History Main / MilitariesAreUseless

* ''VideoGame/StarFox'' are usually required pull the Cornerian Army out of trouble, and usually arrive late for the Corneria Defense Force (especially in ''VideoGame/StarFoxAssault'', when [[spoiler:they end up having to kill most of the [[PuppeteerParasite Aparoidified]] CDF soldiers left alive on Corneria)]].
* The Mushroom Kingdom's 'army' in ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' is pretty much beyond useless, consisting of a bunch of Toad guards who usually get incapacitated four minutes (maybe seconds?) after Bowser/the BigBad and their forces arrive and show as much knowledge of tactics as a rock. In the remakes of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' the entire 'defense' for each of the world's kings is '''one''' Toad guard who charges LeeroyJenkins style at '''one''' Koopaling and immediately gets knocked out on contact. And that's the proactive ones. The others just run away scared the minute trouble shows up.

* WesternAnimation/TaleSpin: Zigzagged. The first episode establishes that the Cape Suzette cliff guns are a credible defense capable of driving back Don Karnage. Karnage (and the Panda-La army) are able to get past them from time to time with significant trickery or a super-weapon of some kind but in general the cliff gunners are portrayed as brave in the middle of battle and savvy enough to see through a lot of Karnage's attempts to get past them (like by covering the Iron Vulture in a cloud of smoke). The pilots for the city's air defense are also no slouches fighting bravely in the face of danger (with one making a particularly good showing in the Panda-La episode until the heat-seeking rockets come out) but in the end they'll get overwhelmed and Baloo is the one who will save the day with a flying trick.

* ''WesternAnimation/TurtlesForever'': When Utrom Shredder unleashes the Technodrome upon New York City, the U.S. Army and Air Force attempt a counter-offensive attack with tanks, fighter jets and ground troops but they get eliminated within seconds and Shredder laughs at their failure.
-->'''Utrom Shredder:''' ([[EvilLaugh evil laughs]]) Did they really believe their military could stop this Technodrome? Fools!
* In ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', the US military folded almost immediately with the [[spoiler: Thanagarian invasion]], after offering only token resistance. It was implied, though not clearly stated, that the aliens' advanced technology disrupted human electronics and weapons, leaving it to the superheroes to save the day. Otherwise, they normally don’t have issues fighting aliens, as ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' has shown when they were dealing with Darkseid’s forces.

** The Gasco Army from the ''VideoGame/FugaMelodiesOfSteel'' saga are a completely {{justified|Trope}} example, as a result of circumstances beyond their control rather than any sort of incompetency.
*** Their tanks explicitly lack the technological advancements and aerial capabilities of the Berman Empire's, which leaves them at an appropriately heavy disadvantage. It's part of why the children riding the Taranis refuse to sit around and wait for the army to take action, especially as [[ItsPersonal their friends and family have been taken away]] by the Bermans and they have no time to lose. Even so, the Gasco Army prepared for war in advance by putting many of their resources into fortifying the capital of Paresia and ensuring that it at the very least it was protected from the Berman invasion.

** [[DiscussedTrope Commented on]] in ''VideoGame/SolatoroboRedTheHunter'', where one character asks what the hell the army was doing when {{Kaiju}} were attacking the city.

* ''VideoGame/LittleTailBronx''
** Commented on in ''VideoGame/{{Solatorobo}}'', where one character asks what the hell the army was doing when {{Kaiju}} were attacking the city.
** There is a proper military force in ''VideoGame/FugaMelodiesOfSteel'', and they really do their best to hold off the Berman Empire's forces, [[ItsPersonal but considering the Bermans have kidnapped the Taranis Crew's friends and family]], they know it's only a matter of time before they start getting killed off, so the lack of military help in the game is justified by the time-sensitive situation they're in. [[spoiler:This ends up getting PlayedForDrama in Chapter 10. The Gasco army finally arrives to aid The Taranis... only to meet [[BigBad Hax]] in his Tarascus super-weapon tank, which begins to wipe out ''the entire calvary'' with one casual shot from its Managarm Cannon]]. ''VideoGame/FugaMelodiesOfSteel2'' downplays this, however, as one of the gameplay features shown is that you can pay a fee to have the military aid you on your quest, [[spoiler: and they end up helping out the heroes in taking down the revived Vanargand and the BigBad]].

