Great Fictional World War III book (China & allies VS US & allies)

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

As I stated, when you are on the ground, and at the point of attack you are vstly outnumbered (and clearly this was a result of proficient planning for the PLA), then the distinction is simply a matter of symantics.

Click to expand...

There is a clear distinction. It is not a matter of semantics. Human wave attacks involve mass attacks with lines of infantry bargin openly into the attacker in successive lines. The chinese tactics used in Korea were not even resembling human wave attacks. They used large numbers, but secretly moved in and surrounded forces, attacking from all sides. There is no similarity there except that large numbers were used. However, the tactics are completely different.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

Vlad Plasmius said:

There is a clear distinction. It is not a matter of semantics. Human wave attacks involve mass attacks with lines of infantry bargin openly into the attacker in successive lines. The chinese tactics used in Korea were not even resembling human wave attacks. They used large numbers, but secretly moved in and surrounded forces, attacking from all sides.

Click to expand...

We continue to argue about "distinction" and, IMHO, wording...and that is fine. My point is simple, a soldier on the ground being beset by large, overwhelming numbers of enemy on all sides, who just keep coming and who then has to fight for his life to get the hell out of there alive, will not note or care about the distinction, however clinically it may be explained in the classroom.

I have spoken to people on numerous occassions who were there. However much you and I call it one thing or another, they used the term waves of Chinese soldiers relentlessly attacking. Enemy s who picked up the arms of their own dead and continued to advance in the face of murderous fire until the Americans either withdrew or were overrun and died. Unless you believe in such a large battle that the PLA committed all of their troops with no reserve (and I do not believe that), then successive groups of Chinese were thrown into the fight in that manner as the Americans withdrew.

That's my only point and I am content having made it, irrespective of the classical distinction or definition.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

Vlad Plasmius said:

Yes, but they were not wave attacks in the slightest. Petty described it pretty well. They took a large force and surrounded smaller forces slowly and overwhelmed them at close range. These were not wave attacks. Your description of Chinese tactics seems to enforce the old stereotype that somehow prevails in the U.S. that the Chinese will just use massive numbers to overwhelm an enemy and pay not attention to tactics or strategy.

I can believe wave attacks from the GIR because Iran actually used wave attacks against Iraq and even more so given the other nations incorporated into it.



Except, it is. The Chinese were able to demolish U.S. forces. Whether you or a Korean War veteran would take kindly to that analogy or not, it is still apt. It stronlgy emphasizes the extent to which we lost. It wasn't a slow and sloggin withdrawal. It took them little more than a month to force us back. All this despite the Chinese being an "inferior" force. It was a thorough and brutal thrashing. Yet you have the Chinese devolving from even these early tactics.

I actually liked a lot of the book, I just think it could have been much better had you emphasized more realism in regards to the Chinese and focused more on the military matters than politics.

Click to expand...

My opinion on ths matter seems to fall somewhere in between Vlad's and Jeff's. I agree with Jeff on the point that the US and UN forces did not get crushed and it was not a "brutal thrashing" but I agree with Vlad when he says the Chinese did not really use wave tactics (with a few notable nuanced exceptions).

As I stated before, the Chinese were able to surround or nearly surround large numbers of American troops. They did this not through slogging forward regardless of casualties into the teeth of american firepower but instead but finding weakspots in the flanks, inflitrating overland (yes) overwhelming strongpoints regardless of losses when necessary. This resulted in making most Allied defensive postions unteneable and forced retreats. However the important distinction between "defeat" or "retreat" and "knocked around like a cheap (I don't think the price really matters) hooker" is that the Americans were almost always able to keep the lines of retreat open despite superior numbers of Chinese threatening the roads. When they failed to keep the lines of retreat open they were able to blast them back open with airpower like at the Chosin Resivoir. So the US managed its defeat and was able to restabilize the line. Why? Well on that count both Jeff and Vlad are right. The Americans were forced to put distance between themselves and the Chinese (Vlad) and the Chinese suffered such heavy casualties and lacked a lot of motor transport so that they were not really able to follow through and move into South Korea (Jeff).

As for the book, I'll just reiterate my stance that it was good but was a bit to overtly political.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

One has to remember that the PVA often uses large numbers of surrendered ChiNats (Nationalist Chinese), and ordered them to charge at the enemy with guns pointed at their backs.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

crobato said:

One has to remember that the PVA often uses large numbers of surrendered ChiNats (Nationalist Chinese), and ordered them to charge at the enemy with guns pointed at their backs.

Click to expand...

