Tactics

Similar to Europeans during the Mongol invasions, UN forces believed that Chinese victories were due to simple human wave tactics. In fact, Chinese forces used rapid attacks on the flanks and rear and infiltration behind UN lines to give the appearance of vast hordes. This, of course, was augmented by the Chinese tactic of maximizing their forces for the attack, ensuring a large local numerical superiority over their opponent.[3][4] The PVA also instituted a much harsher form of discipline, where officers were empowered to shoot down immediately any man who violated orders.[5] The initial Chinese victory along the Yalu River was a great morale booster for the PVA and the first Chinese victory over the West in modern times. However, by late 1951, superior UN firepower and Chinese meatgrinder tactics had forced a stalemate. The North Koreans that invaded in 1950 had been much better supplied and armed by the Soviets than the Chinese Army had been. The main arms of the PVA were captured Japanese and KMT arms.[citation needed] Century China's Korean War FAQ written by Dongxiao Yue states that (edited somewhat for typos and grammatical errors): "The PVA's tactics were designed to avoid the UN's advantage of air power and artillery. The PVA used night fighting tactics. It would start an attack when night fell, withdraw and went to cover at dawn, so US airplanes could not harass them. It also used close combat, threw its units into enemy lines, so the enemy artillery could not operate. Another PVA tactic was to infiltrate deep into enemy positions, attack their command posts and artillery positions directly from inside. During the truce talks, PVA invented the bunker war, they would dig very long and deep bunkers in the hills and stock supplies there, when enemy shells the hills, they would withdraw into the bunkers, when the shelling stopped, they came out to fire on the attackers, after the surface positions taken by enemy, they would withdraw back into the bunkers, then PVA artillery would shell the enemy on the surface and they came out the bunkers again to assist the retaking of the hill. PVA's main strategy at the beginning was the socalled "movement war", the main objective was to divide the enemy into isolated pieces and then use superior strength of force to annihilate the encircled enemy piecemeal before enemy reinforcement could be brought in, to do this, PVA uses frontal attacks and simultaneous penetrations to cut directly into enemy rear, cutoff MSR

(main supply route) and withdraw routes, trap enemy units when they tried to redeploy. To understand PLA strategies, one must study the grand campaigns in which PLA wiped out 8 million KMT troops in 2 years, with small casualty of its own. During battles, western forces were usually incapable of correctly estimating the strength of PVA forces, often, they greatly exaggerated the number of attacking PVAs, such as taking a PVA regiment as a PVA division. PVA mostly attacked at night, blowing bugles and wistles, shouting thrills, even play "sweet music" to cause psychological stress, the PVA tactics made western forces feel that the enemy was everywhere from every direction. Moreover, PVAs were masters of infiltration, they often sneaked in and attacked directly on command posts, generating shock and chaos. Western combat history always referred PVA attacks as "swarm of Chinese", "human waves", "Chinese hordes", as if PVA simply threw its men into the fire and let itself slaughtered, such a description indicated a great misunderstanding of the PVA tactics. As some military analysts pointed out, PLA rarely use dense formation in their attacks, it seeks to inflict maximum damage with minimum casualty. At various stages of the Korean war, PVA never had a commanding numerical superioty against UN forces, in fact, during the 4th campaign, it was greatly outnumbered by UN (it was always outgunned), yet it could still outmaneuver UN forces and even managed to counter attack at X Corps. PVA could achieve all these with inferior firepower because it had smarter tactics and strategy[6] Historian and Korean War veteran Bevin Alexander had this to say about Chinese tactics in his book How Wars Are Won: "The Chinese had no air power and were armed only with rifles, machineguns, hand grenades, and mortars. Against the much more heavily armed Americans, they adapted a technique they had used against the Nationalists in the Chinese civil war of 194649. 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. The attacks continued on all sides until the

defenders were destroyed or forced to withdraw. The Chinese then crept forward to the open flank of the next platoon position, and repeated the tactics." Roy Appleman further clarified the initial Chines tactics as: "In the First Phase Offensive, highly skilled enemy light infantry troops had carried out the Chinese attacks, generally unaided by any weapons larger than mortars. Their attacks had demonstrated that the Chinese were well-trained disciplined fire fighters, and particularly adept at night fighting. They were masters of the art of camouflage. Their patrols were remarkably successful in locating the positions of the U.N. forces. They planned their attacks to get in the rear of these forces, cut them off from their escape and supply roads, and then send in frontal and flanking attacks to precipitate the battle. They also employed a tactic which they termed Hachi Shiki, which was a V-formation into which they allowed enemy forces to move; the sides of the V then closed around their enemy while another force moved below the mouth of the V to engage any forces attempting to relieve the trapped unit. Such were the tactics the Chinese used with great success at Onjong, Unsan, and Ch'osan, but with only partial success at Pakch'on and the Ch'ongch'on bridgehead."[7] Historian Bruce Cumings noted that when Chinese soldiers and officers saw how Americans fought the war, they were surprised by how freely the Americans would resort to what they considered to be excessive and unnecessary force. One Chinese soldier stated that if the Americans encountered a single sniper hiding in a village or house, they would invariably call in massive artillery and air attacks, destroying the entire village and killing everyone in it. He asked, "Why do they do this instead of simply sending in soldiers to kill the sniper?" American superiority in military hardware had profound consequences for the Korean people on the peninsula as well as the soldiers fighting the war.