History Main / AlphaStrike

* The climax of the ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' manga manages to combine this trope with DeathOfAThousandCuts. It basically amounts to the RedShirtArmy, and every hero who isn't dead or otherwise incapacitated, repeatedly throwing everything they've got at [[spoiler:[[BigBad Father]], gradually draining his massive supply of energy by forcing him to constantly use his HealingFactor]].

** In ''Anime/ZoidsNewCentury'', Leena's custom Gunsniper is equipped with two [[BeamSpam beam gatlings]], four [[EnergyWeapon heavy beam cannons]], two [[MoreDakka triple-barreled machine guns]], and four eight-shot [[MacrossMissileMassacre missile pods]], and a fire-control radar unit. When she uses her "Wild Weasel Unit Total Assault" attack, she fires them ''all at once''.

** In the fan-made ''VideoGame/BluePlanet'' expansions, a lot of the new GTVA ships ([=GTCv=] Chimera and Bellerophon, GTD Titan) are built for the same tactic, with multiple heavy beam guns in the front.

** "VideoGame/MechAssault" also has a move called "Alpha Strike" available for the most heaviest assault-type mechs one all upgrades are acquired for each of its three weapons that automatically gift it with said namesake attack that absolutely ENSURES it either [[OneHitKill destroys a mech easily]] with its [[ChargeAttack long, charged attack]] or has heavy/assault mechs in near-death status if they get hit by it. The tradeoff is that it significantly overheats the mech's heatsink systems for a short period as well as deplete all weapon upgrades from each of its three weapons.

* In ''Film/StarWarsTheLastJedi'', Kylo ren orders "Every gun [his forces] have to fire on [[Characters/StarWarsLukeSkywalker that man]]". Luke just brushes some dust off his shoulder. [[spoiler: Not that he needed to, he wasn't even physically there.]]

** In ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'', powerful mechanized enemies like Mechtoids and Sectopods are often accompanied by one or two support units such as repair drones to heal them or Sectoids which can protect them with a [[DeflectorShields psionic shield]]. Typically, the best strategy is to [[ShootTheMedicFirst kill these support units]] so they can't blunt the XCOM squad's attacks on the Mechtoid, but in some cases the player may want to capture the support units, which is dangerous while the main enemy is still there to protect them. In these cases, it's important to use a concentrated burst of fire to kill the big guy in one turn, before it can be healed or shielded.

*** Alpha strike is indirectly referenced. The Beta Strike game mutator doubles the health of all units - yours, friendly and enemy - without touching firepower. In the vanilla game, ''most'' units can be killed in a single turn by just focus-firing the crap out of them; not quite the case in Beta Strike, where unless you use a crowd control ability on the more dangerous units like Andromedons, Codices and Gatekeepers, they ''will'' get to act at least once.

* The climax of the ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' manga manages to combine this trope with CherryTapping by way of DamageSpongeBoss. It basically amounts to the RedShirtArmy, and every hero who isn't dead or otherwise incapacitated, repeatedly throwing everything they've got at [[spoiler:[[BigBad Father]], gradually draining his massive supply of energy by forcing him to constantly use his HealingFactor]].

** ''Anime/Gundam00AWakeningOfTheTrailblazer'' gives us Gundam Zabanya. While its predecessors were primarily [[ColdSniper sniping units]], Zabanya focuses more on a relentless hail of beam fire, with a few [[MacrossMissileMassacre GN Missiles]] for back-up. Going into the final battle it's loaded out with ''[[ExaggeratedTrope 14 GN Sniper Rifle III's]]'' that it uses simultaneously. The cherry on top is Lockon bucks his CatchPhrase and just fires in every direction with total abandon.

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[[quoteright:350:[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWingEndlessWaltz https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/endless_waltz_final_shooting.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"[[VideoGame/AceCombat7SkiesUnknown Everybody, give this attack everything you've got!]]"]]

