History Main / RedshirtArmy

** In the music video for "Hootsforce", the good guys' space submarines keep being blown up by Zargothrax's ships until [[TheHero Angus McFife XIII]] personally knocks him out with the Hammer of Glory.

** In the music video for "Hootsforce", the good guys' space submarines keep being blown up by Zargothrax's ships until [[TheHero Angus McFife XIII]] personally knocks him out with the Hammer of Glory at the very end.

** In the music video for "Hootsforce", the good guys' space submarines keep being blown up by Zargothrax's ships until Angus [=McFife=] XIII personally knocks him out with the Hammer of Glory at the very end.

** In the music video for "Hootsforce", Zargothrax's ships keep blowing up the good guys' space submarines until Angus [=McFife=] XIII personally knocks him out with the Hammer of Glory at the very end.

Then they died.''\\

** In the music video for "Hootsforce", Zargothrax's ships keep blowing up the good guys' space submarines until Angus McFife XIII personally knocks him out with the Hammer of Glory at the very end.

* ''Music/{{Gloryhammer}}'': The dwarves that fight Zargothrax in "Apocalypse 1992":

('''Zargothrax''': MWA-HA-HA-HAA)

* ''LightNovel/HeavyObject'': Units attached to Objects serve as this, primarily existing to die in droves in order to support their Elite and inconvenience the protagonists. The 37th Maintenance Battalion is no exception aside from the protagonists and a handful of [[MauveShirt side characters like Myonri]] who lived long enough to get a second appearance.

* ''LightNovel/RebuildWorld'': Hunters in general end up like this, being PrivateMilitaryContractors cut down in droves by Kain’s MiniMecha, or in the UrbanWarfare in Mihazono, for instance. For Katsuya who leads BoisterousWeakling young Drankam hunters, the loss of his forces like this is PlayedForDrama with his SurvivorGuilt. While for several other named hunters like Kurosawa, Tatsukawa, Mercia, and Xellos, they put TheMenFirst and lead their hunters well, keeping casualties to a minimum since they aren’t burdened by being a GlorySeeker like Katsuya.
* ''LightNovel/StrikeTheBlood'': The Island Guard. They haven't managed to kill or subdue a single monster on their own, but are almost always victims of a CurbStompBattle. It's quite questionable why people want to become an Island Guard with the high casualty rates. Is the pay really that good?

** The Hunters in the sequel get special note for ''averting'' the trope, in fact, they survive the resident PsychoForHire, and ''stole the Biometal out from under his nose''. The only losses they sustain are the two Hunters who stumbled upon Gray's capsule and accidentally tripped the alarms and even then, the one surviving member, after his partner got killed, ''managed'' to take out the Galleon patrols despite being outnumbered 1-4 before eventually dying.

* The Atlas Army of ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'', who seem to exist to show how dangerous the villains are, because MilitariesAreUseless.

** [[DefiedTrope Defied]] in Chapter 16 of the original. Wanting to minimise the influence that EvilSorcerer Shamuhaza has on his troops, which would lead to a fight on two fronts and hence more casualties, he decides to press on with his apprentices towards the hornet's nest, leaving his troops at the less problematic outskirts.

* Each of the ''Literature/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 army (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 army will survive or not: Several Mauve Shirts in the series actually came from Cain's (more successful) escort missions.

* ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'': Grogs are mundane minor characters who do ordinary jobs for MagicalSociety, like guarding gates and binding books. This serves them well enough in day-to-day life. In a magical adventure, they tend to get killed, possessed, stolen by fairies, laid low by magical plague, and/or afflicted by other ButtMonkey misfortunes.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'', the Imperial army, led by Shang's father, stakes out at a village in a mountain pass they expect Shan Yu and the Huns to take to the Imperial City. Unfortunately, thanks a doll from the village providing the Huns with GPSEvidence, the army ends up getting KilledOffscreen, with the recruit army discovering the aftermath. It helps to demonstrate how vicious the Huns are.

* Sadly, this fate befalls the supposed "elite" army in ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'', led by Shang's father. It's to demonstrate how vicious the Huns are.

