History Sandbox / TheDreadedRealLife

* [[BearsAreBadNews Bears]] in particular have been considered this worldwide since antiquity. Many names used, regardless of language (bear, bruin, [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant grizzly]]) refer to its color -- it is simply "the brown one". This is because it was so feared as to be HeWhoMustNotBeNamed, with the original name for the animal being forgotten to time due to superstitions that merely saying its would summon one. Being that bears will, on occasion, hunt humans if other prey is scarce, this is justified. They can also appear to be TheUnfettered, since bees (themselves The Dreaded) don't deter them when ''elephants'' will avoid hives.

* And speaking of meteorologists and hurricanes -- Jim Cantore. There's a joke that if he shows up on the beach, something ''very'' bad is coming and it's time to RunOrDie.

[[folder:Nature]]

!!Animals

* As a contender from the spider kingdom, few arachnids are scarier than the Australian Funnel-webs, though one of the scariest has to be the Sydney Funnel-web; these are spiders that come from the [[DeathWorld Australian Outback]], so it is no surprise that they're some of the biggest spiders in the world and fittingly equipped ''with a set of quite possibly the largest fangs on any spider''. This species has not changed since the day spiders first appeared on the Earth, having been around since the time of the dinosaurs. While funnel-web venom is known to be potentially deadly without treatment, the Sydney Funnel-web is particularly known to be scary due to the fact that it is known to remember intruders in its territory, and has chased and bitten trespassers that have returned to its home.

!!Weather

!!Natural Features

[[folder:Other]]
* If this trope can be applied to an element, then Fluorine definitely qualifies. Chemists tend to be quite scared of working with it, both in its elemental form and with some of its compounds, due to the fact it's tremendously energetic, touchy as hell, nearly impossible to dislodge from a compound without some drastic measures and it can produce some of the nastiest compounds imaginable, including [[http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time chlorine trifluoride]] (which can set asbestos on fire on contact), [[http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_wont_work_with_dioxygen_difluoride dioxygen difluoride]] (hard to make, thankfully, but will explode even when close to absolute 0) and [[http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2004/03/03/things_i_wont_touch_1 hydrofluoric acid]] (which can seep painlessly through your skin and dissolve your skeleton from the inside out, and can eat through most types of glass). The fact enough people died studying it that they're collectively known as the fluorine martyrs only caps it off.
** As radioactive elements go, Polonium and Plutonium enjoy particular notoriety for the sheer danger in handling them. Select isotopes of the former have a toxicity ''250,000 times that of hydrogen cyanide,'' demonstrated in the 2006 KGB assassination of dissident Alexander Litvinenko. It's slower than cyanide, though, causing your body to slowly, agonizingly fail over a period of days as alpha particles shred your insides beyond repair at a molecular level. Beyond its obvious nuclear weapons association, Plutonium's intense radioactivity means it can cause criticality accidents with ''itself'' in the presence of an effective neutron reflector, most notoriously with the so-called "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core Demon Core]]" in the 40s, which killed scientists on two separate occasions.
** When it comes to compounds, any that contains a large number of nitrogen atoms makes chemists increasingly nervous in direct proportion to the number of Ns in the formula. Chemicals with a large number of nitrogen atoms tend to be MadeOfExplodium, some so absurdly unstable that literally just looking at it will cause it to violently explode (because looking at it needs light, and ordinary light will set it off).

* Especially for anyone who grew up during the Cold War, two words: [[AtomicHate "The Bomb".]]

* In the live music world, CountryMusic shows will almost always instill a deep sense of dread in anyone who has to work them. This is because country audiences are notoriously unruly and prone to widespread excessive alcohol consumption, regular displays of violent and aggressive behavior, and leaving behind absolutely incredible amounts of trash (to the point where venues will often solicit community volunteers to help clean up all the trash that country shows typically leave), and anyone who has worked security for them will tell you that you ''will'' be threatened with or subjected to physical violence and/or have to break up a multi-person brawl multiple times before the day is over.

* And now, we have UsefulNotes/COVID19, a highly contagious, sometimes fatal respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus. In 2020, it pushed ''the entire planet'' past the GodzillaThreshold, bringing the world to a standstill, closing businesses, schools, theme parks (including those owned by Disney), casinos (including in Las Vegas), causing major league sports to cancel their seasons, resulting in the unprecedented postponement of the Olympics, and leading authorities to ban gatherings and order people to stay in their own homes. The Catholic Church, which literally teaches that one can go to Hell for missing Sunday Mass, has canceled public church services. In fact, although the measures taken to slow the spread of COVID-19 may bring about a second Great Depression, this is seen as ''preferable'' to allowing the disease run unchecked.

[[folder:People/Organizations]]
* According to retired Scottish gangster Paul Ferris in his book ''Villains'', the IRA had this status among the British underworld during UsefulNotes/TheTroubles; British criminals sometimes took on money-laundering jobs for the Provos because they paid well, but ''Heaven help you'' if you informed on them or, worse, lost their money. It didn't help that most British gangland murders are committed over territory or by gangs in the same city, meaning the murderer was normally still within reach of the law and revenge from other gangs, whilst many IRA operatives could be back in Ireland before the bodies of their victims were even discovered.
* UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler (otherwise known as Vlad Dracula) achieved this reputation with the Ottoman Turks. According to records of the day, he once stopped a Turkish army that greatly outnumbered his by ambushing its vanguard (away from the rest of the force) and mounting them all on spikes--not their heads, [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice the entire person, usually still alive and screaming.]] The rest of the Turkish army was so appalled at the sight that it suddenly decided it didn't want to fight anymore. The man was so dreaded that upon Vlad's death, the Ottomans had his head hung from the walls of Constantinople to help convince people he was gone for good. Not surprisingly, Christian Wallachians were fond of him, not just for his martial successes but for his various social and economic reforms.
** Referenced by the Heralds in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations'': "To all visitors seeking the head of Voivode Dracula: Yes, we have it. Yes, he's dead. No, you cannot see it. No, he will not come invade you again. It has been ''over thirty years'', now ''please'' stop asking!"
** There's a (probably apocryphal) story that a cart laden with treasure and gold was left overnight in the middle of a street in Vlad's territory, and was left completely untouched, so much did his subjects fear him.
* UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan used this as his modus operandi. If you didn't submit the moment the Mongols demanded it, you were butchered. Simple as that. Genghis's subordinates were even worse than him in this regard; Genghis at least practiced a degree of brutal pragmatism in his campaigns in China. In the regions conquered by his generals, entire countries were left utterly devastated. On his death bed he told everyone to make sure the enemies in the next battle didn't know about his demise, so he could scare the crap out of people even when he was dead.
** His distant sucessor UsefulNotes/TimurTheLame wanted to reunite his fragmented empire, would try to emulate him as best as he could and came second place (he just killed a ''[[AMillionIsAStatistic couple million people less]]'' than Genghis Khan). Timur used terror tactics like building pyramids out of skulls from his defeated enemies and ordered each of his soldiers to behead two victims, if they fell short then it was their head that was lopped off. He also managed to do what the best Christian coalition at the time couldn't: effortlessly defeat the emerging Ottoman Empire ''and'' the Abbasid Caliphate. [[note]]The Abbasid Caliphate was way past its heyday by Timur's time, so its defeat was relatively unimpressive. What ''was'' impressive was that Timur captured the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I. While accounts differ on how exactly he was treated as a prisoner, what's not in dispute was that Bayezid died in captivity in March 1403, triggering the Ottoman Interregnum, which lasted nearly 11 years, well beyond the death of Timur himself.[[/note]]
* Hannibal Barca was this for UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic. His epic crossing of the Alps and the Victory at Cannae introduced the catchphrase "Hannibal ante portes" (Hannibal at the Gates) as a short-hand for Code Red in the years of the Second Punic War, even after Scipio's triumph at Zama, they chased him to Pergamon because they were afraid that he'd make a comeback from any inch of ground he had to stand on.
* UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell and his army. Especially during the Ireland campaign. Although the Irish put up considerable resistance, the retribution bestowed upon them by the British was so horrible that the Irish fled for the very name of Cromwell. The Drogheda Massacre was the initiating factor -- [[KillEmALL not a single person was spared]]. As can be imagined, Cromwell is deeply hated in Ireland to this day for this.
* UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfPiracy. If you hove to and handed over the supplies and sailors they wanted (they ruthlessly took carpenters, coopers, and smiths especially) then they'd let you sail off. If you tried to run away or dumped valuables overboard... Heaven have mercy, because the pirates wouldn't.
** UsefulNotes/{{Blackbeard}} virtually made this an artform. He drummed up his image so well that crews who saw his ship, the ''Queen Anne's Revenge'', would surrender immediately rather than put up a fight with him. He intentionally cultivated this sort of fear by, among other things, tying burning scraps of slowmatch (cord impregnated with gunpowder) into his beard to give the impression that he was ''[[IncendiaryExponent on fire]]'' in battle. But ironically, one current popular belief is that he never actually killed any person himself until his famous LastStand.
** Pirates who were especially terrifying include Francois l'Olonnais, ("The Exterminating Angel") who famously murdered priests and took a bite of a heart to intimidate crew members, Charles Vane and Edward Low (who once cut off the lips of a captain and made him eat it).
* UsefulNotes/JosefStalin made a science of this trope. After the assassination of Kirov in 1935, the purges he ordered Nikolai Yezhov (chief of the NKVD, forerunner to the KGB) to execute to, well, execute his political opponents filled his cronies with such dread that from that point onward they were terrified of invoking the wrath of the ''Vozhd'' ("boss") and would never dare try to depose him. His reputation was so bad that his personal bodyguard [[InvokedTrope successfully invoked the trope]] of him being such a BadBoss that they dared not call for medical intervention when he had [[Film/TheDeathOfStalin his stroke in '53]] -- though [[UnreliableNarrator that was, of course, a big fat lie because they wanted him to die right then and there so they could save their own skins in the leadership struggle that would inevitably follow.]]