* ''Warhammer VideoGame/TheEndTimesVermintide'' has the State Troops of Ubersreik (stated to consist of twelve units of halberdiers, eight units of crossbowmen, and three engineer units to fire and maintain the town's cannon batteries) being overwhelmed by the Skaven within hours. You come across a lot of their corpses, but never any living help - or dead Skaven for that matter. It's not fair to regard them too badly for losing, as they were swarmed by tens of thousands of enemies tunneling into the city itself, but they come off very poorly compared to the protagonists. Repelling the invasion is entirely in the hands of the [[BadassCrew the Ubersreik Five]], who [[OneManArmy succeed]]. Later, despite having months to rebuild its defenses and the Skaven Clan Fester having incurred quintuple-digit casualties against the U5, the city then falls almost immediately when they're absent. Saltzpyre has a line lampshading this in the Horn of Magnus mission, when the team arrives to find their supposed reinforcements already dead.

* ''VideoGame/DestroyAllHumans'': As the protagonist of the game is Crypto, an alien [[AlienInvasion bent on destroying humans]], the military arrive to oppose him but because their technology is much weaker and less advanced than Furon technology, Crypto manages to defeat the entire U.S. military within a few days and inaugurate himself as the new President of the United States. Even before and if Crypto never came to earth, the military was already doing a horribly bad job fighting for freedom because Majestic was mind-controlling American citizens with junk food, television, and a government-run by puppets (that includes putting in a puppet as the President) right under the military's noses.

* ''Franchise/DeadRising'' has a [[ZigZaggingTrope zig-zagged]] example.
** The Special Forces in [[VideoGame/DeadRising the first game]] are an aversion. They are competent as expected for a special forces unit, they send in a company sized force, supported by Blackhawk helicopters to clear the area which they did it efficiently. Unfortunately they also happen to be there to [[LeaveNoWitnesses cover]] up the incident rather than rescue all survivors. [[spoiler:And they also happen to be responsible for razing Carlito and Isabella's hometown after a failed experiment involving genetically-engineered wasps.]]
** The AZU (Anti-Zombie Unit) of the United States military from ''VideoGame/DeadRising2'' is a straight example. They send in a two ten-man operatives to clear out the ''entirety'' of the zombie infested Fortune City (which outnumber the 20 soldiers to the city's ten thousands worth of population) without additional backup (no helicopters, [=IFVs=], no fire support). It ends as expected; while they initially did well, its only when the gas begun to emit and the zombies began to mutate that they start to lose badly and their lack of additional support means that the only survivors left are the Dwight, and a couple of AZU soldiers who managed to held off the infected.
* ''VideoGame/CallOfCthulhuDarkCornersOfTheEarth'': the U.S. Marines, FBI, and Coast Guard put in a fairly lackluster performance overall. The Marine squad assigned to breach the Esoteric Order of Dagon temple gets killed in literally the first minute of their mission. The crew of the USCGC ''Urania'' all get killed by Deep Ones (albeit after taking many with them). The FBI agents get mostly murdered by the shoggoth in the factory. In each case, private investigator [[PlayerCharacter Jack Walters]] has to take over and [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu salvage]] [[OneManArmy the situation]] pretty much alone. To their credit, the Marines ''do'' manage to take Innsmouth from the Deep Ones and their armed cultists, but that [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome all happens off-screen]]. A U.S. submarine also heavily damages the Deep Ones' city of Y'ha-nthlei, but unlike in the [[Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth original story]], even ''that'' is accomplished with the help of the protagonist (who, in this version, kills Mother Hydra to disable the shield she was casting, leaving the city vulnerable).
* A single necromorph in ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' is enough to take out the entire crew of the USM Valor.
* In ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'', when the demonic Qlipoth tree breaks into human world and opens the path to demon invasion, the human military are powerless to stop even the weakest swarm of demons, with one soldier being the last one alive of his platoon when Nero and Nico bust into the scene to clean things up.
* The Mushroom Kingdom's 'army' in ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' is pretty much beyond useless, consisting of a bunch of Toad guards who usually get incapacitated four minutes (maybe seconds?) after Bowser/the BigBad and their forces arrive and show as much knowledge of tactics as a rock. In the remakes of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' the entire 'defense' for each of the world's kings is '''one''' Toad guard who charges LeeroyJenkins style at '''one''' Koopaling and immediately gets knocked out on contact. And that's the proactive ones. The others just run away scared the minute trouble shows up.

* In the ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' series, the police, SWAT team, and even Umbrella's own anti-outbreak forces are swiftly and almost completely wiped out by the zombies in a matter of hours. However, as you find out over the course of [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil2 the second]] and [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis third]] games all three are fully justified: [[spoiler:the police and SWAT team were actively being sabotaged by both Umbrella and their own [[DirtyCop corrupt police chief]] who wanted to contain the virus and [[SerialKiller hunt the cops for sport]], respectively. Umbrella's own UBCS was intentionally sent in to serve as cannon fodder so a few select members of the teams could gather combat data and destroy the evidence.]] Conversely, the Delta Force soldiers found in [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis The Dead Factory]] actually [[SubvertedTrope faired quite well]], all things considered -- true they were slaughtered, but they took out ''five Tyrant T-103s'' armed only with [=MP5s=] in the process. Yeah, that [[ImplacableMan big invincible asshole]] who chased Leon and Claire all throughout the game, was only pissed off by being dropped in molten steel, and ultimately took a rocket launcher to bring down? Delta Force took out five of them with 9mm automatics.
* The U.S military takes massive losses in ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve''. By the time the story is over, they've lost squadrons of helicopters, planes and most, if not all, of a Carrier Battle Group in their attempt to stop [[BigBad Eve]]. This gets very much averted in [[VideoGame/ParasiteEve2 the sequel]], where the military absolutely [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QptybD4UhJM rolls over the GOLEMs]], but then comes back in full force for ''VideoGame/The3rdBirthday''.
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'', the Provincial Armies see doing anything that would justify their employers (The four most powerful non-royal nobles in Erebonia) ''having'' a private army (including tanks) as beneath them, instead focusing on helping their masters maintain their political power [[spoiler:(something they do to the point of outright treason)]]. The few times they're seen even attempting to resolve issues in the first game, they [[spoiler:deliberately]] make things worse. The Imperial Army doesn't look much better in the first game, with the entire 1st Armored Division (which, as it was in charge of the capital's defense, was presumably an elite unit) getting wiped out by a surprise attack, only for a scratch defense force of nine army cadets, half a dozen academy instructors, and a '''maid''' [[spoiler:(granted, the instructors were a mix of elite veterans, an A-ranked Bracer and a Dominion of the Gralsritter, and the maid was secretly an off-duty Ouroboros Enforcer, but still)]] to do a better job of slowing down the force that wiped them out less than an hour later. In the second game, once the surprise of the sudden rebellion wears off and the surviving units get a feel for what the enemy's new weapons systems are capable of, the Imperial Army looks much more competent. There are two cases of useless militaries in the third game, but both times it was the fault of their civilian superiors: in one case the Imperial Army was ordered to stand down during a crisis because the Chancellor wanted the Provincial Army to try and fail to handle the situation first in order to make them look bad, and in the second the Provincial Army's sensible deployment plans kept getting overridden by the whims of the self-serving incompetent who was the acting Duke, allowing a crisis to form and escalate.

* ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' is a rare zombie apocalypse story that takes place before things have fallen apart, and so is unable to simply skip over the part where the military somehow fails to hold back the zombies. The player can hop in a chopper or thermobaric tank and clear out every hive in about thirty minutes, yet in the hands of the Marines these weapons are insufficient for gaining, or holding, an inch of ground. Even when they develop a gas that kills infected and is harmless to humans they are somehow unable to capitalize on it. [[VideoGame/Prototype2 The sequel]] is much the same but at least attempts to justify it by having Blackwatch be plagued with corruption and their command structure infiltrated by [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Evolved]] who are actively sabotaging their efforts.

* The Afghan military was militarily defeated when the Taliban increased their attacks on them alongside the police and the National Directorate of Security in early 2021 after President Donald Trump and the Taliban signed the Doha Agreement. Most soldiers/officers chose to leave the battlefield due to lack of supplies, "persuasion" from village/tribal elders to leave instead of facing the Taliban head on, corruption/incompetence from military/political leaders and the assassination of various Afghan military personnel by Taliban fighters in order to cripple the organization. Those who resisted either joined with various anti-Taliban militia forces with others who left the Afghan National Police (And other law enforcement units) and the NDS after Kabul was captured by the Taliban or were allowed to leave Afghanistan alongside NATO forces.

* Any kind of military in ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' is rare to begin with. For whatever reason, the armed forces of the United States (or any other countries) never seem to help out whenever the Earth is in danger; it's always up to a bunch of teenagers with attitude (whenever the villains have the upper hand against the Rangers, they'll often refer to the planet as being "defenseless", even despite the countless militaries that could fight against them, let alone the possibility of nuclear strikes). This may be justified by the fact the Rangers take a lot less time to respond to the usual MonsterOfTheWeek than any conventional military force could; furthermore, the HumongousMecha used to deal with [[MakeMyMonsterGrow giant-sized monsters]] are shown to be effective against monsters, but not so much against small fighters or other non-monster targets (as the finale of ''[[Series/PowerRangersInSpace In Space]]'' shows us), so presumably the reverse would hold true (ie. there's not much fighter jets or tanks could do against giant monsters).
** That being said, the [[Series/PowerRangersLightspeedRescue Lightspeed Rescue]] team was actually government-backed (albeit it was more akin to a militia with a focus on rescuing people), and both the futuristic [[Series/PowerRangersSPD Space Patrol Delta]] and [[Series/PowerRangersTimeForce Time Force]] are [[MildlyMilitary more military-ish]].
** ''Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy'' had the Terra Venture security forces (using [[PropRecycling recycled armor from]] ''Film/StarshipTroopers'') as usually not making too good a showing against the monsters before the Rangers showed up. They did do their best in "[[OutOfGenreExperience The Rescue Mission]]", however.
** Speaking of ''Time Force'', the Silver Guardians are explicitly a [[PrivateMilitaryContractors private military force]] created by Mr. Collins to defend those who hire them. They're usually [[RedshirtArmy not too effective against the mutants]].
** There's also ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'', which indicates that most of the world's armies in an AlternateUniverse fell against Venjix; Red Ranger Scott Truman, and his deceased brother, were both officers in the US Air Force under their father, Colonel Mason Truman, who ends up being the head of defense for [[DomedHometown Corinth]].

** There is a proper military force in ''VideoGame/FugaMelodiesOfSteel'', and they really do their best to hold off the Berman Empire's forces, [[ItsPersonal but considering the Bermans have kidnapped the Taranis Crew's friends and family]], they know it's only a matter of time before they start getting killed off, so the lack of military help in the game is justified by the time-sensitive situation they're in. [[spoiler:This ends up getting PlayedForDrama in Chapter 10. The Gasco army finally arrives to aid The Taranis... only to meet [[BigBad Hax]] in his Tarascus super-weapon tank, which begins to wipe out ''the entire calvary'' with one casual shot from its Soul Cannon.]] ''Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2'' is looking to avert this, however, as one of the gameplay features shown is that you can pay a fee to have the military aid you on your quest.

* In ''ComicBook/TheTransformersAllHailMegatron'', this trope fits like a glove.

** The manuals for ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' and ''VideoGame/DoomII'' both explain that a unit of Space Marines were sent to fight the demons before being massacred, leaving you as the sole survivor. Of course, Doomguy then proceeds to [[OneManArmy bust a cap in Hell's collective ass alone]], with little more than a shotgun and a pistol-caliber machine gun. The only "living" troops you encounter in-game are zombies possessed by demons. The manual for ''Final Doom'' downplays this by noting that the United States Space Marines [[CurbStompBattle easily]] defeated the first demon incursions in that expansion with few losses... but were overwhelmed in the latest ones when the demons changed tactics, leaving you as the sole survivor yet again.

** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'', the army refused to follow [[EvilSorceror Agahnim]] when he [[TheUsurper usurped]] the King, but get {{brainwashed}} for their resistance, and kidnap their own princess. The Hylian Soldiers are among the [[CannonFodder weakest]] enemies in the entire game, [[ArmorIsUseless their armor]] not helping their defense in the [[TheGoomba slightest]], and are easily defeated by Link.
** The ones in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' get completely wiped out by Ganon's forces when trying to defend the castle and town. Beforehand, Link was able to sneak past them, and even a random villager noted he was able to as well, until he got stuck in a small crawlspace.

** The Hyrule Army in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'' get utterly massacred by Zant's shadow beasts ten minutes after they walk through the front door. Keep in mind that this is the entire batallion vs maybe two shadow monsters, the former of which are supposedly armed and the latter who aren't. The most you can say for them is they always at least bravely stood their ground. ''Twilight Princess'' goes far enough to actually [[LampshadeHanging make fun of this]] with several characters pointing out how useless and cowardly the army is, and with the way the soldiers tremble with fear and keep their distance (and don't impede you ''at all'') if you charge through the castle town in your wolf form. They'll even outright flee if you Wolf Link does a sudden movement.

** While the Hyrulean Army gets utterly annihilated in the backstory to an even greater extent than usual in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', the set-up takes pains to justify it this time around. The main culprits behind the total bloodbath were the [[DemonicPossession Ganon-possessed]] Guardians, an army of powerful {{Magitek}} robots that the Kingdom of Hyrule had originally dug up for the express purpose of fighting against Ganon. Not only were the soldiers woefully outgunned, they hadn't anticipated their own weapons being used against them. We never get to see whether or not the army was truly useless as usual under normal circumstances, but it's clear the odds were heavily stacked against them this time, and compared with previous games [=NPC=]s are far more likely to praise the strength and bravery of those doomed soldiers.

* At the end of ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'', when the [[spoiler:[[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever Giant Omnidroid]] attacks some random cities]], the army's response is basically "send some guys attack it with tanks [[FiveRoundsRapid and submachine-guns]], [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere then run]]!". Syndrome's {{Mook}}s don't pass up the opportunity to mock this and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAhbgIXd4Oo "take a shot everytime they run"]].

** In ''Film/SonicTheHedgehog2'' the only thing G.U.N. is good for is [[InspectorJavert capture Sonic and Tails in an ambush]]. The moment that [[MamaBear Maddie]] and [[WomanScorned Rachel]] go on a rampage to rescue them with Tails' gear the G.U.N. agents get curb-stomped, and when Robotnik unleashes his Emerald powers and [[HumongousMecha the Death Egg Robot]] they are the very definition of a RedShirtArmy.

** In ''Film/SonicTheHedgehogII'' the only thing G.U.N. is good for is [InspectorJavert capture Sonic and Tails in an ambush]]. The moment that [[MamaBear Maddie]] and [[WomanScorned Rachel]] go on a rampage to rescue them with Tails' gear the G.U.N. agents get curb-stomped, and when Robotnik unleashes his Emerald powers and [[HumongousMecha the Death Egg Robot]] they are the very definition of a RedShirtArmy.

* ''Film/WarOfTheWorlds''. Despite the movie's name, it's not so much of a war as it is an invasion and given how powerful the Martians are in both defense and offense, fighting them is a stupid idea. The U.S. military score zero hits on the Tripods, who are well shielded by an energy barrier that can deflect all man-made missiles and bullets. The U.S. soldiers are more of an obstacle than assistance for the film's protagonists, as they block Ray and his children's path to the boat. On the other hand, they are at least "competent" in that they maintain active resistance all the way through the film, including large field battles and urban guerrilla warfare, so much so that people try to join the fight. In the end, it turns out the best military mankind had against the Tripods were [[spoiler:the earth's bacteria]].

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hulk_vs_military_cover.png]]]]

* While ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' doesn't feature this as a whole(after all, you ''are'' the army), it does in a hierarchical manner, where militaries considered inferior to that of the main character(s) have no effect on the story. In stories featuring [[SuperSoldier Space Marines]] the Imperial Guard are useless, while in stories featuring the Guard the local Planetary Defense Forces are useless. In the latter's case it's a minor {{meme|ticMutation}} in the fandom that the PDF is only mentioned in a footnote that's some variation of "The PDF responded but were killed to a man".

* ''Anime/TheAnimatrix'': In the film's arguably most popular segment "The Second Renaissance", in Part I the humans had manpower strong enough to overwhelm the robots that they only had to use riot control, ordinary citizens were easily eliminating the droids and did not need to deploy their military. The machines then retreated to and founded the sanctuary nation Zero One where they built high-quality technology capable of economically and militarily subjugating the human race. In Part II, angered over the impending economic crisis, the human race shoots itself in the foot by blocking out the sun in hopes that the machines would wither from lack of solar energy then launch a large-scale ground invasion on Zero One but because the human armies were outnumbered and had slower, heavier and more outdated technology, guess how that turned out.

* {{Justified}} in ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'': military forces unleash all their firepower against the Angels. It is no use, since the Angels' AT fields are impervious to conventional weaponry.
* Common in MagicalGirlWarrior shows

** In ''Anime/VividredOperation'', the military tries to fight the Alone with tanks, planes, and warships, but they only cause minor damage.
** In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'', this is justified. Only the heroines can see the witches. Homera finds the military useful, [[spoiler: she steals weapons from them.]]

