Attrition Warfare. Any conflict which is not decided by the outcome of a single Operation or Campaign is, by definition, a 'War of Attrition' of 'Attritional War'. Any conflict which is decided by a single Operation of Campaign is a 'War of Annihilation'. The most famous Wars of Attrition were, of course, the First and Second World Wars. The greatest theorist of attrition was Alexander Svechin, who in the 1920s asserted that any Total War would be of such a great scale and length that Operational victories would pale into insignificance, and tactical victories would be almost meaningless. note Svechinâs Strategic theories contributed to and did not oppose the theories of on Operational encirclement patronised by Mikhail Tukhachevsky. This was because, as a strategic principle, Attrition favoured Operations which would bring about the greatest possible destruction of enemy forces at the smallest possible loss to friendly forces The turning point of such a war would not come about as the result of a single operationâs capture of territory or prisoners, he asserted, but by the point after which one side could no longer keep replacing its losses:
"In a war of annihilation, both the offensive culmination point and the ultimate defensive line are determined mainly by a spatial line [...] In a war of attrition, this line often shifts into a temporal category."
Strategic Attrition can be efficiently prosecuted through numerous Operational and Tactical methods. The most famous Operational-level method is encirclement or envelopment such as those used in the World War II (albeit chiefly in Ukraine), and the most famous tactical method is probably Hit-and-Run Tactics such as those used by the Communist guerillas of the Vietnam War.
The Fabian Strategy, named after Roman dictator Fabius, was the Ur-Example of this trope. As Hannibal Barca's forces were too mighty to face in open warfare, Fabius opted for hit-and-run tactics where Roman forces were never exposed for reprisal while whittling away at Hannibal's forces and, more importantly, his supply lines.
The German Army lost the bulk of its experienced Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) in the titanic Verdun campaign of February-December 1916 (French) and Somme campaign of July-November 1916 (French, British, British Commonwealth) and made a serious dent in its Category-A, B, and C manpower. The Passchendaele campaign of July-November 1917, the greatest campaign in British military history, finished off the last experienced NCOs and further at into Categories A-C. The Germans' own Spring Offensive Operation of March-June 1918 destroyed much of their stock of experienced officers (who had to put themselves at risk to compensate for the loss of the experienced NCOs) and expended their entire remaining stock of Category-A manpower. Finally, the British Commonwealth-Franco-American Hundred Days Offensive of July-November 1918 ate through Germany's experienced officers and Category-B manpower, leaving them with a poorly-led and badly demoralised force composed of Category-C and D manpower. Upon the armistice, the German Army teetered on the verge of total defeat.
The Austro-Hungarian Army was also defeated through attrition. The battles fought in the defense of Galicia-Podolia through 1914 and the winter of 1914-15, the offensives into Russian Poland and Serbia in May-October 1915, and the Russian Brusilov Offensive of June-September 1916 ate through the Austro-Hungarian Army's stock of Austrian and Hungarian officers (who bore the burden of leadership roles, as even their pre-war NCOs had been of mediocre quality) and soldiers. After that point, they were increasingly reliant upon sub-par and ethnic minority (not the same thing) officers and soldiers. The Austro-Hungarian Piave Offensive of the 15th-23rd June 1918 exhausted the last of its reliable officers and manpower, and in the 24th October to 3rd November Vittorian Veneto offensive the Royal Italian Army destroyed the Austro-Hungarian Army. Not an Austro-Hungarian Army: theAustro-Hungarian Army. Alexander Svechin himself argued that, whatever the state of the German Army, the capitulation of Austria-Hungary was what truly sealed the fate of Imperial Germany.
World War Two. The war was so vast that its 'turning points' were measured in months - and hundreds of thousands of military, and millions of civilian, lives. For instance, Germany is generally accepted as having been unable to win the war on its own terms after the failure of its October-November 1941 Operation Typhoon offensive to capture Moscow, unable to win the war after the failure of its June-November 1942 Case Blue offensive to capture Caucasia and Stalingrad, unable to prolong the war past 1947 after its defeats in the November 1942-October 1943 Ukrainian offensives (including the failure of the Germans' July 1943 Zitadelle offensive at Kursk), and unable to prolong the war past 1945 after the myriad defeats it suffered between February and October 1944 (including the loss of Romania and France).