* The nickname of UsefulNotes/IvanTheTerrible is this trope. He was indeed feared by his subjects, primarily not because of his total death toll -- his reign coincided with the golden age of Inquisition and the struggle between Catholics and Protestants in Europe, so he was a rather moderately brutal king by his century's standards. But he had an unpredictable personality, was prone to onslaughts of rage and liked the more alternative methods of capital punishment. Likewise, in order to crush his Boyar nobles, he innovated his personal StateSec the Oprichniki who were {{Torture Technician}}s and essentially a Cult dedicated to serving the Tsar.
* UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein's closest advisors were so terrified of displeasing him that they told him he could beat the [[UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks US armed forces]]. In 2003. [[CurbStompBattle He couldn't.]] He was so amazingly feared that during his trial, when he wandered in all disheveled and malnourished, the jury still reeled in horror. It's actually a testament to their courage they managed to find him guilty, so frightened were they of reprisals and reputation both. Even after being found guilty Saddam felt he still had full control of his country and DEMANDED he be presented with a firing squad like a true soldier, but as we know, [[KickTheSonOfABitch he didn't quite get his final wish.]]
* All South American and Latin American dictators are this. Fulgencio Bastista and Fidel Castro in Cuba, Augusto Pinochet In Chile, Jorge Videla in Argentina, Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua and Leonidas Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.
** Porfirio Diaz in Mexico played with this trope: While he was (and still is) hated in his time due of his iron-hand policies, he ''hardly was'' the most feared dictator Mexico had, only the most notorious one since he ruled for about 35 years. On the other hand, Victoriano Huerta (who succeeded Diaz after executing Francisco I. Madero) was (and still is) the most hated dictator Mexico ever had, despite ruling for only one year, but the atrocities he did during his rule managed to outshine anything that Diaz did during his three-decade rule, to the point that there's an award in Mexico named the ''Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor'' after the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belisario_Dominguez aforementioned man]] who [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech opposed him]]. (Huerta's men killed him, but not before ''cutting his tongue out'').
* Basically every notable warrior (and a couple government officials too) got at least one mention of them being regarded as this by one of the other sides in the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history, but Zhang Liao got to truly live up to this trope as he was able to rout a force of 100,000 with only 800 men, and was said to be so feared crying children would grow silent in his wake.
* It's hard to imagine the Mike Tyson we know nowadays to be the dreaded, but in his prime he was considered unbeatable and he truly terrified his opponents. It also helped that he played up his reputation by walking into the ring without music while unrelentingly staring down his opponent, psychologically unnerving them. Oh yeah, he [[MegatonPunch hit]] ''bloody hard'', too.
* Many SecretPolice agencies are or have been viewed this way; in [[UsefulNotes/TheGestapo many cases]], for very good reason.
** Reinhard Heydrich deserves special mention among UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler's inner circle, [[UpToEleven regarded by most historians as the darkest member of the Nazis.]] Heydrich compiled many colorful nicknames over the years such as The Hangman, The Butcher of Prague, The Blond Beast, Himmler's Evil Genius, The Young Evil God of Death, and The Man with the Iron Heart (the later personally given to him by Hitler himself). He was the man who formulated "The Final Solution". He was directly responsible for the Einsatzgruppen, the special task forces that travelled in the wake of the German armies and murdered more than two million people by mass shooting and gassing, including 1.3 million Jews. When he managed to be assassinated by Czech nationals, the Nazis killed 1,300 Czechs (200 of them being women) and wiped out an entire village before destroying it entirely, even though Hitler himself wanted 10,000 Czechs to be killed over his death.
* UsefulNotes/SimoHayha, the legendary Finnish [[ColdSniper sniper]] in WWII, who earned the most recorded sniper kills (505) in any major war, repeatedly wiped out mortar units and enemy snipers sent specifically to eliminate ''him'' and most impressively of all, only had ''[[ImprobableAimingSkills iron sights]]'' to aim with.
** Optical scopes were actually already in use at the time, but Hayha refused to use them because they can reflect sunlight and tend to make you raise your head a little while aiming, and he wanted to keep his silhouette as small as possible. Combined with his snow camouflage, enemies had difficulty even seeing him, and this eventually earned him the nickname of "The White Death".
** Whilst being shot in the face, he simultaneously managed to take out the sniper that shot him, before lapsing into a coma. He awoke on the same day the Russians called a ceasefire, leading some to joke that the Red Army did so because they were ''too afraid'' of facing him again.
** Eventually the Russians became so scared of him that they dropped an artillery strike on where he was thought to be. And even that didn't kill him.
* UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt. One of his friends said that he died in his sleep because if Death showed up when he was awake, there would've been a fight.
* He was generally known to be a pretty decent guy in his personal life by the people who knew him, but during the Civil War, UsefulNotes/UlyssesSGrant was feared by many Confederate generals (many of whom were ''also'' his classmates) specifically because ''[[TheDeterminator he just wouldn't give up]]''...and even if they found a way to stall him, [[ImplacableMan he'd just find a way to win anyway]]. Such was their fear of him that he was nicknamed ''[[RedBaron Unconditional Surrender Grant]]''. Truly, the very definition of a FourStarBadass.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko Lyudmila Pavlichenko]] was one of the most feared Soviet sharpshooters in World War II. Crafty and resourceful, Pavlichenko would use such techniques as sniping in the rain to conceal the sound of her gunfire, or rig store mannequins as decoys. After the death of her husband, she became an even more fearsome ColdSniper, adopting a new technique of aiming for the Germans' extremities, leaving them alive to call for help and bringing more targets into her crosshairs. The Germans considered it humiliating to be [[IWasBeatenByAGirl bested by the "Russian bitch from hell"]]. Such was her renown that, after being forced to evacuate during the battle of Sevastopol, she was sidelined for the rest of the war: she had become a HopeBringer for the Soviets, and it was believed her death would've been devastating to the war effort.
* Notorious gangster UsefulNotes/AlCapone was terrifying both to the police and to rival gangs.
** To emphasize this: Why was he so terrifying? Well, first, the guy had a gang about the size of a ''private army''. (Or at least the size of a typical leading Mexican drug cartel.) Second, he didn't just control the underworld in Chicago, he literally ruled Chicago. Every judge, every reporter, every politician, every ''citizen'' was in his pocket somehow, and if they weren't, he had them killed. Third, he was powerful enough that he could simply hold up a police station with little resistance at all, and fourth, he waged a gang war in Chicago that lasted for 5 years, with tons of casualties and loads of Tommy Gun bullets.
* Creator/DolphLundgren is such a [[GeniusBruiser badass]] that, [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1173697/Burglars-tie-woman--flee-house-realise-shes-married-action-hero-actor-Dolph-Lundgren.html when robbers broke into his house and tied up his wife]], he managed to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere scare them off without even being physically present]], once they realized who owned the house.
* Rozalia Zemylachka, one of the last of the "Old Bolsheviks" to escape being purged by Stalin. Why? Because [[HorrifyingTheHorror he was terrified of her]]. She was known as an extremely competent and sadistic soldier, and moreover one who was relatively content with her station in the Soviet state. She was just too psychotic to bother: as Verbal notes in ''Film/TheUsualSuspects'', "how can you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?" There was a good chance any attempt on Zemylachka's life would result in the death of the entire arresting force, and an extremely pissed-off and perhaps mildly amused killing machine out for revenge.
* The [[IntimidatingRevenueService Internal Revenue Service]] is the one government agency every American loathes and fears, for good reason. They have the power to make your life a living hell should you screw up on your taxes or simply if you're randomly selected for an audit. And that's just their lawful function. As many people have learned, politicians have a bad habit of using the IRS to go after their opponents and their supporters, something that Richard Nixon was proven to do and Barack Obama was accused of doing. After they managed to take down Al Capone for failing to pay taxes on his illegal income they've been consistently used the same tactic to take down other criminals in the same way. Being every murderer's worst nightmare doesn't exactly soften their public image.
-->'''ComicBook/TheJoker''': "I'm crazy enough to take on Franchise/{{Batman}}, but the IRS? Nooooooo, thank you."
* [[UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper Jack The Ripper]] stains his mark here, nobody else in British History could ever hold a candle compared to this unsolved mystery. Jack (as they called him) was an infamous murderer during the Victorian Period of London. His methods of maiming were, to put it nicely "Artist" being that he was precise and escaped his crimes without ever being caught. Prostitutes were mostly his victims, yet why he killed them is again unsolved. Though he's definitely long gone, his lethal legacy will forever remain a mystery.
* Two words, [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]]. Russia may be quite the scary country now, but consider it rather tame than what it used to be. Russian folk long ago wanted to form a socialist state, which in turn promised to care for the common man. However in doing so meant a lot of sacrifices were made, two well-known dictators [[UsefulNotes/VladimirLenin Vladimir Lenin]] and later [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Josef Stalin]] were put into power after the public encouraged the death of the current Tsar at the time. Soon immense power was achieved by the Russians, they were the first to send men into space, gain support from neighbouring countries like Ukraine and Belarus. But most of all, they forged enough nuclear weaponry to start their own nuclear war and make any Nazi who dares invade them run home crying no doubt.
* [[https://www.propublica.org/article/yes-black-america-fears-the-police-heres-why American police are also viewed as this by many African-Americans]]. The police have the reputation of taking the use of force too far at times, causing them to be feared by black and other minority communities. [[http://www.pbs.org/black-culture/connect/talk-back/10_rules_of_survival_if_stopped_by_police/ Many blacks have also reported fear of getting pulled over]] due to safety reasons and the fear of getting seriously injured or killed.
