Interesting thread. It's true that the reputation of Chineses is pretty low. Most of what i consider a mere prejudice is due to the wars of the period 1839-1944 where Chineses didn't get very much success against Europeans and Japaneses. However Chinese warfare never reached the nadir of European warfare in first world war where Italians, French English, distinguished themselves in human waves attacks with severe human losses, a tactic pursued despite it proved its failure.
I think instead that the defeats of European armies against mongols shouldn't be considered here in relevance with this problem because Mongols are not considered Chinese. However Europeans should consider the stubborn resistence made by Jin and Song compared to the miserable showing of the European armies.
In general we could say that Europeans thanks to technology, training, professional soldiers etc.. got a superiority over Non Europeans powers in a restricted period, not exceeding 1700-1900, Previously they were more and more times soundly defeated by non European people like Arabs, Mongols, Turks etc...who conquered large parts of Europe itself.

I'm voting for the firecracker one. The chinese used gunpowder and various combustable oils in so many ingenious ways.

Human wave here since the China have NEVER in their history have had a sencless loss of soldiers like theEuropean powers in WW1 that was true human wave.
There is good reason why the men born in 1890-95 were called the lost generation in Europe. The spanish flu did'nt help either.

The woobly sword i just find plain funny, trying to imagine the reaction opf a Mongol warrior or Roman legionaer confrontet by a chinese swordsman equipt whit one of those, i actually see the swords man have a pretty good chance as both his opponents lays helplessly on the ground in hysterical laughter (I dont included Samurais, as we know they have no sence of humor)

Alexander, you're funny!

I think the most annoying one for myself is the idea that a chinese army was nothing by weak, untrained peasents armed with pitchforks.

I agree with Wujiang. I've encountered uninformed souls with this opinion on swordforum, I try my best to educate them, but they never listen.

Try challenging them to a bet with their computers as the stakes ...

this, too, is partly a myth. while human wave assaults were indeed used in quite a few cases (mainly in 1914, and also in the battle of somme), sometimes tactics could be quite creative given the dramatic limitations that the machine gun and trench put on offensive capabilities. see the german assaults of 1918...

The floppy jian/sword is annoying as heck since the Chinese media's helping to propagate that image...argh. The jian should be just as good a weapon as the so-highly-praised katana, but you wouldn't know it from those limp things they keep showing.

Ofcourse being underestimated has it's advantages.

What's the best argument one can give about the Chinese in Korean War?

other than "it's not really human waves"

I know psychological warfare and infiltration tactics were often employed. The PLA were skilled in using night as a cover to move their troops.

I've typed the quote from Bevin Alexander several times already in the past.

http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...7&#entry4704047

Is Bevin Alexander a notable author/historian?

Bevin Alexander is the author of eight books of military history, including How Wars Are Won, How Hitler Could Have Won World War II, and Lost Victories, which was named by the Civil War Book Review as one of the seventeen books that have most transformed Civil War scholarship. He was an adviser to the Rand Corporation for a recent study on future warfare and a participant in a recent war game simulation run by the Training and Doctrine Command of the U.S. Army. His battle studies of the Korean War, written during his decorated service as a combat historian, are stored in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. He lives in Bremo Bluff, Virginia.

So yes he is a notet historian, But you have to put in mind that he also is to the right of most Neo-cons (Actually thinks that the Rand Corporation is not nearly right wing enough)
This is his greatest weakness in polite circles since he simply cannot let his rather ekstreme wiewpoints shine throu his otherwise excellent books (have read all of the above mentioned, especially his Hitler book is scary since it is so very plausible)

Actually, he is a Korean War vet, so he should know plenty on the PLA tactics.

True, a in service historian in fact, (Was hired / orderd to make notres for the brass).
But that those not change the fact that he is an Arch conservative, even compared to most in Bush's camp. It is also his greatest fault as i have mentioned. His books about the American civil war and WW2 are brilliant and i think that people that have an interest in thoes areas and periods should give them a look. BUT later books is to much *I'm right and everybody else is fools* even throu he hides it fairly well some of the time.

