Penal Battalion.

This is coolbert:

From that prior blog entry:

"And WOE to that Soviet soldier that would either lose or misplace his great coat. Probably the punishment a severe sentence of military penal servitude of a very harsh nature!"

NO! I am wrong here. Had totally forgotten about this.

Penal servitude rather consisting of assignment to a penal battalion during wartime.

That assignment more or less THE SAME AS A SENTENCE OF DEATH!!

Those penal battalions a wartime measure perhaps UNIQUE TO THE RED ARMY?

A battalion consisting of three rifle companies and one machine gun company.

Those serving sentences for a "crime" assigned to the rifle companies. That machine gun company NKVD secret policemen!

Each divisional commander having at his disposal a penal battalion those soldiers of the rifle companies [equipped with nothing more than rifles and so appropriately designated], troops of which were assigned assault missions and frontal attack of the most frenzied and dangerous type WITHOUT ANY SUPPORT OR BACKUP!

YOU WERE NOT EXPECTED TO SURVIVE DUTY IN A PENAL BATTALION!

NKVD machine gunners at the rear firing ON THEIR OWN TROOPS IF A LACK OF OFFENSIVE SPIRIT OR RESOLVE OBSERVED.

Penal battalion troops also serving as tank-borne infantry during the final and climactic attack on Berlin by the Red Army, 1945.

And as described by Suvorov, those rear-gunners for the Il-2 ground support attack aircraft also persons serving a penal battalion sentence, your conviction record expunged upon completion of TEN MISSIONS, that almost a total impossibility.

Last but not LEAST an ENTIRE DIVISIONAL SIZED ELEMENT OF PENAL TROOPS DURING STALINGRAD [1942] CAPTURING MAMAYEV KURGAN, THEIR DESIGNATION AND MEMORY FROM THE BATTLE LOST, NO HONOR OR MERCY FROM SOVIET AUTHORITIES FORTHCOMING!!

Such could be the lot of the Red Army soldier during WW2.

coolbert.