Talk:Human wave attack

Red Army during WWII

There is an issue with this article around the vagueness of the term “human-wave attack” and its tendency to be applied only as a derogatory term against the opposing side in a war. This is most clearly demonstrated by the inclusion of the Red Army during the Second World War, a contention which is completely out of step with historical academia.

The exact nature of attacks during the Winter War is debatable, but it’s inclusion in this article is certainly warranted by the weight of scholarly evidence as evidenced by the strong sources in that section. The section on the Second World War itself, however, is supported by only a single source from the questionable website historynet.com written in 1999 by an American author whose primary qualifications seem to be his work as a consultant in Hollywood. The article discusses the battle at Seelow Heights exclusively, and the only instance of the phrase “human-wave attack” appearing is a completely unsourced statement that a supposed German officer named “Heinz Wilker” (I could find no evidence that such an officer even existed) had “personally held off 14 human-wave attacks… at Stalingrad”.

I personally find these claims doubtful in the extreme and additionally point out the impossibility in disproving a statement supposedly made only once and in passing more than 50 years before the article was published. The section on the Red Army in WWII will thus require a genuine and verifiable source which provides specific examples in order to avoid outright deletion.

I will also point out that the academic community has largely rejected accusations that the Red Army engaged in human-wave attacks against the German military on the Eastern Front, with many pointing to orders issued by the Stavka specifically forbidding such assaults (including one issued by Zhukov declaring that officers ordering frontal infantry assaults were committing criminal acts) and the fact that Nazi propaganda routinely portrayed defeats of their forces by Communist enemies as the result of enormous human waves overwhelming German positions in order to cover up German failures on the battlefield.

This article requires a lot of additional work and cleanup, most clearly evidenced by the claims made of the Red Army during WWII. Puma6374 (talk) 16:49, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree with everything you've said and would be okay with removing and replacing the dubiously sourced text entirely. Carlp941 (talk) 17:53, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I just want to point out that one of the sources given for the Stalingrad human wave attack claim is:

"Stalingrad Press Coverage". research.calvin.edu. Retrieved 2022-12-27.

This webpage appears to be a translation of German war propaganda. I have no reason to doubt that the University's translation of this is accurate. But Nazi German war propaganda can NOT be used as a source since it is both WP:FRINGE and a WP:Primary source. This is a good example of a bad citation.  selfworm^Talk) 19:40, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

• @Selfworm: Absolutely. I've removed the claim about Stalingrad. Definitely requires further investigation as to whether Finnish-perspective accounts can be considered reliable for this. Kges1901 (talk) 20:27, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

2022 russian invasion of Ukraine

Should we mention this tactic being used in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine by the Wagner Group?

References

86.130.93.91 (talk) 10:05, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

The second citation should be disregarded, its from a heavily biased subreddit with an out of context picture of men of unknown identification moving across a field. AmaduesALPHADELTA (talk) 14:24, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

My understanding is that Wagner has been conducting mainly squad-sized frontal assaults, which, while highly attritive, are nothing like the picture in the article. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 08:27, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Wagner and the RAF have used barely trained, untrained, and poorly equipped convicts, mobilized, and volunteers to conduct multiple waves of essentially suicide attacks to tire out and deplete all the ammunition of Ukrainian troops with the objective of taking ground or softening up positions for assault by better troops. They have used barrier troops to enforce these wave assaults, arbitrarily executed their own who balk, and mistreated their own survivors of these actions. Because they’re not massed like in a particular picture of a nineteenth-century infantry assault, which may or may not represent a human wave attack, does not mean they’re not human wave attacks.  —Michael Z. 15:20, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

ISW, for example, mentions this tactic by this name in multiple articles.[1]  —Michael Z. 15:24, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

If these are not human wave attacks, then there are no human wave attacks. GliderMaven (talk) 01:45, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

The section as it stands now is clearly biased. One side 'claims' there are human wave attacks, then the author goes on to say that 'numerous sources' (who?) say they aren't HW attacks, and then lists two examples, one of them a YouTube video, the other an article that barely touches on the subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:464A:20B5:0:BD4B:7596:5028:9A42 (talk) 17:17, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Human wave attack is not the same thing as frontal assault

Combat in the American Civil War and WWI is not defined as "human wave attack". It was conventional linear formation combat. The term "human wave" infers a less organized attack meant to swamp with overwhelming numbers , which was not the case in previous wars, and the very nature of the term implies that the tactics are being used in a modern battlefield in place of more conventional tactics. By the definition of this article every attack made through most of history was a "human wave attack". The American Civil War was one of the first where attacks were made WITHOUT the intent of using a bayonet charge as the ultimate confrontation.

Idumea47b (talk) 20:18, 5 June 2023 (UTC)