->''"Observe their troops. Thin fabrics. Exposed skin. Feeble weapons. These are toy soldiers. The playthings of children!"''
->-- '''General Staal''' (observing UNIT forces shortly before [[SubvertedTrope losing to them]] in ''DoctorWho'', "The Sontaran Stratagem")

TheCavalry has arrived! Unfortunately, they're all wearing [[RedShirt red shirts]]... and they all graduated from the ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy.

Happens all the time in action shows. The hero, who may or may not have any special training or powers, is to be escorted into a "hot zone" by a team of Navy [=SEALs=], Army Rangers, {{Space Marine}}s, a SWAT team, whatever, who are heavily-armed and one would assume well trained for the job. Invariably, mere minutes into the mission, they've all been ambushed and killed off by the platoon-load, leaving [[OnlyOne only the hero alive to finish the job]].

Makes one wonder, how did these guys ever pass muster (heck, even survive long enough) for assignment to an elite military or security force if they drop like mayflies in any tactical situation?

This [[AMillionIsAStatistic often massive loss of life will rarely be noted by anyone]] or have any [[HufflepuffHouse direct effect on the plot]], unless the heroes need to emote over how [[WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife senseless]] the situation is. These guys are {{spear carrier}}s in the finest Joseph Campbell tradition.

Provides a convenient demonstration of [[TheWorfEffect just how scary the villain is]] and also explains why the villain [[VillainExitStageLeft gets away all the time]].

This is sometimes [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the idea that the doomed Red Shirts really ''are'' experts, but they've never had any training in how to fight beings that can kill them just by looking at them funny. Of course, that doesn't explain how the Hero survives.

As the singular RedShirt is the "good" counterpart to EvilMinions, the RedshirtArmy is the "good" counterpart to the endless hordes of {{Mook}}s. The BadassArmy is the logical opposite to this; take note how often (as in the example above) RedShirtArmy is, in fact, a [[SubvertedTrope subversion]] of BadassArmy via TheWorfEffect.

Often precedes LoweredMonsterDifficulty.

See Also: ATeamFiring, ConservationOfNinjitsu, LemmingCops, OneSidedBattle
----
!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
* TheFederation forces in the original ''MobileSuitGundam'' had the GMs, mass-produced mecha whose sole purpose was to die in droves against the [[MonsterOfTheWeek latest Zeon special forces mechas of the week]]. They even had red chestplates.
* The regular UN forces in ''{{Macross 7}}'' and later ''{{Macross Frontier}}''. (Who were, in both cases, mostly flying outdated HumongousMecha, and had limited, if any, combat experience; this is even a plot point in ''Frontier'' and is used to explain the existence of the PrivateMilitaryContractors.)
* Any friendly force in a HumongousMecha series that isn't equipped with HumongousMecha. (The AD Police in the ''BubbleGumCrisis'' {{OVA}}s count here, despite the fact that they ''had'' mecha -- the mecha they had were the mass-produced tin-can-death-trap variety.)
** If all the main characters have unique mecha, then any friendly force that does have mecha but only has one or two different models is also a RedshirtArmy. For example, the allied armies in TengenToppaGurrenLagann are simply cannon fodder.
* Ditto Paradigm City's Military Police forces in ''{{The Big O}}''. The lone ones that don't give up by the finale and actually try to join the fight on Roger's side get vaporized in fairly short order.
** This actually becomes a plot point in season two. The commissioner is shown many times to be struggling with the fact that he and his men are almost completely useless against the giant robot-threats that keep popping up everywhere. Its also indicated that this inferiority complex was the reason he was so hostile toward Big O in season one.
* And the Japanese Strategic Self-Defense Forces in ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' (which are also prone to FiveRoundsRapid); in fact, pretty much all portrayals of the [=JSDF=] in anime. On the other hand, they do learn after a while and only use remote control missile barrages, and those are usually just distractions.
** ... or in ''kaiju'' movies (e.g. Godzilla) either, for that matter, where any reference to the necessary reality that there are people inside all the tanks and jets being uselessly thrown at the monsters (and by extension, the sanity of continuing to order such futile engagements) is the exception rather than the rule.
** Subverted beautifully in early episodes of ''Kotetsushin Jeeg'', however. The JSDF display competent tactics in their battle against Himika's Claw Phantoms, and although Jeeg spearheads their attacks, he can't do it alone.
** And in {{Bokurano}} the JSDF are essential in many of the fights between the HumongousMecha.
* All of the soldiers stationed in the castle at the beginning of ''MurderPrincess'' are easily wiped out by a bunch of trolls and a TykeBomb mechanical doll.
* Both the soldiers of the ''{{Hellsing}}'' organisation and their Wild Geese mercenary replacements fall into this, being near-useless against the enemy vampires. To be fair, though, the poor fellows are unpowered humans facing SuperSpeed-, SuperStrength-, HealingFactor-boasting foes.
** To be fair, the Wild Geese make a dang good showing up until they face off against TheDragon, using a combination of heavy machine guns, mines, and the open terrain around the Hellsing manor to fend off the Nazi vampires. It's when they get into close-quarters battles in the hallways that things very swiftly go one-sided.
** The ghouls falls into this category as well since they are little more than vampire-controlled zombies
* The Japanese military and UN forces fill this role in an episode of ''[[PrettySammy Magical Project S]]'', where they can't stand up to ThePowerOfLove fueled housewives.
* They may not wear red, but the generic Combat Mages of ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' have a tendency to get mowed down whenever they encounter the current villain's main forces. They're pretty good at keeping {{Mecha-Mooks}} at bay though, and they were able to contain the [[AmazonBrigade Wolkenritter]] until their MysteriousProtector appeared.
** In their defense, the main villains of the series are way out of their league. They're essentially cops, and you expect them to be able to take on an insane and insanely powerful mage (albeit with a bit of an InformedAbility), OneManArmy magic knights from an ArtifactOfDoom and a MadScientist and his super-powered cyborg minions and countless attack drones.
* The Magical Teachers and Students in ''MahouSenseiNegima'' during the Mahora Fair arc were woefully unprepared for the fight... so Negi cons the entire student body into making a second RedshirtArmy for this fight.
* TheTowerOfDruaga anime has the Army of Uruk and some miscellaneous Climber parties perform a bit better than the rest of the examples of this page, but they're still not as good as the heroes. Season 2 introduces the Golden Knights, who are completely worthless against anyone with a modicum of fighting experience.
* The rebel group Katharon of ''{{Gundam 00}}'' looks like the AEUG to the A-Laws Titans, except that the AEUG had great mechas and pilots while the Katharon go into battle with mechas that where useless in the previous season that takes place four years ago. Their only purpose is to momentarily distract the A-Laws while Celestial Beings does all the actual fighting. You have to wonder why they even bother if all they do is die.
** Briefly subverted when A-Laws brings out anti-beam smoke. Even the mighty [[{{Gamebreaker}} 00]] is hampered by [[CripplingOverspecialization its reliance on beam weapons]] and it falls to Katharon and their obsolete solid guns to pull CB out of a tight spot. Fortunately for them A-Laws relied heavily on beam weapons too.
* Zombies generally have a soft spot for being pretty much redshirts. In [[KaraNoKyoukai the fifth movie of Kara no Kyoukai]] it gets even worse than that. Simply put? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBrWcKIteAo&NR=1&fmt=22 Ryougi Shiki is a human wheat thresher.]]
*In {{Bleach}} the shinigami are completely useless against ANY threat which comes to them and have to be bailed out by the main heroes. Only the Lieutenants and Captains manage to be useful and avoid this, even though they are subject to TheWorfEffect at the same time.
* {{Yu-Gi-Oh}}, in both the anime and real life. Think about it. All monsters in the game have the highly specific role of acting as a meat shield between you and your opponent's monsters. They can die incredibly easily if you have the right deck. On the other hand, they can be upgraded into a Badass Army with Equip Spell Cards.
* ''{{Dragonball Z}}'' sees multiple cases of Redshirt armies ripped apart by horrifically powerful aliens and androids. By the time the Buu saga rolls around you'd think they'd have learned that when someone is spotted who flies and uses KiAttacks its best to just sit back and wait for those other flying folks to take care of the job before sending waves upon waves of men to die.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:ComicBooks]]
* Quite often, police officers and security guards are easily thwarted by even the lowest D-list super villain, who usually treats them more as irritating pests than serious threats, although he naturally has a harder time against the hero. Similarly, the Army proves useless when the Earth is invaded by aliens or monsters from another dimension. The exception is, of course, when the trope ''du jour'' is TheRealHeroes.
**SHIELD form the MarvelUniverse is a very good example. Until they got reformatted as [[DarkerAndEdgier HAMMER]], which threw a pint and a half of [[{{Mooks}} Mook]] into the mix, along with a dash of VillainWithGoodPublicity. They are supposed to be the best agents, operatives, commandos and so on in the world. However, agents would be massacred both individually and ''en masse'' by both {{SuperVillain}}s and normal Mooks. In the UltimateMarvel universe you just wonder how they recruit. Some 30,000 agents and commandos are killed during the first strike of an AlienInvasion, and later get outmatched by superhumans on multiple occasions, usually while pulling guard duty on super-villains. And one time, their HQ was blown up, they were crippled, and then they got hammered by an army of super powered terrorists led by the Liberators.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:{{Film}}s]]
* The armed forces in any monster movie.
** Although the army in ''D-War: Dragon Wars'' did a good job of killing Buraki's forces, the problem was there were too many of them to deal with.
* In fact, individually deadly warriors often become hopelessly inept in large numbers. Consider the [[ConservationOfNinjitsu phenomenon of ninjas in groups]], and the army of mutants in ''X-Men III: The Last Stand''; in the latter, less than a dozen demonstrated any special ability except rushing forward blindly, to the point that the previously completely ineffective human army kicks their butts.
** Of course, it was mentioned that those mutants were the ones with [[WhatKindOfLamePowerisHeartAnyway lame powers]].
** Plus, the army had power-neutralizing weapons. A flesh wound in the shoulder turns Joe Random Rock Thrower into Joe Blow.
**And for the most part the mutants were all untrained civilians. The most they ''could'' do was rush forward blindly and get cut down.
* Tony Stark's escort/bodyguard in ''Iron Man.'' (To be fair, however, it is later revealed was a set-up by Tony's turncoat/former friend, whom the villain was actually working for, and were armed with Stark weapons.)
* The soldiers accompanying the scientists in 1988 remake of TheBlob are useless. Though their poorer performance compared to the main characters when fighting TheBlob might be attributed to the heavy NBC gear they are wearing.
* Very plausible example from ''TheRock''. Commander Anderson's entire SEAL team is killed shortly after entering Alcatraz. Just before this happens, General Hummel rightly points out the dire situation they are in when he says "Your unit is covered from an elevated position, Commander."
** From another angle, if Anderson's platoon had been briefed in elementary infantry tactics -- most Red Shirt Armies aren't -- they would have a point man go up into that gymnasium and check out possible ambush points. Note: this editor's father had that unfortunate job assignment for several months at the end of World War II. However, the Germans they encountered (Red Shirt Armies in many, many WWII movies) liked to let the American point man walk through the ambush and open up on the multiple targets following him. Therefore, the RedShirt point man became the Hero, while the platoon became the RedShirtArmy. This was literally true, as attested by the Silver Star and Bronze Star medals I keep among my family mementos.
***Anderson's team tripped a homemade motion sensor. The Marines would presumably have simply waited for the entire team to exit the hole.
* In many crime-related action movies or shows (the ''LethalWeapon'' movies, for example), any uniformed police officers and / or detectives who are ''not'' the protagonists are usually little more than easily-disposable cannon fodder. Sometimes it is because they face an opponent against whom they genuinely have no chance against (such as TheTerminator); other times, particularly when opposed to a small criminal syndicate, it is because they display incompetence which is nothing short of alarming for members of a modern metropolitan police department.
** An exception to the above is ''HotFuzz'', in which the ''uniformed'' officer is the BadAss {{Action Hero}}es and the ''detectives'' are the incompetent boobs. Doubly averted when, in the big climactic fight, the detectives prove that they're just as competent as the next man if you load them up and give them riot gear.
** Played straight ''and'' averted in the John Woo movie ''Hard Boiled''. In the tea house shootout, anyone other than Tequila and his partner is just another red shirt. The undercover cops and the SWAT team in the big hospital shootout later on, however, do hold their own quite satisfactorily despite losing a good portion of their number and get the hostages out while Tequila and Alan kick serious ass.
* This happened to the army that the dwarves raised to fight Evil Incarnate in ''TimeBandits''.
* The police SWAT teams in both ''DieHard'' and ''DieHard 2''.
** justifed in both: in the first they were in a APC that was destroyed by a rocket launcher, and in the second, they were ambushed by former Special Forces operators.
* Averted in the latest ''Rambo'' movie; the mercenary team sent along with the titular character is actually [[GondorCallsForAid quite competent and most of it survives the movie]].
* In the execrable movie ''Time Chasers'' (mocked on ''MysteryScienceTheater3000''), the main character is rescued by his past self, who sought aid from the Continental Army... who can't subdue a single CorruptCorporateExecutive with a semi-automatic weapon. Their suckage is lampshaded by the hero's past self commenting "[[CaptainObvious I don't think they've ever seen an Uzi before.]]"
* The direct-to-video release ''{{Superman}}: Doomsday'' had members of said RedshirtArmy [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]] this before they fight Superman[[spoiler:'s evil clone]].
-->'''Soldier 1:''' What are we doing? We can't fight Superman.\\
'''Soldier 2:''' You're right. We ''can't'' fight Superman.\\
'''Soldier 3:''' Dead men walkin'.
* The President's Secret Service detail in ''AirForceOne'' is completely wiped out without so much as ''wounding'' a single terrorist. Most likely, the terrorists are equipped with force fields that [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking only the President can pierce]].
** Shameless JustifyingEdit: the terrorists in question had surprise, confusion, a full arsenal of the plane's cache of weapons, body armor, and were well-trained commandos. The Secret Service had.... pistols. For all that, they put up one hell of a fight ''and'' succeeded at their objective to get the President to safety (even if he didn't stay put).
* The Gotham Police Department in ''TheDarkKnight'' fits under this, if only due to their body count, even though they actually prove to be ''quite'' competent -- especially at the end of the movie, when the SWAT teams storm the building. The only problem is that "competent" just doesn't cut it with someone as CrazyPrepared as the Joker and BadAss as Batman.
** Almost subverted with the faceless police van driver, except [[spoiler: it turns out to be Gordon]].
* Averted hardcore in ''{{Transformers}}''. When the special forces unit calls in the cavalry, the cavalry actually manages to kill or drive off the giant alien robots.
** They're even more effective in the sequel, managing to support a handful of Autobots in holding off a small army of Decepticons.
* ''SkyCaptainAndTheWorldOfTomorrow'' (2004). The [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Flying Legion]] gets strafed by [[AttackDrone radio-controlled ornithopters]], with exploding hangers and airships galore. On returning to the devastated airbase the only concern of the protagonists however is missing colleague Dex. Mind you, we don't really ''see'' anyone die, so perhaps the {{KillerRobot}}s were acting under ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy rules too.
* The Colonial Marines boast extensively of their badass prowess at the start of ''{{Aliens}}'', but it only takes a few minutes for most of them to die. Except, of course, for the heroes.
**To be fair, they were ambushed in enemy territory, nearly blind in that the Aliens didn't show up on Infrared and deprived of most of their weapons(except the few who disobeyed orders). That and their platoon leader was one of the first to die, leaving only the inexperienced Officer-in-Command back at the APC.
* The Mobile Infantry of ''{{Starship Troopers}}'' seemingly exist only to get killed in huge numbers.
* In [[{{Ptitleer3dxllk}} GIJoeTheRiseOfCobra]], the US Army and generic Joe troopers are like this, easily getting slaughtered by [[strike:Cobra]] MARS's elite soldiers and vastly superior technology.
** This also happens later in the movie to Mars's crazy super soldiers as well. The toughness of their armor seems to depend on the scene.
* ''Face/Off'''s FBI agents, cops, special forces and security staff are all red shirts whenever they meet the film's main villain, Castor Troy.
* The HBO film ''When Trumpets Fade'' is built around this trope.
* Lampshaded by Sgt. Hartman in FullMetalJacket:
-->''Marines die. That's what we're here for''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:{{Gamebook}}s]]
* LoneWolf's mission in Book 4 [[spoiler: at first]] is to discover the fate of a hundred strong unit of cavalry led by Captain D'Val. Lone Wolf sets off with a force of fifty Rangers; the medieval equivalent of Special Forces. True to the trope, regardless of whatever decisions the player makes, the entire force is either forced to return home, ends up missing, or killed in increasingly unlikely ways (e.g. bandit ambushes, falling through floorboards in a mine, eaten by a giant squid, eaten by a giant worm, eaten by giant cats, falling into a ''pit trap''). [[AvertedTrope Averted]] with the actual cavalry Lone Wolf was sent to find. During the book's climax battle they live up to their reputation as fine soldiers and rout their numerically superior foe. Lone Wolf's involvement in that battle isn't actually that significant (no OneManArmy scenario here).
** If anyone is wondering why the pit trap death is silly, it was located [[spoiler: in the middle of a corridor, activated when Lone Wolf unlocks the door at the end]]. If its purpose was to keep an intruder from opening the door, it's the most poorly designed trap ''ever''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:{{Literature}}]]
* In Eric Flint's ''[[BelisariusSeries Belisarius]]'' series Rana Sanga comments on the battle described in the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita Bhagavad Gita]]'', how it is the most famous battle in all of Indian history and how no one remembers even one of the names of the mere mortals who did all the dying.
* The battle in the next-to-the-last ''{{Animorphs}}'' book involves a RedShirtArmy who survives. The US army launches a military force consisting, essentially, of hundreds of soldiers accompanied by a couple dozen {{Sixth Ranger}}s. And this military force's goal is a suicide mission worthy of the best of them: To launch an attack, in plain view, against a spaceship that "could blow asteroids out of the sky." Ordinarily, of course, a SixthRanger ranks much higher on the SortingAlgorithmOfMortality than the RedShirtArmy. But in this case, Visser One orders the Sixth Rangers killed first, because he takes them more seriously in both a strategic and a [[ItsPersonal personal]] sense. And the Animorphs manage to sabotage his ship too late to save the Sixth Rangers, but in time for the ordinary soldiers to survive. When the RedShirtArmy are the survivors, and some kids with superpowers are the casualties, it's a clear example of a plot that thwarts the usual laws of the SortingAlgorithmOfMortality.
