Human wave tactics do not work especially against modern troops with assault rifles and SAWs at fireteam levels (Korean firepower was same as WWII – BAR/Bren backed up by Garand/Lee Enfield).

Context of this discussion is that technologically inferior but numerically superior PLAAF fighter jet force would use the classical XXXX wave attack to break through the defensive line of USAF and USN fighter jets during the Invasion of Taiwan and the Invasion of Diaoyu Islands.

Surely even the Chinese understand this or are they too stupid and primitive?

The fighter jet wave attack is the only way the PLAAF can break through the US air defense line.

The experience in Korea is irrelevant to modern warfare – after all we’ve had 70 years of tactical and weapons revolution since then.

The PLA used the human wave attack in 1979 in Vietnam, a mere 34 years ago.

Both version is true and false at the same time.

When the accounts from multiple parties(American, British, Korean, and Turkish) say the same story, then it is true.

Imaginary soldiers…

Imaginary soldiers do not leave a pile of dead bodies after each charge.

Yet no one has any proof of what human wave actually is aside from being press lingo that gets repeated over and over again.

The “Human Wave Attack” is a classic Chinese military tactic where the offensive force organizes its troops in a long “column formation” and try to break through the enemy defensive line at any cost and sacrifice.

They will take on heavy early casualties

So we both agree that the human wave attack result in massive casualties.

Quite typical tactic employed not only in Korea but already proven successful in the civil war.

In case of western battles, western commanders pull their troops out if the casuality rate rises too high. The PLA commanders never pulled their troops out, instead kept sending more troops so that the troops in front had no place to go but to go forward.

Yes Inuits do freeze to death

But rarely.

And stop being a racist.

The PLA troops were far better adapted to the cold weather than the UN troops were save for the ROK troops. You can tell from the PLA soldier’s clothing that they were better dressed for the cold weather than the UN troops were.

Chinese soldiers dressed for cold weather.

Being born from a cold climate doesn’t magically protect you from the elements.

Surely if you are the native of the cold climate region; people of the cold climate region feature genetic adaptation to cold climate. This is the reasion why the human wave attack of January 1951 worked; the temperature of North Korea was too cold for much of the UN troops to function and even the equipment froze and didn’t work, and this is why the poorly equipped and trained, but otherwise cold adapted PLA troops was able to break through the UN defensive lines.

Its called poor logistics and the chinese recognize that.

Once again talking about Eskimos mass freezing to death, I see.

More fiction.

Not only did Chinese use it for 2000 years, even the Mongols learned the tactic from the Chinese and used it during their conquest of China. Mongols put Chinese prisoners in the front and made them charge in the classical “human wave attack”, and Chinese government troops fired upon the first wave. When the defenders were exhausted shooting down helpless Chinese prisoners, the Mongol troops moved in for a kill.

Why not study PLA from PLA accounts

The PLA won’t even acknowledge the massive loss they suffered and insist they were victorious with propaganda movies.

Speaking of Korean War movies, there are two movies about the Battle of Chosin Reservoir being shot, one in Hollywood from American perspective and one in China. You can watch both and can tell who’s telling the truth when both are released.

BTW Why in hell would anyone mass all their troops in one place, attack with everything you got and then leave a big opening in defense lines?

Because more bodies are coming.

The more you flaunt the Human wave theory the more of an amateur you look.

The human wave attack is a well-documented and well-studied Chinese battle tactic that is taught at war colleges around the world. You claiming it otherwise doesn’t change historical facts.

Peng De Huai wrote a memoir. I guess you never read that too.

What’s the point of reading a memoir by the one who ordered human wave attack and won’t acknowledge half a million troops that fell as the consequence?

Stop making things up. PLA suffered the most casualties to cold climate due to the inadequate logistic capabilities of PLA back then.

The troops that were sent to North Korea were the residents of Manchuria and Northeast China, who are used to coldness. It’s like saying that Eskimo froze to death. It’s not like the PLA drafted Southerners.

