History Main / CannonFodder

* ''Webcomic/{{SSDD}}'': Just before the army's aptitude test, the sergeant explains that while ''volunteers'' who fail the test will be sent home, ''conscripts'' who fail it still have a place within the army:

* In ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series, Scamps, [[TheGoomba the weakest known form]] of [[OurDemonsAreDifferent lesser Daedra]], serve this role in the [[OurGodsAreDifferent Daedric Prince]] [[DestroyerDeity Mehrunes Dagon]]'s LegionsOfHell. Due to their relative weakness and [[FunSize small stature]], their only viable tactic is the ZergRush. Often, Scamps can be found in non-combat roles, such as messengers and [[ServantRace servants to perform mundane tasks]]. Mortals are known to use Scamps in these latter roles as well.

* In the StrategyRPG [[IOSGames iPhone Game]] ''Ravenmark'', some battles sees you command Militiamen, in addition to your core Imperial Legion troops. Basically farmers and local constables with little to no training and basic equipment, pressed into service when an unexpected full-scale invasion stretched the imperial armies beyond capacity. Their most notable ability is that any enemy unit that kills a squad of them is slowed down to 1 move and low initiative in the next round. In other words, they're most useful when their piled-up corpses are impeding the progress of your foes. Of course, whether you use them as such, or try to keep them in reserve until things get truly desperate, is [[VideogameCaringPotential up]] to [[VideogameCrueltyPotential you]].

If you're liable to be on the receiving end of a WannabeDiss, expect to be cast as this too.

* In ''VideoGame/Napoleon: Total War'', when a region capital comes under siege by an army, the defending army may obtain, for the duration of the siege, several units of [[Mooks mooks]] named "Armed Citizenry" to defend the city. They are almost utterly useless, and may even be a hazard to the defending army in a regular line as they rout very quickly. Indeed, their only valuable use is as a meat shield to protect the regular army in ultimate [[WeHaveReserves we have reserves]] fashion, and even in that they often fail miserably.

* In ''[[VideoGame/Napoleon: Total War]]'', when a region capital comes under siege by an army, the defending army may obtain, for the duration of the siege, several units of [[Mooks]] named "Armed Citizenry" to defend the city. They are almost utterly useless, and may even be a hazard to the defending army in a regular line as they rout very quickly. Indeed, their only valuable use is as a meat shield to protect the regular army in ultimate [[WeHaveReserves]] fashion, and even in that they often fail miserably.

* In ''[[VideoGame/ Napoleon: Total War]]'', when a region capital comes under siege by an army, the defending army may obtain, for the duration of the siege, several units of [[mooks]] named "Armed Citizenry" to defend the city. They are almost utterly useless, and may even be a hazard to the defending army in a regular line as they rout very quickly. Indeed, their only valuable use is as a meat shield to protect the regular army in ultimate [[we have reserves]] fashion, and even in that they often fail miserably.

* In ''[[VideoGame / {{Napoleon: Total War}}]]'' when a region capital comes under siege by an army, the defending army may obtain, for the duration of the siege, several units of ''mooks'' named "Armed Citizenry" may appear to defend the city. They are almost utterly useless, and may even be a hazard to the defending army in a regular line as they rout very quickly. Indeed, their only valuable use is as a meat shield to protect the regular army in ultimate ''we have reserves'' fashion, and even in that they often fail miserably.

If a Cannon Fodder manages to outlive the others and get the jobs done over and over again, despite being expected to be killed in battle by their superiors, they may graduate into a SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder.

If a Cannon Fodder manages to outlive the others and get the jobs done over and over again, despite they're expected to be killed in battle by their superiors, they may graduate into a SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder.

If a Cannon Fodder manages to outlive the others and get the jobs done over and over again, they may graduate into a SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder.

If a Cannon Fodder manages to outlive the others and manages to get the jobs done over and over again, they may graduate into a SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder.

[[IThoughtItMeant For the classic video game named]] ''Cannon Fodder'', [[VideoGame/CannonFodder see here]]. Not to be confused the the [[PunnyName punny trope]] CanonFodder.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' lets you choose which target your gun crews are shooting at, so it's hard to ''force'' your opponent to focus on your most expendable troops, but there's two ways you can evoke this trope. The first is the "tarpit" approach, where you lock up your enemy's most dangerous melee units in a long assault against cheap, worthless troops - that single SpaceMarine Terminator costs as much as ten Guardsmen, and will probably beat them in combat, but it's going to take a few rounds for him to do so, in which he's not earning his points cost back by killing something more valuable. Second is the "ablative wounds" approach, where you add additional soldiers to a squad to discard as casualties after taking fire. The more regular soldiers there are, the more likely the troopers carrying the plasma gun or missile launcher are to survive to use their more potent weapons. As for the individual armies and their designated Cannon Fodder units:

** The Tau tend to use their Kroot allies and other alien auxiliaries as this, but not to soak up enemy gunfire, rather to meet or counter-charge an enemy assault, since the Tau [[CripplingOverspecialization are miserable in close combat.]] In practice, though, the Kroot mostly end up serving this purpose since they're cheap, numerous, and not very good in their intended role as melee troops.

** A common term among players for this sort of unit is "bubble wrap", as they exist almost entirely to absorb blows to far more valuable units, any form of counter-attack capability being absolutely secondary to their ability to die usefully.

** The Tau tend to use their Kroot allies and other alien auxiliaries as this, but not to soak up enemy gunfire, rather to meet or counter-charge an enemy assault, since the Tau [[CripplingOverspecialization are miserable in close combat.]]

The term Cannon Fodder itself originated in the endless assaults of the UsefulNotes/WorldWarI Western Front, where there were no operational breakthroughs past the enemy's trench defenses and ''every'' battle consisted entirely of the hard-fought 'assault' phase (assault, breakthrough, exploitation). In this context of these huge battles in which trenches weren't taken faster than they could be dug[[note]] the real problem was with the artillery cover. Friendly artillery would blow the shit out of the defenses, which the infantry would then swarm and defend against enemy counter-attacks. But all artillery pieces have limited range, leaving the infantry vulnerable to bombardments from enemy artillery. To keep advancing you'd need to move the city block's worth of artillery forward... together with an actual mountain of ammunition and horse fodder and human-food... through the area you just blew the shit out of... faster than the enemy could use trains to just dump all their stuff where it was needed. In practice this was very, very tricky to pull off even if you had all the horses and supplies you needed and organised them perfectly. The Entente never really managed it, with all operations before 1918 having to stop advancing eventually due to unsustainable horse-deaths (from exhaustion) [[/note]], the infantrymen [[BlackHumor were said]] to be nothing more than fodder (a term usually used to describe horse feed) for the artillery. However, its French equivalent ''chair à canon'' (cannon meat) was used a hundred years earlier by Chateaubriand, this being a reference to artillery's fearsome killing power and pivotal role on the pre-rifle battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars. A similar term from times when artillery pieces were so expensive, rare, and heavy they were used almost exclusively for sieges and ships ("food for powder") dates back to the 16th century at least; it is used by Falstaff in Shakespeare's ''Theatre/HenryIVPart1''.

* In the VideoGame/{{XCOM}} series, it is the default ''modus operandi'' of the alien force. The reason: the aliens are effectively countless, they can be easily bred and they have little to no survival instinct.

* D-Class Personnel at the Wiki/SCPFoundation. These are the people that they shove through doors into deep space in order to see what happens.

[[quoteright:138:[[VideoGame/HyruleTotalWar http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_21cannonfodder_7789.png]]]]

-->--'''Union Captain''', ''Film/TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly''