History Main / ShovelStrike

* In ''Film/BloodyReunion'', Myung-Ho knocks Mi-Ja out by hitting her in the head with a shovel before he drags Mrs Park into the basement and attempts to turn her into a WomanOnfire.

* ''VideoGame/ShovelKnight'''s main character is a knight who uses a "Shovel Blade", which is essentially a giant shovel. His rival Black Knight also uses the same weapon while Polar Knight uses a giant snow shovel.

** Jack attacks Ethan with a shovel in the early parts of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil7'', and later uses it to murder the Deputy.

A SubTrope of ImprovisedWeapon and closely related to the PowerfulPick, shovels are primarily used for excavation but can instantly become a weapon if the need arises. The handle gives the weapon a good reach while the head provides a weight allowing it to function as an oddly-shaped [[CarryABigStick mace]]. With proper sharpening of the blade, the shovel can even work as an oddly-balanced [[BladeOnAStick polearm]]. Especially dexterous individuals can even use the flat of the shovel as a shield, which can be quite comedic if the blocked blow was a punch.

* The German Army started its love affair with the 'Kampfspaten' (literaly: combat spade) in WWI and never looked back. It was a used in that capacity in the interwar struggles (the Freicorps battles with Poland and the inter-German conflicts) and it was used that way in [=WW2=]. The Bundeswehr only got a bayonet in 1990 (!) when they inherited (from East Germany) a number of AK bayonets that got converted to use for the new G36, but even today, and through all of the cold war, the primary melee weapon of the German soldier was the Kampfspaten: sharped on one side, saw tooth on the other, foldable and weighing in at less than one and a half kilogram.

* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', Touma Kamijou [[AHandfulForAnEye throws a shovel full of dust onto Etzali to blind him]], then at one point throws said shovel towards him.

* Shovels are both the magical tools and weapons of choice for Gravekeepers in ''LightNovel/SundayWithoutGod''.
* ''LightNovel/TrappedInADatingSimTheWorldOfOtomeGamesIsToughForMobs'': Leon's mecha Arroganz includes a shovel among its armaments. The first time it appeared was during the duel between Leon and the five idiots, when Leon requested the sword and Luxion gave him the shovel instead. Naturally, it brought the laughs of everyone watching the duel, [[CurbStompBattle until he proceeded to trash his opponents' mechas with it]].

* ''Literature/AllQuietOnTheWesternFront'' is set in the trenches of WWI. Kat, Paul's mentor tells him not to use a knife during trench raids since they often get stuck; in the time it takes to kick the enemy hard enough to free the knife he'd be dead. He is told to instead use a sharpened entrenching tool between neck and shoulder: faster, cleaner and safer for him. TruthInTelevision, disturbingly enough. The famous scene of the French attack on the German trench shows many soldiers swinging shovels.

** Since the motif is adventure and archaeology, the main HumongousMecha of ''Series/GoGoSentaiBoukenger''/''Series/PowerRangersOperationOverdrive'' has a huge shovel as one of its weapons.

--> '''Lyle''': "Send wire, main office, [[NowRepeatAfterMe tell them I said 'ow'.]]" Gotcha!

* ''Literature/AllQuietOnTheWesternFront'' is set in the trenches of WWI. Kat, Paul's mentor tells him not to use a knife during trench raids since they often get stuck; in the time it takes to kick the enemy hard enough to free the knife he'd be dead. He is told to instead use a sharpened entrenching tool between neck and shoulder: faster, cleaner and safer for him. TruthInTelevision, disturbingly enough.

--> '''Lyle''': "Send wire, main office, tell them I said 'ow'." Gotcha!

* Enterprising Australian youths [[note]]or, for that matter, Australians who are less youthful,[[/note]] have been known to dispose of the invasive cane toad by virtue of blatting the offending creature with a shovel, typically resulting in an amphibian that has been flattened, bisected, or launched several yards into the distance. Given the cane toad's toughness and destructive effect on the native ecosystem, this is ''not'' overkill.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': The Death Korps of Kreig specialize in trench and siege warfare, so have a special affinity for the "entrenching tools" that every single soldier carries. In-Universe, they're trained to use it as a weapons, as befits their inspiration (see the German Army entry in RealLife below). [[MemeticMutation Memetically]], however, the fandom has the Kreigers treat ''any'' type of shovel with [[CargoCult religious awe]], and charging Chaos Space Marines and Tyranid Tyrants with naught but a [[SuicidalOverconfidence sharpened spade]].

* In ''Film/HomeAlone'', when the burglars finally catch Kevin, [[MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold Old Man Marley]] saves him by beating them senseless with his snow shovel.

* In the obscurw Taiwanese king fu film ''Film/AnInsanityBeing'', the movie climaxed with a lengthy shovel fight, where the protagonist and mooks fight using shovels in place where swords would normally be featured.

* ''Series/EldoradoKaDeWe'' (in English-speaking markets, ''[=KaDeWe=] Our Time Is Now'': Main character Harry returns to his family's department store after being demobilised from the German army in 1918 to discover four armed robbers holding the place up. With DissonantSerenity, he shoots the four men in about twice that number of seconds, and seeing one is still alive, stabs him with a [[ImprovisedWeapon cake slice]] until he dies. Dialogue in the following episode suggests that he was wielding the cake slice in precisely the same way that he used entrenching tools during hand-to-hand combat in the war.

* ''Literature/AllQuietOnTheWesternFront'' references entrenching spades, as mentioned under RealLife. The protagonists sharpen the edges of the spades, and even use them as a defense against attacks on their own trench, because however cruddy they may be, the standard German bayonets are even worse at close range.

* Soldiers during WWI trench raids used what worked: knives and makeshift weapons over guns since they were much quieter. In particular sharpened entrenching tools could be swung, and more often ''thrusted'' with considerable force in cramped spaces. They were capable of killing instantly as opposed to the slow death of bayonet strikes. This discovery was made over and over again in urban combat throughout the early-to-mid twentieth century, such as at Shanghai ('37) and Stalingrad ('42)[[note]]The heart is a surprisingly small target and lung strikes that kill in sixty seconds just aren't good enough.[[/note]]
** Rifles, especially the long rifles issued during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, were too cumbersome for the confined spaces of trenches. Many bayonets (especially the British "sword" style bayonets) were themselves too long on top of the already too cumbersome rifles. Knives, hammers, spades, and even brass knuckles, were supposedly preferred over bayonets in close combat in the trenches.
* According to [[Website/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]], the short-handled [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenching_tool trench spade]] made such an effective weapon that Soviet Spetsnaz carried them even though they were generally never called upon to dig trenches.
** The thing never was intended to dig trenches in the first place. You dig foxholes with it. When it comes to digging trenches you get a full-sized shovel. As for its use as a weapon... that's the reason those entrenching tools were never issued to the troops that were sent to control the protests in the end of 1980s.
** Soviet military equipment often had an extra, and usually unexpected purpose. Behold not just a sharp-edged combat tool, but the '''[[http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Rocket-Propelled-Shovel-Launcher.jpg Mortar shovel]]'''.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_m2lZOQzIA A video]] of Russian soldiers practicing with military shovels (with broken English narration).

* Although most of the examples mentioned on this page describe the use of a shovel as a bladed weapon, a shovel can also make for an excellent battering or bludgeoning weapon. There is a very specific kind of skull fracture which involves the maxilla (upper jaw) and eye sockets either being broken away from or broken into the rest of the cranium. This is almost always caused by a blow to the face with a large but flat object. Shovels are the most common cause of this injury.
* In any Real Life case, shovels do have a primary advantage over other weapons, ie, you can't dig a grave with a gun. Well, you can try, but it probably wouldn't work very well.
* The [[UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks U.S. Army]] Combatives Field Manual actually advocates the use of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenching_tool entrenching tool]] as a field-expedient weapon when better alternatives are unavailable. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwLmaQyl2RY This video]] is a clip of U.S. Army training with the e-tool. According to the video info, it was filmed in 1997. In 2018, there was a minor kerfuffle when the highest-ranked NCO in the US military declared in a [[BadassBoast morale-boosting Facebook post]] that US forces would, in extremis, beat ISIS fighters to death with entrenching tools. The resulting backlash from some more squeamish commentators led to a [[https://www.lawfareblog.com/shovels-lawful-weapons-or-war-crime whole blog post]] about how using shovels in combat is not a violation of UsefulNotes/TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar.
* In Swedish military parlance the entrenching tool is referred to (even in fairly official contexts) as the "short light assault shovel"

* ''Anime/PumpkinScissors'' is set shortly after a FantasyCounterpartCulture version of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, and one of the heroes scares some would-be terrorists into backing down by mentioning that shovels (like the one he's holding) killed more people in the trenches than guns or knives did.

* In the early days of his career, when transitioning from camera man to Universal Champion, a shovel was Wrestling/{{Carl|ito Colon}}y Colón's {{weapon of choice}}.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': Rockhoof, a legendary hero from Equestrian history, used a shovel as his WeaponOfChoice. In fact, his first act of heroism was to [[FastTunneling dig a trench]] in order to divert lava from an erupting volcano away from his hometown.

* ComicBook/TheGoon uses one as his WeaponOfChoice against zombies.

* Gordon Frohman of ''Webcomic/{{Concerned}}'' has a shovel as his WeaponOfChoice. [[spoiler:It's ultimately responsible for his demise when it hits him in the head after both he and it fall from the Citadel.]]

* Jenny's WeaponOfChoice in ''Webcomic/TheZombieHunters''.

* ''WebAnimation/{{Xombie}}'': Dirge's WeaponOfChoice is a sharpened shovel, not only useful against rogue zombies and robots, but also to salvage for spare parts to fix himself up.
* In Zombie Go Boom, a shovel is shown to be rather effective at cracking skulls. The damage inflicted is described as something like a cross between the injuries inflicted by baseball bat and that of a machete.

* The Shovel is one of the best melee weapons in ''VideoGame/{{Darkwood}}''. It's very slow and doesn't do as much damage as the [[AnAxeToGrind Axe]], but makes up for it in durability (especially if you give it the Sturdy Blade upgrade), swing arc and reach. You can also dig up scrap piles with it, though at a huge cost to its integrity.

TruthInTelevision: after studying the infantry dynamics of the World Wars, most modern military forces have been giving their entrenching tools a semi-sharp tool edge that can easily be honed further before a battle to increase its cutting power. Plus, it takes training to become proficient with bayonet, knife or sword combat - but practically everyone on Earth [[BoringButPractical have used shovels sometime in their lives]]. It is also frequently used as a RealLife EmergencyWeapon against dangerous animals, since it can provide good reach and hitting power and a surprisingly effective cutting edge, making it an effective axe[=/=]spear hybrid.