The Korean war

bladerunner said:

Kim Il Sung was really in the Soviet camp and i betcha they would have been secretly annoyed at the NK's for starting the war, as they had unfinished business with the KMT and Taiwan.
Things might have been so different if it hadn't been for the Korean war. Decades ago I remember reading accounts of senior American officers who were with Chiang during WW2 werent overly complimentary of him, so some of those observations might have influenced the politicians, and relations might have become more warmer with CCP, instead of nearly three lost decades.

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I don't think the U.S.-China relation would be much warmer in the 50's and 60's even without Korean War because China was, after all, communist. And during that time, the West was pretty paranoid about ANY communist state.

One example: even in the 1979, when Taiwan was still an authoritarian state under marshal law, US still felt bad about abandoning the island and came up with the Taiwan relation act. Faced with dictatorship (Taiwan in 1979) and communism (China), US at the time still felt a dictator could be consider a friend (actually, I bet many in America still feel the same now).

vesicles said:

I don't think the U.S.-China relation would be much warmer in the 50's and 60's even without Korean War because China was, after all, communist. And during that time, the West was pretty paranoid about ANY communist state.

One example: even in the 1979, when Taiwan was still an authoritarian state under marshal law, US still felt bad about abandoning the island and came up with the Taiwan relation act. Faced with dictatorship (Taiwan in 1979) and communism (China), US at the time still felt a dictator could be consider a friend (actually, I bet many in America still feel the same now).

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I suppose its a case of what came first the cart or the horse. Yes there was a cold war. but perhaps the Korean war would have prevented any warming, and then Mao embarked on spreading revolutions etc which would have given the jitters. But note that Us Relations with the once then Yugoslavia was cordial, perhaps because Tito wasnt shall we say, a Soviet puppet. Note also the US did make a raprochment with Communist China, this might have occured earlier.

pla101prc said:

it'd be helpful if they can actually find photo evidence of human wave tactic being employed during the korean war. they prolly cant. human wave attack was used in Europe during WWII, and American civil war, by the end of WWII no professional army uses it anymore. and as the most experienced army at the time, the Chinese obviously wouldnt use it.

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Human wave attacks formed half the experience of the PLA, via fighting vs the IJA. The other half being against American trained KMT troops. Before writing it off as obsolete and thus not used and only being a propaganda tool why not look at it as a solution to a problem.

Korea isn't flat, so the final charge is not across 2000m of swept ground.

The land hasn't been turned into a crated muddy bog so the pace can be faster than a brisk walk.

Americans, occupying the heights, dug in with more machine guns and the semi-auto M1 Garands and fully auto BARs than the chinese infantry had in equivalent for unit weapons. Plus the Americans had awesome artillery support and total control of the air. All of this was set up to work together. A slow approach by the Chinese gives all of that the time to work.

If you can get enough men close enough, quick enough- you can get inside the perimeter and interlocked fields of fire, and here when its hand to hand, weight of numbers, means more than weight of fire.

This was the basic reasoning behind the human wave attacks in every gunpowder war- get enough men across the swept fire zone to deliver enough weight to carry the position. Since the Chinese had a fire power deficit and Korea was a positional war, rather than a war of movement it is a valid tactic. They used what they have to their advantage to achieve their mission.

zraver said:

Human wave attacks formed half the experience of the PLA, via fighting vs the IJA. The other half being against American trained KMT troops. Before writing it off as obsolete and thus not used and only being a propaganda tool why not look at it as a solution to a problem.

Korea isn't flat, so the final charge is not across 2000m of swept ground.

The land hasn't been turned into a crated muddy bog so the pace can be faster than a brisk walk.

Americans, occupying the heights, dug in with more machine guns and the semi-auto M1 Garands and fully auto BARs than the chinese infantry had in equivalent for unit weapons. Plus the Americans had awesome artillery support and total control of the air. All of this was set up to work together. A slow approach by the Chinese gives all of that the time to work.

If you can get enough men close enough, quick enough- you can get inside the perimeter and interlocked fields of fire, and here when its hand to hand, weight of numbers, means more than weight of fire.

This was the basic reasoning behind the human wave attacks in every gunpowder war- get enough men across the swept fire zone to deliver enough weight to carry the position. Since the Chinese had a fire power deficit and Korea was a positional war, rather than a war of movement it is a valid tactic. They used what they have to their advantage to achieve their mission.