* The Martian army in Kurt Vonnegut's ''The Sirens of Titan'' are deliberately constructed to be utterly wiped out on the moment of contact, in order that the course of human society can be changed by making them feel guilty for slaughtering the poor bastards.
* Wonderfully averted in ''TheDresdenFiles''. The boys in SI know what they're doing.
* Subverted and used in ''Old Man's War'' by John Scalzi. Subverted because the military arms its soldiers with the most advanced weaponry around, gives them telepathic links to each other and their guns and trains them to be incredibly effective soldiers. Used because to universe is just that damn dangerous and 75% of them don't last more than 5 years anyway.
* Each of the ''CiaphasCain'' HERO OF THE IMPERIUM novels will inevitably feature a part where Cain is forced to enter the jaws of hell, usually accompanied only by his {{sidekick}} and a RedshirtArmy (possibly with a few {{Mauve Shirt}}s thrown in). The trope is however subverted as often as it's played straight, to the end that you can usually never tell if the book's RedshirtArmy will survive or not.
* Partially subverted in the novel ''God's Demon''. The character [[NobleDemon Sargatanas]] increases the ranks of his military with an army of souls, which are normally either [[NightmareFuel mounted as artwork]] or [[FateWorseThanDeath turned into bricks]] by the demons (and only doing this because the soul [[MeaningfulName Hani]] offered to form it after [[ExpositionBeam restoring the memories of his former life]]. The subversion comes in the form of this never having been done before (meaning the soul army has a partial element of surprise), as well as the souls using one of their [[BeneathNotice common fates]] to [[CrowningMomentofAwesome get behind the enemy army and attack the flanks]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:LiveActionTV]]
* The term has its origin in ''StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', where the Enterprise's security personnel wore red shirts and were, to say the very least, [[RedShirt expendable]].
** This was a frontier-mission that was so dangerous, that of 12 starships-- each identical, the most powerful class in Earth's fleet-- only Kirk's ship and crew even ''survived.'' As Kirk put it, "risk, is our ''business.''"
* UNIT on ''DoctorWho'' has a tendency to fall into this category, although in some of their more recent appearances they've shown the ability to learn from their past mistakes.
** One example is in the episode "The Poison Sky". The Sontaran army uses a field that makes the copper jacketed bullets expand inside guns to jam them. A fair number of UNIT troops are thus slaughtered when their guns fail. UNIT, upon being told this, gets steel jacketed bullets and teaches those arrogant bastards that the human race is not to be fucked with. The Sontarans' claims of "sport" aside, clearly they aren't that used to their prey fighting back.
* The Soldiers in Season Four of ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', who took a little under an hour to catch up to the Slayer, and took her 17 seconds to disable the lot of them. This was in training, they lasted less time in actual combat.
* In ''{{Jericho}}'', the fictional company Ravenwood (a loose allusion to Blackwater), who is supposed to be full of ex [=SEALs=] and other Special Ops guys, gets their ass handed to them by guys with no military experience, including a deaf mute girl with a shotgun.
* In the ''[[BabylonFive Babylon 5]]'' WhamEpisode, "Severed Dreams", this trope is tweaked with Security Chief Garibaldi arranging sensible defensive tactical positioning for his troops for expected invaders. However, the Narn troopers under his command insist on charging headlong into the fray and the regular guards have no choice but to follow them.
* Every major battle on {{Lost}} involves one group of redshirts attacking another group of redshirts with the main characters from both sides escaping unscathed:
**The mercenary attack on the Barracks in the fourth season, where three redshirts (and presumably a fourth who was unaccounted for) are shot by redshirt mercenaries in the jungle. They then proceed to open fire on Sawyer, but their Stormtrooper training prevents them from hitting him.
***Subverted if one subscribes to the theory that [[spoiler: Claire was killed when a redshirt mercenary with a rocket launcher blew up her house]].
***Subverted again when Ben unleashes the smoke monster on the redshirt mercenaries, but only one dies, even after hearing several minutes of terrified screams.
**At the end of the fourth season, a group of redshirt Others attack the redshirt mercenaries and kill them all...with, you guessed it, the exception of their leader.
***Which is even more ironic when said leader kills one of his own redshirts accidentally by kicking a grenade over to their position.
**In the fifth season, the Others use fire arrows to attack the mass of redshirt survivors [[spoiler:in 1954]]. Again, the main characters escape, but most, if not all, of the redshirt survivors are finally killed, ending four seasons of slaughter.
**The DHARMA Initiative seems to have its own redshirt army. In a subversion of this trope, however, a shootout involving Jack, Kate, and Daniel versus Radzinsky and two DHARMA mooks ends with no casualties, not even the redshirts.
*CTU field teams on [[{{Twenty Four}} 24]] will succeed in their mission only if either Jack Bauer, Curtis Manning, or both are present. If they appear to be completing their mission without a main character, that probably means [[spoiler: they're about to be vaporized by a nuclear bomb]]. This rule also applies to any other armed detail mentioned, including the LAPD, Secret Service, and even the freaking Delta Force, all of whom have completely bought the farm at one point or another (for some, repeatedly) while "setting up a perimeter," (a common 24 portent of doom), guarding something or somebody important, or intercepting a fugitive, [[spoiler: respectively]].
**The Season Seven finale actually ''subverts'' audience expectations with the airport security guards when they attempt to rescue Kim Bauer. While most of them ''are'' killed, they actually do manage to kill both of her captors, a pair of extremely well-trained agents.
**This troper has also noted the if a soldier or police officer is wearing a helmet, hat, or in some way covering their head, they will most likely not make it back from their mission.
* Any team that accompanies [[StargateSG1 SG-1]] through the Stargate. [[BadAssArmy At the same time though...]]