* From ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}},'' the FinalBoss of the No Mercy route does not mess around. His first attack is his most powerful, a brutal gauntlet of GravityScrew, SpikesOfDoom, and BeamSpam using {{Wave Motion Gun}}s that can and most likely will waste you within seconds. [[spoiler:To top it all off, he's also the ''only'' enemy in the game that gets the first turn, thus making it even more of an Alpha Strike.]]
-->''[[LampshadeHanging "Huh. Always wondered why people never use their strongest attack first."]]''
* In ''VideoGame/AtlasReactor'', the [[GlassCannon firepower]] freelancer Zuki is capable of this strategy. Two of her attacks are [[TimeBomb time-delayed]] and detonate the round after they're fired, and can be fired in the same round. Zuki is therefore capable of launching her two delayed attacks in one round, and then on the next following the ensuing detonations up with another attack (like her [[LimitBreak ultimate]]), allowing her the single greatest burst damage ability in the game. A target that [[EscapeBattleTechnique dashes away in time]] however will cause Zuki to burn two cooldown abilities (and potentially her ultimate) for essentially bupkis in return.
* Most enemies in ''VideoGame/Earthbound1994'' will use random actions during battles, however the Ghost of Starman always opens up with PSI Starstorm alpha. This attack will likely put three of your four party members down for the count unless properly healed, making dealing with them your top priority and a reason they're considered [[DemonicSpiders one of the scariest enemies in the game]].
* ''VideoGame/TreasurePlanetBattleAtProcyon'' has a command that orders all ships in the fleet to focus fire on the same target.
* In the climax of ''VideoGame/AceCombat7SkiesUnknown'', [[spoiler: the combined Osean and Erusean air and sea force launches a massive alpha strike against the remaining Arsenal Bird plane. Unfortunately, the attack fails due to it activating its [[DeflectorShields Active Protection System.]]]]
* In PvE raids in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' the callout "lust" (for Horde) or "hero" (for Alliance) tells the party to do this. The callouts are named for the Shaman abilities Bloodlust and Heroism, which greatly increase attack speed and casting speed. The callout tells the party shaman to use the named ability, but also tells the rest of the raid to use all their long cooldown damage buffs and activate all their damage-boosting trinkets. Back when mana mattered, it also meant players needed to change the abilities they were using from the ones that conserve mana to the ones that disregard mana and deal maximum damage. This was done to power through high-damage phases that would quickly drain the healers' mana, or to quickly clear mooks that had difficult abilities to deal with.
* In ''VideoGame/Warhammer40000Gladius'', unloading all your weapons into a single opponent is the default of almost every unit in the game. It's the exceptions that are rare, these include the Doomsday Ark which can split attacks between its Doomsday cannon and gauss batteries and the Baneblade can divide its laser cannons and demolisher cannon with everything else. Later updates remove these specific exceptions, so that everyone had to attack with everything they had.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* [=MegaGargomon=] uses this ''twice'' during the ''FanFic/TamersForeverSeries'', unloading his entire arsenal in an ultimately futile attempt to bring down [[spoiler:Daemon]].

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* In ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', the Chitauri eventually resort to this when fighting the Hulk, surrounding him and swamping him with laser fire. It's the first thing in the battle that even slows him down.

* In the final battle in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', Ackbar orders a full assault on the Super Star Destroyer, taking out the most senior staff of the enemy Navy fleet above the forest planet of Endor.

* ''[[Literature/JohnnyMaxwellTrilogy Only You Can Save Mankind]]'' has the entire [=ScreeWee=] fleet [[NoKillLikeOverkill turn]] [[MoreDakka all]] its guns at once on a player-controlled fighter that Johnny fails to stop.
%%* In ''Literature/SummerCampTerrorInTheForest'', whenever one of the guards confronts a prisoner.
* The Battle at the Martian Orbit in Creator/MikhailAkhmanov's ''[[Literature/ArrivalsFromTheDark Invasion]]'' has the twelve cruisers of Admiral Timokhin's battlegroup launch everything they have at the [[HumanAlien Faata]] starship, while sending scores of fighters to engage the Faata small combat modules. This ends up being a WorfBarrage, as the combined firepower of the nuclear missiles (about 400 gigaton) ends up being completely useless against the Faata DeflectorShield (the people on the ship don't even feel a bump). The CurbStompBattle is short, with the Faata literally annihilating the human fleet with its AntiMatter weapons. They then send the recording of the battle to the human leaders as a warning.

