History ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill / RealLife

* George Pullman was so hated by some of his former employees that his family was afraid they or other union supporters would dig up Pullman's body to desecrate it or hold it for ransom. They arranged for Pullman to be buried in a lead lined coffin that was sealed in a concrete box, which was then covered in tar paper and asphalt. The coffin was lowered into a concrete lined pit at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. A layer of concrete was poured over the coffin, then steel rails bolted together were placed in the pit, and all that was covered by yet another layer of concrete. The burial took two days to complete. Author Ambrose Bierce said of the precautions that, "It is clear the family in their bereavement was making sure the sonofabitch wasn't going to get up and come back."

* A Desert Storm tank battle included one incident which involved the gunner spotting an Iraqi Republican Guardsman about to fire an RPG at them right in front of him. Acting on reflex, the gunner took aim and fired. Keep in mind, he didn't switch to the machine gun first, this was with the tank's main gun. [[ChunkySalsaRule You can imagine the results]].

* One of the unused plans for eliminating Osama Bin Laden was an airstrike that would have involved 32 bunker-busting bombs to take out a single building (just in case there were any underground bunkers in the neighborhood). According to military estimates, the effect of the raid would have been similar to an earthquake on the surrounding city...something that made the US government a bit squeamish. (Source: [[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/08/110808fa_fact_schmidle?currentPage=3 The New Yorker]]) A commando raid also had the benefit of being able to verify that Bin Laden was actually in the building, whereas obliterating it with bombs would leave open the possibility that he could slip out in between launching the strike and the bombs actually falling. Not to mention that, if the operation were compromised, it would be much easier for Pakistan to forgive a small incursion of American special ops forces to kill one terrorist with no civilian casualties than to forgive an entire city block and everyone in it being cratered.

* In the Second World War, the British needed to destroy a German train tunnel that went under a mountain. German engineers had proven themselves remarkably adept at undoing the damage dealt by saboteurs, so the RAF decided to send Lancasters armed with Talboy bombs to target, not the tracks themselves, but the mountain! Three bombs hit the mountain, and only one actually passed-through the tunnel, but the result was that the mountain collapsed, sealing the tunnel for the remainder of the war.

** This is the same Bill Slim who, when confronted with mediaeval city walls in Burma that the enemy had turned into a fortress, decided not to waste time besieging the place. He called forward the sort of very heavy artillery normally used to shell a target from miles away, emplaced them five hundred yards from the Japanese-held fortifications, and had six and eight-inch guns (compatible with those used on warships) open up at point-blank range. The city fell within two days.
* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Carrier_Task_Force Fast Carrier Task Force]] (known as TF 58 when commanded by Spruance or TF 38 when commanded by Halsey) remains one of the largest assemblies of carriers ever operating together. Every battle it was in was overkill, even against land-based airforces. This is before accounting for American technology advantages. In the Fast Carrier Task Force's heyday, it was operating the Hellcat; it's opposing number was still using the Zero.

** Another from the First Gulf War, an A-10 piloted by Captain Bob Swain engaged an Iraqi helicopter...with the enormous 30 mm [[{{BFG}} Avenger]] [[GatlingGood cannon]] mounted in the nose of the aircraft. The Avenger is designed to destroy heavy armored vehicles, not fragile rotor craft, and much like the GBU above, the attack annihilated the ever-loving hell out of the enemy helicopter. Captain Swain attempted to identify the class of helicopter engaged, but neither he nor his wingman were able to determine what he'd just destroyed because the Avenger had reduced the helicopter to shredded metal chaff. This earned his aircraft the affectionate nickname "[[https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/the-chopper-popper-scored-the-a-10s-first-air-to-air-kill-against-an-iraqi-helicopter/ Chopper Popper]]," as it was the first recorded air-to-air kill with the A-10, much less with its stonking huge main gun.
* An M1 Abrams tank gunner shot an unarmored Infantry combatant with the tank's main 120mm after seeing the man pointing an RPG at the tank. Typically, an Abrams gunner would switch to anti-infantry "beehive" ammunition, which consists of a shit-ton of ball bearings in place of where a warhead or kinetic penetrator would be, and beehive ammunition in itself is often overkill for a single infantryman, given that it's essentially a massive 120mm ''shotgun shell'' meant to defend against groups of enemies attempting to swarm the tank. In this case, however, the gunner acted on reflex with no time to change ammunition, meaning the unfortunate combatant who'd made the regrettable decision to engage the Abrams was blasted with not a shit-ton of ball bearings, but a single '''High Explosive Anti-Tank''' (H.E.A.T.) round meant to go against enemy tanks. The man's body reportedly tumbled away like a leaf in a strong wind after imploding from the force of the H.E.A.T. round.