* The attending crowds in the yearly Viña del Mar festival in Chile are collectively referred to as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_monstruo_(audience) the Monster]], for their harshness, difficult-to-please nature and the fact they're not shy about booing performers off the stage if they're anywhere close to displeased. Winning them over completely is possible (and a respected feat), but every year there's almost always someone that gets "eaten alive" by the crowds, drowned out in protests until they have to leave in disgrace. Naturally, many performers get more nervous than usual when this particular curtain's about to raise.
* UsefulNotes/RichardTheLionheart was reportedly so feared by Muslims during the Crusades that he became a [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight boogeyman]], with mothers telling their naughty kids that "Melek Rik" (King Richard in Arabic) will get them if they don't behave.
* Mob boss Carmine Galante was so feared that while in prison he approached a black inmate who was using the phone and was surrounded by other black inmates and said "I need to use the phone n**er" and they all backed off from him.
* The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant also known as ISIL/ISIS or by it's Arabic acronym ''Daesh''. Terrorist organizations in general are this by definition, since the use fear as an weapon to demoralize their victims and enemies via violent attacks, but few can actually top ISIL in terms of atrocities [[note]]Boko Haram actually topped them, but they have became an ISIL branch so they are part of the same group [[/note]] - you know they are exceptional in this regard when even other militant groups and radicals are disturbed by their actions. As a [[http://nypost.com/2015/02/05/how-isis-is-winning-the-long-reach-of-terror/ NYP journalist]] puts it:
-->''"It is not solely by weapons that ISIS imposes its control. More important is the terror it has instilled in millions in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and, increasingly, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Indeed, Jordan's panic-driven decision to execute two jihadists in response to the burning of its captured pilot is another sign of the terror Daesh has instilled in Arab governments and much of the public. In the short run, terror is a very effective means of psychological control of unarmed and largely defenseless populations. Even in areas far from Daesh's reach, growing numbers of preachers, writers, politicians and even sheiks and emirs, terrorized by unprecedented savagery, are hedging their bets. Today, Daesh is a menacing presence not only in Baghdad but in Arab capitals from Cairo to Muscat — an evil ghost capable of launching attacks in the Sinai and organizing deadly raids on Jordanian and Saudi borders. ISIS enjoys yet another advantage: It has a clear strategy of making areas beyond its control unsafe. No one thinks Daesh can seize Baghdad, but few Baghdadis feel they're living anything close to a normal life. Daesh's message is clear: No one is safe anywhere, including in non-Muslim lands, until the whole world is brought under “proper Islamic rule".''
* In the second half of the 19th century Italy was this, not for being especially powerful, but for being a complete loose cannon of a country with a decent military, with even the British Empire, then at its apex, considering Italy building the ship with the most powerful guns ever made until then a potential danger for their whole empire in case the Italian government went crazy, and France occupying Tunisia specifically to keep Italy from doing the same because letting them control both shores of the Strait of Sicily (the narrowest point of the Mediterranean Sea) would be just too dangerous. It faded after Italy's embarrassing military defeat against Ethiopia in 1896... A defeat Britain, France and ''Russia'' tried to ensure by providing the Ethiopians with modern weapons (including Russian artillery-better than what Italy had deployed in its African colonies) and possibly Russians military advisers to better train their army.
* Greg Scarpa was one of the most feared and proficient mafia hitmen of all time, killing upwards of 50 people and earning the nickname "The Grim Reaper". To give an example of how feared he was, when Colombo family underboss Vic Orena tried to usurp his boss Carmine "the Snake" Persico, he started by trying to assassinate Scarpa, a Persico loyalist -- and upon finding out that the hit failed, [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere Orena went into hiding]], while Scarpa proceeded to [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge hunt down and kill all of Orena's supporters]].
* It's hard to find anyone in the rap industry more feared than [[Creator/DeathRowRecords Suge Knight]], especially back in his prime when he was arguably the most powerful man in the business. Really says something when in a world where many artists are used to daily dangers and threats to their life, even many veterans dread the mere presence of this guy. It wasn't just his iron-handed rule over the people working for him, with him willing to apply brute force on any of the other artists who had the slightest issue with him, but then there was how he constantly got himself involved in countless assaults, batterings, robberies, death threats, shootings and his possible connections to The Bloods. He was even worse towards those he saw as competition, such as the East Coast, constantly escalating conflicts between the East and West for the sake of profit and his own personal grudges wile also forcing many of his stars to partake, which many did in the hopes of avoiding his wrath. Merely getting fired by him was the nicest thing that could happen if he got displeased by those under his employ. Those less fortunate would have to go through quite a lot of pain by him and his goons first. And that's not even getting into his rumored involvement in the disappearance of a witness to an assault he committed and being theorized to be the mastermind behind the deaths of Notorious B.I.G and 2Pac. Even keeping him behind bars wasn't enough to quell people's fear about him as he still had ways of getting to those he felt wronged him.
** Just to put matters into perspective: Film/StraightOuttaCompton had to outright ''tone down'' a lot of his insane antics because people would have a hard time believing them otherwise.
* {{Ninja}} yes, real actual Shinobi not your show-offy so-called ''Ninja'' you see in cartoons or videogames. Believe it or not, the subtle art of Ninjutsu is not an outdated form of combat. As old as the concept was, Ninja have adapted to modern day tactics. True swinging a katana or throwing shuriken, is far outclassed by guns and explosives. But whoever said a Shinobi must [[CombatPragmatist fight fair?]] Is a damn liar that's for sure. Nowadays there are a plethora of silenced weapons, capable of dispatching a target quietly. Maybe laughing at that strange masked man, wasn't such a good idea after all.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Vehicles]]
* Since the 1960s, military attack helicopters have been bringing nightmares to ground forces, especially insurgents lacking the weapon necessary for fighting back. Most attack helicopters are nearly impervious to anything short of a dedicated anti-air missile and have enough firepower to wipe out an entire city block. Several notable examples include the Mi-24 Hind and the AH-64 Apache.
** The Mi-24 has built a reputation of terrifying foes in many conflicts on 4 separate continents. The most common variant, the Hind-E, is armed a [[GatlingGood 12.7 mm gatling gun]], [[MoreDakka 23 mm autocannons]], [[StuffBlowingUp 57 mm rocket pods, and anti-tank missiles]]. Experience in Afghanistan that suggested a more powerful cannon was needed led to the Soviets developing the Mi-24P, which is armed with a [[{{BFG}} GSh-30-2 30mm twin-barrel autocannon]], giving it the same firepower as the Su-25 ground attack aircraft, and the 57mm rockets were replaced with [[UpToEleven 80mm rockets and FAE bombs]]. If needed, the Hind [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier can even transport 8 armed troops]] who can finish off any stragglers from its initial attacks, or, unlike most other attack helicopters[[BoringButPractical relocate from one base to another while carrying its own spare parts]]. The Hind is also nearly impervious to small arms fire and, in one instance, a Hind safely returned to base with [[MadeOfIron ''20'' bullet holes in its fuselage and rotor blades]]. This helicopter has been nicknamed [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "Satan's Chariot"]] by the Mujahadeen and is still a terrifying weapon against infantry and most vehicles even when overshadowed in the anti-tank role by the newer Mi-28 Havoc and Ka-50 Hokum. Upgraded variants developed by Russia as well as by Israel and South Africa add whole new sensors and weapons, so the Mi-24 is still a force to be reckoned with.
** AH-64 has also been proven to be a nightmarish weapon of destruction. Created in response to fears of thousands of Soviet tanks rushing into Europe, the Apache was designed to be the ultimate anti-ground helicopter and it has more than succeeded in that role. Like the Hind, it is built to be [[MightyGlacier tough and strong]]. Unlike most older versions of the Hind, all Apache variants are equipped with infrared sensors and night vision, meaning that opponents can't hide from it even in low visibility, and the newer AH-64D Apache Longbow uses a mast-mounted radar to see through levels of dust and smoke that would blind the best infrared sensors. Its signature weapon, the Hellfire anti-tank missile, can destroy a tank with a single hit and anti-tank roles allow it to carry as many as ''16'' of those missiles. While it was initially designed only to attack tanks, the Apache can also attack infantry and fortification, a role at which it [[NoKillLikeOverkill may have performed too well]]. Yet the ultimate testimony to the Apache's reputation was its ability to win fights without firing a shot. In many instance during the first Gulf War, many Iraqi soldiers surrendered at the first sight of an Apache.
* Ground attack aircraft, particularly the American A-10 and Su-25, and the World War Two era Il-2 classify as this as well.
** To Saddam's former army as well as the various terrorist and insurgent organizations that the United States has opposed in the 21st century, the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II "Warthog" is terrifying. It's one of the last dedicated ground attack jet aircraft and uses a [[GatlingGood giant explosive chain-gun]] and a compliment of missiles to devastate nearly any ground target. This isn't why its particularly feared, however: its massive amounts of titanium armor and durability are. In tests, this aircraft has been able to soak up multiple air to air and ground to air missile strikes and keep flying, and can even do so with large parts of its wings and one of its engines missing. Even most state-sponsored armies in the Middle East simply lack the ground-based firepower to reliably take one of these things down. The handheld anti-air missiles and WWII era flak cannons used by insurgents can hurt the Warthog but can't do much to destroy it, and even a crippled Warthog can be repaired and sent back to dish out the pain. It's often the only manned aircraft cleared to operate over various combat zones, simply because nothing stops them. The Taliban is so afraid of the aircraft that they have sometimes surrendered en mass just because they heard one coming.