* In ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars'', 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.

* The titular Red and Blue armies of ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' are an ''invoked'' version of this trope. [[spoiler: They're made up of the most expendable soldiers in the army, told to fight a made up war, so Project Freelancer can have a realistic training environment for their elite agents.]]

** Lampshaded in ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'' with one of the Marines' [[StopPokingMe annoyed]] lines: "Has anyone else noticed how no one seems to come back IN to the barracks? They happen to be so expendable that when medics where introduced in ''Brood War'', their lifespan has extended... to a whooping ''nine seconds''.

* In ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' any army that doesn't have a main or plot important character in it is dead meat. There's also what happened to a lot of the Hawk's Raiders whenever the Hawks went up against an Apostle. [[spoiler:Or what happened to nearly ''[[SacrificialLion everyone]]'' in the entire Band when the Eclipse went down]].
** It's easy to believe the band of the Hawk consists of only Guts, Casca, Griffith, and the Raiders. Their actual numbers are somewhere around 5,000 men, but all focus is put on the former mentioned members.
* In ''Manga/{{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.
** Lampshaded and acknowledged when the captains acknowledge there's maybe ten people in Soul Society who are up to fighting with [[BigBad Aizen]], they know it, ''and they make up the bulk of the Gotei 13's fighting power''. Also, Ichigo is apparently twice as strong as they are, which is why they suck compared to him.

** The rebel group Katharon of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00'' 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.

* ''Anime/{{Macross}}'':
** The regular UN forces in ''Anime/Macross7'' and later ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'' (who in both cases were 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 PrivateMilitaryContractors).

* In ''VideoGame/BattlefieldBadCompany'' and ''Bad Company 2''; the player's squad are the members of the titular unit. Bad Company is sent in ''before'' the specially-trained assault troops; because those guys are "too expensive to waste". So technically, you are a member of one in those games. And you ''[[AvertedTrope get the job done]]'', better than any "[[TakeThat special-ops douche-bags]] with [[VideoGame/ModernWarfare pussy-ass heartbeat monitors on their guns]]".
** The regular United States Marines during the mission High Value Target could be counted as a redshirt army, given that no matter what, every single one of them dies during or immediately following the ambush.

** ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor: Allied Assault'' has similar plot-important redshirts who sometimes spontaneously die after they have served their purpose. Unlike COD's, they completely lack PlotArmor, [[EscortMission requiring you to protect them]].

* In ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'', while the main character (an engineer in his forties, in average shape) is able to dispatch Necromorphs by the dozen, a military ship (~100 soldiers) is taken over by a single, bog-standard, non-replicating Necromorph. [[EpicFail Fail]]. This can be somewhat justified by the fact that standard military weapons are less effective against necromorphs. However, even that necromorphs are more resilient to body shots than dismembering, they CAN be killed that way, it just needs a lot of firepower (about whole ammunition clip, depends on difficulty). Which fully armed warship with contingent of marines definitely HAD. So that's a very weak excuse. Clearly,, the government should send their marines to engineering school.

*** Not that that wasn't a realistic loss on their side though. In the minute or so following the power grid failure you can see hundreds of Necromorphs if you point a flashlight out the window. That's more then Isaac ever had to contend with at any one time. Also note that the military force was equipped with firearms designed to kill humans, which are much less useful on necromorphs than repurposed mining equipment due to fact that necromorphs are vulnerable to dismembering, not to body and organ puncturing. Isaac can utilize even those weapons against necromorphs effectively, however considerable skill and expertise are needed for them to work, which the soldiers probably didn't have. Standard body shots are going to kill a necromorph eventually, but it takes much more time than dismembering. Against one or a few necromorphs this could stand, but as they were being overrun by such immense numbers, they couldn't stand a chance.
*** In addition to the above point, the massive Necromorph swarm was spearheaded by the Ubermorph, which is invincible. The marines would have lost if that one had sauntered in alone.

