Just goes to show you how terrifying a bayonet charge is lol
Virgin zippedy zapp bullets vs. Chad pointy stick
It had to be a psychological effect. The counter-attack caused the ambushers to lose their nerve and they could no longer put out effective fire.
Psychological warfare is an entirely valid method of fucking with infantry. Back in Vietnam, they played all kinds of crazy ghost noises in the woods to scare the absolute shit out of the North Vietnamese. Someone who is high on adrenaline and shaking all over the place is not a very good shot. Their alertness and ability to respond to threats is fucked to hell. This is doubly true for those with severe sleep deprivation, which is basically the norm in warfare. Soldiers always fight on like a few hours of sleep, and the damage it does to their brains and bodies is just like shift workers.
I saw how effective the molotovs were against that armored column in that video many pages back. The would-be bottle chuckers were seen on thermal optics, and then promptly wasted by what I can only guess was a vehicle mounted 50 cal. The forest they were hiding in was also deforested just like that scene in
Predator where they cut down the trees with a hail of bullets. I'm not a gun expert by any means, but I was a little surprised to see holes blown in 24 inch thick hardwood trunks. The Ukranians who encouraged that should have just handed out pamphlets instead with the title:
How to become ground meat, a primer.
Many Russian APCs mount the 14.5x114mm KPV-T, which has substantially more energy than .50 BMG. It's like 22,000 foot-pounds of muzzle energy versus .50 BMG's 13,000 foot-pounds.
In Cote d'Ivoire, during the protests there against Laurent Gbagbo in 2010, a BTR armored personnel carrier fired into a crowd of unarmed women with their KPV-T. One of the women was hit in the neck, and it literally blew her head right off her shoulders. There was nothing left but a bit of cervical spine sticking up and an open neck hole where her head used to be. They can race through a tree trunk like a hot knife through butter.
One of my all-time favorite video games is a little-known RTS/Real-Time Tactical game from 2002 called Soldiers of Anarchy. It was kind of like Jagged Alliance. You had to manage each soldier's inventory and their stance and shit directly.
The plot of this game is that a multi-national group of soldiers is trapped on a Russian military base for several years while a deadly virus ravages the world (LOL), and when these guys finally unseal the base and start looking around, they realize everything has gone to shit. There are no more nation-states, only roving bands of warlords, Mad Max style, and now, you're one of those roving bands.
In an early mission in this game, you can capture a BTR. That fucker will carry you through everything in the early game. Enemy soldiers attacking you? No problem. Pin them down with the KPV, assault, move up, kill them, take all their ammo off their bodies, and put it in the BTR. It's like a roving 8x8 loot cache with a gun on top. It's fantastic. A little thin on armor, though. Watch for enemy rocket troops.
