The Military Thread

You needn't wait unless your eyes are too fixated on the mainland's sources; Taiwan/the Republic of China, where 75,000 PVA prisoners chose to go instead of returning home, is a gold mine for research regarding the PVA. It also helps that a huge chunk of PVA troops were originally conscripted former Nationalist ones in the first place. Such testimonies are plentiful in most Korean War histories nowadays, and regarding your description of Chinese tactics, I can recall seeing a documentary where a former PVA officer IIRC by the name of "John Chao" explained that a Chinese "assault" greatly resembled that of the infamous charge scene from Enemy At The Gates; he mentioned something about an attack being typically organized into three waves, but only the first would be carrying weapons - those in the second and third waves would be expected to pick up dropped weapons from the casualties of the first. According to him, the purpose of the first wave was to ensure that the U.N troops' machine guns either expended their ammunition or overheated so that a window of opportunity for the second and third waves can be exploited.

Yes, an Ivan's War for the PVA currently exists, albeit it covers the strategic and political levels more intensively as well - Russell Spurr's Enter the Dragon: China's Undeclared War Against the U.S. in Korea, 1950-1951 would be recommended for you.

edited 25th Jul '14 6:49:07 AM by FluffyMcChicken

Their waves strategy just led to the inevitable exchange between the machine gunner and the supply officer:
"What are those rags out there?"
"Dead reds, sir."

edited 25th Jul '14 9:01:02 AM by entropy13

I'm reading this because it's interesting. I think. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, over.

I've actually read that a few months ago—all praise be unto the University of California public library system. I wasn't aware of the Taiwanese published sources, though. Enter the Dragon was focused somewhat higher up, if I recall: excellent reading and scholarship, but didn't have quite what I was looking for at the lower-level/individual soldiers' view (I could be remembering wrong, and I probably am, looking at the book's blurb). Still, I remember it being good enough that I'll probably try to get another copy from the county library system.

edited 25th Jul '14 10:47:39 AM by SabresEdge

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

China's aircraft carrier puts naval ambitions on show

I'm reading this because it's interesting. I think. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, over.

It's easy to overlook the ROC's/Taiwan's plentiful information on the subject due to the complexities behind it being also "Chinese" in a way - I've tended to notice a discrepancy regarding testimonies of the Chinese way of warfare in Korea, with mainland sources pushing the notion that there was more tactics that Zerg Rush while Taiwanese/ROC sources criticizing these statements as trying to look good and tacticool, insisting that the reality was Darker and Edgier because otherwise so many U.N troops wouldn't be recalling stories of massive waves of charging Chinese such as those that John Chao, who eventually was voluntarily repatriated to Taiwan, described.

Many of those "common" mud and blood testimonies can be found in your average Korean War history book that at least tries to be well rounded on the international scale, particularly Max Hastings The Korean War and David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter. If you just want to get straight to the action however, then Richard Peter's Voices from the Korean War, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin contains interviews with soldiers from literally all respective sides and factions of the conflict.

In related news regarding the Korean War from the point of view from the Chinese, how often has anyone seen a work of fiction with a PVA protagonist set during the Forgotten War? I recently stumbled along Catherine Aerie (must be a pen name, sounds too rare and exotic to be original) and her Dance of the Spirits on Amazon some weeks ago, which has been received quite favorably going by the user reviews. According to description and the reviews, the book deals with how a female Chinese surgeon, believable as in all communist armies, ends with a U.S Army lieutenant at some point - which is downright unbelievable as damningly impossible as it sounds. Yet, the swarm of positive reviews has my eyebrows curled along with its extremely niche setting of the Korean War seen through from a communist perspective has me signed up for an order.

Going back to your other post:

Testimonies by PVA troops seem to indicate that in any case, they froze more than their U.N opponents; their standard issue cotton parkas were easily permeable and also cheaply and poorly produced (haha ), hobnailed or even basic leather boots were a precious luxury that could only be pulled off a usually dead U.N soldier, so your average PVA xiao-bing pao-hui (little soldier cannon fodder) was marching in horribly pathetic wooden clogs or cloth moccasins, and the simple commonly agreed fact that they had an absolutely backwards logistical system guaranteed that they were stuck with what they had as long as the war was on. Plus, most of the soldiers of the PVA weren't very experienced with cold winters in the first place; instead, they hailed from the warmer and more temperate southern regions of China, which traditionally had more sympathies with the Nationalists during the civil war. You see, the Communist Party was pulling a huge Uriah Gambit by sending in thousands of former Nationalist troops along with countless others potentially sympathetic to the old regime; the People's Volunteer Army was in fact marketed to the Chinese people in a way no so different from the old French Foreign Legion, a venture with allowed its members to start anew from their less than proud pasts and prove themselves to their country as loyal citizens. In the same excellent documentary that featured the interview with John Chao, a U.S Army soldier bewilderedly remarked how some Chinese soldiers were seen charging into battle on frostbitten stumps that were once their feet using their rifles as crutches.

It ain't tactical anymore when it involves a full 200,000 man field army man, saying that would be like comparing an olympic marathon to a weekend jog in the park.

