Red Guard (Generals 1)

"For the Republic!"

- Red Guard

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

Background
"Defenders of peace!"

- The Red Guards' job description.

Unlike the infantrymen of the other two factions the Chinese Red Guard retain the larger 7.62x54mm round in contrast to the 7.62x39mm round fired by AK-47 armed Rebels, or the 5.56x45mm round used by the M16A2 equipped Rangers. As a drawback, they do have a lower rate of fire with their semi-automatic rifles. The larger calibre does mean that they can deal more damage than other basic infantry per shot.

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 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.

Note that General Shin Fai does not deploy standard Red Guard infantrymen. Fai equips his Red Guard with much more effective miniguns. These "Mini-Gunners" were more pricey, but could deal greater damage and attack aircraft. Due to their prohibitive cost, only one was trained at a time.

Upgrades
"We stand together!"

- Red Guard

Game unit
"China, save me!"

- A dying Red Guard infantryman

Strategy
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.

Counters
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 apperance is consistant with the 'stereotypical' Chinese soldier from the Cultural Revolution to early 1980s.
 * The effective usage of a semi-automatic assault rifle over fully-automatic assault rifle was exemplified during the Falklands War. Ironically, the exact opposite was experienced by the Chinese themselves during the Sino-Vietnamese War, where PLA infantryman initally equipped with semi-automatic suffered heavily from AK-equipped Vietnamese. That war prompted the PLA to equip their troops with helmets and fully-automatic assault rifle (such as The Type-81), busting the 'stereotypical' in-game image once and for all.
 * 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 proper 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.
 * The Red Guard was planned to have a bayonet to stab other infantry and this feature is fully finished, just not implemented in-game. In addition, 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.
 * This misnaming of China's infantry is one of the reasons why Generals and Zero Hour are banned in China.
 * Ironically, the cameo image of 'conscripts' is taken from a Taiwanese military exercise
 * An upgrade sound of the Red Guard hidden 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 was Supposed to have Their own version of the Red Guard Called the Nuclear Red Guard armed with a Rocket Launcher with Radioactive Missles (Similar to the Tank Hunter) But it Was Scrapped for Unknown Reasons, However, Mods like Shockwave and Rise of The Reds, Restore the Nuclear Red Guard.