Peng De Huai had “limited” troops in hand.

Maybe limited by the Chinese standard whose mobilization numbers in the millions.

He can’t just throw them away.

But he did, hence the reason why the PLA suffered more casualties than all other combatants combined(North Korea inclusive), and the fatalities reached as much as 50% of all troops.

Bull. None of the troops sent to Korea was new conscripts.

So you missed the testimony of how the PLA troops were made to “volunteer”.

They were all veterans from the civil war and there is a limited supply.

Then the PLA must have fought the Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese civil wars without guns, because that’s exactly what happened, the first wave of human wave in charge were untrained and unarmed volunteers whose role was to force the UN troops to waste bullets and artillery shells on them, so that the seasoned veterans could taken on the depleted UN troops.

Which was why US army felt highly of the quality of troops after first contact with PLA (they didn’t know it was the chinese at the time)

???

An army of fresh conscripts would be combat ineffective. Only an amateur would suggest that.

Chinese have been fighting wars with farmers for 2000 years, even these people have uses in the classical Chinese human wave attack tactic.

The 117S was cleared for export several years ago.

If China just wanted the engines, they could have just bought a big enough batch of them alone. Russia would have no reason to not agree.

For the same reason Russia wouldn’t sell 117S to Americans. It is actually worse for China’s case because China has a territorial ambition toward the Russian Siberia, while the US has no territorial ambitions on Russia.

Cruise missiles are the modern age human wave.

Cruise missiles don’t shoot down fighter jets.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/03/navy-stealth-plan-b/

If the Military’s Future Stealth Jet Fails, the Navy’s Got a Backup Plan
By David Axe
03.25.13
6:30 AM

A Super Hornet lands aboard the carrier U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Photo: Navy

The U.S. Navy is carefully backing away from the troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program — and putting in place a backup plan in case the trillion-dollar, jack-of-all-trades stealth jet can’t recover from mounting technical and budgetary woes. So much for the F-35 being too big to fail.

The Navy’s Plan B is still taking shape. But its outlines are coming into view, thanks in large part to recent comments from its top officer. It involves fewer F-35s (the Navy’ll still buy some) and more copies of the older Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet carrier-based fighter, which the Lockheed Martin-built F-35 was originally meant to replace. In the unlikely event the F-35C — the naval version of the radar-evading plane — gets canceled, the Super Hornet could be upgraded past its current shelf life. The twin-engine F/A-18E/F is already getting new weapons. Extra fuel tanks and some stealth treatments could be added as well.

With improvements, the Super Hornet could equal the Joint Strike Fighter’s combat capability, albeit with different tactics — and, admittedly, this is highly debatable. The Navy is working to make the F/A-18E/F a long-range missile-hauler with some optional stealth qualities, as opposed to the fully stealthy F-35 designed to slip past enemy defenses at close range and drop guided bombs before sneaking away.

The Navy has already budgeted for a new 500-mile-range anti-ship and land-attack missile for the Super Hornet and this year will also be testing overwing fuel tanks that could add hundreds of miles to the jet’s range, possibly allowing it to out-distance the F-35. The F/A-18E/F could also get extra radar-absorbing coatings and a stealthy underbelly pod for carrying all its weapons — though the Navy has yet to fund these options.

In many ways, a shift from the F-35 to an enhanced F/A-18 is the comfortable move for the Navy. The sailing branch has long favored the kind of stand-up fighting the Super Hornet is best at. While current Air Force war plans call for F-22 and B-2 stealth planes to covertly infiltrate enemy territory, the Navy foresees using radio noise-generating Growler jamming planes to overwhelm enemy defenses and allow the Super Hornets to strike.

Well clearly that changes everything.

So Lockheed must have conducted corporate espionage to gain F-15s nonexistent FBW for use in the F-22. Poor McDonnel douglas

More like the F-22’s FBW has nothing to do with F-15C/D/E’s hydraulic controller.

