History Main / DeathOfAThousandCuts

* BEHOLD! [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsfY_4vWN5A THE AIRSOFT MINIGUN!]] it fires 6mm plastic [=BBs=] at 3,000 rounds a minute.
** Basically ANY minigun. From the A-10 ground attack plane (tanks LAUGH at 30mm slugs if they don't come by the 100's) at the high end, the 7.62mm minigun that beats the 12.7mm Browning at anything but range, and the .22G (a gatling using the cheap .22 LR ammo)
*** and last but not least the GatlingGood 8000-paint-rounds-per-minute Paingun (hint: that's not a typo) .

* Four words: ''Ready 2 Rumble Boxing''. Notable because not only is rapidly poking your opponents into submission possible, from the latter Silver Class matches it's ''necessary'' (unless you want to struggle horribly every match and sweat out tight decisions). The opponents simply become too durable and too tough on defense for slow punches to be of any use. The most blatant example is Damien Black, a huge demon with a pulverizing 5-hit combo and a simple right to the body that takes off a massive chunk of life. He has a grand total of ONE quick punch, a jab. Guess what he's going to be doing all the time once everything else stops connecting.

** The ultimate example of it was done by the [[UsefulNotes/NewRomanLegions Royal Italian Army]] against the [[TheSoundOfMartialMusic Austro-Hungarian Empire]]: the Italians were woefully underequipped in spite of the efforts of their high command to procure the needed machine guns, gas masks, helmets and artillery (they never got enough gas masks and only barely enough machine guns and helmets. Artillery, on the other hand, became ludicrously numerous), but the Austro-Hungarians could afford much less combat losses, and the Italian commanders-in-chief (first Luigi Cadorna and, after Caporetto, Armando Diaz) banked on this, slowly destroying the Austro-Hungarians over three years before the offensive of Vittorio Veneto caused the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Army ''and'' the Austro-Hungarian Empire itself.

** Vulcans in the ''BattleNetwork'' series are probably some form of subversion. They dealt between 10 and 20 damage and hit 3-5 times, which is decent. The trick was that any attack-increasing chip attached to one powers up each bullet. Entire folders were created based on boosting up a Super Vulcan as high as it would go, resulting in a chip with an attack strength of around 150 - ''times twelve''. The same applies to any multiple-hitting chip, actually - Tornado, Twister, and even Bubbleman.

* In early WorldWarOne, Zeppelin [[UsefulNotes/{{Airships}} airships]] were an absolute ''[[ThisIsForEmphasisBitch bitch]]'' to take out, contrary to the [[RealityIsUnrealistic common]] [[MadeOfPlasticine misconception.]] Zeppelins could withstand thousands of bullets[[note]]provided they weren't incendiary bullets, which were later invented to exploit their Hydrogen AchillesHeel, though even them had to be spent lots of to get enough air mixed to the hydrogen to cause a fire[[/note]], and barely noticed heavy artillery and autocannon fire. This is because it has immense volume and size, but is under no pressure. A single bullet hole in one of the ''thirty'' gas cells is like a single straw sucking a swimming pool- one that's two football fields long and seven stories deep. However, if enough [[MoreDakka dakka]] was directed at it at, it could sink. This RasputinianDeath is how several Army Zeppelins met their fate- one was shot down by a pair of battleships and a ''[[NoodleImplements submarine,]]'' another was ambushed by two separate fullisades of anti-aircraft guns in the Ukraine, got its forward gondola blown up, and still made it all the way back to Germany, but imploded like a beached whale when the Hydrogen leaked so much it could no longer support its weight on the ground.

* In ''{{Half-Life}}'', you can shoot down helicopters using machine guns. In the PlayStation2-only ExpansionPack ''Half-Life: Decay'', you ''have'' to. ''Half-Life 2'' was much more sensible about this, with vehicular enemies only vulnerable to explosives.

** And in the mother series HonorHarrington, that is how technically most Superdreadnoughts die. They are the biggest existing Ship Type (only non-Hyper capable and very slow moving mobile Fortresses are bigger) and are designed to exchange direct energy fire with other Superdreadnoughts. This means they are incredibly though armored, and unless you get really lucky and hit a reactor it takes a lot of hits to kill them. The only thing that changes is the amount of [[MacrossMissileMassacre hits generated by salvo.]]

** And in the mother series HonorHarrington, that is how technically most Superdreadnoughts die. They are the biggest extant Ship (only non-Hyper capable and very slow mobile Fortresses are bigger) and are designed to exchange direct energy fire with other Superdreadnoughts. This means they are incredibly though armored, and unless you get really lucky and hit a reactor it takes a lot of hits to kill them. The only thing that changes is the amount of [[MacrossMissileMassacre hits generated by salvo.]]

* In ''StarWars: EmpireAtWar'' you can take down [=AT-ATs=][[hottip:*:The big, four-legged ones from Hoth.]] with squads of blaster-pistol-wielding infantry.

* Time consuming as it may be, it is possible to kill a Cyberdemon in VideoGame/{{Doom}} with nothing but your bare fists (and without resorting to the Berserker pack). Very difficult due to the Cyberdemon's persistence combined with its HP. ''Doom II'' on the {{Xbox 360}} recognizes this feat and will actually award the player an [[BraggingRightsReward Achievement]] for doing so[[hottip:*:Though it actually doesn't care how you get there, just that the killing hit is scored by a punch.]].

