The answer cannot be given in simplified terms. Although the Chinese Reds were represented by a peasant army, it was also a first-rate army when judged by its own tactical and strategic standards. Military poverty might be blamed for some of its deficiencies in arms and equipment, but its semiguerrilla tactics were based on a mobility which could not be burdened with heavy weapons and transport. The Chinese coolie in the padded cotton uniform could do one thing better than any other soldier on earth; he could infiltrate around an enemy position in the darkness with unbelievable stealth. Only Americans who have had such an experience can realize what a shock it is to be surprised at midnight with the grenades and submachine gun slugs of gnomelike attackers who seemed to rise out of the very earth. Press correspondents were fond of referring to “the human sea tactics of the Asiatic hordes.” Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality the Chinese seldom attacked in units larger than a regiment. Even these efforts were usually reduced to a seemingly endless succession of platoon infiltrations. It was not mass but deception and surprise which made the Chinese Red formidable. They also had an advantage over Western soldiers in their ability to withstand hunger and cold while making long night marches. After all, the rigors of a winter campaign in Korea were not much worse than the hardships the Chinese peasant had endured all his life. Usually he was a veteran of at least five years’ combat experience, for China had known little but war since the Japanese invasion of 1935. Many of Mao Tse-tung’s troops, in fact, were former Nationalists who had fought for Chiang Kai-shek. The Chinese Reds held another advantage in Korean terrain well suited to their tactical system. This factor has been ably summarized by U.S. Military Academy historians: The mountains are high, and the deep gorges between them are a bar to traffic even when the streams are dry or frozen. Roads are few, and those that do exist are not suited for heavy traffic. Transportation then becomes a problem for the pack mule and the human back rather than the self-propelled vehicle. Telephone wires are difficult to lay and, with guerrillas on every hand, are doubly hard to maintain. Even radio is limited by such terrain, with a considerable reduction in range. In all, most observers have agreed that American forces have seldom fought in terrain to which modern means of war are less adaptable.[44] [44] U.S. Military Academy, _Operations in Korea_, 28–29.