** The Su-25 would give the mighty Warthog a run for its money, although it gets little love in the West. When dealing with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, this was the only thing that would give them even bigger nightmares than the aforementioned Mi-24 attack helicopter. Armored with thick titanium plates, capable of flying off of diesel fuel in a pinch, and capable of carrying a similar practical weapons load to the Warthog, the Su-25 utterly wrecked Mujahideen positions. Having a 30mm twin-barrel cannon with somewhat less striking power than an A-10 (but with a fraction of the weight) and carrying a massive load of [[StuffBlowingUp Bombs, Rockets and Missiles]] sure helps. The Su-25 could hover over an area and protect troops far longer than supersonic fighter or bomber aicraft like the Su-24 or MiG-27 attack aircraft could, leading to Russian troops nicknaming it the ''Graych''(Rook) for its relatively large wingspan.
** The Granddaddy of them all was the Ilyushin-2 ground attack aircraft, best known as the ''Shturmovik'', and which influenced the use of ''every'' ground attack aircraft that followed. Using 23mm or even [[{{BFG}} 37mm]] autocannons, [[StuffBlowingUp 82mm and 132mm rockets]] and PTAB anti-tank bomblets, the ''Shturmovik'' would annihilate scores of German infantry and destroy tanks and vehicles while bouncing off most ground-based AA fire and proving a headache to destroy even for Luftwaffe fighters. German troops took to calling it ''Der Schwaze Tod'' meaning [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Black Death]] and running like hell whenever it showed up on the battlefield. A mark of just how dangerous -and successful - it was is that one of the Il-2's design features, the slightly protruding wheels that helped it safely belly land even with its wheels up, turned up in A-10 Warthogs a good 40 years later.
* An even bigger terror would have to be the B-52 Stratofortress...it is '''the''' MightyGlacier of Mighty Glaciers; so tanky in fact, that it makes the above-mentioned A-10 Thunderbolt II look like a wimpy little LightningBruiser. It is so large, it needs no less than '''EIGHT''' jet turbines to fly, and it carries a very large payload. Its history of terror upon enemies of the US goes as far back as Vietnam, when the only two things the Viet-Cong feared from Uncle Sam was this monster, and the M-16 rifle. That's because B-52 crews often drop the entire payload onto the target, cluster-bombing the entire area with explosive ordinance; ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill indeed. Even worse news to those enemies? The B-52 is '''STILL''' terrorizing the skies, and may well do so into the ''2030s''.
* [[TankGoodness Tanks]], if vehicles are allowed. In olden days, they had [[MightyGlacier Horrendous Top Speed]], but their extreme fire power and incredible resistance to gun fire makes them a threat to anyone who looks at them silly. This is taken up at least eleven notches with the introduction of the [[LightningBruiser Main Battle Tank]] when they start adding speed to the mix.
** If there was a war machine Allied tank crews do not want to meet during the early years of World War II, the Panzerkampfwagen VI "Tiger I" is that machine. When it was first introduced, neither the Allies or the Soviets had the weaponry to counter its armor, and its 88mm gun is able to blow almost any Allied tank at incredibly long ranges, meaning a Tiger could lie in wait, then blast a tank apart before it knows there was a Tiger there. So dreadful and terrifying was the weapon, Western Allied forces suffered what was known as "Tiger terror"; every time their tanks/armored vehicles took a hit, they automatically assume the culprit was a hidden Tiger with the 88mm gun, regardless of whether it's true not. However, the "Tiger terror" was ultimately short-lived; in the weeks after Operation Overlord as the Allies continued to expand the Western Front, it became apparent that the much-vaunted Tiger was more terrifying [[AwesomeButImpractical on paper]] than in application, especially after Allied logistics began to far outpace the war-ravaged Wehrmacht's industrial capacity. With Allies fully on the offensive, Tigers often found themselves outmaneuvered by the Allies' more maneuverable and numerous tanks and mechanized infantry, and oftentimes any Tiger that could not be confronted head-on was quickly dealt with via [[DeathFromAbove Allied air attacks]] (Assuming the Allied aircraft hadn't ''already'' dealt with the problem themselves by blowing up the trains carrying the Tigers before they even reached the front lines!) There ''was'' a brief return of the "Tiger terror" during the Battle of the Bulge, but this more a case of German tanks in general being bad news for the besieged Allied forces, due to the fact that many of them lacked the ammo or equipment to deal with ''any'' sort of armored vehicle, let alone a Tiger. And once [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeSPatton General Patton]] showed up with his Third Army to relieve the besieged forces, the Tiger terror quickly dissipated once again.
*** Among other things, the Tiger could neutral steer and turn on the spot, which many Allied tanks couldn't do. Sherman crews trying to outflank Tigers in urban environments expecting to shoot them in the more vulnerable rear would have a ''very'' nasty surprise to see the Tiger facing them front on...with the 88mm gun pointed right at them.
*** And then taken UpToEleven later in the war with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_II Tiger II]], which had sloped armor (making it considerably less vulnerable to Allied fire) and a longer, more powerful 88mm gun with an even greater range than that on the original Tiger.
*** Above all this, however, there is something about the Tiger that the Allies ''consistently'' feared on all theaters, even before the Tiger came to existence: The 8.8 cm Flak cannon. Starting out as humble AA artillery, some engineers realized a cannon that could lob fused explosives up to a mile in the air could also lob armor-piercing rounds on a more horizontal trajectory to take out tanks, and it did this job ''frighteningly'' well: British soldiers from North Africa reported that 88mm shells would go ''right through'' their Crusader and Lee tanks like butter. The Allies never had a foolproof tank armor that could defeat it; the Western Allies simply couldn't make tank armor heavy enough, and the USSR in the East, while possessing a handful of heavier tanks that ''could'' resist the 88, didn't field them in large numbers until the end of the war, when Germany was all but defeated regardless. On many respects, it was not a "Tiger Terror" the Western Allies suffered, but an "''Eighty-Eight Terror,''" especially when the Germans had a '''lot''' of 88's, most of them being AA cannons used to defend against bomber formations, simply traversed to horizontal and loaded with AP shells for direct-fire. While not as heavily armored as the Tiger, they were arguably more mobile, built with special trailers designed for quick setup and allowing for them to be pulled by anything from tractors to horses, which were still in heavy use by the Reich even at this stage in the war. A Sherman crew's worst nightmares were haunted not by Tigers, but by the three or four camouflaged 88 batteries laying in wait beyond...
** The Germans landed up getting a dose of this themselves when they ran into the Soviet T-34 medium tank, which to their dismay was [[LightningBruiser faster, better armored and with a more powerful gun]] than any of the Panzer III or IV variants in existence at the time, and capable of crossing boggy and swampy terrain that German tanks couldn't cross. The T-34 and heavily armored KV-1 heavy tank spurred the development of the mighty Tiger and Panther tanks to counter them.
** For the Germans' part, they were well afraid of the American Sherman tank, though not because any ''single'' Sherman was an issue; the problem was that America made a '''''[[ZergRush Shitload of a Fuckton]]''''' of Shermans, and, sure, while the Germans were killing three Sherman tanks per one Tiger destroyed[[labelnote:*]]On average, anyways. It should also be noted that this includes ''all'' Sherman losses in battle, be they from enemy tanks, Anti-tank weapons, infantry, and landmines, not just from Tiger kills, and likewise for the Tigers; it was actually a relatively rare occurrence for Shermans and Tigers to directly face off one-on-one due to the aforementioned Allied logistics and support. Encounters between opposing tanks ''were'' common, mind you, but rarely were such encounters full-stop "tank duels" as Hollywood likes to depict them.[[/labelnote]], America was building ''five'' for every Sherman lost, and had more than enough men to crew them. One German prisoner recounted that at one point he simply ''gave up'' trying to shoot Shermans, because "for every one we destroyed, ten more drove up to take its place!"
*** While the typical lone Sherman tank was not a problem for German tanks, there were two Sherman variants that the Germans learned to fear: The British "Firefly" variant and the American [=M4A3E8=] "Easy Eight" variant. Both of these sported heavier main guns which could make mincemeat out of German armor even at long range, even that of the venerable Tiger I and Tiger [=IIs=], essentially negating the armor advantage that the Germans had going for them, to the point that German tank commanders singled out the longer-barreled Fireflies and Easy Eights to destroy them first. The Allies responded by ''camouflaging'' the longer barrels, which only made it worse for the poor Germans, who now didn't know from which tank the killing shot could come from.
** The [[UsefulNotes/IsraelisWithInfraredMissiles Israeli]] Pereh, an anti-tank weapon ''disguised'' as a tank. Only declassified in 2015 and removed from service two years later, it was feared because it couldn't be distinguished from a regular tank and had a far longer range by a factor of tens.
* The British Crocodile flamethrower tank in World War II, and other modified flamethrower tanks, could become this when attacking an enemy position. They were heavily-armored and nearly impossible for anything but an emplaced anti-tank gun to harm, since German man-portable anti-tank weapons were unable to pierce their frontal armor and they were hard to flank due to escorting infantry and the long reach of their flamethrowers. Often they would cause German troops to flee or surrender at a single warning shot of the flame jet, and if that didn't work they could just [[IfIWantedYouDead spray fuel into the enemy fortifications as a sign that they could kill anyone in the trenches and bunkers at will, which also broke morale very quickly.]]
* The F-14 Tomcat scared the living daylights out of the entire Iraqi Air Force during the Iran-Iraq War, in no small part because with its powerful radar and long-range Phoenix missiles the first hint the Iraqis often had to a Tomcat being in the area was when one of their planes exploded.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Military]]
* Many successful military commanders have been this to their opponents. [[UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte Napoleon]] terrified his enemies, as did Lord UsefulNotes/HoratioNelson, to give two examples from UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars.
** Napoleon and Hannibal (from the Second Punic War) stand out as two of the only military commanders in history whose enemies have paid them the ultimate compliment of redesigning entire strategies specifically to avoid facing them personally in battle.
