrary speed boost given only within the trench. But obstacles and turrets still make this approach AirstrikeImpossible. Still, nothing ''requires'' one to run the trench, hence the mission can be completed easily by approaching the target area at high altitude (outside effective range of the towers) and then dive-bombing the thermal exhaust port with an approach attitude nearly perpendicular to the surface. True to most scenarios in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totally_games Totally Games]] sim missions, the way to succeed is exactly the way one would ''not'' expect.
* Averted in SecretWeaponsOverNormandy ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Weapons_Over_Normandy TOW]]), at least in the [[TheDamBusters Dambusting]] mission, which is of reasonable difficulty. Later missions tread a jot into AirstrikeImpossible territory, though.
* The final level of Strike Gunner one-ups the typical Shmup by including dead ends. Fuck. You. Thank god the rest of the game is kinda easy, but still, it's hell if the final two bosses managed to clip a few lives from you. The final trench run has killed more than its share of one credit runs.
* As Konami's answer to Ace Combat, Air Force Delta of course has to attempt to one-up it at every opportunity, but the original takes the cake by being an homage to UN Squadron of all things. There's just barely enough room to dogfight inside of a girder-strewn cavern you have to blow multiple targets in, and, if you're being followed when you enter, you'll probably have to. (as the AI Macross missile spams as soon as it gets tone) Oh, and that target? Most of its pieces are on the ceiling. Hope you have enough missiles left after fighting your way in! And this isn't even the hardest level. The supercarrier level seems to have more SAMs than planes. Despite taking place in open air, it feels just as cramped as the cavern raid level. Another particularly nasty level in Air Force Delta Strike involves a grid of lasers that demonstrate their unerring aim by toasting the {{Buttmonkey}} US pilot team. (the wingmen are two former bargirls with slightly-exotically-foreign-accents like most roleplaying strippers would use while the team leader sounds like a stereotypical big-chinned comic book superhero.)
* ''Tom Clancy's HAWX'' had an entire level based around three such airstrikes. If you deviate from the course the game sets you up with at all, you'll be targeted by a buttload of SAM batteries and most likely killed.
** There's three levels, really;
*** The first, in which you must navigate between radar "pillars" to find and destroy a radar base before a wing of friendly bombers flies over, to prevent them being destroyed. This is pretty much the easiest of the three, apart from having to solo-dogfight a number of enemy planes without ally backup to keep them off your tail.
*** The second, in which you must fly ''under'' three more columns (which are EM fields!) to take out generators. The columns, as one might expect, do ''not'' pick sides, so for once the AI is '''not''' a cheating bastard. The AI is too stupid to stay out of the EM fields, so you can use them to kill the TooDumbToLive enemy pilots rather than wasting time shooting them down.
*** The final mission requires three precomputed routes fed to you via the computer system to evade missile launches and take out the SAM radar network. In reality, following the path doesn't ''actually'' protect you from the SAMs (as far as I could see, at least), it just makes them autodestruct as soon as they start homing on you, because the path is so meandering and ridiculous that the SAMs should nail you sixty times over. But hey, RuleOfCool, right?

* A fanmade Vasudan installation (the GVI Karnak) for ''{{Freespace}}'' includes destructable doors and a hollow superstructure, specifically to allow this trope to be pulled off. The campaign ''SilentThreatReborn'' plays with it by having an enemy fighter attempt to do this, with the player having to fly inside to ''defend'' the station's reactor. Far from being a ScrappyMechanic, most players consider this [[BestLevelEver totally awesome]].
* The AtariLynx jet fighter game ''Blue Lightning'' has a mission where you fly through a set of narrow canyons to take out enemy bases, complete with an [[InvisibleWall invisible ceiling]] keeping you near ground level.
* The final mission of ''WingCommander III'' was supposed to be this, with staying in the canyons on the way to the fault target to avoid attracting the attention of infinitely respawning Ekapshii, but a glitch in the transition from the space leg of the mission to the atmosphere leg allowed the "one time" cloak to be used again, making it trivially easy to get there, by cloaking and flying above the mountains in a straight line.

* A series of animated videos for ''CaptainPowerAndTheSoldiersOfTheFuture'' were pretty much all this, each complete with a corridor run of varying levels of justification.

* Subverted and Lampshaded in an episode of ''DuckDodgers'', where Dodgers tries to make a Trench Run to take out Marvin the Martian's new Dreadnought, while Marvin calmly aims a laser cannon at him and wonders how many fools die trying to recreate that scene.

