NonCredibleDefense

The Great Leap Forward was not for nearly another decade. Rather, a freshly reunited Chinese army, including many nationalist PoWs pressed into service, was thrown into the conflict with subpar training and equipment, but innovative tactics which minimized those weaknesses.

Unfortunately for the Chinese troops, one of the more prominent tactics used was the 'Short Attack', often mischaracterized as a human wave, wherein dispersed units would make continuous attacks with staggered reinforcements along the enemy's line. This was quite effective when it succeeded, as it maintained pressure along the enemy line without giving a clear indication where the main breakthrough was intended to occur, forcing the enemy to either weaken their line to hold back their reserves, or commit their reserves to potentially the wrong location.

However, the lack of communications equipment, such as widely distributed radios, in the PLA of the time meant that whenever the tactic ran into trouble, there was no real way to recall or reorganize the attack - it simply continued, in total futility, racking up massive casualties against unexpectedly strong locations which intel had failed to recon (or which enemy intel had successfully identified as the most likely location for a Chinese breakthrough), until the attack had occurred with all or nearly all the units it was supposed to use for a successful breakthrough.