Human waves is definately the most annoying myth. When I was in grade 2 in Korea, I was taught that the horribly-armed Chinese army came in wave after wave across the northern border, was mowed down by Americans and Koreans, until so many came that they ran out of bullets and had to retreat...

In the highly popular strategy game, Empires: The Dawn of the Modern World, Chinese units are of the worst quality... they are cheap and horrible. The only good unit is the Daoist Magician, who can unleash volcanoes on the enemy...

The most retarded war strategy ever invented was used by the europeans. They would meet eachother on a battle field with a huge line of men just standing there and exchanging fire from their rifles with no strategy involved. Very stupid indeed. And also in the American revolution the British made up these stupid rules like: It's against the rules to shoot officers, fight during holidays, fight during winter etc. Even though the Americans were very ill equipped and ill train compared to the British they still won because they didn't follow those stupid rules. For example one time Washington launched a suprise attack on the british during Christmas and kicked the British's a$$ because the British did not think they would attack during winter because its against the rules. And now they say the Chinese were stupid when it came to war strategies Anyways thats my thoughts.

Oversimplifying a bit, aren't we friend?
Doesn't it defeat the purpose of looking at Chinese military stereotypes when you try to put stereotypes of other nation's militaries into the picture?
I would certainly say that the British used more strategy than "standing in lines and exchanging rifles, no strategy involved". Why did most armies do that then? It was an effective way of shooting the weapons they had then- volleying.
First line shoots, retreats to reload, while the second fires...so on. Easy to organize, and easy to synchronize. Simply firing at will is actually a bad idea, really. When units don't work in Cohesion, that's asking for trouble. Especially when everyone ends up reloading at the same time. THAT is trouble. And noone can deny, the volleys and rotational shooting was certainly an effective way to keep this from happening.

Theres nothing retarded about that strategy, it is just a continuation of battles as they have been fought before the time of gunpowder. They had to stand up, since it is rather difficult and annoying trying to reload a muzzel loader while lying down and the precision (lack thereoff) of rifles like Brown Bess made sure that only large volume fire could have any effect whatsoever against their opponents, and saying that no strategy was involved is plain ignorance as most in here can testify, leaders like Gustav Adolph, Turenne, De Saxe (Who never lost a battle) and Napoleon says otherwise, it now became more a game of manuver to get the best firering positions and possibility for bringing home a attack whit bajonets and cavalry.

The comments about the revolutionary war is plain dumb and urban legend, not that you are dumb, but does stories has gotten a life of their own and is rather hard to kill.
The Winter offensive by Washington were an act of pure desperation since his army such as it was had no possibility of surviving the winter if they did not get the British and their supporters of their backs, and could get throu to their winter quarters and surplies which the british had block the way too.
Also their was good reason why the british did not ekspect a winter offensive at the time, simply becourse they were suffering from a terrible snowstorm, that actually demanded more casualties on the american side than the British did, so why anybody should make an attack duing the worst blizzard in the winter season, was unexpectet.
Both sides in the second year of the war used everything from gurillia warfare, ethnic cleansing (Who was loyal who was not to one side or another) terror killings of both civilians and soldiers and straight up battles and raids, all in all it was a very dirty war whit very little quarter asked or given, then again it was in more ways than one actually a civil war.

Bravo Alex.

Yes I know my post sounded ignorent but I just get so d@mn annoyed when I think of that human wave stereotype so I post something equivilent about how they fight to what they think of Chinese warfare.

Yeah, that's not the way to do things.
This is an academic forum, we don't respond to stereotypes with stereotypes. Wrong attitude for doing things...forgive me for saying so, but if anything, makes the forum as a whole seem even more ignorant.

Just don't do it in the future.

My native people the maori utilised the English strategy of standing in lines and shooting ,by making trenches and shooting them from them

How about a low level of quality in general for Chinese weapons?

Hmmm, this might be a bit far fetched

but today's most annoying stereotype is "PLA big evil army ready to invade Taiwan and the world"

General unsophisticated warfare... human waves, massed charges, low level peasant armies, undisciplined whimpy troops, winning solely thorugh deceit/deception, corrupt officials/generals, simplistic tactics, and my personal favourite, the simple non-mechanical army...