* While [=NPCs=] have varying degrees of effectiveness in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'', the cutscene where the Warden encounters the Archdemon atop Fort Drakon plays this trope straight, as a company of soldiers is fighting the dragon just as you appear on the scene. The dragon quickly disposes of them all, leaving you to face it alone (barring any troops you may summon).

*** It was mentioned before the battle that the army had already won three major battles against the darkspawn, so the plan quite possibly would have worked. Considering that in the final battle the [[KeystoneArmy darkspawn start retreating once you kill the Archdemon]], that probably was the plan; make the battle enough of an impending loss that the Archdemon itself would have had to intervene, where it would be engaged by the [[BadassArmy Grey Wardens]] among the army.

* Poorly trained military in ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress''.
* With a few exceptions, every single soldier and generic officer in ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'' is there to get wiped out by the non-generic ones.
* The {{Mooks}} of the ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriorsGundam'' games are pathetically weak, and exist only to get killed in massive droves by the Aces of each team. They can very occasionally capture enemy fields or even take down Aces, but generally only if said field/Ace has been severely weakened first.

* The Resistance members in the ''VideoGame/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. To their credit from about half-way through the second game the Resistance manages to AVOID this trope, since Zero pledges to keep any more redshirts from getting killed, and [[IGaveMyWord he keeps that promise!]] 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 {{red shirt}}s, 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.
* ''VideoGame/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, even aiming to score clean hits to minimize the debris that falls to the cityscape below.
** The Hunters in the sequel get special note for ''averting'' the trope. In fact, they survive the resident PsychoForHire, and ''stole the Biometal out from under his nose''.

** In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'', the Marines on the tanker get effortlessly slaughtered by Russian mercenaries. Then they just stand around doing nothing while Ocelot murders their commanding officer and sets off explosives to sink the ship. Later on, the Navy [=SEALs=] are 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]].

* ''VideoGame/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|s}} ''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.

* The BSAA troops in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'' 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, who are killed by the Majini.

*** Hunk aka Mr. Death, a [[GasMaskMooks gas mask soldier]] who works for the Umbrella Special Forces unit ''always'' lives no matter what he's up against while everyone else on his team dies because [[BadassBoast "You can't kill Death"]]
** S.T.A.R.S. from the [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil1 original game]]. By the time Alpha Team reached the mansion, one of their own members is already dead (Frost), half of Bravo Team is dead too (Dooley, Dewey, Sullivan, and Speyer), two of the other members were mortally wounded (Aiken and Marini) before they were later killed off as well, and only Chambers (depending on how you play the game) manages to survive with Redfield and Valentine (and Barry Burton if playing as Jill; although Rebecca doesn't appear in that scenario, they all survive according to WordOfGod).

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Resistance}}'' series, the soldiers are often treated as red shirt, killed in scripted events for the introduction of new Chimera enemies, killed in other scripted events, though it is possible to save a few from a few scripted events where you could still move.
** In R:FOM's case, they were more than redshirts, seeing that you are the only survivor out of the [[EverybodysDeadDave entire army that were sent/left to defend England]].

* G.U.N. in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' and ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog''. On one hand, you got the basic robotic mooks, easily taken down by spin attacks. On the other, you have the actual humans who are competent enough to capture the world's (naturally) fastest hedgehog ''twice''. In ''Shadow'', though, it's not uncommon for the UltimateLifeform to have to go save a few along the way.
* Lampshaded in ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'' with one of the Marines' [[StopPokingMe annoyed]] lines: "Has anyone else noticed how no one seems to come back IN to the barracks?

*** 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 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.

* Whenever a bunch of NPC allies appear in a ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' game, ''they will die before the cut scene is over''. The non-OG games usually use ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam GMs]]'' or other weak {{Real Robot|Genre}}s, 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.

See GideonPloy for when no such army is arriving.

* The Ottoman Army in ''Film/DraculaUntold''. A MillionMookMarch against a small number of vampires, while Dracula settles things with Mehmet in his tent, to save his captive son. By the time he's done and gets out of the tent, [[KillEmAll the vampires left absolutely no survivors]]... [[AndYourLittleDogToo except one]].