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so you just gave me an american understanding of China's situation and what an american commander would've done. dude you obviously havent read enough of PLA history. first of all PLA conduct offensives mostly at night. how they do it? they get their troops in position (which is really close to american line of defense) the previous night, and stay there for a day without moving (requires insane discipline, many simply froze to death, there was one that was burned alive but refused to move a muscle and another one bled to death). meanwhile they might prefer to have small contingents hitting the UN forces from the rear. and the NEXT night they start the offensive, and if they couldnt take the enemy position by dawn, they retreat. and there is another really famous story, a Chinese unit was pinned down by machine gun fire, and this one dude, after failing to take it out with grenades, simply went up and blocked the machine gunner's view with his body. by your theory, the Chinese can just "overwhelm" them, they would never be "pinned down".this is not omaha beach where American forces really has no other choice because they've gotta get their troops off the boat, so you end up having this one German machine gunner getting like a thousand kill counts. the only thing that would convince me is a photo similar to that of the omaha beach on d day, except with all the Chinese ppl and on mountains instead of water. otherwise i am just gonna brush it off as an American defense for their inability to defeat an army who's equipment is like a million years behind theirs.

the only thing that would convince me is a photo similar to that of the omaha beach on d day, except with all the Chinese ppl and on mountains instead of water.

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I wish my Uncle Burton that served in the US Army for 24 years were still alive. I'd have him tell you first hand about human wave attacks and what sort of tactics the Chinese used in the Korean war. But he's not. So you believe what you will.

zraver said:

Human wave attacks formed half the experience of the PLA, via fighting vs the IJA. The other half being against American trained KMT troops. Before writing it off as obsolete and thus not used and only being a propaganda tool why not look at it as a solution to a problem.

Korea isn't flat, so the final charge is not across 2000m of swept ground.

The land hasn't been turned into a crated muddy bog so the pace can be faster than a brisk walk.

Americans, occupying the heights, dug in with more machine guns and the semi-auto M1 Garands and fully auto BARs than the chinese infantry had in equivalent for unit weapons. Plus the Americans had awesome artillery support and total control of the air. All of this was set up to work together. A slow approach by the Chinese gives all of that the time to work.

If you can get enough men close enough, quick enough- you can get inside the perimeter and interlocked fields of fire, and here when its hand to hand, weight of numbers, means more than weight of fire.

This was the basic reasoning behind the human wave attacks in every gunpowder war- get enough men across the swept fire zone to deliver enough weight to carry the position. Since the Chinese had a fire power deficit and Korea was a positional war, rather than a war of movement it is a valid tactic. They used what they have to their advantage to achieve their mission.

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During the WWII, Chinese communists were mainly using guerrilla warfare, which depends a lot on surprise attacks and fast manouvers. So I don't the CHinese gained any experience on "human wave" in fighting the Japanese.

Again, two popular views of the commonly used tactics by PVA in the Korean war contradict each other. One view is the human wave. The other is that PVA attacked at night. The defender doesn't have to change his tactics in defending against a human wave either at night or during the day. There should be bright enough even at night to see a wave of human coming at you, not mentioning the amount of noise made by potentially tens of thousands of people coming at you at full speed and supposedly yelling war cries. You see a blob of people, you blast! No need for precision. This would be true no matter what time of the day it is. Thus, using human wave totally negates any benefit of fighting at night. I don't think PVA, as experienced at fighting technologically superier enemies as they were, would do something this dumb.

However, there have been many battles in Chinese history, where one side applied tactics to confuse enemy at night. This, of course, involved making noise everywhere to make it sound like they were coming at you from all directions. I have no doubt that many of these tactics were used in the Korean war.

bd popeye said:

I wish my Uncle Burton that served in the US Army for 24 years were still alive. I'd have him tell you first hand about human wave attacks and what sort of tactics the Chinese used in the Korean war. But he's not. So you believe what you will.

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LMAO i wish my grandfather was still alive to tell you what sort of tactics they used to confuse the American troops, cmon you aint the only one here with relatives that fought that war.

vesicles said:

During the WWII, Chinese communists were mainly using guerrilla warfare, which depends a lot on surprise attacks and fast manouvers. So I don't the CHinese gained any experience on "human wave" in fighting the Japanese.

Again, two popular views of the commonly used tactics by PVA in the Korean war contradict each other. One view is the human wave. The other is that PVA attacked at night. The defender doesn't have to change his tactics in defending against a human wave either at night or during the day. There should be bright enough even at night to see a wave of human coming at you, not mentioning the amount of noise made by potentially tens of thousands of people coming at you at full speed and supposedly yelling war cries. You see a blob of people, you blast! No need for precision. This would be true no matter what time of the day it is. Thus, using human wave totally negates any benefit of fighting at night. I don't think PVA, as experienced at fighting technologically superier enemies as they were, would do something this dumb.