** Arthur Wellesley, better known as the Duke of Wellington (a title he earned for his military achievements) was Britain's main commander in the Napoleonic Wars from 1809 onwards, having previously commanded in India, and arguably the only commander of the era better than Napoleon himself - he's one of the few generals to have never lost a battle. Primarily a defensive general, thanks to limited troops compared to his enemies, along with funding issues, (the Royal Navy was the government's favoured child), he favoured BoringButPractical tactics - but attacked with flair when the option became available, as at Vitoria in 1813. A brilliant strategist and tactician, he retook the entire Iberian Peninsula in four years, breaking multiple French Marshals, and building some of the best placed and most cost effective fortifications in military history (the Lines of Torres Vedras) in the process. Then, he stopped Napoleon's grand return at the end of the Hundred Days, breaking the French army at Waterloo with a scratch army mainly of new recruits (his original army of Peninsular War veterans having largely been dispersed across the world).
* The Wehrmacht was this in the early stages of UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo. Indeed, after ''Fall Taifun'' bogged down in sight of Moscow, Chief of the German General Staff General Franz "a strong military leader with great powers of motivation is ''the most important factor'' for success" Halder invoked this trope: "The myth of our invincibility is shattered", he wrote. The man's [[ThePollyanna mile-wide optimistic streak]] had helped him ignore the way the Wehrmacht had actually taken her first serious losses ''on the first day'' of the war with the USSR (in Bessarabia) and had suffered its first true setback in just the third week (at Smolensk). The British press actually reported the battle of Smolensk ''as a Soviet victory'' (which is true enough [[StrategyVersusTactics strategically, though it was a tactical-operational defeat]]), something that annoyed Joseph Goebbels to no end.
** Not to mention the SS and earlier the SA. Also the Red Army in Germany. Though they weren't ''genocidal'', as they'd been portrayed in German propaganda (with some justification, as Germany's stated intention had been to kill a quarter of them and enslave the rest and even non-Nazis [[GuiltFreeExterminationWar assumed that they would try to return the favour]]).
** Erich Hartmann (history's top scoring AcePilot) had to erase [[NoseArt the black stylized tulip from the nose of his plane]], since all possible opponents had learnt the hard way to avoid him. His black tulip plane was given to rookies in the squadron so that the enemy avoided them, and anyone on that plane reported significantly more AA fire than in other planes.
** The Dirlewanger Brigade. Essentially an SS [[TradingBarsForStripes penal legion]], their exploits in the Belarus and Poland were so incredibly [[AxCrazy violent]], [[ToThePain brutal]], and [[FateWorseThanDeath unflinchingly cruel]] that the SS high command requested that [[OmnicidalManiac Dirlewanger]] [[HorrifyingTheHorror stop sending them reports]]. Nothing written here can do it justice. [[NightmareFuel Search at your own risk]]. You were warned. All you really need to know is that Dirlewanger was imprisoned for rape before the war and getting command of a group of fellow worst of the worst. Just about the only good thing to come out of this is that almost all of them were wiped by the Soviet army and Dirlewanger himself was beaten to death by concentration camp survivors.
* The IJA in UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo and the UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar built up a fearsome reputation as brutal and [[{{Determinator}} fearless]] killers. Across Asia people would run and hide when Japanese troops were approaching, afraid of being killed, of [[RapePillageAndBurn having everything they owned stolen and being sexually assaulted]] or [[MadeASlave being conscripted into a work gang and doing heavy labour until they died from malnutrition and/or disease (if male, though usually aged 10-50) or being conscripted into a brothel and serving as a sex-slave until they died from malnutrition and/or (sexual) disease (if female)]]. This reputation stemmed from highly publicized atrocities such as the Rape of Nanking, in which hundreds of thousands of Chinese were killed and/or raped when the city fell to Japanese soldiers. Armies defending themselves from their attacks had just as much reason to fear them, since IJA units rarely, if ever, broke ranks during an attack, no matter how many of their own were killed, were also well trained in jungle warfare (which is much of the South Pacific), and treated prisoners of war just as badly as they treated civilians. They were also no slouches when it came to defense - IJA units often fought till the last man, holding their positions no matter how badly they were outmatched by their opposition and often engaging in [[SuicideAttack suicide tactics]] to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible before dying. When the United States was faced with the prospect of invading Japan, they decided to [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki drop a couple nuclear bombs on the country]] instead.
* [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships The Royal Navy]] was this to the Italian Navy in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: while the Italian high officers thought they could win and control the Mediterranean, the sailors and the officers who actually sailed against the Brits (plus a few of the members of the high command) openly admitted they were doomed and their success would be measured by the length of their resistance and the losses they'd inflict before the ultimate defeat. Interestingly, the special operation branch of the Italian Navy had the same reputation among the Royal Navy, especially after that time they ''sank two battleship in Alexandria's harbor'', one of which had the commanding admiral on board (the battleships were recovered and repaired, but remained disabled for months and the Royal Navy [[ProperlyParanoid didn't dare to lower its guard]] for the rest of the war).
** The Italian Navy (''Regia Marina'') was built with French Navy as the assumed enemy and to counter the French threat. Their cruisers and battleships were optimized to fight their French opponents. The Italian admirals never even thought having to face the [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships Royal Navy]]. When they did, [[{{Understatement}} they were somewhat demoralized]].
** And it was that also to the ''Kriegsmarine''. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder openly admitted to UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler that his forces were so underpowered that all he could do was to fight bravely before the ultimate defeat. After the [[PyrrhicVictory Operation Weserübung]], which cost the Kriegsmarine two cruisers, one battlecruiser seriously damaged and dozens of destroyers, the ''Kriegsmarine'' was especially ordered to avoid the [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships White Ensign]] and concentrate on the Red -- the British merchantmen.
** [[RunningGag And it had been that]] to the ''Kaiserliche Marine'' in the runup to UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, too.
** The British were not immune to this, and were particularly jumpy at the idea of a ''Kriegsmarine'' surface vessel slipping into the Atlantic undetected. Submarines and aircraft already made shipping supplies across the Atlantic dangerous, but the possibility of convoys getting intercepted by heavy cruisers or even battleships while only having destroyers or light cruisers to oppose them was a terrifying prospect. To whit, a rumor that the battleship ''Tirpitz'' might sortie out against convoy [=PQ=] 17 was enough for the Allies to send two battleships, an aircraft carrier, several heavy cruisers, and their escorts to intercept while ordering the convoy to scatter and make for Russia alone. All this for ''one ship'' that the Allies outnumbered and outgunned in almost every capacity. Given, however, that said merchant convoys were essentially one of Britain's few lifelines, especially in the early part of the war, it's not surprising that they didn't see a thing as being ''too'' cautious when defending them.
* The [[UsefulNotes/NepaliWithNastyKnives Gurkhas]]. The Pashtun of eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan believe that the Gurkhas are immortal demons, who eat the bodies of the men they kill. Such is their reputation, it's said that during UsefulNotes/TheFalklandsWar, a British captain casually radioed over to an attacking Argentinian vessel, informing them they had a company of Gurkhas onboard. Cue the Argentinian vessel immediately withdrawing. In the same war, morale among Argentine troops (fortified and well-supplied, mind you) ''plummeted'' once they found out the Gurkhas were coming.
** The regular [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships British]] military has a somewhat similar reputation for their [[BayonetYa bayonet charges]]. In the same war, just hearing a British (though a [[ViolentGlaswegian Scottish]] [[BraveScot one]] may be worse) officer shout "FIX BAYONETS!" would sometimes result in the enemy disengaging or even surrendering immediately. How dreaded were they? They successfully executed a bayonet charge on ''[[TheFundamentalist the Taliban]]'', who broke and fled.
** Speaking of the British Army: the [[ElitesAreMoreGlamorous 22nd Special Air Service]]. Template for special forces groups across the world since the Second World War, and respected by all of them. After more than seventy years, they're still regarded as ''the best'' Tier One unit on the planet. Considering their competition is Delta Force, the Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Spetsnaz, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army_Special_Operations_Forces China's SOF]] and a plethora of others, you can imagine how fast bowels will be voided once enemy forces find out they're active in the area...
** And right at the same level as the legendary SAS? The lesser-known [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Boat_Service Special Boat Service]]. Just as lethal and disciplined, they're to the Royal Navy what the SAS is to the British Army. Traditionally made up almost entirely of Royal Marines, who are ''already'' the Special Operations unit of the British Navy. So, they're an elite percentage of an elite percentage of one of the most highly-trained navies in the world.
* Swiss mercenaries were considered the best soldiers in the world for several hundred years. To make sure everyone on the battlefield knew exactly who they were, they took to wearing [[HighlyConspicuousUniform outrageously colorful uniforms]]. The uniforms of the Vatican's Swiss Guard is a relic of this custom.
** They were so feared that a treaty ending a war between several major powers ''specifically stated'' that no one was allowed to hire Swiss mercenaries. Ever.
* The entire United States Armed Forces is pretty much this to the rest of the planet. Despite cuts in both budget and manpower, it is still ''the'' most powerful fighting force on the planet and is so far ahead of any other country that it's meaningless to even note who is in 2nd place. China and Russia? Capable of regional influence and messing with their neighbors, but aside from their nuclear forces (which are only good for deterrence, once you launch a nuclear weapon it becomes useless) they have next to no power projection capability. Think aircraft carriers, global logistics, mid-air refueling, forward bases located either in or close to every potential hotspot, etc. U.S. political leaders are very reluctant to unleash the full force of American military might because there are literally very few situations that would justify it, and doing so without this justification would have tremendous political consequences. As it stands right now, the only realistic situation in which the full force of American fighting strength would be used is if a coalition of foreign nations banded together to try and invade the United States. The possibility is so unlikely that it belongs almost entirely in the realm of fiction.