*Mostly averted in the new ''BattlestarGalactica'', as the handful of Marines left on board the ship are highly-trained and are often shown to perform their missions with great percision. On the other hand, the "robot" Cylons are a completely straight red-shirt army, and die in droves in every battle: their programming is inferior to human improvisation, and it takes a long time for them to adapt. Of course, the Cylons that die are then resurrected, which kind of subverts the trope. And through this trial and error they eventually learn from their mistakes and you end up with "Scar", an ace Cylon pilot. They fail to master "ground" combat for the entire series though.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:TabletopGames]]
* In ''{{Paranoia}}'', player characters take on the role of Trouble Shooters, whose job it is to track down trouble in Alpha Complex and shoot it. Given that the [=PCs=] are ''supposed'' to [[KillerGameMaster get in over their heads]] and [[TotalPartyKill die]] [[RocksFallEveryoneDies horribly]], this means the player characters ''are'' the RedshirtArmy. They even start as Red-class citizens, which comes with uniforms in the appropriate color...
* Planetary Defense Forces in ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' are almost uniformly treated as speed bumps by any invader, or for [[TheCorruption Chaos]], a ready supply of expendable minions, generally getting wiped out in the first ten minutes or so of any invasion. The Imperial Guard also fulfills this function when the Space Marines are the protagonists.
** Averted in that some PDFs are as good as their Imperial Guard counterparts. Also justified, as the PDFs best soldiers and units are usually taken to fill up the ranks of the Imperial Guard. Also, it's basically [[CurbStompBattle light infantry vs. the legions of hell]].
** Indeed - look at Sergeant Osmar Adeodatus from {{Damnatus}}, who was both PDF and badass. Mind you, he was hand-picked by the Inquisition, and he is [[ConservationOfNinjutsu the only guardsman we see in the film]].
** The Imperial Guard tend to subvert this, though, for one very good reason. Sure, the soldiers usually fit the RedShirt line. But they also have ''[[TankGoodness tanks]]''. Lots and ''lots'' of tanks.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:VideoGames]]
* The Navy [=SEALs=] in ''[[MetalGearSolid Metal Gear Solid 2]]''. (To be fair, they were doing pretty well until a super-speed vampire and a woman packing an energy shield and a {{BFG}} came along.)
** To be even more fair, it did turn out that [[spoiler:the Patriots sent them in so they would fail]].
** In ''MetalGearSolid 4'', [[spoiler: Snake is held up by an apparent Mook and obediently drops his gun, then turns to face his attacker. He promptly notices that the safety on the Mook's gun is still on and point his out, calling him a rookie. The rookie instantly corrects Snake, stating that he's a ten-year vet. A noticeably confused Snake immediately disarms the rookie and throws him to the ground, wondering how he managed to make it ten years. Oddly enough, despite his bumbling nature, the guy is ''not'' a RedShirt, confusing Snake ''even more'' (he is actually recurring JokeCharacter Johnny Sasaki).]]
** Also in ''Metal Gear Solid 4'', gameplay occurs between a PMC and local army. Both sides are guilty of spawning and then running in front of snipers, gun emplacements, and die quickly.
* The Resistance members in the ''MegaManZero'' games were woefully under-trained and outgunned in every engagement they were in. One wonders how the Resistance was able to hang for so long before Zero came in to save their hides from giant mechs and enemy generals.
** In the third game, the rebuilt Copy X states that he was holding back because resistance leader Ciel is human, and he is (mostly) bound by the first law of robotics. That said, there's probably no excusing the fact that it wasn't just the Resistance fielding an army of redshirts, but also the Neo Arcadian forces. The typical foot soldier of the army, the Pantheon model, has very little purpose in life other than to explode into tiny pieces.
* ''MegaManZX'' has another group of these, the Guardians. They do much better than the resistance, but when Serpent sends his forces to take out the Guardian airship, it's up to Vent/Aile to bail them out... Then again, all they did was destroy an air-ship and fight off the PsychoForHire. The Guardians did most of the work defending their own ship, it seems.
** The Hunters in the sequel get special note for ''averting'' the trope. In fact, they get a CrowningMomentOfAwesome at the beginning of the game for surviving against the resident PsychoForHire, and even ''stole the Biometal out from under his nose''.
* This is also common in {{First Person Shooter}}s. Redshirt Armies can be used as part of the BackStory, explaining why ItsUpToYou. Other times, the Redshirt Army is made up of {{NPC}}s who are pathetically weak, die easily, and can barely shoot, especially when compared with the main character. It's usually difficult to keep these allies alive, and the player is rarely offered any incentive or reward for doing so, beyond, perhaps, personal satisfaction -- or a hefty penalty if they die.
** In the original ''{{Doom}}'', the protagonist's entire military unit is wiped out before the game starts. (Of course, the protagonist then blasts his way through a demon-filled complex that bested an entire unit of elite soldiers.)
** Both ''{{Quake}} 1 & 2'', and the latter stage of ''{{Half Life}}'' are filled with corpses that look exactly like the player character. If only they knew you were capable of single-handedly wiping out all Mooks and defeating the BigBad, they could've saved all those lives.
** ''{{System Shock}} 1 & 2'' also show the RedShirtArmy as deceased bodies waiting for you to take their loot and diaries to finish the job they couldn't.
*** To be honest, player character in ''{{System Shock}} 2'' had the advantage of some illegal neural implants [[spoiler: and guidance of insane AI considering him her avatar, though the latter eventually meant additional BigBad to deal with]].
*** Protagonists from both games also have the advantage of the experience of everyone that died before. For example, most people who died in the early hours didn't know about the cyborg conversion chambers, the CPU core controls on the elevators, and so on.
** Certain games have "plausible" explanations for this, such as ''{{Halo}}'', where the protagonist of the game is unique and inherently superior to normal soldiers. ''Halo'' also does the "senseless loss of life" nod to the other characters, with another NPC ("Cortana") expressing disappointment and regret if an entire unit of Marines is wiped out.
*** In fact, the Marines' AI in Halo is stupid even by "normal soldier" standards. Their {{artificial stupidity}} makes them {{too dumb to live}}.
*** Some of the Pillar of Autumn crew members actually wear red.
** ''RedFaction'''s AI wasn't the best, but your allies were especially terrible. Fellow miners would often die 20 seconds after you meet them, and couldn't at all keep up with the regular {{mook}} ''three''-on-one even with the same weapon.