This is the principle behind the strategy used by both sides during the Second Punic War:
Thanks to their allies and subjects, the Roman Armyhad an immense pool of manpower, greatly surpassing that of Carthage. Knowing this, Hannibal resorted to wipe out a Roman army at a time and attack Rome's allies and subjects to try and destroy said reserves by either destroying the allies or getting them to switch sides. It had some success, but in the end it failed, as Rome's key allies (the Latins, the Aequi, the Marsians, the Hernicans, the Auruncians, the Umbri, the Volsci, and the Etruscans, constituting most of Rome's manpower and economic reserves, and living around Rome itself) stayed loyal.
In the meantime, Rome attacked Hannibal's small but undefeatable army with a large number of small raids, whittling away his veterans (the key of his success) a soldier or two per weeks and trapping him in a valley. When he escaped that, the Romans copied his strategy and took down the rebels who had switched sides and his Gaulish allies one at a time, destroying any chance he had to replace his losses.
During the Battle of Guandu between warlords Yuan Shao and Cao Cao, the latter dispatched some of his best generals to launch multiple hit-and-run raids against Yuan's forces, specifically targeting their supply depots and convoys. These raids were so successful Yuan was forced to bring up more supplies and gather them at a central location at a place called Wuchao for distribution. After Cao personally led a raid on Wuchao that destroyed it, Yuan's forces imploded.
Battle of MiĊĦar of Serbian Revolution proved that if you have a good defense against your opponent and shoot at him constant line fire, you can defeat an army four times stronger than yours.
In early World War I, Zeppelin airships were an absolute bitch to take out, contrary to the commonmisconception. Zeppelins could withstand thousands of bulletsnote provided they weren't incendiary bullets, which were later invented to exploit their Hydrogen Achilles' Heel, though even lots of those had to be spent 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 dakka was directed at it at, it could sink. This Rasputinian Death is how several Army Zeppelins met their fate- one was shot down by a pair of battleships and a submarine, another was ambushed by two separate fullisades of anti-aircraft guns in 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 has been invoked by news analysts to describe Al-Qaeda's strategy against countries like the United States who increase their airport security to extreme measures (such as the giant full-body scanners and thorough pat-downs of every passenger), these measures essentially bleeding away at American wallets and patience.
Happened to the World War IIJapaneseKongo-class battleship Hiei, which has the dubious honor of being perhaps the only battleship ever to be lost to cruiser fire. The First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal was a night fight at close range, with the towering Hiei being the focus of American destroyers and cruisers, one of which — San Francisco — landed an 8-inch shell in the steering compartment, in addition to wrecking the superstructure. In fairness, the Kongo-class were built to emphasize speed and maneuverability at the expense of armor.
Edwardian-era naval doctrine emphasized this, using large numbers of quick-firing guns with high-explosive ammunition to overwhelm enemy ships, even battleships, with a "hail of fire", before utilizing torpedoes and heavy guns to finish off the crippled ship. Naval battles of the era, particularly Yalu River and Tsushima, verified the idea, only for developments in heavy guns and fire control to create the Dreadnought concept and push out ranges beyond what the light quick-firers were effective at.
For quite a while, the idea of using attack planes or boats against large targets (such as battleships or major bases) took on this form. A single plane was unlikely to lay in a single hit without getting knocked out of the air, nor could it carry enough firepower to do any lasting damage to most major targets. But dozens of attackers working in coordination could overwhelm the defenders, and cause cumulative damage through repeated hits. Punch enough smaller holes in a big ship, and it will begin to take on water faster than the crew can pump it out. Hit an important subsystem, and a ship might lose fire coordination, or power to its gun turrets, or the ability to steer itself, or even cause it to leave a tell-tale trail of oil making escape impossible, leaving it far more vulnerable to repeated attacks.
Somewhat more succinctly summed up as: "In the war between weapons and armor, weapons eventually win."
Artillery follows a similar doctrine. In World War 2 and before, artillery was about saturationnote send a lot of rounds at a target area; few will be direct hits, but if you send enough rounds, those "few" will be a dozen or more direct hits, but after, artillery doctrine shifted to precision: fewer rounds, but more direct hits, aided by faster calculations and eventually computers. Even with less powerful rounds impacting hardened defenses, no defense is able to withstand multiple, repeated hits with explosive rounds. As a result, artillery doctrine is unofficially "if you can see it, you can hit it. If you can hit it, you can kill it."
