On contrast, army of pro soldiers and mercenaries who become super humans present a genuine threat even if they are at lvl 1. Remember what was Michail capable on even without powers. Those goons would be weaker but their numbers and discipline, teamwork combine with skills would compensate lack of quality here
I think you're forgetting something here in regards to Superhumans, while the MC is a special case we've seen others soar fast in their training with their powers civilian or otherwise, the best example would be Jake.
Yes he had Ella's 'help' (if you can call it that) but he was able to take on MC who had far more experience and was stronger in comparison to Jake and was a proper threat despite being weaker physically to MC.
So a good portion of those level 1s probably will get proper training even if they pale in comparison to what those soldiers had to go through in the past. I'm sure plenty of people there with the former hair dresser were level 1s but yet they didn't buckle like she did.
Michael is also another special case he's been training since youth and its already been stated in class that a human could kill a level 1 (at least from what I recall) and we see as such with him vs Oscar although Michael was on the drugs Alice and him uses.
Yes, the soldiers with their training and know how could deal a death blow to many of the untrained or not so confident members of HERO but how many of those former soldiers are rusty or kept up with their training? We don't have a number on that but I'm sure despite them being rusty it won't take too long to get back up to speed.
But all it takes is for 1 high ranking HERO member to show up and it'd be GG for all of those soldiers even if there is a good portion of them they pale in comparison to a level 3 or above.
If you remember the class lessons I believe the teacher mentions that a level 1 and 2 fall very much short of a level 3 so imagine if 1 shows up in a fight between the soldiers of SIN and the untrained of HERO those soldiers are getting their shit is getting rocked, its akin to throwing a rock at a tank.
I like to imagine this scene from Resident evil where Nemesis went up against STARS (an elite group of soldiers)
Now imagine that ol Nemesis is a level 3 while all those stars are level 1...its not gonna be a good time for those level 1s.
Shitttt we got to see it this update too with the MC vs the goons in ol langy's office (who were level 1 or at most level 2).