Human Waves...

The Purist

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Bit of a long post. Apologies.

A bit of confusion here as to what is a Human Wave may depend on the minds eye view of what one expects. I "assume" many people see the human wave as similar to the scenes depicted in "Enemy At The Gates". Men advancing almost shoulder to shoulder at a mad dash to close with the enemy regardless of casualties and taking very few precautions or taking little advantage of cover. I'm not saying this did not occur and may very well be the conditions the developers of ASL envisioned when developing the rule. However, more than likely it is the common Soviet Tactic of rapidly closing with an enemy by use of massed assets over disadvantageous terrain (e.g. the steppes, streets, etc.) that was utilized by the Soviets way until the 1980's and is still being used by such nations as the Ukrainians (can personally attest to this).
Your opening here was good but then I believe you slipped back into the 'cold war' view that was so prevalent in the past. This is a very complicated subject and we could eat up pages of text in the discussion so I'll try to organise my thoughts into blocks of time periods to try and show, at least a little, how the view of 'massed' wave assaults is more myth than fact.

David Glantz in his "Stumbling Colossus" laid out the problems faced by the Red Army before June 41 as a result of the Stalin Purges and the "reinvention" of solid tactical and operational practices that ended with the new Red Army of the summer of 1943 and the military bankruptcy of the Wehrmachts attempt to meet the challenge. Without getting too involved in the defensive battles (as we are discussing Red Army infantry attacks) what became clear was that the remaining officer corps at the divisional level and above were often two grades below what they should have been. This meant that lieutenants commanded battalions, captains may have commanded regiments and Lieutenant-Colonels found themselves commanding divisions. Add to this the fear of being purged, even in early 1941, and the Red Army found itself with leaders who were adverse to doing anything other than what the orders commanded them to do - with predictable results.

In the period Jun-Aug 1941 the Red Army was to suffer terrible losses and counterattacks were fatally flawed by a lack of professional skill. Nevertheless the Red Army attacked and often. Only in AG South, where the true mass of Red Army strength was deployed under more professional leadership, did the Red Army counterattacks truly frighten their German opponents. That said, the losses incurred to units that survived the encirclement battles west of Smolensk and along the Dnepr by September had led to the first evolution in Red Army tactics.

Many Red Army divisions had been reduced from pre-war strengths of 12-14,000 men to large regiments, with reduced artillery, AT and support echelons. Most of these "brigades" were now officered by more experienced commanders and infantry attacks tended to be better planned and supported. Attacks were divided into attack groups with assault teams consisting of riflemen and submachine gunners with automatic weapons teams armed with light machine guns. Supporting these attacks, when available, were heavy weapons teams of machine guns and mortars and direct fire light artillery. The artillery was often deployed in direct fire methods due to shortage of radios while field telephone wire was also in short supply (and later supplied en masse by lend-lease). That these assault groups may have been described as waves may have had more to do with Red Army narrow attack frontages than the use of actual waves of attackers.

These attacks still suffered but as Glantz notes in "Barbarossa Derailed" the attacks were pressed home and German losses soared in the Smolensk battles throughout August and September. David Stahel is quite clear in "Kiev 1941" that the Germans were finding even holding Red Army attacks was becoming extremely difficult and costly. The infantry brigades proved so successful that the Red Army raised some 150 of them before the new structure infantry divisions was formalised and could take the field in replacement. Throughout the period Sep-Nov the Red Army was not doing much attacking and those that it did conduct were generally defeated but the Red Army of Sep-Nov was not the Red Army of Jun-Aug.

You noted that the Red Army had to charge across the open ground to quickly close with the German positions because of lack of cover. That is true but what argues against the massed mob view is the fact that the Germans infantry had to cross the same sort of ground, mostly without tank or assault gun support, with the same objective - take the enemy trenches on the other side. What is notable about German success is that it usually (but not always) stemmed from the holes torn in the front by the motorised troops and their supporting infantry formations followed by the severing of the Red Army's lines of communication. Cut off from food and fresh water, as well as ammunition and replacements, the Germans netted large hauls of POWs. Where Wehrmacht and Red Army infantry were left to battle it out in the battles to clear the pockets, German losses were heavy and success was bought at a high price in both bodies and experience. It is not uncommon to read reports of German infantry having to close to grenade range to blast the last defenders from a position. Unfortunately for the Germans, their replacement pool was not up to the task of replacing these losses and manpower levels shrank just as fast as the ammunition stockpiles and serviceable vehicles from staff cars to Pz IVs.

…<snip>The Soviets had a different doctrine. Perhaps because their squads/platoons wern't built around an automatic weapon but relied primarily upon the bolt action rifle (purely my conjecture here), they emphasized rapid movement to INDIVIDUAL contact with the enemy<snip>....
I would argue this was not the standard but more the exception

By the time the Red Army did counterattack in the period Dec 41- Mar 42 the Red Army had evolved again as unit structures were modified. The so called "Siberian" divisions were not usually the elite formations that they have been described as in some early sources. What these divisions had were an intact structure, pre-war training, equipment and manpower levels, winter equipment and experience. When they led the winter attacks they did not resort to wave attacks but again relied on direct fire heavy weapons, tank support and assault groups consisting of assault teams armed more and more with automatic weapons. I have not seen any real evidence that Red Army doctrine espoused closing to engage in close combat but in the grim fighting in the east I have no doubt that the grenade, rifle butt, pistol and trench shovel saw frequent use on both sides.

The Red Army had quite a way to go before they could field the army of the summer of 1943 that first held and then turned back the Germans in summer but just 6 months after the start of the war they had already come a long way.

Again,... apologies for such a long post.
 
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Michael Dorosh

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German doctrine was also different at the lowest level. The MG was the killing agent and the riflemen acted in support - everyone else seemed to do it the other way around. The thorny part of that is that on the defence, the Russian was known to do very well at entrenching and camouflaging himself. So it wasn't so easy for the MG34s to just sit back and destroy what was in front of them, nor was it that easy for the riflemen to go forward since even on the Steppe, it was difficult to locate and destroy individual fighting positions.
 

The Purist

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Thus the need for grenades and pistols at close range. I would also add that by the time of Stalingrad the Germans found their own tactics inferior to the Red Army assault groups in the ruined city. The MG34 wasn't much good against a squad armed with SMGs and rifles fortified in an apartment block.
 
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