It has always been this Cardinal's belief that the elite warriors (of any national grp) always get the better quality of weapons.

I don't find any particularly annoying, but I am hoping we can at least make the following changes:

1) Stop having super-bending, flexing swords in period movies/serials

2) Enough with the *Shing!* sound when swords are drawn out of scabbards. Folks, go try it, draw a sword out of a scabbard, there is no *Shing!* sound no matter how you do it!

This Cardinal plays his mp3 player before drawing his sword. It play the sound "shing" every 10-seconds over and over again. [LoL!]

Another annoying thing is that the western scholars tend to think the Chinese cavalry tactics or the East Asian cavalry tactics in general are similar to those of European Knights. European cavalry tactics are somewhat inefficient in my opinion. The European cavalries are armed with heavy and dull lances, and they serve as shock troops, which basically mean that they just purely run enemies over with their huge mass. Once they get stock or trapped in the enemy force, they are not effective enough to deliver melee attack. When these European cavalries fight against each others, they simply just use their heavy and huge lances to stab the opponents off their mounts; if they succeed, they are left with broken lances, which will become their inability to deliver another attack. The Chinese cavalry, on the other hand, is quite different. Chinese horsemen are armed with "Chiung" horse spears (a little bit shorter than "Mao" foot spears), instead of lances, Da Dao (Guan Dao, or Ma Dao, similar to Japanese Naginata), or Halberds. With these choices of weapon, a Chinese cavalryman does not simply just run his enemies over; instead, they perform a great deal of closed hand to hand combat skills on horseback. One very common horseback hand to hand combat skill known to many Chinese is so called "Huei Ma Chiun" (literally means turned back horse spear); the Chinese cavalry man will perform Huei Ma Chiun when he is pursued by his mounted opponent. To perform this kind of hand to hand combat while mounted, a Chinese cavalry man does not carry a shield, especially when he is armed with a Da Dao or a Halberd.
Another misconception about the Chinese cavalry in my own observation is that the Chinese cavalry is viewed to be inferior to its nomad counterparts. Cavalry was introduced to be part of the Chinese military as early as the Zan Guo period at the late East Chou dynasty. Some say it could be traced back to the Spring and Autumn period. So the Chinese cavalry has at least over two thousand year old history, which would be older than any western cavalry including Roman cavalry. Chinese cavalry tactics are very similar to its nomad counterparts; I believe this is mentioned in the Chinese Cavalry section in this forum, thus it should not be any worse than the nomad cavalry. However, as the history showed us, the nomad cavalry was a much bigger threat to the Chinese than the Chinese cavalry to the nomads, but one needs to consider the following before making such comment; the Nomads in northern China were relatively easy for them to assemble several considerable cavalries, because it was easier for them to get horses and men who knew how to ride at a very young age. To the Chinese, once the northern frontier is lost, their supply of horse is scarce.
Lastly, it seems like the entire world is pro-Japanese in every aspect, Japanese culture, Japanese language, Japanese martial arts, Japanese arts, Japanese military, and Japanese everything. Japan, a much respected country, its amazing economic and industrial success is remarkable. However, one should not ignore the fact that Japanese culture is just a part of Sinic (Chinese) civilization. Japanese Kanji, which is supposed to pronounced as Han-ji (the word of Han), is Traditional Chinese; it is a shame that under the Maoism traditional Chinese is banned, and the only place still use this much more logical (than simplified Chinese) language is Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan. (Koreans write their name in the Traditional Chinese as well). Hopefully, in the near future, Chinese government can revive the Traditional Chinese. Anyway, what I am trying to say is, many people perceive Japan as the root of East Asian culture; therefore, they often perceive Japanese samurai and Japanese martial arts are far more superior than the Chinese counterparts, and in reality it might just be the opposite, considering that after being raped constantly by eight different nations 100 years ago, China still stands as one of the greatest world power today. And what makes me sad is that lots of people of my age (young adults) in Taiwan even think Japanese are everything and despite everything Chinese. In conclusion, we as the fellow human beings should not be biased toward any culture, but we, as Chinese, should take pride in our own culture

actually yeah, that's no.1 Annoyance


Overshadowed by Japan

Aarrgh

^ you should watch some enter the dragon where Chinese kungfu kicks some serious Japanese karate butts.