[[folder:Live Action Television]]
* This is the modus operandi of Ultrazords in ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' (and their ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' equivalents). Usually it's part of a LensmanArmsRace against the SortingAlgorithmOfEvil, but sometimes a random late-appearing monster gets caught up in the attack.
** This is basically all that [[Series/KyoryuSentaiZyuranger Ultimate Daizyujin]]/[[Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers the Ultrazord]] exist for, having limited speed and mobility due to their size. That said, the power and range for its final attack is such that it doesn't really need to ''aim'', per se.
** ''Series/KyukyuSentaiGoGoV'' / ''Series/PowerRangersLightspeedRescue'' have the Max Victory Robo/Lightspeed Solarzord finisher (referred to as the "Max Nova" in the sentai), where all the cannons on the body (head, chestplate, gauntlets, and two ''massive'' hip cannons from the arms of the Liner Boy/Max Solarzord) are fired at once, fueled by both sunlight and/or the EnergyAbsorption of things fired at it-- as [[DragonInChief Zylpheeza/Diabolico]] found out, it could technically act as an AttackReflector, too, which is how he got killed the first time.
** ''[[Series/SamuraiSentaiShinkenger Shinkenger]]'' and ''[[Series/PowerRangersSamurai Samurai]]'' had a Zord combination ''further'' than an Ultrazord. Named the ''Samurai Gigazord'', the mech is a combination of all the Zords at the rangers disposal, with the primary combined Megazord standing on a mobile platform formed by one of the other Megazords.
*** The Shogun Mode - using it requires immense energy to power, which is fine inside the Megazord since the rangers are already in Mega Mode, so there is plenty of power available. Jayden uses a disc in the finale to morph directly into Shogun Mode from the base ranger form, in order to battle [[BigBad Xandred]]. Furthermore, in order to beat him fully in the final fight, the rangers decide to concentrate all their symbol power into one singular attack. The catch is that they need to get in close enough so that they can't miss; this results in their Gigazord getting wailed on by Xandred until only the base Megazord is left standing, upon which they land the final blow.
** ''Series/TensouSentaiGoseiger'' and its American counterpart ''Series/PowerRangersMegaforce'' have a finisher where the mech's most powerful form fires off all of its Headders/Zords at once. Gosei Ultimate (Megazord) can also fire off all five of its Headders/Zords for a similar attack.
** ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger'' has this with the Gokai Kanzen Super Burst, where Kanzen [=GokaiOh=] and all the Legend Mecha blast the opponent at full power all at once. In ''[[Series/PowerRangersMegaforce Super Megaforce]]'', this is called the Ultimate Legendary Zord Blitz Attack.
** Used ''against'' the Rangers for once during the Legend War in ''Super Megaforce''. The BigBad calls ''every ship in his armada'' to Earth and orders them to glass the planet. Then it's reversed when all of the previous teams join together in a counter attack, ending with them using their powers all at once to clear out the last of the armada ships once the ground troops are destroyed.
** ''Series/ZyudenSentaiKyoryuger'' and ''Series/PowerRangersDinoCharge'' have Gigant Kyoryuzin/the Ultrazord fire all of the Zyuden from its cannon component while all of the other mecha not in the current combined form gather and attack. It also has an attack where it fires out a 23 converging beams from its chest plate, using all the power it has available at once.
* ''[[Series/KamenRiderRyuki Kamen Rider Zolda]]'' and his American counterpart ''[[Series/KamenRiderDragonKnight Kamen Rider Torque]]'' employ the powerful [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast End of World]] FinishingMove, in which their beast Magnugiga fires all of its armaments at once. (It's a ''lot'' of armaments too: it's got missiles. It's got lasers. It's got some more missiles. And machine guns. And ''yet more missiles.'' And ''that'' is how MoreDakka is done!) This however leaves Zolda vulnerable to a counterattack, and seeing as End of World fails to kill another Rider...
** End of World is AwesomeButImpractical. The time it takes to set it up and the fact that Magnugiga is basically immobile makes it easier to avoid than a lot of significantly less cool attacks. In Ryuki, the closest Zolda got a kill with it is with Jun/Gai, and that's only because Asakura used Jun as a HumanShield before Asakura killed Jun shortly after. In Dragon Knight, though, Torque does manage to take out ''one'' other Rider.
* ''Series/KamenRiderFourze'' twice performs a FinishingMove like this, using the [[MacrossMissileMassacre Launcher]] and [[GatlingGood Gatling]] Switches along with his [[MultiformBalance current States']] main weapon; when he uses it in the show, he uses Fire States' [[KillItWithFire Hee-Hack Gun]]; in TheMovie he uses Magnet States' [[ShoulderCannon N and S Magnet Cannons]].
* The ''[[CoolStarship Excalibur]]'' in ''Series/{{Crusade}}'' has a variation. Rather than firing all her weapons at once, she can pour all her ''power'' into one [[WaveMotionGun weapon]]. The effect is the same, as afterwards it takes 60 seconds to power back up again.

* Depicted as the default method of intership combat in ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'', where battlestars are shown deploying massive flak batteries to defend their flanks from fighter strikes and simultaneously firing all their railguns and missile barrages in hugely destructive salvos against Cylon basestars. This method of attack is highly effective, but somewhat ruinous on their limited ammunition stocks.

** A few other 'Mechs are specifically designed to be able to Alpha Strike ''without'' overheating. Known as "alpha-babies" or "refrigerators" among the fans, these designs benefit from being able to maintain constant, consistent damage output, at the cost of being generally undergunned (or having to make some other tradeoff) in comparison to other contemporary designs and lacking the ability to perform a DeathOrGloryAttack when a high-priority target needs to die ''right now''.

