History Main / CapitalOffensive

** As the Western Allies invaded Germany in the closing months of the war, UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} was left to the Soviets, who proceeded to take it in one last bloody battle. Quickly surrounding the city and brushing aside its 85,000 defenders were some 1.5 ''million'' Soviet combat troops. It was the final major battle in UsefulNotes/{{Europe}} during the war. UsefulNotes/AfoldHitler committed suicide as the Soviets closed in. With Hitler dead and the Allies rapidly occupying virtually all remaining areas under German control, the new head of state -- Admiral Dönitz -- surrendered unconditionally a week later.

** During the GrandFinale of ''Series/StarTrekPicard'', [[spoiler: the Borg manage, thanks to sabotage from the [[RenegadeSplinterFaction renegade Changelings]] [[VillainTeamUp allied with them]], to mass assimilate the majority of Starfleet after the fleet is gathered on Earth for Frontier Day, turning the ships on Earth's defenses to finally take the planet]]. This attack [[NearVillainVictory very nearly manages to succeed]] [[spoiler: before the reunited ''Enterprise'' crew manage to destroy the Borg Queen and liberate the assimilated]].

* When UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin's UsefulNotes/{{Russia}} went on a large scale invasion of UsefulNotes/{{Ukraine}} in February 2022, a large portion of their forces made a drive straight for the capital city, Kyiv, using the nearby UsefulNotes/{{Belarus}} as launchpad. A combination of undermanning, poor morale, poor planning, poor logistics (aggravated by [[TrackTrouble railway sabotaging]] in Belarus, which led to a poorly thought out giant road convoy that got bogged down), poor assessment of the mindset of Ukrainians (who aren't as pro-Russian as Putin thought) and the fierce resistance and guerilla tactics of the Ukrainian troops (helped by plenty of modern Western-provided AntiArmor rocket launchers such as FGM-148 Javelins and [=NLAWs=]) particularly at the crucial site of Hostomel airport rendered it an absolute failure, eventually forcing the Russians to withdraw from all of Northern Ukraine and refocus on battles of attrition in the East where they have a firm control and better supply lines. [[HomeByChristmas Uniforms to be used for a victory parade]] in Kyiv were found on dead Russian soldiers or in supplies that were left behind. To add insult to injury, many Russian soldiers who were stationed in the nearby UsefulNotes/{{Chernobyl}} area ended up with radiation sickness. Putin, given [[SoreLoser who he is]], still hasn't acknowledged the Kyiv offensive as a failure.

** ''Operation Barbarossa'', the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, envisioned the largely or totally unopposed capture of the symbolic capital of world Socialism (Leningrad) and the political capital of the USSR (Moscow) by the end of August 1941. This was thought possible because the German Army believed that the Soviet troops massed within 200km of the Soviet-German border constituted 1/3 of the military strength that the Soviet Union had on-hand, and could mobilise within two months. In reality it was closer to a fifth of that figure, and by mid-July 1941 German forces had run out of supplies and been halted by heavy resistance halfway to Leningrad and Moscow. Franz Halder, the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH), had been the person most responsible for the focus on capturing Moscow. Hitler actually thought that capturing Moscow should be less of a priority than grabbing the oil fields and farmland in the South--thus securing these resources for Germany while starving the Soviet Union of what it needed to fight the war--and was very angry when he found out that Halder had gone behind his back to divert resources from Army Group South to Army Group Center.

** The Anzio offensive was an Allied effort to take Rome, the official capital of both the Kingdom of Italy and [[LesCollaborateurs the Nazi-aligned Italian Social Republic]], and bypass the German defensive line south of it through amphibious landings. Poor planning left the offensive bogged for months.
** As the Western Allies invaded Germany in the closing months of the war, Berlin was left to the Soviets, who proceeded to take it in one last bloody battle. Quickly surrounding the city and brushing aside its 85,000 defenders were some 1.5 ''million'' Soviet combat troops. It was the final major battle in Europe during the war. Hitler committed suicide as the Soviets closed in. With Hitler dead and the Allies rapidly occupying virtually all remaining areas under German control, the new head of state -- Admiral Dönitz -- surrendered unconditionally a week later.

** In the weeks proceeding the war Washington, D.C. almost got completely surrounded ''before the war even broke out''! Maryland almost joined the Southern states in secession, and if that had happened, D.C. would have been surrounded on all sides by Confederate territory. A show of force by the Union Army got the state government to back down.