Yes, Manstein gets the credit for playing out of the situation like The Chessmaster he was renowned to be. However, it was Hube who must be given the award for actually commanding the encircled forces and preventing something akin to Stalingrad Mk. II; the alternative name of the battle is known as "Hube's Pocket" after all. Unfortunately for the Germans, the successful breakout of the pocket only delayed what was to be Operation Bagration, and led Hitler into believing that future pocket battles could be overcome in the same manner.

edited 26th Jul '14 12:51:46 AM by FluffyMcChicken

It was mostly the successful breakouts of the kessel at Demyansk and Kholm in early 1942 that contributed to Hitler's mania with encircled troops holding out to the last or being supplied by air when surrounded - that was in place well before Kamenets-Podolsky. That and his belief that his orders to stand firm during the winters of '41-2 had saved the German Army from total disintegration.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

and:

Don't forget that Nazi-era German military doctrine had each unit fighting it's own war. I think "Hube's Pocket" was the battle Frank Chadwick was referring to. He said that the "pocket's" formation should never have happened. But for one commander going solo.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be a case on The First 48

This post was thumped by the Eldritch Flyswatter of Horror

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Link redirects to what I suspect is a no-hotlinking image.

"Yup. That tasted purple."

Huh. Works for me. Hold on a sec.

EDIT: Fuck it, never mind. Sorry.

edited 26th Jul '14 11:51:21 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

It's not as far fetched as it sounds actually; during the Third Battle of Kharkov, the Soviet 3rd Tank Army participated with only an estimated 50 tanks. Yet, it was actually considered to be one of best equipped and most experienced Soviet fighting formations out of all those that participated in the campaign.

True, but everything that I've read on the subject regarding that whole Hitler (Forward Defense) vs Manstein (Mobile Defense) controversy indicates that, while it certainly started with those earlier pocket battles that you mentioned, Hube's Pocket served as the final piece of "evidence" that Hitler's strategy was "working" from his view, especially considered the fact that it took place late during the war when the tide was quite clearly turning against the Reich. A simple glance at The Other Wiki, however credible it may be, points out that Hube's Pocket was absolutely the largest kesselschlacht yet concerning manpower and resources; the German forces encircled at Cholm/Kholm were at about a division's strength, while Demyansk involved about a German corps of around 130,000 or so pitted against an estimated 300,000 Soviets. As the latter gained in strength and momentum while their opponents weakened over the course of the war, the scale and ferocity of the pocket battles grew to the limit that they reached with Kamenets-Podolsky, with an entire 200,000 strong field army being trapped by the total (500,000) equivalents of two army groups. What Hitler failed to see was that Hube's Pocket would be ultimately the unstable lid on the German jar of successful pocket battles, as the catastrophic experience with the German 7th Army in the Falaise Pocket coldly demonstrated to everyone but him.

Hube's Pocket also occurred at the same time that Hitler and Manstein were on the end of each other's patience regarding strategy, with the former finally relieving the latter of command of Army Group South just as the 1st Panzer Army was making its successful getaway. I'll quote the final paragraphs of World At War magazine's article on the subject:

edited 26th Jul '14 4:08:34 PM by FluffyMcChicken

Culminating for the winter, perhaps. Talk about self-delusion on a massive scale: six months of buildup and then the huge counterpunch in Belarus for Bagration probably caused Hitler to rethink a bit.

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

But is it really relevant when Hitler was finally convinced that pockets and desperate last-stands were the way to go? He acted, in his strategic decisions and personal comments, like he was convinced of them: after Stalingrad, for instance, when he ranted that the 6th Army should have "formed a hedgehog" like fucking Romans.

Hube's Pocket might have fed his delusions, but his love of having other people make heroic sacrifices on his behalf was already well in evidence as early as 1941.

Hitler wasn't big on rethinking. His strategy is so incoherent anyway, that its quite hard to determine if he actually thought he was changing tactics in the final months or if he thought some brilliant plan in his head was still clicking forward.

edited 26th Jul '14 4:29:31 PM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

I was going to say 40-50 tanks is actually quite a few tanks.

Who watches the watchmen?

True. Basing your strategy on being surrounded and then punching your way out is hardly the mark of sanity.

I know Demyansk mainly from the Soviet Airborne contribution. It was a small one—the big airborne operations took place elsewhere in the Rzhev battles and then the absolute failure of the Dniepr River crossing—but it still involved two battalions, so it got some mention in Glantz's study on the topic. The role the VDV played on the Eastern Front is something that really deserves more attention.

Yes for a regiment or a division or so, I'd think. When there are only 40-50 tanks in a Panzer Army, the formation's gone seriously understrength. No wonder the Soviets' tempo slowed for the springtime; they needed to build back up to strength.

edited 26th Jul '14 4:19:36 PM by SabresEdge

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

The Soviet Navy too, who didn't bat an eyelid when Barbarossa came and were hitting back with everything they had (not much, but still) from pretty much day one. Soviet Naval Aviation even raided Berlin.

edited 26th Jul '14 4:31:30 PM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Probably because most of the Reich's naval assets were tied up in the Atlantic. Although a Soviet submarine did manage to put two into Tirpitz.