* Very widespread and devastating in ''TabletopGame/{{HeroClix}}'', especially if playing characters like [[FragileSpeedster The Flash]] who have no damage reduction. With right positioning and good rolls, it is possible to inflict up to 10 clicks worth of damage in one attack in a game where an average character would have only 6 - 7 clicks of life, without even taking into consideration CriticalHit bonus damage or perplex damage boosts. Usually, characters who can do this are one-man armies, who can be taken down if they screw up on positioning by missing on their opening Alpha Strike. Notably, some characters are designed for Alpha Strikes, like the Trinity Wars main set Crime Syndicate of America Johnny Quick, who has a special ability that boosts his attack and damage values in exchange for taking damage equal to the amount of boosting he had. It can give him enough of a boost to render an enemy figure pointless in the opening moves, but should he miss, he would be in a lot of trouble from the damage, the most likely screwed-up positioning, and the possibility of retaliation.
** Some characters have powerful damage reducers or "stop clicks" (powers that stops the dial from turning when revealed) to avoid Alpha Strikes; and with the release of the Trinity Wars set this year came Blue Devil, who Alpha Strikes characters with stop clicks (Blue Devil's trait makes it that if a stop click is revealed from his damage, that character takes ''further damage'', essentially making the stop click a disadvantage).
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
** Some editions have RocketTagGameplay at high levels, leading to highly-optimized builds that revolve around alpha strikes. High level caster fights can see both parties exhaust their entire ninth level spell complement within the first round in order to make sure they get to act first in combat and then hit their target with their most powerful spells.
** As their entry explains, time dragons "have better things to do than engage in the potential dangers of combat". When faced with a threat, they blast foes with all of their most powerful spells and abilities right off the bat, usually abusing time stop to set up multiple effects at once. If that doesn't work, they just use their innate ability to time travel to flee the confrontation.

