Late in the TV series, the space fortress Libra fires a shot from its Wave-Motion Gun down on Earth, destroying a small uninhabited island.

Of course, we wind up seeing what happens when the Gundams jump the gun and their pilots' humanity interferes, but Dekim Barton decides to double back and do it right in Endless Waltz.

Operation Meteor of Gundam Wing infamy was drafted as a plan to drop an asteroid on Earth, then seize control with the Gundams as the populace runs around in terror.

Char's Counterattack more or less revolves around Char doing this and even begins with a preliminary meteor drop on Tibet.

Gundam 0083 gives us a decent peek of the ensuing crater bay carved from the 50-mile radius around what used to be Sydney.

The original Mobile Suit Gundam's backstory includes an attempted colony drop on Brazil that was derailed to Australia.

The Colony Drop and related forms are absolutely adored by the Gundam franchise.

May involve Nuking 'em, and could be required because It's the Only Way to Be Sure.

This can overlap with a Meteor-Summoning Attack.

Kill Sat is a specific example where the bombardment is carried out by a satellite instead of a ship (the primary distinction is that the Kill Sat can't leave orbit under its own power). Subtrope of Death from Above, supertrope to Colony Drop, usually less powerful than an Earth-Shattering Kaboom. Such as what happened at the Trinity nuclear test site.

This bombardment may be limited to a small geographical area but more often it is a general assault that wipes out most civilization if not all life on the planet.Ī term frequently used in relation to this trope is 'glassing,' which originally referred to the bombardment being intense enough to cause the soil to vitrify, or melt into volcanic glass. So they bombard it with a bunch of nukes or large kinetics, or Energy Weapons of some sort. In some science fiction, it's impractical to transport enough ground troops to invade a planet or natural satellite, or The Empire simply wants to make a statement.

Star wars orbital bombardment