* When UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin's UsefulNotes/{{Russia}} went on a large scale invasion of UsefulNotes/{{Ukraine}} in February 2022, a large portion of their forces made a drive straight for the capital city, Kyiv, using the nearby UsefulNotes/{{Belarus}} as launchpad. A combination of undermanning, poor morale, poor planning, poor logistics (aggravated by [[TrackTrouble railway sabotaging]] in Belarus, which led to a poorly thought out giant road convoy that got bogged down), poor assessment of the mindset of Ukrainians (who aren't as pro-Russian as Putin thought) and the fierce resistance and guerilla tactics of the Ukrainian troops (helped by plenty of modern Western-provided AntiArmor rocket launchers such as FGM-148 Javelins and [=NLAWs=]) rendered it an absolute failure, eventually forcing the Russians to withdraw from all of Northern Ukraine and refocus on battles of attrition in the East where they have a firm control and better supply lines. [[HomeByChristmas Uniforms to be used for a victory parade]] in Kyiv were found on dead Russian soldiers or in supplies that were left behind. To add insult to injury, many Russian soldiers who were stationed in the nearby UsefulNotes/{{Chernobyl}} area ended up with radiation sickness. Putin, given [[SoreLoser who he is]], still hasn't acknowledged the Kyiv offensive as a failure.

* During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon managed to take Moscow after the Battle of Borodino. However, this trope was averted. The capital had already been largely abandoned and set ablaze in order to deny the French Emperor the prize. He spent about a month there before pulling out, faced with the harsh Russian winter. Low on supplies, his Grande Armée was quickly whittled down to a tiny fraction of its former self by the unforgiving elements and by constant Russian hit-and-run attacks. This contributed heavily to Napoleon's eventual defeat. Actually zigzagged in that Moscow was only the second capital of imperial Russia after Saint Petersburg, which was never endangered.

* When UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin's UsefulNotes/{{Russia}} went on a large scale invasion of UsefulNotes/{{Ukraine}} in February 2022, a large portion of their forces made a drive straight for the capital city, Kyiv, using the nearby UsefulNotes/{{Belarus}} as launchpad. A combination of undermanning, poor morale, poor planning, poor logistics (aggravated by [[TrackTrouble railway sabotaging]] in Belarus, which led to a poorly thought out giant road convoy that got bogged down), poor assessment of the mindset of Ukrainians (who aren't as pro-Russian as Putin thought) and the fierce resistance and guerilla tactics of the Ukrainian troops (helped by plenty of modern Western-provided AntiArmor rocket launchers such as FGM-148 Javelins and [=NLAWs=]) rendered it an absolute failure, eventually forcing the Russians to withdraw from all of Northern Ukraine and refocus on battles of attrition in the East where they have a firm control and better supply lines. [[HomeByChristmas Uniforms to be used for a victory parade]] in Kyiv were found on dead Russian soldiers or in supplies that were left behind. To add insult to injury, many Russian soldiers who were stationed in the nearby UsefulNotes/{{Chernobyl}} area ended up with radiation sickness. Putin, given who he is, still hasn't acknowledged the Kyiv offensive as a failure.

* When UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin's UsefulNotes/{{Russia}} went on a large scale invasion of UsefulNotes/{{Ukraine}} in February 2022, a large portion of their forces made a drive straight for the capital city, Kyiv, using the nearby UsefulNotes/{{Belarus}} as launchpad. A combination of undermanning, poor morale, poor planning, poor logistics (aggravated by [[TrackTrouble railway sabotaging]] in Belarus, which led to a poorly thought out giant road convoy that got bogged down), poor assessment of the mindset of Ukrainians (who aren't as pro-Russian as Putin thought) and the fierce resistance and guerilla tactics of the Ukrainian troops (helped by plenty of modern Western-provided AntiArmor rocket launchers such as FGM-148 Javelins and [=NLAWs=]) rendered it an absolute failure, eventually forcing the Russians to withdraw from all of Northern Ukraine and refocus on battles of attrition in the East where they have a firm control and better supply lines. [[HomeByChristmas Uniforms to be used for a victory parade]] in Kyiv were found on dead Russian soldiers or in supplies that were left behind. To add insult to injury, many Russian soldiers who were stationed in the nearby UsefulNotes/{{Chernobyl}} area ended up with radiation sickness.