"Yup. That tasted purple."

I always thought trying to place yourself in the Fuhrer's head, however outrageous as Insane Troll Logic that may sound, sort of helps understanding his "Hold The Line" mentality when it came to military strategy. Being a politician, he must have placed economic and social considerations above that of anything the military had to say; it's said that he had a tendency to trust Germany's chief economists much more than his own military staff, and the former's concern about the Third Reich's fragile petroleum and natural gas supplies was a prime driving force behind his obsession in invading the USSR in the first place. Fall Blau, The Plan behind the whole series of events that lead up to Stalingrad, did have primary objectives of securing the Caucasian oil fields and industries, along with paving the way for a campaign into the central Russian industrial heartland - I also personally suspect that another objective must've involved preventing the Western Allies from sending up supplies to the USSR through neutral Turkey.

It also should be mentioned that Hitler, and the Nazi's in general, saw their war as being purposely expansionist as being the formation of a new German empire; you're obviously not expanding your territories if your armies are retreating towards home from the battlefield, thus defeating the economical points of why the war was launched in the first place.

Unfortunately, this logic is going by the assumption that Hitler must've been at least sane to at least a flawed degree; otherwise, he's the Cloud Cuckoo Lander that everyone assumes him to be.

That's rather Hilarious in Hindsight, since at the very same time that the Germans were losing the Eastern Front due to Hitler's insistence on pocket battles, the Commonwealth was deploying this same strategy to success against the Japanese in the jungles of Burma and India; the renowned Orde Wingate's Chindit operations practically breathed on this strategy of "forward strong-points" while his superior William Slim took it Up To Eleven during the final campaigns in the C.B.I theatre; it's commonly assumed that the battles of Imphal and Kohima were known as being "Stalingrads of the East" for their ferocity, but I also thought it had something to do with the fact that both involved encircled defenders relying on air bridges while trying to lock down and exhaust their besiegers from the outside.

It only gets Harsher in Hindsight to look back at the French and their workable, but flawed, aero-terrestre strategies in Indochina that led to the disaster known as Dien Bien Phu.

edited 26th Jul '14 5:00:32 PM by FluffyMcChicken

The British Army's secret weapon in Afghanistan.◊

Fixed it, might have to zoom in to read it.

edited 26th Jul '14 5:42:37 PM by LeGarcon

Oh really when?

invalid webpages?

Enhanced rations of tea that drive those that drink them into committing impossible acts of courage and military prowess? Side effects may include zipper-tight cases of Stiff Upper Lip and Testoserone Poisoning British Accents. Otherwise, Victoria's Cross Royal Blend has been approved across all Commonwealth miltaries to date!

Actually, the V-22 Ain’t Half Bad..War Is Boring.

Huh, for once the site climbs out of the Mike Sparks territory and takes a good look at the V-22. For the record, even the aircrews and pilots called the UH-60 "Chrashhawk" and "Trashhawk" in The '80s and The '90s. The SH-3 and UH-1 were being replaced. Many in NAVAIR loved the SH-3, and the SH-60 was seen as The Scrappy.

Tom Clancy wrote about the CH-46's bad habit of rolling over when landing in water. Coupled with its slower speed and limited range, the Marines wanted the V-22. Pity Osprey-tan had a long Dork Age, but she's serving the Jarheads well.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be a case on The First 48

re: CBI theatre: touche. Still, it's one thing to use it to break a poorly-supplied light-infantry-based army that had lost all air support and can't recruit locally, and against whom you are building up a large, well-trained force (including enough C-47s to make the Luftwaffe green with envy). It's another to try that on the open steppe against the Red Army. Besides, the Brits and the Americans were on the strategic advance, and the Japanese army that attacked at Imphal and Kojima did so on the kind of optimistic logistical planning that would have caused Rommel to back away in disbelief; the British Army in Burma only had to wait until the Japanese attackers starved, then go on the offensive again.

You want heavy-lift, that's what the Stallion variants are for. The Yankee Huey is, if I recall, also a lot faster than the Phrog. Also, laser-guided rockets.

edited 26th Jul '14 6:13:54 PM by SabresEdge

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

For the Record you really aren't supposed to land in water. I have no damn clue where people get that. Helicopters get swamped to.

Taira: Shame on you. You know better. They are a far cry from being Sparky. When they start obsessing over the M113 and calling it the best Armored vehicle in history and insist on it being called the Gavin while making up fake accolades and falsely claimed innovations with overtly obvious fake letters and records complete with photocopy squares, and a truly unique batshit website that is broken half the time and floods your speakers with random music then you can maybe make a real comparison between them.

edited 26th Jul '14 6:51:26 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

Coastie helicopters occasionally have to do water landings for rescue duties, but yeah, it's meant as a relatively unusual thing to do because it's rather dangerous.

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Even cost guard rescue choppers don't unless they absolutely have to, and if anything was going to be designed for it it'd be them

edited 26th Jul '14 6:52:08 PM by joesolo

I'm baaaaaaack