* In early WorldWarOne, Zeppelin [[UsefulNotes/{{Airships}} airships]] were an absolute ''[[ThisIsForEmphasisBitch bitch]]'' to take out, contrary to the [[RealityIsUnrealistic common]] [[MadeOfPlasticine misconception.]] Zeppelins could withstand thousands of bullets[[hottip:*: provided they weren't incindiary bullets, which were later invented to exploit their Hydrogen AchillesHeel, though even them had to be spent lots of to get enough air mixed to the hydrogen to cause a fire]], and barely noticed heavy artillery and autocannon fire. This is because it has immense volume and size, but is under no pressure. A single bullet hole in one of the ''thirty'' gas cells is like a single straw sucking a swimming pool- one that's two football fields long and seven stories deep. However, if enough [[MoreDakka dakka]] was directed at it at, it could sink. This RasputinianDeath is how several Army Zeppelins met their fate- one was shot down by a pair of battleships and a ''[[NoodleImplements submarine,]]'' another was ambushed by two separate fullisades of anti-aircraft guns in the Ukraine, got its forward gondola blown up, and still made it all the way back to Germany, but imploded like a beached whale when the Hydrogen leaked so much it could no longer support its weight on the ground.
* This can apply to finances as well. While the traditional saying is "penny wise pound foolish", it is possible for one to be cautious with large amounts but fritter away small amounts many times, such that at the end of the month you're wondering where the fuck your money went.

* In ''MassEffect2'' on Haestrom, Kal'Reegar mentions that standard procedure for fighting a geth colossus is to "kill it with bug bites".

As the riddle of ''Literature/TheHobbit'' said of Time: "''This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel, Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, and beats high mountain down.''" Which means that, if you hit ''anything'' enough times with ''anything'', the thing being hit will go apart. Unless the thing doing the hitting blunts or [[BreakableWeapons breaks first]].

There are two ways to defend against such a tactic: [[HealingFactor healing faster than the opponent can damage]] and [[NoSell reducing each hit to zero.]]

** The experience mechanic on the other hand serves to partially counter this. Trying to nickle and dime a tough enemy unit to death can backfire because the target gets a small amount of experience for each attacker engaging it, potentially resulting in a LevelUpFillUp undoing all the previous effort.

* A few years ago, emerging superstar boxer Manny Pacquiao faced fading but seemingly still serviceable legend Oscar De La Hoya in a DavidVersusGoliath match. Being as De La Hoya was twice Pacquiao's size and possessed a formidable jab and left hook, it was nearly unanimous that De La Hoya would use the jab to control the bout and probably KO Pacquiao with his killer hook. Instead Pacquiao effortlessly crushed De La Hoya, beating him repeatedly for round after round, but not being able to knock out De La Hoya due to the size difference and De La Hoya's iron jaw. During the fight commentator Larry Merchant explicitly referenced this trope, calling the bout "Death by a thousand left hands".

** In ''VideoGame/CrisisCore'', not only will you fight with and against Cactuars, some enemies just plain have ridiculous amounts of health and/or defence. [[InSovietRussiaTropeMocksYou So the one doing the thousand(s of) cuts is YOU!]]

* ''{{Ginormo Sword}}''. While the object (sorta) of the game is to boost your weapon of choice to levels at which it covers the entire screen, the strongest monsters can still take hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of hits to suffer any sort of dent in their HP -- even when your strength stat is in the thousands.
* ''RagnarokOnline'''s battle system takes into account how many enemies are attacking you at a given time. If the number of enemies you are fighting goes above a certain threshold, your DEF and FLEE get reduced by a certain amount per enemy. Therefore, it is possible to have a sufficient number of Porings handily trounce a level 99 knight.

* In MichaelMoorcock's ''ElricSaga'', the hero is confronted with an unkillable Big Bad. The sentient dark sword Stormbringer recognises his need, and summons the help of a ''million'' multiversal manifestations of itself. All the alternate selves of Stormbringer lay into the Big Bad and subject it to this death.

* The Treecats of Sphinx use this tactic to handle much larger predators like hexapumas in the ''Literature/StephanieHarrington'' series

** Replacing the knives with bees and bacteria, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism Persian Scaphism]] was reserved for the most grievous reason.

* The name "Death of/by a Thousand Cuts" originally referred to a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_slicing Chinese method of execution better translated as "slow slicing']] for the most treasonous of traitors to the state, eg. the leaders of rebellions against the Emperor. The condemned man was tied up and had strips of flesh slowly removed before being decapitated. The longest execution of this kind took 3 days and 3,357 cuts.

* The name "Death of/by a Thousand Cuts" originally referred to a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_slicing Chinese method of execution]] for the most treasonous of traitors to the state, eg. the leaders of rebellions against the Emperor. The condemned man was tied up and had strips of flesh slowly removed before being decapitated. The longest execution of this kind took 3 days and 3,357 cuts.

* In early WorldWarOne, Zeppelin [[UsefulNotes/{{Airships}} airships]] were an absolute ''[[ThisIsForEmphasisBitch bitch]]'' to take out, contrary to the [[RealityIsUnrealistic common]] [[MadeOfPlasticine misconception.]] Zeppelins could withstand thousands of bullets[[hottip:*: provided they weren't incindiary bullets, which were later invented to exploit their Hydrogen AchillesHeel]], and barely noticed heavy artillery and autocannon fire. This is because it has immense volume and size, but is under no pressure. A single bullet hole in one of the ''thirty'' gas cells is like a single straw sucking a swimming pool- one that's two football fields long and seven stories deep. However, if enough [[MoreDakka dakka]] was directed at it at, it could sink. This RasputinianDeath is how several Army Zeppelins met their fate- one was shot down by a pair of battleships and a ''[[NoodleImplements submarine,]]'' another was ambushed by two separate fullisades of anti-aircraft guns in the Ukraine, got its forward gondola blown up, and still made it all the way back to Germany, but imploded like a beached whale when the Hydrogen leaked so much it could no longer support its weight on the ground.