Soviet Human Wave Attacks

[ATP]

You want to do the maintenance on that tank / change the inner tracks?

Nope.But that would be soviet army...and since when anybody there cared about soldiers ?
They not only lost million+ soldiers during meanless counter attacks near Leningrad,most of those soldiers never was buried till our times.
When germans payed for reclaiming body of practically all german perished there - they all have tombs in Germany now.

If soviets do not care that their soldiers bdies still lies in forests,why they should care about how some tank crews feel ?

 

[Vargas Fan]

Nope.But that would be soviet army...and since when anybody there cared about soldiers ?
They not only lost million+ soldiers during meanless counter attacks near Leningrad,most of those soldiers never was buried till our times.
When germans payed for reclaiming body of practically all german perished there - they all have tombs in Germany now.

If soviets do not care that their soldiers bdies still lies in forests,why they should care about how some tank crews feel ?

God all these Soviet wave myths need to sod off and die. They would care because if nothing else a tank that's not maintained is going nowhere. Besides the maintenance issues of a cold war era Soviet tank have absolutely no relevance to WWIi infantry tactics, or is this just an excuse for an anti Soviet/Russian hateboner.?

 

[ATP]

God all these Soviet wave myths need to sod off and die. They would care because if nothing else a tank that's not maintained is going nowhere. Besides the maintenance issues of a cold war era Soviet tank have absolutely no relevance to WWIi infantry tactics, or is this just an excuse for an anti Soviet/Russian hateboner.?

Then interesting,how all surviving germans from East Front talked about facing that wave myth on battlefield.
And it have revelance - if commanders do not care about how many soldiers die,they also do not care how hard they need to work.

 

[Vargas Fan]

Then interesting,how all surviving germans from East Front talked about facing that wave myth on battlefield.
And it have revelance - if commanders do not care about how many soldiers die,they also do not care how hard they need to work.

The human wave myth has been soundly disproved though. The sort of tactics shown at the beginning of Enemy at the Gates for instance were meant to be shown as propaganda. You're also ignoring the fact that you brought up infantry tactics and the way the troops got treated there and applied them to tank crews. If tank crews get killed or injured they can't exploit a breakthrough.

Also German commanders said a lot during the war and after the war, not all of it was true. Trying to explain to Hitler how they lost battles, its easier to say they were overwhelmed by sheer numbers, and Western commanders were told a lot of stuff by surviving German commanders, a lot of which was exaggerated, for example the whole 'clean Wehrmacht' myth and that it was only the SS that was involved in atrocities.

As to derivatives of the T-55, China has the QN-506 in development. A turreted AA system on a Type 59 hull. Why this hull I'm not sure unless they have plenty to spare, but I think they were also proposing going the way of the Marconi Marksman system where it could be fitted to a variety of hulls.

Army Guide

Army Guide - information about the main battle tanks, armoured vehicles and armament of the land forces and also the information concerning other army subjects - QN-506, Fire support vehicle, Armoured Vehicles

www.army-guide.com

 

[JagerIV]

I would assume being rushed feels like a human wave, even if its a complicated assault. Though that's also dependent upon what you mean by human wave: like, roman legions could be described as a human wave, even though when you get down to it there's a lot more complicated stuff going on. And, well, it doesn't actually take very many people to get something that feels like a human wave.

For example, the below looks like a huge wave of people, right?

Attack - Soviet Forces | Gallery

www.ww2incolor.com

(only posted at link because source not secure)

But, everyone in that photo counted up is only about 30-40 people. Attacking over, guessing, about 30-40 meters of front. So, the above, at least what we can see, is only a platoon level assualt. Assuming were only seeing, say, 10% of the actual advance, so this is really a 1km wide advance, your talking about an attack wave of only about 500 people, so a battalion scale assult in this assault wave.

Now, if I was the German forward outpost with my own platoon, being hit by that would certainly feel a lot like a human wave. And keep in mind the spacing above is only about 2 meters per soldier in a line: closer ranked attacks did happen, either because the terrain required it, or sometimes poor training. I remember one of the early war stories of American trainers watching in horror as Chinese soldiers were marched Nepoleonic style into a prepared Japanese line to obviously catastrophic results. I would not be surprised if occasionally, especially early on, that some infantry might have been thrown against enemy positions in parade type orders. Probably not the norm however.

 

[BlackDragon98]

[REDACTED]

 

[ATP]

About the whole human wave infantry charge thing.
The Soviets did not use such tactics during WW2. They did use infantry charges, but the formation was loose and spread out, like in that picture @JagerIV posted.
However, during the early months of 1942, densely packed infantry charge may have occurred, as the Soviet troops at the time were primarily recruits straight out of training (which was probably rushed due to the situation). The majority of the pre-war Soviet forces were all POWs by that time, and untrained/poorly trained recruits probably charged at the Germans in a disorganized mass, as the Soviet counterattacks ordered by Stalin during early 1942 all ended in total disaster, with Soviet casualties being 20-100 times the number of German casualties.