* ''VideoGame/QuantumProtocol'': Queen's Ability card, Checkmate, activates the manual effect of all of her cards and doubles their damage. If these cards are positioned correctly, they can do a lot of damage in one turn to a single target.
* ''VideoGame/MSSagaANewDawn'': Several [[SpecialAttack boost attacks]] qualify. There's Gatling Body, which requires at least three fixed (ie, not hand-held) weapons, and fires them all at once. Gatling Fire is an upgraded version, which requires at least ''four'' weapons, but includes hand-held weapons in the barrage. Ultimate Weapon is an upgrade of ''that'', which fires every weapon you have equipped (like Gatling Fire), but follows up with a melee attack [[NoKillLikeOverkill for good measure]].
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': The "hero nuke" tactic involves acquiring three heroes with powerful single-target attack abilities, and having all three attack a single target in quick succession. This is usually used to take an enemy hero from "slightly damaged" to "dead" without any time in-between to heal, escape, or activate any countermeasure.
* ''VideoGame/MechWarrior'', being a SpinOff of ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' (mentioned in the TabletopGames section), makes use of alpha strikes. All weaponry installed on the mech fires, regardless of grouping. Mechs loaded with high heat weapons usually find themselves glowing like the sun, or just outright exploding. Heck, the most recent edition of the series, ''[=MechWarrior=]: Online'', has a button that does exactly this, labeled Alpha Strike.
** An Alpha Strike button also existed in ''[=MechWarrior=] 3'' by hitting the numpad enter key. Doing this in a stock [[{{MeaningfulName}} Supernova]][[note]]In Battletech, a [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Supernova Supernova]] carries six Extended-Range Large Lasers, which together generate more than enough heat to cause a 'mech to automatically shut down from 0 heat twice over[[/note]] caused it to instantly explode in a miniature mushroom cloud.
** ''[=MechWarrior=] Tactics'' has an Alpha Strike button which can be used to fire off the entire array of a selected 'Mech's weapons during the attack phase. This can have the same consequences as in Online, but in a graduating increase of doom percentage.
** And true to form, the ''VideoGame/BattleTech'' game by Harebrained Schemes features this, with a few builds actually relying on it as a strategy[[note]]Particularly the ''Hunchback HBK-4P'', which uses 10 medium lasers to deliver a massive 250 points of damage per strike; the ''Kintaro KTO-18'', which can be fitted with a large number of SRM launchers to deliver a nightmarish amount of armor and stability damage; the ''Catapult CLPT-K2'', which uses some medium lasers to back up the dual [=PPCs=] for a boatload of damage; the ''Black Knight BLKT'' which is entirely energy based and has no minimum range, and so likes to get right in faces as light them up; and the ''Jenner JRD-7D'', which uses 4 medium lasers and an SRM-4 for devastating hit-and-run tactics. Notably, every single one of these 'Mechs is described as running ''extremely'' hot due to the heat generated from their alpha strikes, which can shut down any of these 'Mechs in as little as two salvos[[/note]].
* The ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' games allow players to use the "All-Out Attack", which has all active allies attacking simultaneously, resulting in a BigBallOfViolence and a whole lot of damage to the entire enemy group. It's only available when all enemies have been knocked down (by dodging one of their melee attacks, hitting them with a critical melee hit, or using an elemental weakness against them), and it uses takes up everyone's action for that turn, meaning that you can't use any defensive actions like healing or buffing, which can be deadly if the enemy survives.
** The All-Out Attack returns in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'', though there's some variations to it as well: leveling up the Tower social link gives access to a special action where Joker fires ''all'' the ammunition currently loaded in his gun to force a knock-down on the enemy (useful when the enemy has no weaknesses to exploit), and an opening attack where every member of the active team unloads their guns into the enemies with wild abandon, inflicting up to 25% of the enemies' maximum HP before the battle even starts, and without costing any ammunition.
* In ''VideoGame/ChromaSquad'', this is referred to as a "FinishingMove": this entails having your entire Sentai team gang up on one enemy, typically the boss monster, by surrounding it with all of your actors, setting four to "Teamwork" mode, then attacking with the last actor to initiate the team attack. As the name of this maneuver suggests, this is best used when such an attack will cause the monster's HP to reach 0: if the monster survives the attack, you'll incur a hefty penalty to your audience count.
* In ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations II'''s expansions, ''Dark Avatar'' and ''Twilight of the Arnor'', the Arceans specialize in alpha-striking with their Super Warrior ability. Normally, in ship-to-ship or fleet combat, both sides' fleets attack simultaneously in a series of combat rounds, with ships getting eliminated on both sides until one side is completely destroyed. The Arceans' Super Ability, however, gives them a first strike upon initiating combat, allowing them to eliminate some or all of the enemy fleet before they get a chance to return fire, and as such their ships are generally designed for all-out offense with no defenses. If they fail to destroy or cripple the enemy in the first round, or the enemy gets the drop on them, it's generally bad news.
* Quite a few RealRobot units in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' have this, such the Astelion, the Valhawk, and most notably the Alt Eisen's "Trump Card". It's always their strongest move and has few ammo uses. Even when the other attacks still have plenty of ammo, or even run on Energy. Don't ask.
** The Trump Card is likely a FountainOfExpies as various other units in later entries get them, even those who don't canonically have such a tactic (Zeta Gundam, Destiny Gundam). It's pretty much a go-to LimitBreak for any mecha that doesn't have a suitably large/flashy FinishingMove or WaveMotionGun(and occasionally, even the ones that ''do''.)
** One prominent example is the [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamCharsCounterattack Nu Gundam]], where the strongest attack will be based on the climatic confrontation with Char's Sazabi in the film. Generally Amuro will start out with firing on the target with his beam rifle while simultaneously launching the [[AttackDrone Fin Funnels]], which then pummel the target as Amuro flies in and delivers a series of punches culminating in a slash of the beam saber. Some games have him fire the Nu Gundam's head vulcans as part of the maneuver.

* ''VideoGame/MetalWolfChaos'' has this as a chargeable LimitBreak, where Michael fires all his carried weapons wildly and at once while screaming "HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?!". As a LimitBreak, it has no downsides.