** The 101st Airborne Division "Screaming Eagles" specifically has this reputation for several enemies of the United States. Even compared to other American units, they possessed a degree of savagery and combat prowess that no one dared to match when they were on the battlefield, and just the mention that they could be in your Area of Operations and after your hides was a good way to make your unit's morale plummet. In the Second World War, the Germans called them the "Devils in Baggy Pants" thanks to the large, loose-fitting jump pants they wore into battle, and there was no small amount of rumors spread throughout the Wehrmacht that 101st troopers would [[FlayingAlive collect the scalps]] of their fallen enemies, dead or alive, a rumor which was only ''persisted by other rumors'' that the 101st was made up mostly of UsefulNotes/NativeAmericans and criminals.[[note]]Which wasn't exactly true, nor completely false; There ''were'' Native Americans and criminals in the 101st ranks, but they hardly made up the bulk of their forces, and such groups also served in other branches and theatres throughout the war as well--most notably in the Pacific, where the Navajo "Windtalkers" were instrumental in creating a code system that the Japanese couldn't break. And there ''are'' tales of scalpings taking place within the 101st, though, like the presence of Native Americans it was neither a common nor exclusive thing...not that the 101st tried to discourage such, if only to make captured German soldiers a bit...uncomfortable.[[/note]] In the UsefulNotes/VietnamWar, the Vietcong were well aware and as afraid of the 101st as the Nazis were, but they were baffled by the bald eagle patches on their shoulders, since many of them had never even ''heard'' of a bald eagle before, let alone seen one. As a result, they assumed it was the only white-headed bird they knew of: The humble chicken. And the men who wore it on their shoulders? The "[[FluffyTheTerrible Chicken Men]]."
* Civil wars tend to be always cruel and bloody, but the Whites of the Finnish Civil War 1918 deserve a special mentioning. The Reds called them ''lahtaris'' (The Butcherers) because of their tendency to shoot the prisoners on spot and take DisproportionateRetribution on red civilians.
* Native soldiers from France's African colonies were sometimes this to the Germans in UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne, because as everyone knows [[ValuesDissonance black people practice cannibalism and are invisible at night.]]
** Much the same went for the Canadians and [=ANZACs=], though the ''hilariously'' inaccurate rumours about ''them'' were that [[MoodWhiplash they tortured the wounded to death and killed everyone who tried to surrender to them]]. Well. Not so much 'inaccurate' as 'never investigated'. [[FalseReassurance But it's not like]] ''[[FalseReassurance anyone]]'' [[FalseReassurance would]] ''[[FalseReassurance ever]]'' [[FalseReassurance take the opportunity to hurt and kill one's enemies with impunity, even as revenge for friends they'd killed or out of racist hatred or just plain old sadism, would they?]]
*** Canadian forces in WWI also have this reputation out of sheer smarts and badassery, which resulted in them being used to spearhead every BEF offensive of the years 1916-18. It is probably NotHyperbole to say that the Canadian Corps (50k men) was the best-administered Corps of the entire war. Britain was one of the most industrialized nations of WWI, and largely drew her armies from the poor, often malnourished[[note]]In the era before nutrition became well known and refrigeration was possible, conditions in the slums were ''horrid''[[/note]] men living in the slums of the large, heavily polluted, industrialized cities, while Canadian (And other Dominion) forces were often recruited from relatively healthy frontiersmen, who were often quite familiar with firearms. Sir Arthur Currie was also one of the greatest generals of the time, being one of the first to employ creeping barrages, and granting a greater degree of freedom to his Junior officers, allowing them to react better to the developing situations on the battlefield, On top of this, unlike many British divisions, which were moved about to wherever they were needed, for the most part, the 4 Divisions of Canadians were largely kept together, giving them a greater sense of cohesion. Their reputation was also helped along by British press praising them as "The Shock army of the British Empire", with Germans equating them with their own ''Sturmtruppen'' (assault troops). "The Canadians are here" and "Attack imminent" became synonymous by 1917, with the BEF playing on this reputation in the Hundred Days' Offensive[[note]]Nicknamed Canada's Hundred Days, as a result of the key role the Canada Corps played in much of the fighting[[/note]] by concealing the Canadians' location and shifting it around constantly. Other myths surounding the Canada Corps included their supposed immunity to [[DeadlyGas Chlorine]] (There were two physicians in the Canadian ranks, and both had ordered their men to urinate on cloths and hold them over their faces as make-shift gas masks).
*** The reputation continued into the Second World War and was occasionally used strategically. In one instance in Italy, the Allies made sure the Germans were aware that the Canadian units present were being moved to one particular section of the front, which resulted in the Germans pulling men from the rest of the line to reinforce against the expected attack and moving up their reserves to react...which was, of course, [[BatmanGambit exactly what was desired]] as the move had been faked and Allied units (including the Canadians) advanced through the weakened positions.
* While American privateers during UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution and UsefulNotes/WarOf1812 exacted a heavy toll on British merchantmen in general, the American heavy frigate USS ''Constitution'' quickly became this in the latter conflict, and much of her subsequent career. In fact, the Royal Navy in the Atlantic was under standing orders to never engage ''Constitution'' unless they could bring ''[[CombatPragmatist the entire fleet]]'' to action against her.
** This was mainly due to the bulk of the Royal Navy, including her Ships of the Line, being busy blockading Europe and standing ready to face the French navy. The USS Constitution and her sister ships were so-called "Heavy Frigates", being very solidly built and rated at 48 guns. The Royal Navy's frigates were typically much lighter, carrying something like 28 lighter guns. This was mainly because unlike the US Navy, the Royal Navy (and most of her expected opponents) could afford to field a fleet of Ships of the Line, and thus had no doctrinal use for a Heavy Frigate (or an equivalent to the Americans' fleet of gunboats, which proved entirely useless against RN frigates.)
** Additionally, the fact that she had a [[MadeOfIndestructium Double Hull, which was able to bounce cannonballs off it like they were almost nothing]], gave her the nickname "Old Ironsides".
*** It didn't help that Americans generally used 24lb cannons while the British used 18 and 12 lb cannons.
* Russian paramilitaries. Remember how EVERY Russian man goes into the army and learns how to fight? Now imagine dozens of these guys coming after you. And they are ALL personally motivated to destroy you.
** Russian-extraction paramilitaries are some of the few effective forces for law and order in the Mexican drug war, to the point of taking on cartels, and winning. They are the real inspiration for the Autodefensas, and they even killed so many guys as to make the La Familia cartel collapse.
* During UsefulNotes/TheCrusades, men in an advanced stage of leprosy were given a sword, some basic armor, and one last chance to serve God and country by being a soldier. [[FeelNoPain Due to the disease destroying the parts of their brain that allowed them to feel pain]], while still being able to follow orders and swing said sword, they became terrifying fighters that were part ImplacableMan, part walking biological weapon, as every drop of their blood that was spilled held a very high chance of infection. Most just ran for the hills rather than risk being slowly eaten alive by leprosy.
* The Nazis most definitely had this reputation during World War 2. Where they went death wasn't far behind, even non-Jewish folk feared them (or at least had no choice but obey them). With death counts in the millions, all who didn't conform towards their ways were sent away to work or die in filthy, cramped camps. What really made them part of this trope is simply this. The Nazis literally lied to the German public, brainwashing them to believe that all the evil they were committing is of everyone's benefit.
* In Italy, there were the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Brigades Brigate Rosse]]'' (Red Brigades), feared for their indiscriminate attacks against police forces, magistrates, and anything that could be taken to represent the Italian state, including ''the lawyers designated by the courts to defend arrested members in their trials''. They were so feared that someone was able to rob a bank by walking in and telling the director he was from the Brigades and they would blow up the bank if he didn't leave with a briefcase full of money (the director gave in and the robber was never caught, so it's still unknown if it was a bluff or the real thing).

[[folder:Sports/Competition]]
* In a humorous American Football example, Bernard Pollard is this to New England Patriot fans. He's caused no less than 4 injuries to Patriot players over the past few seasons, all of which completely altered the Patriots' seasons for the worse.
** Big-time Boston sports fan [[Creator/TheSportsGuy Bill Simmons]] uses his full name (Bernard Karmell Pollard) because it makes him [[GunmanWithThreeNames sound like an assassin.]]
* Fans will have their heart skip a beat if a star player on their team gets injured and they hear that the player has scheduled an appointment to see [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._James_Andrews Dr. James Andrews]]. Dr. Andrews is obviously not a bad guy -- he is very highly regarded and is considered one of the best specialists in knee, elbow, and shoulder surgery (three things which get hurt a lot in sports) -- but if the player's going to see Dr. Andrews, it means the injury is ''bad'' (season-ending surgery is not infrequent).
* In UsefulNotes/{{Cricket}}, the West Indies team of the 1980s, both due to the fact that they enjoyed one of the longest periods of dominance in international sport, and the physical intimidation from their fast bowlers.
** When it came to batting, until recently, one man became the bowler's bane more than any other: India's Sachin Tendulkar. His knack for getting runs was uncanny (he amassed 100 centuries in international competition), to the point that whenever he was on the pitch, many teams would become fixated with ''getting that man out''.
* In UsefulNotes/IceHockey, it's the Canadians. Their Olympic team has more gold medals and total medal wins than any other hockey team in the world. The junior team is even scarier, winning ''fifteen'' of the thirty-six tournaments that have already passed and scoring 28 medals total. While the NHL results tend to be more mixed, the league is absolutely full of Canadian players, and it's worth noting that the team with by far the most Stanley Cup wins is still the Montreal Canadiens. Canadian players are also responsible for some of the most violent events in sports history, including the "Punch-up in Piestany," in which the Canadian juniors had a bench-clearing brawl against the Soviets that went on for ''twenty minutes'' before the officials blacked out the stadium. Their fans are also notorious for rioting, as any residents of Vancouver in 1994 or 2011 will tell you (Canucks fans appear to be sore losers). Essentially, Canadians try very hard to hold up their reputation of politeness... until you get them on the ice, and then ''all bets are off.''