In China though, it was a different story.
The majority of KMT troops were poorly trained and poorly equipped, which meant human wave infantry charges were quite common during the first 2 years of war.
The only exception to this were the elite German trained divisions, which were both well equipped, well trained, and highly motivated.
My great-grandfather was a 2nd lieutenant in one of these German trained divisions and he was dispatched with a squad of reinforcements to Shanghai in 1937 before his training was even finished (things were going badly for the KMT) and even then he knew to keep his squads (he was supposed to be in command of a 10 man squad, but heavy casualties among junior officers saw him commanding 30-40 men instead) spread out in loose formations. Otherwise a single artillery shell could mean the end of his entire command.
In his journals he also commented on the futility and stupidity of the KMT High Command deploying their precious few tanks in a environment that saw them trapped and eliminated by IJN naval arty and IJAAF air strikes.

Soviets used such tactic from war with Finland till at least 1942.For very practical reason - NKWD squads behind them could cut down anybody who do not attacked,which was impossible if they used normal tactic.
During Lenino /1943/battles polish soldiers were used that way,as a result about 600 played dead and later surrender to germans.
There was even one battle when soviet partisant attacked polish,and get scythed by both our LMG and soviet HMG schooting them in back/yes,soviet partisants have their own small NKWD squad/

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Okay, so according to @ATP, actual evidence should be outright ignored because if it was true, a widely disproven myth about barrier troops wouldn't work either! This guy probably thinks Hollywood movies portraying the Soviets in WWII are factual documentaries. . .

 

[ATP]

Okay, so according to @ATP, actual evidence should be outright ignored because if it was true, a widely disproven myth about barrier troops wouldn't work either! This guy probably thinks Hollywood movies portraying the Soviets in WWII are factual documentaries. . .

Nope - only reports of fin and german troops who fought that wave attacks.Becouse german could lied about number of destroyed tanks or planes,but they do not lied about enemy tactic.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Nope - only reports of fin and german troops who fought that wave attacks.Becouse german could lied about number of destroyed tanks or planes,but they do not lied about enemy tactic.

This is not even remotely credible unless you can provide citations to these supposed "reports".

And still ignoring verified facts, like only outright penal units had actual NKVD barrier squads, and there's no evidence that NKVD actually machine-gunned retreating soldiers as imagined in American movies.

 

[BlackDragon98]

[REDACTED]

 

[Vargas Fan]

Oh for f**ks sake, not this human wave shite again.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

And this source also supports @ShadowArxxy
Only penal units had NKVD troops behind them.

More precisely, only penal units had full units of NKVD troops behind them, because it was *correctly* anticipated that they were far less reliable than regular troops. Regular units *did* have barrier units at some times, however these were chosen from reliable veteran troops seconded to NKVD, not organic NKVD units. These functioned as military police units with an emphasis on shoring up discipline and preventing *panicked* retreats, not the comically evil stereotype of sitting comfortably back from the "real" fighting and machine-gunning hapless conscripts for failing to throw themselves en masse at the Germans.

 

[PsihoKekec]

Oh for f**ks sake, not this human wave shite again.

It's ATP, it's one of his idiosyncrasies, just like his belief that German kill claims are 100% true.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

It's ATP, it's one of his idiosyncrasies, just like his belief that German kill claims are 100% true.

Which if they where the Russians wouldn't have had any tanks or aircraft. A good rule of thumb is to divide WWII kill claims by between 3 and 6(depending on a variety of factors)to get something close to the real figures

 

[Vargas Fan]

Which if they where the Russians wouldn't have had any tanks or aircraft. A good rule of thumb is to divide WWII kill claims by between 3 and 6(depending on a variety of factors)to get something close to the real figures

I remember even the 1969 movie Battle of Britain had a segment like that, where 3 pilots had claimed the same Heinkel. This one had stood out due to having Wing Leader markings.

"A third of a kill laddie"

 

[ATP]

This is not even remotely credible unless you can provide citations to these supposed "reports".

And still ignoring verified facts, like only outright penal units had actual NKVD barrier squads, and there's no evidence that NKVD actually machine-gunned retreating soldiers as imagined in American movies.

It's ATP, it's one of his idiosyncrasies, just like his belief that German kill claims are 100% true.

Sigh.And when i said so? nobody claims was 100% true.Difference is,that european and american was true in 50-70%,when soviets were maybe 10-20%.

And about human wave - soviet soldier,Nikolai Nikulin was used in such attacks,survived becouse as radioman he rarely was send on front lines,and after soviets fallen he wrote book about it/Sołdat/

Why soviet "veterans" rarely spoke about it? he once come to "veteran" club after 1970 - and meet there political officers,higher ranks and soldiers from rear echelon which never saw battle.Except him only real veteran was some cripple.

Why higher ranks ? company and platoon commanders come with soldiers and died with them.From battalion level they send their soldier to die.He once saw drunked battalion commander who boasted to his political officer,that he just killed his battalion so he could come to rear for new recruits and have fun.

But,back to tanks - first tank was invented in A-H before WW1,but they decided not to produce it.Lack of money - but for calvary regiments they have it.If they only disbanded few....
A-H would not produce much,but germans could made them.