*** In The ''{{Red Faction}}'' series, the Red Faction soldiers may as well be called the Red Shirt Faction. In fact, in Red Faction II, Echo, their leader, is made a RedShirt himself.
*** The AI in "Red Faction: Guerrilla" isn't much better. Guerrillas last longer than they did in the first game, eventually get weapons on par with the [[spoiler: EDF]], and are smart enough to use cover, but are not nearly as efficient as the enemy, who will swarm you with loads of soldiers and gun your ass down before you can even blink.
* In ''[[FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F.E.A.R.]]'', the protagonist is supplemented (twice) with Delta Force squads, who are very quickly killed (twice). The first group of three are slain by Alma near the very start of the game, and the second group of two are instantly shot to death by Replica soldiers as the helicopter carrying them to the Armacham building lands. To be fair, though, they are taking on an unkillable, psychotic RealityWarper ghost and an army of hiveminded supersoldiers at least a match for them in training and armed with equivalent or superior weaponry.
*** The PS3 version of ''FEAR'' has a bonus mission where you get to play as a team of these guys. It's heavily implied they're able to actually do pretty well against the Replica SuperSoldiers, and they just ''seem'' like they're made out of fail because the resident RealityWarper PhysicalGod keeps curbstomping them.
*** This gets even worse in the first add-on ''Extraction Point'' where you have to practically wade though bodies. The end titles state "No Delta Force operatives where harmed in the making of this game."
***''Perseus Mandate'' has Delta troops fighting alongside you, and are actually somewhat competent, though they die in droves anyway.
***''Project Origin'' inverts this: you ''are'' one of the Redshirts, as are your teammates, but the rest of your team - who are all unaugmented soldiers - are able to regularly survive battles against ATC mercenaries and Replicas.
** Subverted perhaps in ''{{Half-Life}}'' and later Opposing Force (OpFor); security guards could hold their own at medium range and the marine allies in in OpFor could all hold their own in this troper's experience.
*** Indeed, in ''{{Half Life}}'' most individual firefights had the actual RedShirtArmy doing remarkably well against the invading alien forces. It's just too bad that they're trying to kill you, too.
*** Less so with ''Half-Life 2'', with the formerly vicious Antlions now willing to smear themselves upon the enemy for a whiff of pheropod, and your resistance allies faring not much better, though medics certainly proved helpful.
** ''{{Marathon}}'' had the Born on Boards, (Bob, for short) that were the very definition of this trope, existing only to die horribly (by the player or by the Pfhor, it really doesn't matter) while shouting "They're everywhere!" The second game actually gives them pistols; however, they are still more or less useless save for a single prison break operation that amounts to their CrowningMomentofAwesome. Lord knows they deserved it!
** Real Time games, in which the player temporarily controls a unit and micro-manages them, can have this problem as well. Once the player stops controlling a unit, its AI takes over and IQ plummets dramatically. In ''{{Warcraft II}}'', the wizard units have deadly artillery style spells, but, under the AI, attack in hand-to-hand combat.
** Though ''CallOfDuty'' squadmates can be capable in their own right, they merely exist to hold off the {{Mooks}} until you can blaze a trail through them. An interesting aversion are the plot-critical redshirts, who absolutely refuse to take any damage until just after their usefulness runs out.
** Somewhat averted in ''{{Quake}} 4''. Sure, a lot of Marines do die over the course of the game, but hey, it's war. At least they're able to hold their own very well in individual firefights, and they actually ''do'' manage to win the war while the player character merely spearheads the most essential operations. In fact, in most cases when Marines leave the player character it's because they have orders to hang back and secure a checkpoint, rather than because they were killed off by the enemy.
* ''FireEmblem'' green units, unless they're villagers or other non-fighting units, are suicidal. Come to think of it, most enemy units are suicidal too. Plus, in cut scenes, you frequently get to see the green units getting destroyed by fairly weak enemy units.
** Somewhat averted in the tenth game of the series. Not only are the Green and Yellow units able to stand up against the enemies, some of them are just plain necessary to get by a battle with minimal casualties, not to mention you can give orders to the yellow units, to say, block a path of enemies to serve as meat shield.
* ''{{Final Fantasy XII}}'' averts this trope by having wandering NPCs that can help you out in fighting monsters. This troper recalls being helped multiple times by wandering Garif warriors who were picking fights with monsters at random, and also assisted by other adventurers who didn't seem to have anything else to do.
* Also averted in ''{{MediEvil}}'', when Sir Dan summons a group of knights to help him battle the BigBad's minions. The knights Sir Dan summons are actually quite competent fighters, and they need to be-if they die, it's game over.
* ''{{Metroid}} Prime 3'' had an encounter between three Space Pirates and three Galactic Federation Marines. Two of the Marines get gunned down, and then the third activates his PED and owns the Space Pirates on his lonesome. He's not the only PED trooper; in the next room you see one wasting a Pirate who's focused on you, and another shoots down a pipe and kills two of them in one go. The GFM troopers remain fairly competent for the remainder of the game as well.
** Until the obligatory escort mission, of course, where they forget that their mission is to survive. Instead they throw themselves suicidally at enemy forces, despite knowing full well their bodyguard (you) could handle all the combat solo.
* Done almost to the point of parody in the obscure Capcom arcade game ''Tiger Road''. In the intro, some {{Mooks}} kidnap the villagers, then ''a single mook'' stays behind and slaughters the ''entire'' city guard. ''I am dead bleeping serious.''
* Mostly averted in the last levels of ''StarWars: [[DarkForcesSaga Jedi Outcast]]'' and ''Jedi Academy''. In order to show how much less disciplined the [[{{Mooks}} Reborn]] are compared to real Jedi, real Jedi fight and kill them. They still require [[PlayerCharacter Kyle Katarn's/Jaden Korr's]] help to actually make any progress, though.
** ''Not'' averted in ''X-Wing'', ''RogueSquadron'' and other similar flight titles, where allied pilots are about as useless as a sack of hair.