The J-20’s FBW on the other hand is clearly related to the J-10’s FBW, and the J-20 should be less agile than already not so agile J-20 because of the extra weight and size.

“Human wave” tactics was fiction even in the 1950s. PLA always mass accordingly after force reconnaissance. Sometimes due to fierce resistance of US troops in Korea, PLA overestimates enemy strength and uses more troops than otherwise necessary. This is what gave the impression of “human wave”.

There are plenty of books, documentaries, and witness testimonies to confirm that what the PLA did was a classic Chinese “Human Wave Attack”(The actual Chinese word for it is “Human Sea Tactic”)

What Chinese human wave attack does is to continue pushing a massive amount of troops without a regard for a casualty rate; the loss of 20,000~30,000 troops per day was acceptable as long as the objective was achieved. What makes the Chinese human wave attack different from Western military charge is that while western troops pull back when the loss is high, Chinese don’t, continuing to make the charge until they break through the enemy line. You see this on Chinese dramas taking place before the time of Christ, as this was the only way to overrun the defensive wall of a city.

I don’t know of any tactician who would blindly throw all his men at the enemy. That’s just ludicrous.

Mao’s generals did exactly that.

Concentration of strength is the norm in any military operation.

And the attacker always expects to suffer more casualties than the defender.

The difference is that while western commanders pull his troops out when the casualty rate gets too high, Chinese commanders don’t.

This is why the PLA suffered more loss than all other combatants including North Koreans combined in the Korean war, half a million troops to be exact, because of the Chinese “human wave attack” tactics that disregard the casualty rates and only cares about achieving the objective of driving the enemy out of the position.

Hence any sane military tacticians would strive to deploy greater numbers, especially in offensive operations.

Western commanders generally have a fixed size of troops. Chinese commanders basically have an unlimited troop size. Whatever they lose today will be replaced by new conscripts tomorrow, and the central command doesn’t complain about high troop loss rate.

Another point: the Viet Cong were not Chinese. But then those Asians (or commies?) are all the same, right? :rolleyes:

It is easy to forget such things when there is an underlying racist narrative of the not-quite-human Asiatic races into which observations are packaged.

Human wave attack is used in countries with a large population where life tend to be cheap.

Human wave attack is not used in countries where human life is expensive or is democratic. For example, Taiwan of today will not use it because a Taiwanese citizen’s life is not cheap, even though the KMT used it back in the mainland days.

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2009/08/rand-study-now-china-wins-taiw.html

RAND study: Now China wins Taiwan Straits air war
By Stephen Trimble on August 4, 2009 7:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (35) | TrackBacks (0) |ShareThis

Nearly 10 years after a RAND study predicted the US side easily beats China in an air war over the Taiwan Straits, the think-tank has published a new monograph online today that reverses its former opinion.

Now, a People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) bristling with a newly acquired arsenal — including Su-27 and J-10 fighters, AA-12 and PL-12 missiles, and short-range ballistic missiles — defeats the US side. Moreover, the PLAAF defeats the US side with or without F-22s, with or without access to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa and with or without the participation of two US carrier battle groups, according to the monograph.

RAND’s analysis “suggests that a credible case can be made that the air war for Taiwan could essentially be over before much of the Blue air force has even fired a shot. Threats to Blue air bases and a more evenly matched qualitiative balance combine to paint a very troubling picture.”

Personally, I would be careful to trust any military analysis that states — on two occasions — the US Marine Corps flies F/A-18E/Fs (… er, no, not in this lifetme). But the overall facts in RAND’s air war scenario appear very persuasive, at least to this observer.

In a war over Taiwan, China may think twice about striking sovereign Japanese territory on Okinawa, or sovereign US territory on Guam. But RAND’s analysts are prudent to assume that the PLAAF’s strategy would seek to maximize its chances of success in a battle over the future of Taiwan.