** At one point during the Normandy landings, American soldiers on Omaha Beach got held up a few [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-216-0417-19%2C_Russland%2C_Soldaten_in_Stellung.jpg German snipers]], and so made a radio call to the battleship ''[[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/USS_Texas_%28BB-35%29_1918.JPEG Texas]]'', a ''New York-''class Super-Dreadnought, requesting they take care of that problem.

* During the UsefulNotes/TheMexicanRevolution, the ''Decena Trágica''--the "Ten Tragic Days" that concluded the first, idealistic phase of the revolution--saw many horrible deaths. But of these, death of Gustavo Madero, brother of the president Francisco I. Madero, was notorious for how gruesome it was. A mob of soldiers loyal to Victoriano Huerta threw him into a courtyard by insulting him, then kicking, slapping, punching, stabbing and caning him until his face was swollen by the beatings, where he was [[EyeScream blinded from his remaining eye with a bayonet]] by one of them, while the other soldiers stabbed him with knives and swords, all while Manuel Mondragón watched with glee; once they had their fun, he was shot 21 times, and then the soldiers further defiled the corpse by ripping off organs out of it and throwing dirt and manure onto the remains of the corpse.
* On August 6, 2011, a U.S. Army Chinook helicopter was shot down by militants in Afghanistan, killing all 38 people and one military dog aboard, the worst loss of life in a single incident in the entire US war against the Taliban. The insurgent who made the shot bragged about it over two-way radio, which was picked up by US Air Force signals intelligence. [[ItsPersonal They tracked his location and two days later]], dropped four 500-pound GPS-guided bombs on him and his comrades. And followed up with strikes from an AC-130 gunship and two Apache helicopters. Talk shit, get hit, indeed.

* Many of the skeletons of the soldiers in the Battle of Towton (during the UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses) shows grievous wounds. An example is the skull of a soldier named [[https://i.imgur.com/MI0Q8zK.jpg Towton 25]], who [[https://meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/history-blog/towton-25 suffered eight head wounds:]]
-->"A healed skull fracture points to previous engagements. He was old enough—somewhere between 36 and 45 when he died—to have gained plenty of experience of fighting. But on March 29th 1461, his luck ran out. Towton 25 suffered eight wounds to his head that day. The precise order can be worked out from the direction of fractures on his skull: when bone breaks, the cracks veer towards existing areas of weakness. The first five blows were delivered by a bladed weapon to the left-hand side of his head, presumably by a right-handed opponent standing in front of him. None is likely to have been lethal.The next one almost certainly was. From behind him someone swung a blade towards his skull, carving a down-to-up trajectory through the air. The blow opened a huge horizontal gash into the back of his head—picture a slit you could post an envelope through. Fractures raced down to the base of his skull and around the sides of his head. Fragments of bone were forced in to Towton 25's brain, felling him. His enemies were not done yet. Another small blow to the right and back of the head may have been enough to turn him over onto his back. Finally another blade arced towards him. This one bisected his face, opening a crevice that ran from his left eye to his right jaw. It cut deep: the edge of the blade reached to the back of his throat."
* During the UsefulNotes/SpanishConquestOfTheAztecEmpire, as narrated in ''Literature/TheTrueHistoryOfTheConquestOfMexico'', the captain of the first Spanish expedition, Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, received no less than ten native arrows. He saved his life at the moment thanks to his armor, but died from his wounds shortly after.
* Backfired in the early stages of the Battle of Berlin in World War II. At the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Seelow_Heights#Battle Battle of Seelow Heights]], the Soviets began the push to take Berlin with an absolutely massive, hours long bombardment by artillery and rockets... and combined with defenders having diverted a river to turn the ground into a soft, swampy mess, the bombardment tore up the ground so badly that Soviet tanks could not navigate the area, and the infantry became so bogged down when they attempted to advance that it made them easy targets for the German defenders. While the Soviets overwhelmed the Germans in a matter of days, they suffered considerably higher casualties than expected doing it.