Airsoft machine gun chewing a hole through a metal can, both sides[1].
Nature
Water behaves like this. A few droplets won't kill anything but ants. Stack the droplets into a storm and it can kill thousands as a flood. Or just stack them as a body of water and they will slowly but surely erode or rot just about anything. Even better, shape it as a jet — make it thin enough and add neck-breaking speeds, and it will cut even metal.
Snails don't have jaws, but they do have a tongue-like structure (radula) covered by thousands of tiny "teeth". Predatory snails that consume mussels or other bivalves do so by rasping a hole in their shells, lick by lick by lick, then lapping up the flesh within, one tooth-scraping's worth at a time.
The Grand Canyon, or any other land mass sculpted by water or wind.
Army ants embody this trope. Each column comprises well over a million ants. Whenever they run across anything living, the entire column will crawl all over it and bite it until it dies, then rip it to pieces to feed their larvae. There are reports of animals the size of horses being shredded by a single column.
Many predators will tear off the flesh of their prey (while the prey is still alive) and follow the prey around until it dies of blood loss. Of course, this is isn't "death by tiny cuts" but more of "death by torn off chunks of flesh."
Radiation poisoning is the ultimate example of this. A few particles are harmless, but a few trillion can kill anything.
Barring an allergic reaction, a single sting from an Africanized honey bee probably won't kill you. However, once the swarm comes out of their hive to attack you, you will quickly realize why they are more commonly known as "killer bees".
Swarming insects and animals as a whole revel in this trope. One bee is a nuisance, while a swarm of bees can be painful and fatal. One blackbird will get slaughtered messily by an eagle, but when the other 300 blackbirds swarm it that eagle better fly and fast or it will be pecked to death.
Other
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 your money went. Specific examples include:
Video games. People are cautious about spending $60 on a new game, but every time Steam has one of their redonkulous sales (weekends, summer, holidays, and sometimes just because) where AAA titles that aren't even a half-year-old go for up to 80% off, and you buy them by the truckload thinking "Oh, it's only $10/$5".
Smartphone apps. People often have a threshold where they start to become concerned with finances, most apps and other digital downloads (such as songs on iTunes) are often priced under it, making it much more likely to impulse buy them. If you're not careful, it can be easy to bleed your bank account 99 cents at a time.
This is a known principle in government, business, and management; the best way to kill off an unwanted program is by denying it funding on an incremental basis, or what Ronald Reagan's followers referred to as "starving the beast".
This is a striking style in martial arts and striking sports. In boxing, this is called a swarmer. Generally swarmers don't punch especially hard with a single punch, but when they completely disregard defense to come at you with all-out offense, throwing a constant flow of punches, (sometimes over one hundred punches per three minute round) it results in a lot of opponents getting overwhelmed and gradually worn down even individual punches are not particularly hard and would normally be shrugged off. Examples include:
Manny Pacquaio was this in his youth, fearlessly attacking opponents while drowning them in punches. As time went by and he began both facing a higher quality of opponent and moving up in weight, so he was fighting men naturally bigger than him, he adjusted his style and became a much more well-rounded boxer. He still benefitted from being unorthodox, and able to surprise people by throwing many punches from unexpected angles.
A rare brawler example is Rocky Marciano, however, Marciano could legitimately punch hard, so it was less death by constant Cherry Tapping and more Macross Missile Massacre.
In the early to mid-2000s a number of swarmers came to prominence in boxing, with the most notable probably being Paul Williams and Antonio Margarito. Both fit the profiles very well of overwhelming opponents with activity, (both were the type to throw 100 or more punches in a round, pretty impressive when you consider a round has only 180 seconds in it) and both eschewed defense and relied instead on the volume of their offense causing opponents to become too defensive to stop them. (And Margarito in particular was known for being almost impossible to hurt, sometimes literally laughing at the punches of his opponents as he implacably advanced on them, so he barely needed to pay attention to defense anyway.)
In Mixed Martial Arts, the Diaz brothers have both developed a striking style of constant jabbing, with stronger punches mixed in.
