cannon fodder

• cannonfodder, cannon-fodder

Mid-19th century, from cannon (“artillery piece”) +‎ fodder (“food”), a calque of German Kanonenfutter,[1] itself possibly a calque of English food for powder. See the German for more.

cannon fodder (uncountable)

1. Military forces considered to be expendable.

   Coordinate term: forlorn hope

   • 1930, Frank Richards, The Magnet: Victory for the Rebels:

     "A foolish old half-pay officer," boomed Sir Hilton. "Go back to your club, sir, and play bridge with other superannuated cannon-fodder, sir."

   • 1951 January 8, Harry S. Truman, State of the Union Address:

     Soviet communism is trying to make these nations into colonies, and to use their people as cannon fodder in new wars of conquest.

   • 2022 March 8, Pjotr Sauer, “‘They were sent as cannon fodder’: Siberian governor confronted by relatives of Russian unit”, in The Guardian‎:

     A Russian governor in Siberia has been confronted by angry citizens who blamed him for deploying a local riot police unit to Ukraine to become “cannon fodder”, a video clip circulating online showed.

2. (by extension) Any group of contestants that have no hope of success.
   • 2021 March 25, Phil McNulty, “England 5-0 San Marino”, in BBC Sport‎:

     It is arrogant to simply dismiss San Marino and say they should not be playing qualifiers at this level but it is hard to see what England and manager Southgate learned from this one-sided, rather soulless experience against a team who were little more than cannon fodder.

3. (rare) Artillery ammunition.