* Defeating the various ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' {{Optional Boss}}es like Deadbeard or Dullahan pretty much requires the player to [[CrazyPrepared set every single djinn on standby before the battle starts]], then alpha-strike the boss with as many of the most powerful summons as possible, and then some. Anything less is virtually guaranteed to set up the protagonists on the receiving end of a massive CurbStompBattle, including any attempts to fight these bosses conventionally. [[InvertedTrope Inverted]], however, for the actual [[FinalBoss final bosses]] - try alpha-striking them and you're in for a world of hurt due to their multi-phase battle choreographies.
* ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' has what appears to be a slight parody of the term, in Master Yi's ability "Alpha Strike", which launches him forward like a ghost at a target, dealing impressive damage to multiple targets as he ricochets between them at the risk of potentially ''landing you in the middle of five irate enemy team members and getting you slaughtered''.
** There is, however, a build for him (effectiveness debatable) that focuses on building AP and amping up the ability's damage to ridiculous levels, effectively playing this straight. To a lesser extent, all the "Burst Casters" are meant to do this; champions like Malzahar are most effective when they use all of their abilities at once to utterly destroy a single target.
** The AP Yi build is now eliminated from the game because it had very little counterplay due to the cooldown reset on kill. You could wait for one enemy player out of five to be at half health, then roll in and use Alpha Strike to kill that player and damage everyone else, then Alpha Strike again and [[TotalPartyKill PENTAKILL]].
* In ''VideoGame/CallersBane'', this is the main way for Growth to break a stalemate. Build up a large army, then [[http://www.scrollsguide.com/wiki/God_Hand play this.]] Either you win or all of your creatures are now on cooldown and you have no attack for the next several turns. Energy has its own version, but for artillery only.
* On the ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' forums, "Alpha strike" generally refers to the beginning phase of combat, as ships approach each other and fire off their first salvos of weapons (weapons start ready to fire, so as ships approach each other they can fire most weapons immediately, while cooldowns stagger attacks later in the battle). "Alpha Strike" weapons and designs can deal a lot of damage in this phase, hopefully killing a large number of enemy ships before they can respond effectively, but are not as effective at other times during combat, or fighting in a different style of battle.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Freespace}}'', the Shivans tend to mount nearly all of their guns facing forward, compared with the wider coverage of Terran/Vasudan vessels. While this doesn't give them much staying power when flanked, it makes facing a Shivan vessel in its forward arc borderline suicide. The Shivans combine this trope with HyperspeedAmbush with devastating efficiency.
** In the fan-made ''VideoGame/BluePlanet'' expansions, a lot of the new GTVA ships ([=GTCv=] Chimera and Bellerophon, GTD Titan) are built for the same tactic, with multiple heavy beam guns in the front.
* Most M7 frigates with [[FixedForwardFacingWeapon spinal gun mounts]] in ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X3: Terran Conflict]]'' and ''X3: Albion Prelude'' are capable of this trope, provided the player arms them with Incendiary Bomb Launchers, which can be charged up to fire by holding down the trigger instead of tapping it. The Teladi Shrike and Split Tiger are popular for this, but the Boron Thresher does them one better by mounting ten Photon Pulse Cannons instead. This is a chargeable gun normally mounted on full-size destroyers. Only problem is, a Thresher so rigged is a GlassCannon: you can get off maybe two or three fully charged barrages before your weapons energy is depleted and you have to recharge, and the Thresher's shields are below average.
* ''VideoGame/DefenseOfTheAncients'' has a few 'nuker' type heroes with damage-dealing spells dominating their repertoire. Unloading them in rapid succession to an unsuspecting enemy can be devastating, at the cost of not being able to use it for the cooldown time.
** On a strategic level, using multiple ultimates on a single key enemy hero, giving them no chance to counter or survive. This leaves the team without their all-important ultimates for up to 2 seconds, but also leaves the enemy team [[WorthIt without the carry they spent the entire game growing into an unstoppable juggernaut]]. If the enemy team has no backup plan and the carry cannot buyback, the match is over. This sort of team is known as a pickoff comp(osition).
* The ''VideoGame/StarTrekStarfleetCommand'' games, like the ''TabletopGame/StarFleetBattles'' tabletop game they're based on, have this. The currently-selected target is bombarded with all the weapons currently charged/loaded and facing it. Especially deadly when your ship has an InvisibilityCloak, allowing you to sneak up on an enemy, decloak, and deliver the alpha strike.

* ''Theatre Europe'', a World War III strategy game for 8-bit computers, quite often ended in an alpha strike from both sides, leaving no survivors and victory rating of 0%. This was a [[AnAesop pretty deliberate message]] on the part of the developers.
* A somewhat smaller scale of this trope is Salvador the Gunzerker of ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' whose unique skill lets him dual-wield any gun in his inventory. Anytime he empties the magazine of his gun, he swaps the gun out for another in his inventory.
* ''VideoGame/ReflecBeat'' has an attack called the Just Reflec, which uses one segment of your three-segment [[ChargeMeter Just Reflec gauge]] to bounce back a gold note like usual, but at a wider angle and a higher speed, along with an extra 10-point penalty if the opponent misses. Load all three of these segments at once and then Just Reflec a cluster of gold notes, and you can potentially overwhelm your opponent. ''Reflec Beat colette'' grants you five gauge segments instead of three, allowing you to pull off bigger attacks.
* ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' has one as well when fighting the Egg Cauldron.
--> '''Dr. Eggman''': "GO! FIRE ALL WEAPONS!"
* ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriorsGundam'' brings almost every Gundam example in existence, as well as a few that don't typically show up in their native source:
** The [[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam Palace Athene]]'s [[LimitBreak SP attack]] is best described as "fire all beams and missiles" and will completely unload the suit's missile pods. The launchers visibly regenerate the spent missiles afterwards.
** The [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED Buster Gundam]] has an aerial SP attack that is so hilariously excessive in sheer output of dual shoulder launched missiles as well as hand carried guns that it can lag a [[UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 PS3]] straight into single-digit framerates when used. Its partner, the Duel Gundam, is not ''that'' much better with its Assault Shroud letting it fire the ShoulderCannon and missile launcher as well as the beam rifle all at the same time. The Calamity Gundam gives in to the violent urges of its pilot and lurches blindly back and forth firing all its weapons as its SP attack. Freedom and [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny Strike Freedom]] appear and are BeamSpam death machines. Infinite Justice becomes one too when it triggers its [[MechaExpansionPack METEOR]] SuperMode's SP attack. All three suits are shown firing everything they have, both in and out of cutscenes.
** The [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Heavyarms Custom]] returns with its Full Open attack--notable for actually showing the Heavyarms run out of ammo every single time it's used, not necessarily just when Trowa does it.
** Finally, a number of Mobile Armors will fire everything in their arsenal as either an SP attack or, more often, as SecretAIMoves. [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny Destroy Gundam]] will fire off all its beam weapons as well as the missile launchers on its back, while [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Big Zam]] spews a 360-degree ring of beams around itself, then fires its main cannon. [[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam Psyco Gundam]] and [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamZZ Psyco Gundam Mk II]] will occasionally stand still, seemingly doing nothing [[SchmuckBait and inviting free cheap shots]], at which point they fire every single beam weapon they have and turn the space in front of them into a wall of pain.

* ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight'' gives you an achievement for doing this with the Weapon Pre-Igniter, an upgrade made specifically to allow you to arm and fire all powered weapons when a battle starts. Annihilating an enemy in a single salvo before they can even charge their weapons usually requires you to fire everything you have. You can simply wait for all your weapons to charge and then fire them in concert, which is a recommended tactic in battles anyway since you must usually get through DeflectorShields first in order to damage enemy ships directly, and groups of weapons stand a better chance of wearing down enemy defenses.

* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'': In Dark Crusade's campaign, non-stronghold levels are won by destroying the enemy's HQ building, leading to this type of strategy. You can start with honor guard units, who are slightly weaker than the regular counterparts but can still carry out this type of attack. The flipside is that the AI also carries out this strategy when attacking a territory, and they have full-strength regular units instead.

** In the movie ''[[Recap/BabylonFiveFilm02Thirdspace Thirdspace]]'', all the friendly ships attack the Artifact simultaneously (ignoring attacking foes). They have no chance of damaging the Artifact, but that isn't the plan...

*** ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWingEndlessWaltz Endless Waltz]]'' happens to provide the picture for this trope: when Heero makes clear his intention to blast Mariemaia's bunker open with Wing Zero's [[{{BFG}} Twin Buster Rifle]], [[TheUnfettered with no regard whatsoever for collateral damage]], her forces are given the order to shoot Wing Zero with ''exactly everything'' before he can deliver. One guess as to whether or not it stops him.

* In ''Franchise/OnePiece'' the Buster Call is a villainous version of this. When a situation is so threatening to the World Government that even the slightest leak would cause irreparable damage, the Buster Call is summoned. Ten massive warships headed by five [[FourStarBadass Vice-Admirals]] essentially [[ItsTheOnlyWayToBeSure glass the target island, wiping out any trace of whatever threat they were called to deal with, ]] and make no distinction between innocents and their targets. [[IrrevocableOrder They can't be called off, either.]]
* ''Manga/PandemoniumWizardVillage'': Upon seeing [[spoiler:a Sky Golem corpse]], Crain orders the entire brigade to open fire on it, before they realize [[spoiler:it's already dead]]. [[NoSell Not that their bullets were at all effective]].
* In the climax of the first season's two-part finale of ''Anime/UFORoboGrendizer'' -- one of the ''Anime/MazingerZ'' sequels -- the titular Main/HumongousMecha played chicken with the Mother Burn (the CoolStarship of one of the CoDragons), shooting all of its weapons at once as he flew straight towards it. [[spoiler:And he won!]]
* ''{{Franchise/Zoids}}'' has several examples.
** In ''Anime/ZoidsChaoticCentury'', Thomas uses an attack called Megalomax, which fires all ''seventeen'' of his Dibison's [[{{BFG}} artillery cannons]] simultaneously (which [[BellisariosMaxim somehow]] combined the individual shots into a WaveMotionGun). Sadly for Thomas, it [[WorfBarrage never worked]].
** In ''Anime/ZoidsNewCentury'', Leena's custom Gunsniper is equipped with two [[BeamSpam beam gatlings]], four [[EnergyWeapon heavy beam cannons]], two [[MoreDakka triple-barreled machine guns]], and four eight-shot [[MacrossMissileMassacre missile pods]], and a fire-control radar unit. When she uses her "Wild Weasel Unit Total Assault" attack, she fires them ''all at once''.