*** But rather ''scarily'' inverted in ''X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter'', where the AI pilots, at higher levels, can sometimes leave the player feeling like a fifth wheel. This make sense as the game was designed primarily for multiplayer, so if the a single player didn't have smart wingmen and enemies, he would get flattened or be unable to keep up in multiplayer against more skilled human opponents and allies.
**Played straight in ''{{Knights of the Old Republic}}'' during the [[spoiler:attack on the Star Forge. The Jedi Council sends you an "elite" strike team of Jedi Knights... all of whom get (easily) killed by the various Mooks the place has to offer.]]
* [=SeeD=] in ''FinalFantasyVIII''. Understandable as, even though they're trained to be elite mercenaries contracted by governments, they're still teenagers with very little real combat experience. Fortunately, they're still able to protect their home base from an invasion by the current military superpower, and hold it off long enough for the protagonists to take down the enemy commanders.
* Whenever a bunch of NPC allies appear in a SuperRobotWars game, ''they will die before the cut scene is over''. The non-OG games usually use [[MobileSuitGundam GMs]] or other weak RealRobots, but the OriginalGeneration games give this duty to the Gespensts. Ironic thing is, BadassNormal and one-man-army Kai Kitamura pilots one of those Gespensts, and just will ''not'' be shot down easily.
** Hilariously subverted in Z's Special Disc scenario. In one route, YOU control the Redshirts (later backed up by the Big O). They have grunt mechs and grunt pilots going against a fairly large group of Mooks. Even without the Big O, they can handle them with decent strategy.
* Oh ''DeadSpace'' army you fail so completely and it's against [[spoiler:'''one standard necromorph!?''']]
* Subverted in the first mission of CommandAndConquer: Renegade. A GDI convoy is ambushed, but with the help of a commando (the player), all the ambushers are killed.
* A mission in ''Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne'' has Kael defending a Draenei village from Fel Orcs. The Draenei return the favor by [[RedShirtArmy allying with Kael]].
* The Hyrulian guards in LegendOFZelda: Twilight Princess. Despite being heavily armed they are completely outclassed by the shadow beasts (to be fair, the same goes for most of the NPCs) and most of them are actually ''shaking with fear'' during the encounter.
*The BSAA troops in ''ResidentEvil 5'' actually do put up a decent fight when onscreen, but offscreen they tend to get surprised and slaughtered by boss monsters - except for those poor bastards in the marshlands, hwo are killed by the Majini. Kind of justified, at least in Alpha Team's case, as they were geared and prepared to arrest a single weapons dealer, and didn't know they were being led into a trap to test Uroboros and the Type 2 and Type 3 Plagas.
** The U.B.C.S. in ''Resident Evil 3: Nemesis'' don't put up much of a fight, unless they were named. Somewhat justified, as Umbrella intended for them to fail so that the Supervisors could collect data on how the monsters fared against trained soldiers. The SWAT team from the start also counts.
***Only three of them mattered anyway: Carlos Oliveira for being the {{Sidekick}}, Mikhael Viktor for his HeroicSacrifice, and Nicholai Ginovaef for being a CompleteMonster. Everyone else is just a random casualty.
*** Hunk aka Mr Death, a GasMaskMook who works for Umbrella ''always'' lives no matter what he's up against while everyone else on his team dies because [[BadassBoost "You can't kill Death"]]
**Who could forget S.T.A.R.S. from the original game? By the time Alpha Team reached the mansion, half of Bravo Team was already dead or about to be dead.
* Longbow in ''CityOfHeroes'' are a paramilitary group who actually wear red, and white. Established by a superhero (the grand daughter of the settings [[AlternateCompanyEquivalent Superman equivalent]]), their costumes and ethos are styled after four-color superheroes, and they even use similar weapons and powers. They're the most common enemy in ''CityOfVillains'', to the annoyance of the player base.
* In the ''{{X-COM}}'' games, you start out with a team of these. Expect casualties.
** It gets worse. If you ever lose one of your trained and effective soldiers (and it ''will'' happen), you get to replace him or her with...Ricky Redshirt. An expected and ''encouraged'' use of your forces is as follows: trained soldiers in the back, tanks (don't improve and are always the same stats) in the middle to take any explosive damage, and Ricky Redshirts in the front, to ''die repeatedly''.
* Poorly trained military in ''DwarfFortress''.
* In ParadoxInteractive games, you can make your own Red Shirt armies--just focus on sheer weight of numbers while ignoring technological advantages or leadership. You can also be on the other end: an advanced, disciplined army will usually kill dozens to hundreds times more soldiers than it will lose.
* In KaneAndLynch, your named team mates (Lynch, Thapa, Rific and Shelly) are suprisingly ''not'' a Red Shirt Army. You'll rely on them a lot, and they can take a lot of fire before they go down. However, in the civil war level 'Freedom Fighters', Lynch, Thapa, Rific and Shelly each get their OWN squad of four men to command, which all die pretty much after one shot. (Given that level is NintendoHard, [[MrD this troper]] can't count the number of times he's heard Lynch say 'We can't afford to lose men at this rate.')
* Pretty much the entire point of ''MountAndBlade'' is to raise a RedshirtArmy and have them fight the armies of everyone opposed to your kingdom. Or just everyone, if you feel like being a total sociopath.
* ''AceCombat'' regularly has the PC flying alongside allied squadrons, but while they do get the occasional kill in they still are considerably less capable than you are.
* Bravo Team in ''{{Doom}} 3'', who gets wiped out before you even find them.
* In 6 Days a Sacrifice, the final game in the ChzoMythos, Theo has an unending supply of [[spoiler:Trilby clones]] to protect him.
* ValkyriaChronicles has the entire Gallian army. Whenever something needs to be [[WorfEfect blown up to prove what dire straits we're in]], it's the army, and eventually [[spoiler:the whole thing gets blown up at Ghirlandaio. No one cares because the army is a bunch of faceless, unsympathetic mooks even to the heroes, and the core group of Squad 7 is more worried that Alicia is capable of an explosion like that than the deaths of some thousands, possibly tens of thousands of people.]]
* Queen Deirdranna of ''JaggedAlliance 2'' uses an actual RedShirtArmy, who wear red shirts. On high difficulty levels you get to kill hundreds of them. That is, until the ''Black Shirt'' elites show up!

