History Main / DisposableVehicleSection

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_or_nothing_(armor) All-or-nothing armor]] is this concept applied to warships, as a result of lessons learned from UsefulNotes/WorldWarI naval combat. The idea was that there was no point in armoring a ship in non-essential areas, like crew berths, since the ship could take a hit there and keep fighting just fine; instead, armor should be applied only to critical areas like the engines and powder magazines, which should be placed low down in the center of the ship to minimize the amount of armor needed to completely enclose them.

-->'''Arcee:''' Did we have to let them detonate three-quarters of the ship?\\
'''Springer:''' Seeing as how they were going to detonate ''four''-quarters, I think it was a good choice.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformersTheMovie'', the Autobots perform an "emergency separation" of the front cockpit so the rear portion would be destroyed and fool the Decepticons into thinking they were killed.

'''Springer:''' Seeing as how they were going to detonate four-quarters, I think it was a good choice.

* Downplayed in the issue of ''ComicBook/GIJoeARealAmericanHeroMarvel'' that introduced the [=BATs=]. The Awe Striker is being pursued by a Cobra Stinger driven by one of the [=BATs=] and their main cannon has been unloaded. When Bazooka complains about the situation, Crankcase suggests getting rid of the cannon to save them some weight. He does and throws the cannon at the Stinger, decapitating the BAT.

!!Examples

* In ''Anime/MacrossII'', after taking heavy damage, the bridge of [[spoiler:the Macross]] detaches to become an airborne command post.
* ''Anime/GallForce''
** In "Eternal Story", the [[spoiler:Star Leaf]]'s forward section splits apart to reveal a landing pod that can act as an oversize escape pod.
** In "Destruction", a heavy shuttle detaches the rear section to act as a decoy while the forward section and mecha launched from it's cargo hold infiltrate an ElaborateUndergroundBase.
* In ''Manga/BrokenBlade'', the ''[[HumongousMecha Delphine]]'' goes into battle wearing colossal heavy armor plates. Once those are too damaged to help anymore, Rygart drops them and gets about 200% faster.

* ''Anime/BatmanNinja'': The cockpit of the Batmobile detaches and transforms into the Batwing. When the Batwing is grabbed, Batman is again able to detach the cockpit, which becomes the Batcycle.
* ''Anime/HaloLegends''. In "The Package", when the team of Spartans led by Master Chief gets too close to their objective, the Elite Supreme Commander starts ejecting parts of his spacecraft in an effort to stop him, [[WeHaveReserves throwing everyone inside those sections into space]].
* Likely copied from the Franchise/JamesBond film ''Film/{{Thunderball}}'', in one episode of ''Anime/MarineBoy'', the title hero has the episode's BigBad cornered when he's driving off on his speedboat. So he presses a switch which splits the boat, with him speeding away and Marine Boy left behind on the rear half.

** ''Film/QuantumOfSolace'' opens with a chase scene, during which a truck sideswipes Bond's car ramming part of its fender through the car door. Bond elects to dispose of that door to free himself--unfortunately this means there's a vulnerability in his bulletproof car that the men chasing him try to exploit.
* ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' has Batman ejecting from the Batmobile on a motorcycle, leaving behind the damaged part to self-destruct.
* In ''Film/BatmanReturns'', the Batmobile split off the flarings on both sides and the wheels retracted to form a vehicle (the "batmissile") that could fit through a narrow alley.
* ''Film/DeathRace'': The hero's car has a 6-inch-thick armor plating in the back called "The Tombstone". When it gets damaged and his other defensive weapons aren't working, the hero jettisons it in the hope that it will damage the car behind him. The disadvantage of this tactic is that [[EveryCarIsAPinto it leaves the fuel tank exposed]].
* In ''Film/VanHelsing'', when the titular character's riding a horse-pulled cart away from Dracula's brides, he has to sacrifice the cart in order for his horses to jump over a ravine. The brides fly towards the falling cart, thinking that Anna and the Frankenstein's Monster might be inside... [[spoiler:and then they're greeted by silver stakes instead, courtesy of the exploding cart.]]
** Minus the vampires, Van Helsing's tactic of cutting the horses loose from a doomed stagecoach and riding them to safety is a classic for old Westerns.
* ''Film/TheGreenHornet'' film showcases that the [[CoolCar Black Beauty]] has front-wheel drive, which allows the car to keep on moving when the rear end is torn off by an elevator.
* In ''Film/{{Innerspace}}'', the assassin pulls this trick when his miniaturized pod is damaged beyond repair. In the style of an ImplacableMan he ejects himself out of it and continues attacking the hero wearing a gadget-loaded space suit.
* As with the TV shows, this is a fixture of the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' films starting with ''Generations'':
** In ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'', the ''Enterprise'' crew have to evacuate to the Saucer section and separate it from the Engineering section before the Warp Core breaches. The Saucer gets far enough away to ''almost'' OutrunTheFireBall, surviving intact enough to make a crash landing on the nearest planet.
** This happens again in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', where a Borg sphere shoots out of the nearly destroyed Borg cube and carries on with its mission to assimilate the Earth. In another play on the trope, the ''Phoenix'' is launched via a multi-stage rocket, similar to the 20th- and 21st-century rockets it was based on.
** And again in ''Film/StarTrekBeyond'', where [[spoiler:Kirk orders the ''Enterprise'''s saucer separated after the ship is severely damaged in battle. Both sections of the ship end up crashing anyways, despite efforts at DamageControl.]]