* The climax of the ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' manga manages to combine this trope with CherryTapping by way of DamageSpongeBoss. It basically amounts to the RedShirtArmy, and every hero who isn't dead or otherwise incapacitated, repeatedly throwing everything they've got at [[spoiler: [[BigBad Father]]. Gradually draining his massive supply of energy by forcing him to constantly use his HealingFactor]].
* In the final OVA episode of ''Literature/SentouYouseiYukikaze'', Yukikaze sends a request to the entire Faery Air Force to launch all missiles at the enormous JAM dome blocking the escape route to the Passageway, then uses the hole punched open in the dome to fly in and use the [[EnergyWeapon laser cannons]] on the three Flip Knight drones to tear apart the dome from the inside and enable the fleet to escape to Earth.
* ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion'': In ''3.0 + 1.0'', Misato orders the ''Wunder'' to fire every missile at [[spoiler:EVA-13]], and then every gun at the gunship defending [[spoiler:NERV HQ at the South Pole]]. Unfortunately, there happens to be more than one NERV ship, leaving them open to attack.

* Defeating the various ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' [[BonusBoss bonus bosses]] like Deadbeard or Dullahan pretty much requires the player to [[CrazyPrepared set every single djinn on standby before the battle starts]], then alpha-strike the boss with as many of the most powerful summons as possible, and then some. Anything less is virtually guaranteed to set up the protagonists on the receiving end of a massive CurbStompBattle, including any attempts to fight these bosses conventionally. [[InvertedTrope Inverted]], however, for the actual [[FinalBoss final bosses]] - try alpha-striking them and you're in for a world of hurt due to their multi-phase battle choreographies.

* In the ''Star Trek'' franchise, the various starships usually forego an all-out attack with all weapons, often only firing a single phaser or photon torpedo barrage, leading to speculation that energy requirements or Starfleet ethics prevent such full-on displays of power. However, in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode ''The Best of Both Worlds'', the ''Enterprise-D'' unloads a full-scale alpha strike by firing all of its forward-firing phasers and its torpedoes in one massive salvo at the Borg who, predictably, are left totally undamaged.

* From ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}},'' the FinalBoss of the [[KillEmAll No Mercy]] route does not mess around. His first attack is his most powerful, a brutal gauntlet of GravityScrew, SpikesOfDoom, and BeamSpam using {{Wave Motion Gun}}s that can and most likely will waste you within seconds. [[spoiler:To top it all off, he's also the ''only'' enemy in the game that gets the first turn, thus making it even more of an Alpha Strike.]]

** In 8th edition this became a problem on the tournament scene, with lists that wiped out half or all of the enemy list in the first turn of shooting making the whole game turn on who wins the role to go first. This is generally attributed to tournament tables almost never including terrain that blocks line of sight and largely went away when the organizers fixed that.

** The Gundam Leopard from ''Anime/AfterWarGundamX'', being an {{Expy}} of Heavyarms, does this on occasion.

* ''[[WesternAnimation/TotalDrama Total Drama Island]]'' features a non-lethal variant in the episode "Dodgebrawl". During [[DodgeballIsHell an intense dodgeball match]], Duncan ([[NotAMorningPerson who had been sleeping throughout most of the challenge]]) helps his team get a second wind by introducing his "Rush the New Guy" strategy, with all teammates ganging up on a single opponent at a time.

** Also seen in the (defunct) trading card game, where "Alpha Strike" was specifically an ability of certain units -- mostly 'Mechs, but also some vehicles after those were added as their own unit type. Using it let that unit do more damage in a given fight at the cost of becoming temporarily depleted and having to sit out the next turn. The Clan ''Nova'' [=OmniMech=] is 'Mech expertly designed for this in it's Prime configuration. It mounts twelve ER Medium Lasers, which can deal an insane amount of damage at pretty respectable range if they all hit. Firing all of them also pops the 'Mech's heat one point shy of "Automatic Shutdown," giving it (in theory) the ability to pop out on one turn and Alpha Strike, then retreat the following turn to cool off. Of course, other heat effects include reduction in movement, so this might not work so well in practice.
** Some 'Mechs, though, are designed with this in mind. An Alpha Strike from a 'Mech like this falls just short of shutting it down -- the [[DifficultButAwesome required technique]] is to [[HitAndRunTactics Hit and Run]], safely cooling off out of line of sight before coming back for another go. Performed correctly, especially in packs, it can cripple a [[BoringButPractical more conventional]] 'Mech design.

---->'''Nero''': ''Fire EVERYTHING!''