in strategy games you usually have troops at the frontline whose sole purpose is to die fighting to buy you time to execute your plans or to protect stronger troops. is this something that happens in real life / used to happen before, if so what are the logistics of it, do the troops know that they are most likely goona die, etc..
In: 399
As an example there’s a [US force in Korea](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forces_Korea) that has traditionally been intended as a trip wire. US forces in Korea (post war) were never large enough to do more than act as a speed bump but killing tens of thousands of American soldiers would justify full scale intervention in a second Korean war.
The [442nd Infantry Regiment](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)) during WW2 consisted of Japanese Americans so they were frequently used to achieve objectives when very high casualties were expected.
[Penal Battalions](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_military_unit) as a concept have been around since at least the the napoleonic wars in Europe and the Han dynasty in Asia. The goal was twofold. If soldiers refused to follow orders in their regular units, they’d be punished by being sent to a unit with a much higher chance of death. Maybe you don’t want to send your best guys through that breach you just created in the wall, but those guys that weren’t good for anything else might be useful. Second Penal units frequently were basically just taking everyone in a prison and giving them a weapon. If they die, there’s no political or economic consequences.
During the Japanese invasion of China, China fielded some units armed with sword and shield simply because they didn’t have guns to give them. I doubt that the leaders even anticipated the melee companies would be effective in the age of machine guns, but there was no other option. During the revolutionary War, the continental army had several pike (spear) weilding units for the same reason.
Foreign fighters also falls under this same concept. Whether you’re talking about an organized army like the French foreign legion or disorganized foreign ISIS fighters, the voting populace doesn’t really care if some German dies for France or some brit dies to make the Islamic caliphate happen.
There has been “true believer” small units in several conflicts. Japanese Kamikaze pilots are the best well known but the soviets had a similar program. Many isis fighters went into combat with suicide vests on with the intent to donate if an opportunity presented itself, and an AK to shoot people in the mean time. Anarchist and socialist revolutions during the late 1800s and early 1900s tended to have a lot of volunteer sacrifices, as did many religious conflicts.
While there’s many examples of “soldiers put in a position where death is basically guaranteed”, manpower is actually one of the most limited resources in a war. Every soldier that dies or is seriously injured in combat cannot fight anymore, they can’t build guns at home, they can’t pay taxes. The napoleonic wars, the war of the triple alliance, both world wars, and several other notable examples exist of wars that ended because one side ran out of people capable of holding a gun. The russo- Ukraine War is an interesting modern example of this, Ukraine has better equipment and many units have better training, but Ukraine has millions fewer people that they can call into military service. Governments are also responsible to their citizens, and the Franco-Prussian War ended the way it did in part due to France losing so many soldiers that a French Civil War broke out.
Latest Answers