Communist 'Human Wave' Attacks.
It's often said that communist forces, especially Russian and Chinese commanders, use 'human wave assaults. This is entirely untrue and was even untrue during the Russian infantry actions after The Great War.
Frequently what is termed a human wave assault derives from two sources:
The first being Second World War accounts from Axis troops which the West accepted for political reasons. These commanders were keen to portray themselves as 'apolitical professional Prussians' rather Nazi accomplices. However Soviet troops of all nationalities were considered by the commanders as frankly inferior (or worse) and to have been beaten by them would admit losing to soldiers worse than their portayed scientific, cool soldiering. Thus the myth of the mindless wave of human meat assaults driven on by the NKVD 'barrage troops'. In historical fact the Axis used more barrage troops than did the Soviets and Soviet soldiers were simply sent back forward and not shot - unlike their commanders.
The second reason is from accounts of the actual troops. To them being massively outnumbered seems that the troops are endlessly pouring in, no matter how many they put down. This comes from an important concept in Eastern soldiering; you're more likely to be killed in a retreat where the enemy gets a free shot at you and then having to assault all over again than in pressing the attack. At the point of commitment the soldiers have it ingrained into them there's no turning back, the better-equipped troops have essentially endless munitions to pour onto you if you don't disrupt them. This does indeed look like fanaticism.
This doesn't mean that these attacks are stupid. People who have assumed this over the last century have paid dearly. For instance, here's an qualifier for The Battle of Kapyong during the latter Korean Civil War that is illustrative:
The PVA attacks had been launched quickly and aggressively, placing their light machine guns on the flank in support and attempting to close to attack the 3 RAR perimeter with grenades. Contrary to some contemporary western accounts, the PVA did not use human wave tactics. Rather, using a tactic known as 'one-point-two sides', they used massed forces and infiltration to achieve local numerical superiority and to penetrate the gaps between the forward companies, before attempting to envelop the 3 RAR while drawing their fire to the front, away from their threatened flanks. They would normally attempt to close with UN defensive positions using darkness or poor visibility to cover their movement and to counter US air superiority, before attacking using massed force, coordinated with close fire support. However, although normally well-planned and closely supported by machine-gun, mortar, and artillery fire, PVA attacks in Korea were often inflexible in execution once launched. This was mostly due to the lack of radio communications below battalion-level, with the PVA instead relying on whistle blasts, bugle calls, and runners for command and control, and although their 60 mm (2.4 in) and 81 mm (3.2 in) mortars had provided particularly effective indirect fire support, these problems were again evident during the fighting at Kapyong
What does this have to do with roleplaying?
Using mindless forward assaults rapidly becomes boring for most players, they like enemies they have to out-think. A fight where every players gets a perfect target picture of the enemy who only moves directly towards them would be considered dumb in a 1990s corridor-shooter video game. It's very same same.
Enemies that stop short and dig in, forcing you to attack them, enemies that suddenly swing off to the flank and out of sight, enemies that feign retreat, enemies that act like they value their own lives are all realistic, threatening enemies.
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