** Worth noting that the USSR/Russian team is this ''to'' the Canadians, as they're one of the only teams that have records to match Canada's. This heated rivalry was one of the things that led to the "Punch-up in Piestany."
** The American and Canadian women's national teams are this to everyone else. Any tournament these two teams are in (Olympics, world championships, whatever) tends to have the following result: Canada and the US will play for gold, everyone else is really just competing for Bronze.
* When it comes to UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball, Brazil gets to have this reputation. Many fans from other countries find themselves dreading the possibility their team will end up going against them in a World Cup, which will usually mean any winning streak will end right then and there. Other teams do get temporary Dreaded status, but they always get to qualify for it.
** After [[CurbStompBattle absolutely flattening]] Brazil in the 2014 World Cup, Germany's team became one, they went on to win the cup.
** In the women's game, the United States is this.
* In UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}}, Barry Bonds was so feared as a hitter -- so able to not only get base hits but hit doubles, triples, and homers--that many pitchers took to intentionally walking him rather than risk a big hit. This was exacerbated by the fact that he was [[ArrogantKungFuGuy rather unlikeable]]; the intentional walks hit their peak in 2001, the season he broke the single-season home run record.
** In 1923 Babe Ruth drew 170 Bases on Balls in a single season when he was 28. That was back before intentional walks were recorded. Barry Bonds is the only MLB player who has ever drawn more walks in a single season, and he did it 3 times. 177 in 2001, 198 in 2002, and 232 in 2004. Barry Bonds was 36, 37, and 39 when he did that.
** Such was the fear for Barry Bonds, that the Arizona Diamondbacks once intentionally walked him... [[http://deadspin.com/the-time-barry-bonds-was-intentionally-walked-with-the-1707513738 with the bases loaded.]] [[note]]For those readers unfamiliar with baseball, this guaranteed that a run would be scored against the Diamondbacks; fortunately, the Diamondbacks were leading by two runs before the intentional walk. The Diamondbacks' strategy succeeded because the next batter flew out, resulting in Diamondback victory.[[/note]]
* In chess, many of the dominant players of their day acquired this type of reputation. Specifically notable are Jose Raul Capablanca, who once went 8 years without losing a single serious game; Mikhail Tal, who, in additional to his nearly preternatural tactical abilities had the habit of [[DeathGlare staring down his opponents]] over the board to the point where some of them took up wearing sunglasses to avoid it, and Bobby Fischer, who was known to intimidate his opponents so often that the term 'Fischer Fever' was coined for the phenomenon.
* In the sport of bull riding, few names conjured as much hesitation as the infamous Bodacious. Famous in his day as one of the toughest bulls around to ride, and infamous for his patented headbutt move. Tuff Hedeman, after nearly dying on a previous ride, flat-out refused to ever ride him again. His reputation eventually forced his owners to retire him at his peak.
* When it comes to Video Game Tournaments, especially ''{{VideoGame/StarCraft}}'', only two words: South Korea.
* In the world of British football, there is one name that strikes fear into the hearts of fans up and down the country: Millwall FC. This is not because the team is exceptionally good (they're currently in the second division with a respectable but not spectacular record), but because their fans are infamous for [[FootballHooligans their tendency to express their dissatisfaction with the final score by beating the crap out of the other side's supporters.]]
* Irish midfielder Rory Delap generally wasn't all that dreaded... but his ''throw-ins'' were. A schoolboy javelin champion, Delap was able to launch the ball much further and much straighter than other players, and since you can't be offside from a throw-in, Stoke could fill up the opposition's six-yard box and have Delap launch the ball into a waiting crowd of Stoke players for an easy goal. Several teams moved their advertising hoardings closer to the pitch to restrict his run-ups, and when that didn't work, they started deliberately conceding corners - which are considered worse than throw-ins under normal circumstances - rather than risk Delap making one of his trademark throws ''at all''.
* When it comes to Rugby, only two teams are more feared than any other: The South African Springboks, and the New Zealand All Blacks.
* Men's singles figure skating has Yuzuru Hanyu. As a child, he couldn't focus on skating more than five minutes and preferred to go play with his friends instead. Losing his rink and surviving the Tohoku earthquake pushed him into a FromNobodyToNightmare situation. As an adult, his intensity and devotion to figure skating is feared even by fellow competitors. News stations have described him as a 'training demon', and he has never seemed completely satisfied with a performance, even after smashing records and expectations. Some examples of his (many) achievements: he is a two-time consecutive Olympic champion, the first male singles skater to achieve the Super Slam[[note]] winning all major competitions in his junior and senior career[[/note]], having broken 19 world records on the way there (many of which are his own), and the first skater in history to successfully land a quadruple loop in competition. As of 2020, he is also training for the quadruple axel,[[note]]an incredibly difficult jump that experts don't expect to see in competition any time soon[[/note]] in addition to ''[[BeyondTheImpossible quintuples.]]'' He's also racked up a back injury, a collision with Yan Han that resulted in extensive injuries [[note]]stitches on his head and chin, sprained right ankle, injured midriff and left thigh, and wound up having surgery for a bladder problem incurred during the crash, during which he found out that he's allergic to alcohol[[/note]], sprained right ankle (again), Lisfranc ligament damage in his left foot, re-injured right ankle (third time's the charm). His 2018 Olympic routines were practiced and performed on heavy painkillers, and he received his Rostelecom Cup gold medal that year on crutches. Despite all this, he is still in top form as of this writing. Hanyu is regarded by many media outlets, skaters, and experts as a well-rounded skater and one of the best in the history of figure skating, for his strong technique, mature and versatile artistry, consistency in results in a highly competitive field, and ability to deliver under pressure.
* If you were an NBA player in the 1990s, UsefulNotes/MichaelJordan was a walking, trash-talking, top-scoring machine who could not be stopped or defended against. The Pistons even devised a strategy whereby all their guys would go muscle Jordan around so he couldn't score (and possibly injure him), but that only inspired Jordan to train harder and eventually kick their asses too.
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[[folder:Vehicles]]
* Since the 1960s, military attack helicopters have been bringing nightmares to ground forces, especially insurgents lacking the weapon necessary for fighting back. Most attack helicopters are nearly impervious to anything short of a dedicated anti-air missile and have enough firepower to wipe out an entire city block. Several notable examples include the Mi-24 Hind and the AH-64 Apache.
** The Mi-24 has built a reputation of terrifying foes in many conflicts on 4 separate continents. The most common variant, the Hind-E, is armed a [[GatlingGood 12.7 mm gatling gun]], [[MoreDakka 23 mm autocannons]], [[StuffBlowingUp 57 mm rocket pods, and anti-tank missiles]]. Experience in Afghanistan that suggested a more powerful cannon was needed led to the Soviets developing the Mi-24P, which is armed with a [[{{BFG}} GSh-30-2 30mm twin-barrel autocannon]], giving it the same firepower as the Su-25 ground attack aircraft, and the 57mm rockets were replaced with [[UpToEleven 80mm rockets and FAE bombs]]. If needed, the Hind [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier can even transport 8 armed troops]] who can finish off any stragglers from its initial attacks, or, unlike most other attack helicopters[[BoringButPractical relocate from one base to another while carrying its own spare parts]]. The Hind is also nearly impervious to small arms fire and, in one instance, a Hind safely returned to base with [[MadeOfIron ''20'' bullet holes in its fuselage and rotor blades]]. This helicopter has been nicknamed [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "Satan's Chariot"]] by the Mujahadeen and is still a terrifying weapon against infantry and most vehicles even when overshadowed in the anti-tank role by the newer Mi-28 Havoc and Ka-50 Hokum. Upgraded variants developed by Russia as well as by Israel and South Africa add whole new sensors and weapons, so the Mi-24 is still a force to be reckoned with.
** AH-64 has also been proven to be a nightmarish weapon of destruction. Created in response to fears of thousands of Soviet tanks rushing into Europe, the Apache was designed to be the ultimate anti-ground helicopter and it has more than succeeded in that role. Like the Hind, it is built to be [[MightyGlacier tough and strong]]. Unlike most older versions of the Hind, all Apache variants are equipped with infrared sensors and night vision, meaning that opponents can't hide from it even in low visibility, and the newer AH-64D Apache Longbow uses a mast-mounted radar to see through levels of dust and smoke that would blind the best infrared sensors. Its signature weapon, the Hellfire anti-tank missile, can destroy a tank with a single hit and anti-tank roles allow it to carry as many as ''16'' of those missiles. While it was initially designed only to attack tanks, the Apache can also attack infantry and fortification, a role at which it [[NoKillLikeOverkill may have performed too well]]. Yet the ultimate testimony to the Apache's reputation was its ability to win fights without firing a shot. In many instance during the first Gulf War, many Iraqi soldiers surrendered at the first sight of an Apache.
* Ground attack aircraft, particularly the American A-10 and Su-25, and the World War Two era Il-2 classify as this as well.
** To Saddam's former army as well as the various terrorist and insurgent organizations that the United States has opposed in the 21st century, the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II "Warthog" is terrifying. It's one of the last dedicated ground attack jet aircraft and uses a [[GatlingGood giant explosive chain-gun]] and a compliment of missiles to devastate nearly any ground target. This isn't why its particularly feared, however: its massive amounts of titanium armor and durability are. In tests, this aircraft has been able to soak up multiple air to air and ground to air missile strikes and keep flying, and can even do so with large parts of its wings and one of its engines missing. Even most state-sponsored armies in the Middle East simply lack the ground-based firepower to reliably take one of these things down. The handheld anti-air missiles and WWII era flak cannons used by insurgents can hurt the Warthog but can't do much to destroy it, and even a crippled Warthog can be repaired and sent back to dish out the pain. It's often the only manned aircraft cleared to operate over various combat zones, simply because nothing stops them. The Taliban is so afraid of the aircraft that they have sometimes surrendered en mass just because they heard one coming.