[[/folder]]

[[folder:WebComics]]
* In ''{{Goblins}}'', they literally wipe out part of an army by using a shield that triggers random major magic effects whenever it's hit. [[http://www.goblinscomic.com/d/20081010.html]] This tends to subvert the ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy in that the redshirts that do hit are probably doomed while those who miss may live, or perhaps the goblin is doing a redshirt-type act, as in the background it hints at the word "redshirt" not "redshirts" -- which reminds long timers that [[spoiler:the shield is random enough to backfire killing the goblin, upgrading the enemies, summoning weird dangerous stuff, or worse]].
* Averted in OrderOfTheStick where the Azure City Army gives a damn good accounting of itself. Yes, they lose but they take a lot of {{Mooks}} with them and manage a fighting retreat in good order.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]
* The CDF troops in ''Eon Kid'' are a prime example. When their general tells them to guard his defeated foe (who was a VERY dangerous villain), you just know how this will end....
** If you thought it was going to end with "Villain wakes up, pounds the troops, then runs." then you would be wrong. It was more: "New guy pounds the troops, takes other villain and runs." To make it more embarrassing, said new guy was just a normal Flying Mook.
* ''{{Futurama}}''. Suicidal redshirt charges are basically the only page in Zapp Brannigan's playbook.
--> '''Zapp Brannigan''': ''Stop exploding'', you cowards!
** Brannigan even brags about how he defeated an army of killbots by sending wave after wave of redshirts at them until the killbots exceeded their kill limit.
* Subverted in ''{{The Venture Brothers}}''. The OSI's grunts are stunningly effective at slaughtering villainous henchmen. In fact, they seem to enjoy it a little *too* much.
* Averted in ''TeenTitans: Trouble in Tokyo''. The Japanese Self Defense Force is actually so competent, it shocks the heroes. Of course, there's a reason for this....
* In CloneWars, when Anakin Skywalker takes off alone to chase an enemy Force-user, Obi-Wan orders a squadron of clone troopers to follow him and save him from getting himself killed. When the clones arrive, they proceed to [[LetsSplitUpGang split up]] and get wiped out over the course of about three minutes, without ever seeing the enemy. Amusingly enough, clone troopers are the predecessors of [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy storm troopers]], perhaps indicating that the trope is inheritable.
** Um, they were facing ''Asajj Ventress'', who was nearly a match for ''Anakin himself'' at the time. It was a 'trooper trap. The Clone troopers have proven quite capable in pretty much every other Extended Universe depiction, ''including'' said series. The reason the stormtroopers suck is that the Empire had to recruit from the public to have enough for a peacekeeping force, and the clone troopers were pretty much created and raised to be soldiers. Think AK-47 vs. M16; less accurate, but more powerful.
*** Also, in Karen Traviss' novelizations, once you get past the Mandalorian fetish, it's shown that most clones are flash-trained, as in given training cue cards and sent off to fight. The Battle of Geonosis shows that they suffered high casualty rates, [[EliteMook even the ones given special training]].
*** In the last novel, ''Order 66'', the clones that would first comprise the Stormtrooper Corps were ''even worse'' in quality to their predecessors, not even being able to aim a mounted weapon at a doorway.
***Of course that's just Karen Traviss' Mandalorian fetish at work, other writers tend to protral StormTroopers as the EliteMooks they were.
* The Enforcers in ''SwatKats'' serve as nothing more than mere canon fodder against the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Villain Of The Week]] before the titular characters swoop in to save the day.
** To be fair, in the first episode the evil mage summons zombies to take care of two Enforcers. The soldiers simply laugh at the enemies and proceed to gun them down with a helicopter.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:RealLife]]
* TruthInTelevision examples of profound military ineffectiveness [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickett%27s_charge also exist]].
** FinaglesLaw, or Murphy's Law has combat-specific variants to them, which a number of soldiers may feel to have a reasonable amount of truth to them, such as "Everything always works in your HQ, everything always fails in the Colonel's HQ.". Many other variants of them tend to apply well also, such "Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently capable fool."
** While Stalingrad had more deaths, it actually accomplished something. The Battle of the Somme had no effect on the War other to have 1 million casualties, out of which 300 000 was killed. Including over 19,000 in the first day.
--->Somme. The whole history of the world cannot contain a more ghastly word.
** The Roman Republican Army. The Romans tended to lose every battle but the last.
*** A hideous generalization with just a tiny kernel of truth inside...given that republican Roman armies were recruited among small landowners in the first battles of a campaigns they tended to fare a bit poorly since they were little more than a bunch of yokels with basic training...they got better and better in months (and years) of campaign due to experience. Ironically, once the social class of small landowners vanished the Roman empire (republic having ceded the way to imperial rule) started to decay.
*** Also, they tended to make sure battle they had won would be the last battle...
** Ironically subverted by the [[SuperSoldier Spartans]], whose fearsome army was actually dressed in red capes.
** The Spartan's were not the only ones: Garibaldi's RedShirtArmy inverted the trope even ''before'' it existed. First, they ''willingly'' used Red Shirts, and those were actually meant to be used by slaughterhouses workers: a way to tell their ennemies [[BadassBoast "You're not]] [[WorthyOpponent Worthy Opponents,]] [[BadassBoast You're meat"]]. This [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits Ragtag bunch]] of [[BadassCrew Badasses]] sometimes did not even notice that their side lost the war, since they were too busy [[TheRemnant kicking the asses of the ennemy]]. Among other things, they managed to put an end to the rule of two dictators, were instrumental in the unification of Italy, and during the 19th century, when the Red Shirts were somewhere, it was ''the guys on the other side'' who were falling like flies.
*** Of course, a pleasant bonus to wearing red equipment is that [[BringMyRedJacket the blood doesn't show]].
* There actually was an official RedShirtArmy. The Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of God) founded by Ghaffar Khan were known, in the 1920s, as the Surkh Posh, or 'Red Shirts'. They were an entirely pacifist movement, acting upon the principles of civil disobediance. Here is a quote from the founder:
->''"I am going to give you such a weapon that the police and the army will not be able to stand against it. It is the weapon of the Prophet, but you are not aware of it. That weapon is patience and righteousness. No power on earth can stand against it."''
->''Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan''
[[/folder]]

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