In 2008, emerging superstar boxer Manny Pacquiao faced fading but seemingly still serviceable legend Oscar De La Hoya in a David Versus Goliath match. Being as De La Hoya was twice Pacquiao's size and possessed a formidable jab and left hook, it was nearly unanimous among boxing fans and observers that De La Hoya would use the jab to control the bout and probably KO Pacquiao with his killer hook. Unfortunately for Oscar, a combination of age, wear, and dropping to a lower weight class for the bout all combined to work against him. Instead of the expected outcome, where Oscar's jab would effectively control the distance and keep Pacquiao frustrated at long range, (and thus unable to land) Pacquiao endlessly zipped up close, landed a punch (or two or three) at a time and then moved away and out of De La Hoya's range before De La Hoya could respond. De La Hoya proved utterly unable to deal with Pacquiao's speed, and after the first couple of rounds, De La Hoya's drained body completely ran out of stamina. This made him a sitting duck with no hope of responding effectively while the beating from Pacquiao only grew more consistent and sustained as the rounds passed and Pacquiao realized he could pile on more and more punishment without having to worry about a counterattack. Even in that state, due to the size difference between the two men and De La Hoya's iron jaw, Pacquaio couldn't knock out De La Hoya, and even the hardest individual punches from Pacquiao could only sting the larger man. Those stinging punches, when thrown in combinations of six or more, however, left De La Hoya visibly cringing before the onslaught, and allowed Pacquiao to rearrange Oscar's face until the fight was (finally) stopped after the end of the eighth round. During the fight, commentator Larry Merchant explicitly referenced this trope, saying that De La Hoya was suffering "Death by a thousand left hands".
A common hacker attack involves sending thousands of small data packets hoping to invoke this trope. In general, this is how DDOS attacks work, overwhelming whatever it is they want to take down through millions and millions of requests and data packets in a short time. These attacks often need multiple computers to garner the necessary amount of requests per second.
This can be seen in a less lethal light in Professional Wrestling — many wrestlers have had their careers ended by the accumulated effects of multiple relatively minor injuries rather than one major injury. An example would be Jeff Hardy; despite having a very high-risk and damaging daredevil wrestling style, Jeff has surprisingly gone throughout most of his career with very few major injuries. However, that did not preclude him from a multitude of minor injuries, the pain of which unquestionably contributed to his notorious drug addiction problems. By 2022, the long-term damage has become apparent and he's now considered a pale shadow of his former self.
American football is the same way, with knees and shoulders among the first to go. Recent research has shown that the constant blows to the helmeted head very often leads to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which has led to a number of mental breakdowns in both football and wrestling.
This is the main reason why shopkeepers, both chains and independent, prosecute all shoplifters to the full extent of the law no matter how little is taken. Skeptics or even the perpetrators themselves will argue shoplifting just one item will have no bad effects. While one item may not necessarily do so, several people taking just one item over time will add up and lead to losses for the shop.
Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is caused by many small emotional traumas to a person such as bullying, rejection, and nitpicking, especially since childhood. These actions might not affect a person if standalone, but when they have to be dealt with on a daily basis, they can cause extremely negative mental effects on that person.
Similarly, some people who are Driven to Suicide are suffering from this - it's not a singular large event that pushes them to the brink, but the accumulation of smaller ones that they can't cope with, to the point that it feels as though there's no hope whatsoever. On the flipside, as thisCracked article points out, this also means that all it takes to start demolishing that wall is a small act of kindness.
The point is that a person is driven to suicide by a whole bunch of different things, which build a wall around them, piece by piece, until the last piece falls into place and the wall is sealed so that there's no way out. Sometimes we look at all the problems that build up someone's wall of hopelessness and think there's no way any of the insignificant things we could do would be able to take it all down. But to break the illusion of there being no way out, you don't need to take down the whole wall, you just need to make one crack in it. One puppy lick, one phone call from Laila Ali, one corny song, one Internet stranger, one old Australian guy asking if you want to come in for a cup of tea. Just one ray of light. And one crack in that wall might be all it takes to turn things around and begin the long, tough job of tearing the whole thing down.
This was one of the things that did in the original Telltale Games. While the games they created were popular, they were made at a loss, effectively making them Acclaimed Flops. The effect was accelerated by the success of The Walking Dead: Season One and Minecraft: Story Mode as the company attempted to recapture their two real money makers, causing them to stagnate and burn money faster.
, named after Roman dictator Fabius, was the Ur-Example of this trope. As Hannibal Barca's forces were too mighty to face in open warfare, Fabius opted for hit-and-run tactics where Roman forces were never exposed for reprisal while whittling away at Hannibal's forces and, more importantly, his supply lines.