The only reasonable version of "Human waves" I've ever heard is that during the Korean war the Korean and PLA troops had very limited radios. Fighting at night without radios, they'd send an assault group forward, wait ten minutes, and then having heard nothing back from the assault group they'd send the next group forward to join the assault.
This would normally be fine, since they assumed if the assault was repulsed the group would retreat back to them and they'd know not to send the next group. But what allegedly happened was the communist troops were either wiped out, or pinned down and unable to retreat, so the next group and next group and so forth were being sent in to a meat grinder due to poor command and control.
I don't know if it's true, but it makes slightly more sense than "lol we have more men than they have bullets" or whatever the fuck.
Even wikipedia points out that the "human wave attack" thing is a US invention and born out of racist confusion upon seeing short attack tactics
A typical Chinese short attack was carried out at night by numerous fireteams on a narrow front against the weakest point in enemy defenses.[29] The PVA assault team would crawl undetected within grenade range, then launch surprise attacks against the defenders in order to breach the defenses by relying on maximum shock and confusion.[29] If the initial shock failed to breach the defenses, additional fireteams would press on behind them and attack the same point until a breach was created.[29] Once penetration was achieved, the bulk of the Chinese forces would move into the enemy rear and attack from behind.[31] During the attacks, the Chinese assault teams would disperse while masking themselves using the terrain, and this made it difficult for UN defenders to target numerous Chinese troops.[32] Attacks by the successive Chinese fireteams were also carefully timed to minimize casualties.[33] Due to primitive communication systems and tight political controls within the Chinese army, short attacks were often repeated indefinitely until either the defenses were penetrated or the attacker's ammunition supply were exhausted, regardless of the chances of success or the human cost
So yeah radios made these go on too long, but the whole thing was an actual tactic and hardly waves being thrown
In response to the media's stereotype of Chinese assault troops deployed in vast "human seas", a joke circulated among the US servicemen was "How many hordes are there in a Chinese platoon?"
The only reasonable version of "Human waves" I've ever heard is that during the Korean war the Korean and PLA troops had very limited radios. Fighting at night without radios, they'd send an assault group forward, wait ten minutes, and then having heard nothing back from the assault group they'd send the next group forward to join the assault.
This would normally be fine, since they assumed if the assault was repulsed the group would retreat back to them and they'd know not to send the next group. But what allegedly happened was the communist troops were either wiped out, or pinned down and unable to retreat, so the next group and next group and so forth were being sent in to a meat grinder due to poor command and control.
I don't know if it's true, but it makes slightly more sense than "lol we have more men than they have bullets" or whatever the fuck.
Even wikipedia points out that the "human wave attack" thing is a US invention and born out of racist confusion upon seeing short attack tactics
So yeah radios made these go on too long, but the whole thing was an actual tactic and hardly waves being thrown