Could you provide support for your claim.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

Originally Posted by Vlad Plasmius
Yes, but they were not wave attacks in the slightest.

Click to expand...

Vlad, I had an uncle(Now deceased) that served in the US Army in Korea in actual combat against the N. Koreans and Chinese.. From my rememberance of his discriptions of the fighting tactics of the Chinese they did indeed use a "human wave" tatic.

Vlad, you can call it anything you want. But that what it was.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia's entry on "human wave attack". In Korean war, the Chinese army had no way of outgunning the Americans. So they outnumbered them. But they don't march to enemy's forwardlines like a parade. They divided, hid and infiltrated to form an encirclement. They delayed wiping off the enemy encircled, for the chance of hitting enemy reinforcement. This worked quite well in the mountaineous north, but not as well in the flat south where the enemy could move quite fast and it was not easy to hide.

Human wave or not, it is really a matter of personal taste, on some level. Call it human wave if you like. But I think it is not an accurate descriptor and it is stereotypical.

*** quote starts ***
Korean War

It is widely believed that such tactics were employed widely and successfully by the North Korean and Chinese armies during the Korean War, because to the UN troops, the enemy seemed to be everywhere, for example at the battles of the Chosin Reservoir and the Imjin River.

However, while massed infantry attacks were used, what the North Korean and Chinese forces actually used is more aptly described as infiltration assault. With UN air superiority, any concentration of Chinese armor or artillery, to support the infantry, would have invited instant air attack and almost as instant annihilation. The Chinese employed infiltration tactics to mitigate their inferiority in terms of available artillery and air support, finding it was necessary to bypass their enemies forward lines and complete an encirclement before heavy fighting began. By beginning their attacks at night and only when in close proximity to their targets, the UN could not use its artillery and air power without endangering their own troops.

...The Chinese generally attacked at night and tried to close in on a small troop position — generally a platoon — and then attacked it with local superiority in numbers. The usual method was to infiltrate small units, from a platoon of fifty men to a company of 200, split into separate detachments. While one team cut off the escape route of the Americans, the others struck both the front and the flanks in concerted assaults.

—Bevin Alexander, How Wars Are Won
*** quote ends ***

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

This argument about wave seems to be mostly semantics, and will vary depending on whose viewpoint you are looking at. For brevity's sake, if simply focusing on that of the Americans the seemingly never-ending flow of Chinese soldiers would most certainly seem like a wave in that they just keep coming.

Now from a tactical standpoint it was a mixture of encirclement and other strategies but as infantry you don't really focus on that, if the enemy in front of you keeps coming it looks like something else. So it all depends on who's talking, and both terms are correct, although the word "wave" may seem misleading to some and cause misconceptions about what actually happened.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

This argument about wave seems to be mostly semantics, and will vary depending on whose viewpoint you are looking at. For brevity's sake, if simply focusing on that of the Americans the seemingly never-ending flow of Chinese soldiers would most certainly seem like a wave in that they just keep coming.

Click to expand...

Exactly! To paraphrase my Uncle "B".." Those "blankety blank" "mo-fo's" where every friggin' where!".or words to that effect. I hadda clean it up.

My uncle was in the US Army from 1942 until 1968. He died in 1979.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

From my rememberance of his discriptions of the fighting tactics of the Chinese they did indeed use a "human wave" tatic.

Vlad, you can call it anything you want. But that what it was.

Click to expand...

I can certainly call it what it was and you can call it what it wasn't. However, the end result is I'm still right.

Human wave attack is a military term describing a type of assault performed by infantry units, in which soldiers attack in successive line formations, often in dense groups, generally without the support of other arms or with any sophistication in the tactics used. The tactic is usually found in conscript armies, whose poor training leaves them little tactical flexibility. The term has come to be used as a pejorative.

Click to expand...

Now compare that with this:

The Chinese generally attacked at night and tried to close in on a small troop position — generally a platoon — and then attacked it with local superiority in numbers. The usual method was to infiltrate small units, from a platoon of fifty men to a company of 200, split into separate detachments. While one team cut off the escape route of the Americans, the others struck both the front and the flanks in concerted assaults.

Click to expand...

Source:

That reflects a great deal of tactics. It's certainly not some mindless bull rush, which is the implication with "Human wave". It's usually used to denote that very thing, a mindless bull rush. People often use it with China because of the old steroetype about the population's size. While certainly the Chinese could just mindlessly bull rush any enemies and defeat them, they do not prefer such tactics and like any military will look to preserve as many of their soldiers as possible.

Given how well the PLAN is reflected in the book I would have hoped for the same with the other branches.