Red Guard (Generals 1)

"We stand together!"

- Red Guards entering the battlefield

The Red Guard was the basic infantry of the Chinese Army.

Background
"Defenders of peace!"

- The Red Guards' job description.

Chinese infantry combat doctrine dictates that riflemen should emphasize on accuracy and firepower, rather than rate of fire. As a result, aged but reliable bolt-action rifles, firing more powerful rounds, than M16A2s, carried by USA's Rangers or AK47-type rifles, carried by GLA's Rebels, are kept as standard issues for basic PLA soldiers well into the 21st century. In game, those semi-automatic rifles can indeed deal more damage per shot than light infantry's standard assault rifles used by rival factions.

Their low rate of fire was countered by numbers, as they were trained in pairs at a Barracks or deployed in fireteams of eight with each Troop Crawler at the China War Factory. They could also garrison buildings and be trained to capture buildings at a Barracks. In groups of 5 or more, Red Guard would experience a "Horde Effect" that greatly boosted morale and, by extension, fighting prowess.

General Shin Fai uses a variant of the Red Guard called the Mini-Gunner.

Abilities
"We will claim it for China!"

- Red Guard capturing buildings

Upgrades
"Nationalism will bring us victory!"

- Red Guards talking about the Nationalism upgrade

Strategy
"Foreign devils!"

- Red Guards engaging enemies of China

As they were so quick to train, they could be deployed in sufficient numbers to overwhelm enemy infantry by attrition, particularly early in a conflict. They were particularly effective against GLA Terrorist rushes, as Chinese generals would not be able to have a sufficiently effective counter against them until they had established a War Factory.

Red Guard could also be used to cheaply give a horde bonus to Tank Hunters by keeping them together in large squads. This made it more difficult for the enemy to break the bonus or target just the Tank Hunters. Care had to be taken to ensure that the faster Red Guard did not separate from the Tank Hunters while moving or fighting. In sufficient numbers with the horde effect they were surprisingly fast at taking down structures, making them a cheap alternative to destroying buildings if no tank hunters are on hand.

When playing as General Kwai, it is more cost effective to train them from the warfactory rather than from the barracks, both due to the higher cost of infantry and also thanks to the lower cost of his vehicles.

Counters
"China, save us!"

- A dying Red Guard

Individually, Red Guard were a poor match for the infantry of other factions. As with all, they were easy prey for anti-infantry weapons such as the Quad Cannon. Flash-bang grenades could easily dispatch Red Guards, as they often clumped together to provide Horde bonuses. Toxin weaponry also took their toll on them, since Red Guards lacked any kind of biohazard protection.

Trivia

 * Red Guard's appearance is consistent with a Chinese soldier from the Cultural Revolution to early 1980s wearing the then much-loved (by the enlisted) rankless Type 65 uniform.
 * The unit icon shows them to be armed with an AK type rifle as evident by the front sight, however, as per game's official Red Guard are stated to use bolt action rifles, likely Mosin-Nagant copies that is aligned with them firing their weapons only in single shots in game.
 * Red Guard's concept art depicts them armed with MG42 machinegun and M1911 pistols.
 * The term 'Red Guard' originated during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, although borrowed from Russian Bolsheviks, whose Red Guard existed in 1917 before being supplanted by a professional Red Army. The real-life Red Guards were groups of students organized by Mao Zedong in an attempt to keep the Communist Revolution alive. These Red Guards were made to discredit the right-wing opponents of the Maoist revolutionary leadership. However, due to the widespread trouble spread by the Red Guards, Chairman Mao was compelled to forcibly disband this radical student organization and send them to the countryside as rural labourers. In the Chinese context, the term 'Red Guards' were not related to Chinese armed forces in any way.
 * Since real life Red Guards were not regular PLA combatants, it's more likely they would've worn Type 55 uniforms minus rank insignia instead of Type 65 as depicted in game.
 * The Red Guard was planned to have a bayonet to stab other infantry and this feature is fully finished, just not implemented in-game. Some mods have enabled this feature.
 * Sounds within Generals' audio archives prove that Red Guards could be upgraded with Stun Bullets, Functioning similarly to the flash-bang grenades deployed by Rangers, they would have incapacitated hostile infantry. Inadvertently, the stun bullets were removed at the same time of weeding out the POW logic.
 * "Conscripts" were the likely predecessors of the Red Guard unit. While only a cameo picture (as shown in gallery) and incomplete model are available inside General's files, the Conscript looked much more modern and similar in appearance to actual PLA ground infantry.
 * Ironically, the cameo image of 'conscripts' is taken from a Taiwanese military exercise.
 * Doubly ironically, Taiwan actually enforced conscription whereas mainland China didn't for very long.
 * Unused unit quotes in the game files suggests some kind of protection suits similar to the American Chemical Suits were planned for the Infantry General, and in fact there's commented out code which would add the Chemical Suits upgrade to Infantry General's Propaganda Center. In the end, it was scrapped.
 * Nuclear General Tao was supposed to have his own version of the Red Guard called the Nuclear Red Guard, which is armed with a rocket launcher firing tactical nuclear rockets similar to the Tank Hunter, but it was scrapped for unknown reasons.