However, there have been many battles in Chinese history, where one side applied tactics to confuse enemy at night. This, of course, involved making noise everywhere to make it sound like they were coming at you from all directions. I have no doubt that many of these tactics were used in the Korean war.

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exactly, the communists have been fighting a million years of guerilla wars and movement wars, y would they suddenly change to something that they rarely use? if you look at the Lin Biao doctrine...which the PLA still uses today, human wave tactic would be applied at only one point, which is when there is a rift in the enemy's defense, and you want to pour as many troops through as possible. but that's not the same as driving your troops into enemy fire.

vesicles said:

During the WWII, Chinese communists were mainly using guerrilla warfare, which depends a lot on surprise attacks and fast manouvers. So I don't the CHinese gained any experience on "human wave" in fighting the Japanese.

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They fought several pitched battles against the Japanese. it wasn't all hit and run.

Again, two popular views of the commonly used tactics by PVA in the Korean war contradict each other.

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only if you assume there is a contradiction.

One view is the human wave. The other is that PVA attacked at night.

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The two are not mutually exclusive and in fact support one another.

The defender doesn't have to change his tactics in defending against a human wave either at night or during the day. There should be bright enough even at night to see a wave of human coming at you, not mentioning the amount of noise made by potentially tens of thousands of people coming at you at full speed and supposedly yelling war cries.

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If those people started on the other side of the valley under a full moon sure. But nights can be cloudy just like the day and block ambient light. Plus the final charge to get to the wire is not a WWI style walk across hell but a dash.

Thus, using human wave totally negates any benefit of fighting at night. I don't think PVA, as experienced at fighting technologically superier enemies as they were, would do something this dumb.

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Your assuming its dumb, one of the hardest things to do is control troops at night. Effective control under bad lighting requires a closer grouping. This grouping also allows the attacker to mass, and hopefully have the mass remaining to take the objective.

However, there have been many battles in Chinese history, where one side applied tactics to confuse enemy at night. This, of course, involved making noise everywhere to make it sound like they were coming at you from all directions. I have no doubt that many of these tactics were used in the Korean war.

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And none of that has squat to do with how to get across the final 50-100yrds or so of swept ground. At some point no matter how careful you are, no matter how disciplined you claim to be you have to get up and make that sprint. Plus, if your force moving oh so carefully at night is spotted during the day by an OP or UN aircraft you either attack with what you have, or get the snot bombed out of you.

pla101prc said:

so you just gave me an american understanding of China's situation and what an american commander would've done. dude you obviously havent read enough of PLA history. first of all PLA conduct offensives mostly at night. how they do it? they get their troops in position (which is really close to american line of defense) the previous night, and stay there for a day without moving (requires insane discipline, many simply froze to death, there was one that was burned alive but refused to move a muscle and another one bled to death).

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what if they are spotted? Chinese plans worked about as well as US or anyone elses plans. After the intial route the Chinese offensives tended to fail after all, just like the UN's attacks.

meanwhile they might prefer to have small contingents hitting the UN forces from the rear. and the NEXT night they start the offensive, and if they couldnt take the enemy position by dawn, they retreat.

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Why would they willingly create a gap between them and the Americans so the UN aircraft could come in and safely bomb? Not to mention that if your pulling back at dawn, your moving during daylight hours and movement= visibility

and there is another really famous story, a Chinese unit was pinned down by machine gun fire, and this one dude, after failing to take it out with grenades, simply went up and blocked the machine gunner's view with his body.

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ok, and your point? Would you like me to recite the stories of American heroes?

by your theory, the Chinese can just "overwhelm" them, they would never be "pinned down".

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I don;t know how you read that into what I wrote.

this is not omaha beach where American forces really has no other choice because they've gotta get their troops off the boat, so you end up having this one German machine gunner getting like a thousand kill counts. the only thing that would convince me is a photo similar to that of the omaha beach on d day, except with all the Chinese ppl and on mountains instead of water. otherwise i am just gonna brush it off as an American defense for their inability to defeat an army who's equipment is like a million years behind theirs.

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First, have you been to South Korea? If not for the UN ability to defeat the PVA there would be no South Korea.



^ that is an awful lot of bodies.