* While the Argentine defences around Port Stanley were fairly poor, the first ''"Black Buck"'' mission qualifies for sheer difficulty in getting the near-the-scrapheap Vulcans ready again.

[[/folder]]

----
<<|MilitaryAndWarfareTropes|>>

* The titular mission in the WingCommander novel ''End Run'' (Jimmy Doolittle's 1942 Tokyo raid {{IN SPACE}}!) was a raid on the [[MegaNeko Kilrathi]] homeworld. With only an escort carrier and two destroyers, the raid was assumed to be a suicide mission... and nearly was, until Admiral Tolwyn's BigDamnHeroes moment.

[[AceCombat http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Countercharge_889.jpg]][[caption-width:641:Playing this trope straight.]]

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tidal_Wave Operation Tidal Wave]] was the low level attack against the Ploiești oil refineries in the Mediterranean Theatre of World War 2. The Ploiești oil production facilities were of key importance to the German war effort and were highly protected by fighters and ground anti-aircraft batteries. The target was already near the maximum range of the B-24 forces based in North Africa and the formidable defenses lead to the choice of a low level operation that would swing in from the north, the opposite direction that the Germans would expect. Despite lots of advance planning and practice the attacking of 178 B-24's got separated in the final phase of the attack resulting in some groups flying over the best defended areas. The extremely low altitude resulted in gunners directly engaging anti-aircraft batteries and pilots having to maneuver over fence lines and haystacks. The air strike actually did prove impossible as the damage to the targets resulted in only a small decrease of output, while losses amongst the attackers were massive. In fact with 55 planes lost out of 178 and 660 aircrew missing or killed the attack was the costliest single mission in US history. However the attacking force displayed uncommon valor despite the long odds with new fewer than 5 Medals of Honor being awarded.

[[AceCombat http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/AC4_AirstrkImpssbl.jpg]][[caption-width:641:[[AceCombat Mobius One]], ItsUpToYou to fly down this tunnel. And [[HeroicMime don't give me lip]] about ViolationOfCommonSense.]]

* In 1981 the [[BadassIsraeli Israeli Air Force]] pulled off another impossible mission in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera Operation Opera]], the long range attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor. A force of heavily laden F-16's and F-15's traveled across Jordon and Saudi Arabia at altitudes as low as 30 meters before popping up to completely destroy the reactor complex. Ground defenses were taken completely by surprise and not a single Israeli aircraft was damaged.

[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tidal_Wave Operation Tidal Wave]] was the low level attack against the Ploiești oil refineries in the Mediterranean Theatre of World War 2. The Ploiești oil production facilities were of key importance to the German war effort and were highly protected by fighters and ground anti-aircraft batteries. The target was already near the maximum range of the B-24 forces based in North Africa and the formidable defenses lead to the choice of a low level operation that would swing in from the north, the opposite direction that the Germans would expect. Despite lots of advance planning and practice the attacking of 178 B-24's got separated in the final phase of the attack resulting in some groups flying over the best defended areas. The extremely low altitude resulted in gunners directly engaging anti-aircraft batteries and pilots having to maneuver over fence lines and haystacks. The air strike actually did prove impossible as the damage to the targets resulted in only a small decrease of output, while losses amongst the attackers were massive. In fact with 55 planes lost out of 178 and 660 aircrew missing or killed the attack was the costliest single mission in US history. However the attacking force displayed uncommon valor despite the long odds with new fewer than 5 Medals of Honor being awarded.

* In 1981 the Israeli Air Force pulled off another impossible mission in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera Operation Opera]], the long range attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor. A force of heavily laden F-16's and F-15's traveled across Jordon and Saudi Arabia at altitudes as low as 30 meters before popping up to completely destroy the reactor complex. Ground defenses were taken completely by surprise and not a single Israeli aircraft was damaged.

* While not an airstrike per say, the flight of the B-17 "Old 666" could count. During a reconnaissance mission over a Japanese base, the big bomber was attacked by 17 fighter planes and was essentially forced to dogfight, albeit with more and heavier machineguns than any other bomber in existence in a recon mission which meant more spare weight for ammo. The crew even managed to shoot down 4 of the fighters with a specially mounted gun on the nose of the plane! Unfortunately, while the mission was a success, [[BitterSweetEnding the bombardier sacrificed his life to save the plane]].