The scenario assumes a 27:1 kill ratio for the F-22, 4.5:1 kill ratio for the F-15 and a 2.6:1 kill ratio for carrier-based F/A-18E/Fs, which seems to reflect conventional wisdom. But that’s not hardly enough. By striking Kadena and Taiwan air bases with missile attacks, the PLAAF can generate 3.7 times more sorties than the blue forces. On the first day, the PLAAF loses 241 jets compared to 147 jets for the Blue forces, including one F-22. But the PLAAF still dramatically outnumbers Blue forces and wins the war of attrition.

The following was originally hosted at aviation week but the link expired, so I post a substitute.

http://chinanewsses.blogspot.com/2013/01/china-promises-new-advanced-fighter.html

A veteran combat pilot with insight into the F-22 program says building an advanced fighter, even if it did not match the F-22’s or F-35’s performance, could be a serious threat to the U.S. stealth fleet if the new aircraft are built in large enough numbers to overcome an allied force through sheer attrition.

“Those fourth-generation fighters, when pitted against 187 F 22s in large numbers, will eventually wear [the stealth fighters] down,” says an aerospace industry official. “They only carry eight air-to-air missiles. They don’t have to match Raptor capabilities if they build an advanced fighter in F-35 numbers.”

China’s “XXX wave attack”, aka the war of attrition, is a fact, not a speculation, among war planners and combat pilots. After all, Chinese have been fighting the war of attrition before the time of Christ.

1: air superiority out to the second island chain without need of extensive tanker support.

China struggles to break through the first island chain, much less second.

This plane does not have the weapons bay to carry good sized AShMs

Which is easier, battling USAF/JASDF/USN fighters or simply launching anti-ship missiles from 150 km distance and turning back?

would defeat the purpose of developing a stealthy fighter with all these extra control surfaces that a striker wouldn’t need.

The J-20’s FBW system is a carry over from the J-10’s FBW system. This is the reason for the eurocanard layout.

if it were a striker it would have a weapons bay more suited for the role and have less control surfaces that would be necessary for a highly maneuverable air to air platform.

Reusing the J-10’s FBW system is a lot simpler than actually trying to develop a unique FBW system. This is why the J-20 has lower ventral fins(A big no no for a stealth jet), just like the J-10.

Not to mention the stupidity of spending $$$ to develop a stealthy plane that would be able to carry two measley subsonic AShMs at most that can be fired at less than 200km of its target that would probably be taken down by SM-6s or ESSMs or even RAM and phalanx without a shrug.

That’s what the DF-21D is for, the YJ-83 moves in for a kill while the DF-21D distracts the Aegis escorts from above.

3: They don’t really need one per se; JH-7/A/B, J-16/MKK can fulfill the role of long range strike decently

They cannot evade the detection and will be shot down on its way.

As for the mentioning of diaoyu islands — those islands are literally a couple of rocks.

And the passage to the Pacific Ocean.

Even if china “took” them, they won’t allow the PLAN to break into the pacific easily.

The PLA would turn Diaoyu islands into fortress with SAMs and ground launched anti-ship missiles, making it difficult for the US Navy and JMSDF to operate in the area and provides a cover for PLA Navy ships sailing to the Pacific Ocean.

It’s interesting though. Many people keep thinking J-20 isn’t developed to compete for air superiority with the opfor’s best, well then one has to ask if PLAAF are content with letting F-22s rule the skies from now to until when they do eventually field an air superiority fighter?

The PLAAF intends to battle the F-22 with sheer numbers, not with equal-capability fighters of its own. It is well-known that the PLAAF can defeat the USAF defenders if they outnumber the American jets 5:1 and this Chinese tactic of “fighter jet wave attack” has been well studied in the US by RAND corporation.

Of course, this tactic requires a sacrifice of hundreds of Chinese fighter pilots to achieve the objective, but the Chinese military strategists don’t seem to mind.

China never had/have a real problem to gain a safe passage to the Pacific Ocean for decades already with much weaker long range forces at hand.

In the peace time, no.
In the war time, yes of course.

The reality is that the US can choke China into submission during a military confrontation, and this is why Chinese leaders are so desperate to find a safe passage during wartime.