Doubly annoying in that so many of these views come from people with a, grossly inaccurate, steriotype of European cavalry


The Japanese issue is more a result of deliberate Japanese policy over the last century or so.

Does chinese cavalries ever have a long dull lance tactic of shock,the western knight force shock tactic was effective vs nomad cavalries,i.e seljuk turks and ottoman turks

I chose Not listed.

I am most annoyed by Chinese (regardless of nation) stereotyping that CHINESE MA r useless and for SHOW only when the rest of the world (in term of races) admire and respect CMA or simply look down on Chinese Warfares in any aspect.

For these people, Seal Team 6 creator Richard Marcinko READ MAO's book on Guerilla Warfare.

What's MA and CMA? So far all I know is that MA stands for Massachussets.

MA= Martial Arts
CMA= Chinese Martial Arts

And yes, ih8eurocentrix, Chinese DID use lance charges, such as during AoF with heavy cavalries.
But to say European lances were dull would probably not do them much justice. And we can't say that charges were universally good against steppe type fighters, or Liegnitz would certainly have a different outcome.

I didnt say it was dull ,wmmmy did i was quoting his words, he suggested in his previous post that the lances used by chinese cavalries were usually shorter than infantry spears and used for melee thrusting attacks and notin the same manneer as the knights long lance couched lance charge.
Superior mongolian tactics meant they never were caught by a knights charge but other steppe peoples like the magyars (lechfeld) and
seljuks(doryleum) were crushed using this method.

PS i think the most annoying stereotype is chinese cavalry are horse archers

Not all were, but horse archers were certainly important.

I just thought of something

about WWII, i've often heard that it took 5 to 11 sherman tanks to take down a single German King Tiger

but I've never heard of Americans being marked as 'human wave tactics' for this comparison though. Just thought it was interesting that the same analogy, of inferior quality bolstered by numbers, when the Americans use it they don't 'degrade' it the same way as it is viewed when other countries do it (like Chinese 'human waves' or Vietnamese 'human waves', etc.)

Actually I pointed this human-wave style of the US-led fighting in the hedgerow terrain of Normandy but got shot down left, right and centre.

I think it is like the way the US plays their sports ... Charge!

You know, you'll find military blunders of this sort in any culture.

If you want to see the genesis of a modern human wave assault thrown against fortifications, look at the American Civil War.

But pick any era of China, and you'll find military blunder after military blunder, mixed with very successful campaigns.

It's the nature of War. One side loses, and looks really stupid. The other side laughs at them, writes books, and makes them look even more stupid.

Then people like us call everyone involved stupid and feel cool.

Nobody's better at killing Americans than Americans!

As BDM, said, it is a sport mentality. Just like their game of American Football. ["3 yds and a cloud of dust."]


Another example of this human wave combat mentality is in the Lord Tennyson's poem [The Charge of The Light Brigade"]


An interesting point that my associate brought up is: " ... If everyone were strategists and historians, who would be the grunts to do the ['dirty work'] ".

[LoL!]

LOL so true

That statement, sir, is hilarious. But might also apply for any otehr countries with dictators, really.

Here. Let me quote Lieutenant Maurie Pears (Royal Australia Regiment) in his book "Korea Remembered" about his experiences in Korea and in this passage, a very interesting snipnet of his impression of how the Chinese CPA troops were so used to facing the direct human-wave tactics used by the Americans

"C Company was to rush across the valley and move through B and D Companies, which were held up under Point 317, to take the summit from the rear. Surprise was again the tactic, the Chinese being used to the previous massed frontal attacks of the Americans. The battalion artillery and tanks would support us with enfilade fire during the final assault, as the approaches to the summit were clear from the observation post."