Human wave attack is a military term describing a type of assault performed by infantry units in which soldiers attack in successive line formations.

Such attacks are common in all poorly equipped armies, or where the objective is of strategic importance. It is a tactic that developed out of trench warfare, where artillery or aerial attack often proved ineffective at dislodging the enemy from a firmly held defensive position.

The casualty rate is generally enormous, yet such attacks are often successful and therefore remain an accepted combat technique.

The first successful use of this technique in modern warfare may have been during the Battle of Gallipoli when the Ottoman forces repelled attempts by the combined British Empire and French armies to establish beachheads on either side of the Dardanelles.

When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, the Soviets fought back with human waves of Red Army troops against both advancing and entrenched enemy soldiers. Usually the Red Army soldiers were told to charge directly in a wide berth to strike every possible point in the German lines. In some battles the Soviets defeated the Germans after sustaining battle losses equal or more than the German losses.

It also was a tactic that was employed widely and sucesfully by the North Korean and Chinese armies during the Korean War albeit at a very bloody cost.

During the 1950's The Viet Minh, under the command of General Giap, successfully used the human wave attack method against the entrenched French garrison at Dien Bien Phu (Vietnam), shocking the French government into seeking an end to the conflict in Indochina.

Human waves were also rampant in the Iran-Iraq War.