** The Su-25 would give the mighty Warthog a run for its money, although it gets little love in the West. When dealing with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, this was the only thing that would give them even bigger nightmares than the aforementioned Mi-24 attack helicopter. Armored with thick titanium plates, capable of flying off of diesel fuel in a pinch, and capable of carrying a similar practical weapons load to the Warthog, the Su-25 utterly wrecked Mujahideen positions. Having a 30mm twin-barrel cannon with somewhat less striking power than an A-10 (but with a fraction of the weight) and carrying a massive load of [[StuffBlowingUp Bombs, Rockets and Missiles]] sure helps. The Su-25 could hover over an area and protect troops far longer than supersonic fighter or bomber aicraft like the Su-24 or MiG-27 attack aircraft could, leading to Russian troops nicknaming it the ''Graych''(Rook) for its relatively large wingspan.
** The Granddaddy of them all was the Ilyushin-2 ground attack aircraft, best known as the ''Shturmovik'', and which influenced the use of ''every'' ground attack aircraft that followed. Using 23mm or even [[{{BFG}} 37mm]] autocannons, [[StuffBlowingUp 82mm and 132mm rockets]] and PTAB anti-tank bomblets, the ''Shturmovik'' would annihilate scores of German infantry and destroy tanks and vehicles while bouncing off most ground-based AA fire and proving a headache to destroy even for Luftwaffe fighters. German troops took to calling it ''Der Schwaze Tod'' meaning [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Black Death]] and running like hell whenever it showed up on the battlefield. A mark of just how dangerous -and successful - it was is that one of the Il-2's design features, the slightly protruding wheels that helped it safely belly land even with its wheels up, turned up in A-10 Warthogs a good 40 years later.
* An even bigger terror would have to be the B-52 Stratofortress...it is '''the''' MightyGlacier of Mighty Glaciers; so tanky in fact, that it makes the above-mentioned A-10 Thunderbolt II look like a wimpy little LightningBruiser. It is so large, it needs no less than '''EIGHT''' jet turbines to fly, and it carries a very large payload. Its history of terror upon enemies of the US goes as far back as Vietnam, when the only two things the Viet-Cong feared from Uncle Sam was this monster, and the M-16 rifle. That's because B-52 crews often drop the entire payload onto the target, cluster-bombing the entire area with explosive ordinance; ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill indeed. Even worse news to those enemies? The B-52 is '''STILL''' terrorizing the skies, and may well do so into the ''2030s''.
* [[TankGoodness Tanks]], if vehicles are allowed. In olden days, they had [[MightyGlacier Horrendous Top Speed]], but their extreme fire power and incredible resistance to gun fire makes them a threat to anyone who looks at them silly. This is taken up at least eleven notches with the introduction of the [[LightningBruiser Main Battle Tank]] when they start adding speed to the mix.
** If there was a war machine Allied tank crews do not want to meet during the early years of World War II, the Panzerkampfwagen VI "Tiger I" is that machine. When it was first introduced, neither the Allies or the Soviets had the weaponry to counter its armor, and its 88mm gun is able to blow almost any Allied tank at incredibly long ranges, meaning a Tiger could lie in wait, then blast a tank apart before it knows there was a Tiger there. So dreadful and terrifying was the weapon, Western Allied forces suffered what was known as "Tiger terror"; every time their tanks/armored vehicles took a hit, they automatically assume the culprit was a hidden Tiger with the 88mm gun, regardless of whether it's true not. However, the "Tiger terror" was ultimately short-lived; in the weeks after Operation Overlord as the Allies continued to expand the Western Front, it became apparent that the much-vaunted Tiger was more terrifying [[AwesomeButImpractical on paper]] than in application, especially after Allied logistics began to far outpace the war-ravaged Wehrmacht's industrial capacity. With Allies fully on the offensive, Tigers often found themselves outmaneuvered by the Allies' more maneuverable and numerous tanks and mechanized infantry, and oftentimes any Tiger that could not be confronted head-on was quickly dealt with via [[DeathFromAbove Allied air attacks]] (Assuming the Allied aircraft hadn't ''already'' dealt with the problem themselves by blowing up the trains carrying the Tigers before they even reached the front lines!) There ''was'' a brief return of the "Tiger terror" during the Battle of the Bulge, but this more a case of German tanks in general being bad news for the besieged Allied forces, due to the fact that many of them lacked the ammo or equipment to deal with ''any'' sort of armored vehicle, let alone a Tiger. And once [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeSPatton General Patton]] showed up with his Third Army to relieve the besieged forces, the Tiger terror quickly dissipated once again.
*** Among other things, the Tiger could neutral steer and turn on the spot, which many Allied tanks couldn't do. Sherman crews trying to outflank Tigers in urban environments expecting to shoot them in the more vulnerable rear would have a ''very'' nasty surprise to see the Tiger facing them front on...with the 88mm gun pointed right at them.
*** And then taken UpToEleven later in the war with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_II Tiger II]], which had sloped armor (making it considerably less vulnerable to Allied fire) and a longer, more powerful 88mm gun with an even greater range than that on the original Tiger.
*** Above all this, however, there is something about the Tiger that the Allies ''consistently'' feared on all theaters, even before the Tiger came to existence: The 8.8 cm Flak cannon. Starting out as humble AA artillery, some engineers realized a cannon that could lob fused explosives up to a mile in the air could also lob armor-piercing rounds on a more horizontal trajectory to take out tanks, and it did this job ''frighteningly'' well: British soldiers from North Africa reported that 88mm shells would go ''right through'' their Crusader and Lee tanks like butter. The Allies never had a foolproof tank armor that could defeat it; the Western Allies simply couldn't make tank armor heavy enough, and the USSR in the East, while possessing a handful of heavier tanks that ''could'' resist the 88, didn't field them in large numbers until the end of the war, when Germany was all but defeated regardless. On many respects, it was not a "Tiger Terror" the Western Allies suffered, but an "''Eighty-Eight Terror,''" especially when the Germans had a '''lot''' of 88's, most of them being AA cannons used to defend against bomber formations, simply traversed to horizontal and loaded with AP shells for direct-fire. While not as heavily armored as the Tiger, they were arguably more mobile, built with special trailers designed for quick setup and allowing for them to be pulled by anything from tractors to horses, which were still in heavy use by the Reich even at this stage in the war. A Sherman crew's worst nightmares were haunted not by Tigers, but by the three or four camouflaged 88 batteries laying in wait beyond...
** The Germans landed up getting a dose of this themselves when they ran into the Soviet T-34 medium tank, which to their dismay was [[LightningBruiser faster, better armored and with a more powerful gun]] than any of the Panzer III or IV variants in existence at the time, and capable of crossing boggy and swampy terrain that German tanks couldn't cross. The T-34 and heavily armored KV-1 heavy tank spurred the development of the mighty Tiger and Panther tanks to counter them.
** For the Germans' part, they were well afraid of the American Sherman tank, though not because any ''single'' Sherman was an issue; the problem was that America made a '''''[[ZergRush Shitload of a Fuckton]]''''' of Shermans, and, sure, while the Germans were killing three Sherman tanks per one Tiger destroyed[[labelnote:*]]On average, anyways. It should also be noted that this includes ''all'' Sherman losses in battle, be they from enemy tanks, Anti-tank weapons, infantry, and landmines, not just from Tiger kills, and likewise for the Tigers; it was actually a relatively rare occurrence for Shermans and Tigers to directly face off one-on-one due to the aforementioned Allied logistics and support. Encounters between opposing tanks ''were'' common, mind you, but rarely were such encounters full-stop "tank duels" as Hollywood likes to depict them.[[/labelnote]], America was building ''five'' for every Sherman lost, and had more than enough men to crew them. One German prisoner recounted that at one point he simply ''gave up'' trying to shoot Shermans, because "for every one we destroyed, ten more drove up to take its place!"
*** While the typical lone Sherman tank was not a problem for German tanks, there were two Sherman variants that the Germans learned to fear: The British "Firefly" variant and the American [=M4A3E8=] "Easy Eight" variant. Both of these sported heavier main guns which could make mincemeat out of German armor even at long range, even that of the venerable Tiger I and Tiger [=IIs=], essentially negating the armor advantage that the Germans had going for them, to the point that German tank commanders singled out the longer-barreled Fireflies and Easy Eights to destroy them first. The Allies responded by ''camouflaging'' the longer barrels, which only made it worse for the poor Germans, who now didn't know from which tank the killing shot could come from.
** The [[UsefulNotes/IsraelisWithInfraredMissiles Israeli]] Pereh, an anti-tank weapon ''disguised'' as a tank. Only declassified in 2015 and removed from service two years later, it was feared because it couldn't be distinguished from a regular tank and had a far longer range by a factor of tens.
* The British Crocodile flamethrower tank in World War II, and other modified flamethrower tanks, could become this when attacking an enemy position. They were heavily-armored and nearly impossible for anything but an emplaced anti-tank gun to harm, since German man-portable anti-tank weapons were unable to pierce their frontal armor and they were hard to flank due to escorting infantry and the long reach of their flamethrowers. Often they would cause German troops to flee or surrender at a single warning shot of the flame jet, and if that didn't work they could just [[IfIWantedYouDead spray fuel into the enemy fortifications as a sign that they could kill anyone in the trenches and bunkers at will, which also broke morale very quickly.]]
* The F-14 Tomcat scared the living daylights out of the entire Iraqi Air Force during the Iran-Iraq War, in no small part because with its powerful radar and long-range Phoenix missiles the first hint the Iraqis often had to a Tomcat being in the area was when one of their planes exploded.
[[/folder]]

Working on cutting down TheDreaded.RealLife to remove human or human-operated examples.