* In ''Film/TheCore'', the drill vehicle carrying the scientists to the centre of the Earth was designed to jettison damaged parts. In the end, they force-jettisoned the ship segments to pull off their big plan.
* ''Film/TheBigBus'': The ''Cyclops'' is equipped with an automatic tire changer so the bus can eject punctured tires and replace them with new ones while still rolling along.
* The protagonists' car in ''Film/MadMission'' has an escape pod which ejects from the car, and is actually a small vehicle itself.
* In ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2'', Yondu reveals that the front section of his ship is a fully-functional ship in and of itself. [[spoiler:Which comes in handy when he blows up the rear section in order to finish off the mutineers.]]
* ''Film/FiveWeeksInABalloon'': At the climax of the film, the heroes have performed an EmergencyCargoDump to try to keep the balloon aloft after it gets damaged, but when it turns out it's still not enough weight ''and'' that the villainous team of slavers are about to cross a bridge to get to the uncharted territory they're all racing for and conquer it, they intentionally allow the balloon's passenger section to hook on to the bridge and then they release the balloon, flying off in a smaller "crow's nest" section while the bridge collapses.
* ''Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020'': Doctor Robotnik's first attack vehicle has three separate stages - a large menacing black semitruck, a smaller white vehicle that pops out of the underside of the first and can function with even one wheel, and finally one of his Badniks, a little white drone armed with a laser that becomes a StickyBomb when damaged.
* in ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'', Tony's [[MetaMecha Hulkbuster Armor]] uses a very modular build, allowing any damaged piece to be ejected and replaced on the fly.

* ''[[Literature/{{Uplift}} Startide Rising]]'' has a mostly dolphin-crewed starship unable to escape its pursuers...until it suddenly jettisons all its swimming-around water. The pursuing ships smash into the resulting ice cloud and go boom, and the suddenly much lighter Terran ship easily outruns the survivors.
* During the railway pursuit of kidnapper Baron von Leinsdorf in Nicholas Meyer's Franchise/SherlockHolmes thriller ''Literature/TheSevenPerCentSolution'', Holmes and Watson demolish the train cars from back to front to fuel the locomotive's boiler. Once each car was bereft of combustibles, it was uncoupled. This effort succeeds in catching up to the Baron's special. This sequence was faithfully adapted to film in 1976 by Universal Pictures.

* In the ''Series/BuckRogersInThe25thCentury'' episode "Space Vampire", the ship that the Vorvon and Vamp!Wilma escape on is programmed to fly into a star. Once the star's radiation returns Wilma to normal, she detaches the rear portion of the ship and flies to safety while the Vorvon continues into the star in the front portion.
* A specific ''Series/TopGear'' example: the Homemade Limo challenge. Clarkson's AbsurdlyLongLimousine had to have a large section removed to be made road legal. The modification was poorly done, and the limo eventually split apart. Undeterred, Clarkson plops the celebrity he's escorting in the front passenger seat and drives off in the front half, leaving the rest behind.

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* The final boss in ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight'' can lose its two wings and keep fighting, though not without [[CowardlyBoss making a jump to safety first]].