** Nobody expected the [[BodyguardingABadass Royal Guards]] to stand up against [[MadGod Nightmare Moon]], but even with warning of a potential attack and being fully mobilized and ready, they are subdued by the changeling army in about ten minutes. Contrast the six main characters, who, without [[VillainBeatingArtifact the Elements of Harmony]] or formal training, and being ''caught off guard'', take down hundreds before finally [[ZergRush being grossly outnumbered]] and surrendering. While it's largly PlayedForLaughs, they can't even handle [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking recovering Princess Celestia's pet bird]]. In the Season 4 premiere, where Princesses Celestia and Luna go missing, Princess Twilight Sparkle instructs the Guards to continue the search, only for Twilight and friends to find them themselves. In ''To Where And Back Again'' they were absolutely incapable of preventing Queen Chrysalis's changelings from invading and replacing every single key member of Equestria's government, despite it literally being the exact same tactic she used last time. In the Season 8 finale they finally succeeded at something, and it was capturing a now-powerless ''child'' who had already been defeated. [[SarcasmMode Someone give them a gold star]]. Even their captain Shining Armor, despite being an allegedly powerful good leader, spends every major threat incapacitated, once actually stood behind his infant daughter while ''she'' fought enemy soldiers ([[https://trixiebooru.org/images/2005487 no, really]]), and whose finest hour is ''throwing his exhausted-to-the-point-of-collapse wife at the threat so she could deal with it instead''. It's very telling that Queen Chrysalis recognized that taking him out would render the country defenseless, to the point that she ''didn't even bother having a plan to deal with the guards''. One wonders exactly [[ExpectationLowerer how bad]] Zephyr Breeze must have been at his job to not only get reprimanded, but actually fired from this organization...

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/Godzilla1954 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/image_1086.jpeg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Look, we all know from the title how this is going to end.]]

* ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' features this, but too a far lesser extent than the film versions. The British military is able to score some hits on the tripods, but we only see a grand total for 3 or 4 get taken out by conventional arms in the book. This is due to the inaccuracy of the weaponry in use at the time, as the field guns in late 19th century militaries wouldn't be able to hit the fast-moving tripods without getting lucky, and would be vaporized as soon as they were sighted by the Martians. Within just 50 years of the novel's publication, military technology had advanced so much that the film adaptations had to give the Martians [[AppliedPhlebotinum Phlebotinum Shields]] just to keep them from being demolished by Earth's armies. [[FridgeHorror It's kind of worrying to think that the tripods -the scariest weapons H.G. Wells could envision at the time- became obsolete to real life weapons in less than a century.]]

** No military shows up in ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'' besides the [[SuspiciouslySmallArmy Wakandan]] [[HollywoodTactics one]], without even a HandWave as to why (note that one of their members is literally an American Air Force officer and the heroes had advance warning). It's implied that [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Defense Secretary Ross]] [[RevengeBeforeReason wouldn't have sent men to help the Avengers]] even had they asked, but that still doesn't explain why [[WeAllLiveInAmerica NO ONE]] else would have, since the planet was at stake. Rwanda and Ethiopia both border Wakanda and have reasonably modern militaries who are perpetually on high alert (given both countries' border conflicts) and have conducted blitzkrieg offensives before, and there's also a U.S. base in nearby Djibouti with a large number of drones that were conducting operations against al-Qaeda at the time the film takes place (a single USAF craft has enough firepower to level the entire Outrider force). Given that War Machine, Bucky, and Falcon alone [[BoringButPractical killed more aliens than the rest of the heroes combined]] ([[spoiler:prior to Thor's arrival]]) using only small arms and a handful of bombs, even a small unit from a modern army (e.g. a company) would have wiped Thanos's army out effortlessly. For ''Film/AvengersEndgame'', you could at least FanWank it and say that half of the Earth being wiped out caused the collapse of any real world military forces above the local level.

* The Atlas Army of ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' has a ''very'' poor track record; Despite being hyped as one of the most powerful forces for good in the world, they are very little help when disaster ''does'' strike. Either they're sabotaged by the villains, or their egotistical [=COs=] are wasting valuable firepower on frivolous targets. [[GeneralFailure General Ironwood]] in particular has a bad habit of holding back his forces until it's too late, due to his paranoia that actually using his army for anything may be exactly what Salem wants.