* The Interceptors in the ''VideoGame/SpyHunter2001'' reboot, its sequel and ''Nowhere to Run'' can eject sections and convert to a cycle-like Secondary Escape Vehicle mode after taking sufficient damage. The one in the sequel could also convert on player command.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', the [[CoolAirship Mechane]] included a feature to jettison its ballistae, as a means of passing itself off as a civilian ship in situations when the crew may find themselves in the middle of a warzone (referred to as the "Innocent Traveler" plan). This was used to lighten the load of the ship [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1076.html during the events of the story]] to help get them over a cliffside.

* ''WesternAnimation/Birdman1967'' episode "Number One". When Birdman breaks into the title villain's pirate satellite, Number One activates a SelfDestructMechanism and escapes in the detached head of the satellite.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheGalaxyTrio'' episode "The Duplitrons". When a rocket pod in which the Trio are flying malfunctions, Meteor Man presses a button and the pod splits in half. The rear section falls away and Meteor Man continues to fly on in the front half.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'': In "Harley and Ivy", the Joker's car gets snagged with a grapple line. Harley ejects the rear section, allowing her and Mistah J to escape while the discarded piece slams into the Batmobile and nearly sends it off a bridge.
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'': The Turtle Blimp that was introduced in later seasons had the ability to detach the gondola from the balloon and function as a glider in the event that the balloon was damaged. Naturally, this happened on a regular basis. [[ToSellToys The toy based on it]] had the same ability.
** One episode notably did the reverse, where the gondola section was shot off the blimp but the Turtles clung to the still flying balloon via the cables that usually held the gondola on.

* Many larger rockets are designed to stage, separating an engine along with the now-empty fuel tanks feeding it to lighten the load after reaching the upper atmosphere, perhaps most notably the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V Saturn V]]''.
** What landed back on Earth was a small capsule the size of a car and comprising less than 0.2% of the 110-meter-tall, 3,000-tonne rocket. Every shed gram having been necessary to send this small thing to the Moon and back.

* TankGoodness: Later World War II German tanks were designed with add-on armoured panels, deliberately sacrificial appliqué armour spaced out from the main armoured shell of body and tank. These were designed to take the impact of infantry anti-tank weapons--expending their destructive power some distance away from anything important--and could be discarded and replaced according to need. Other parts of the tank, such as track guards and front/rear fenders, could also take damage and be removed, as they were not critical components.
** Modular armor and weapons are now a fairly common feature for combat vehicles, allowing both for easier repair of damaged armor and easier mobility, by stripping unneeded armor to make the vehicle lighter and easier to transport.

* The Interceptors in the ''VideoGame/SpyHunter'' 2001 reboot, its sequel and ''Nowhere to Run'' can eject sections and convert to a cycle-like Secondary Escape Vehicle mode after taking sufficient damage. The one in the sequel could also convert on player command.

* In ''Franchise/StarWars: Film/AttackOfTheClones'', Obi Wan Kenobi's starfighter is shown to have a separate bulky hyperdrive section that it docks with to travel in Hyperspace. As soon as he drops back into real space, his fighter disengages and continues on its way, leaving behind the extra mass to allow his ship to stay as lean as possible.

* ''Film/SonicTheHedgehog'': Doctor Robotnik's first attack vehicle has three separate stages - a large menacing black semitruck, a smaller white vehicle that pops out of the underside of the first and can function with even one wheel, and finally one of his Badniks, a little white drone armed with a laser that becomes a StickyBomb when damaged.

* ''[[ComicBook/RobinSeries Robin]]'': While the Redbird's shifting panels were designed that way in order to change the car's appearance into that of a commercially available sports car they can be jettisoned off the car if they're damaged or stuck.

** In ''Film/{{Thunderball}}'', the SPECTRE yacht separates to transform into a faster hydrofoil ship. The remaining section is still usable as a gun platform and boat dock.

A form of TravelCool. Related to CombiningMecha, DetachmentCombat, DidntNeedThoseAnyway. May serve as a justification for ShedArmorGainSpeed for armored vehicles. Compare EscapePod (a specialized compartment used in emergencies to escape certain doom on your vehicle) and LifeOrLimbDecision (when the disposable thing happens to be your own limb).

* In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode, "Hereafter", Superman is sent thousands of years into the future. Since the planet now has a red sun, he's been stripped of his powers and unable to fly. Luckily, several vehicles were transported with him, so he manages to siphon the gasoline out of them and drives off in one of the cars, following a homing signal on his communicator. When he eventually runs out of gas, he's forced to leave the car behind and start walking as he grumbles to himself that he should have taken the compact instead.

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