The penal battalion

Found by chance on the internet and wanted to know your opinion about this:
I'll try to give a number of myths and their denials.

1. The penal battalion was very much, war won almost one the penal battalion.
The Fact. the penal battalion accounted for only 1.4% of the total number of Red Army. Don't you think that the 1.4% is not enough to win the war alone the penal battalion?

2. Right behind the line of the offenders were trenches with troops of the NKVD, who shot at all, who fled to the rear, from machine-guns.
The Fact. Why is practically no one who was in a penal battalion, has seen these terrible band stop detachment. Detachments really were, but they were in the rear parts, and they had a lot of functions. Deserters were shot, but already after the fact, after the capture and the tribunal.

3. The penal battalion have gotten their weapons in the battle, if they gave one rifle for three.
The Fact. Штрафбаты were well armed. In those days, when the PCA was still classified, they have to adopt the penal battalion, in a company of submachine gunners. Often in the memoirs of offenders are mentioned flame-throwing affiliated companies, mortar, etc.

4. In penal battalion recruited some of criminals.
The Fact. Here it is necessary to say separately. the penal battalion were ONLY (!!!) to officers, has committed any of the offences. Ranks from lieutenant to colonel.
Criminals, privates and sergeants sent in separate penal COMPANIES. The difference is significant.

5. The penal battalion went into battle under escort.
The Fact. the penal battalion often performed tasks, where the convoy is simply unreal. For example, a raid on the enemy's rear. Imagine battalion, which is hidden moves on the enemy's rear under escort. Funny? Exactly.

6. The penal battalion commanded by the same penalty box.
The Fact. the penal battalion and the penalty companies commanded ONLY (!!!) staff officers, and some of the best. Because in a penal battalion was given the title above, than, say, the commander of the usual battalion.

7. The penal battalion used as cannon fodder.
The Fact. It is a myth only partly. the penal battalion really threw on the most complex areas, etc.
But! Imagine battalion, composed of some of the officers, that is, the professional military. Quite difficult to call such a part of "cannon fodder".

8. The penal battalion invented the tyrant Stalin.
The Fact. Nothing of the kind. the penal battalion appeared from the germans before 1941.
However, their penal battalion mainly performed the functions of fortification in more dangerous areas.

Last edited October 12, 2011 at 9:13 PM by 777Mais777

This may sound dumb. But what is a penal battalion ???

Fishhunterx wrote:
This may sound dumb. But what is a penal battalion ???

A battalion of soldiers who were recruited to fight instead of being imprisoned.

Punitive military units - military units, in which in time of war as a punishment sent soldiers who have committed crimes (except serious crimes, for which relied death penalty).

During the Second world war punitive military units existed in the form of penal battalions and penalty mouth.(Order №227)

Dangerous topic...

I thought this would be a thread wanting Strafynie back in the game.

777Mais777 wrote:
the penal battalion accounted for only 1.4% of the total number of Red Army. Don't you think that the 1.4% is not enough to win the war alone the penal battalion?
...
the penal battalion were ONLY (!!!) to officers, has committed any of the offences. Ranks from lieutenant to colonel.
Criminals, privates and sergeants sent in separate penal COMPANIES. The difference is significant.
...

You mean that 1,4% of the Red Army were officers that commited offenses? :D A lieutenant commands 26-55 men (by modern NATO standards) so 2-3% of the men in an army are LTs. Soviet army woudnt have any officers if this was true.

Maybe some of the info you have there is about "the penal battalion" for officers, some is about all penal units in the Red Army. ???
Anyway nice piece of info.

Penal battalion Invented Tyrant Stalin?

The question about who "invented" a penal battalion still debatable as the entry from the diary of chief of staff of the Land forces of Germany Franz Halder shows that the penal battalion of the germans appeared before: on July 9, 1941. Reports to the head of the organizational department of the OKH major general Walter Buhl: "the Organization"penal battalions" was a good idea", and the soviet order no.227 appeared only on July 28, 1942.

---

Post Merge: [time]1318499997[/time]

---

The criminals were in penalty units, officers of the penal battalion, their only difference is the level assigned to them jobs from the soviet leadership. :)

Last edited October 13, 2011 at 9:59 AM by 777Mais777

Fishhunterx wrote:
This may sound dumb. But what is a penal battalion ???

Think of a choice between summary execution and being forced to fight. There you have a penal battalion.

TY for clarifying

yeah i dont think it was a very nice job
in the german army they also had to search for mines, with sticks...

Option 1: Run into minefield with grenades  :(
Option 2: Poke mines with sticks  :P
Option 3: You offically become "Deutsch Wehrpflichtige"  ;D
Option 4/; Get shot XP :'( :'(

I pick option 2  ;D

P.S. - I used Google translate

Fishhunterx wrote:
P.S. - I used Google translate

Don't do that. It's so bad. Seriously.

Did it translate it wrong ???. I obviosly wouldn't know if that was correct :P

Fishhunterx wrote:
Did it translate it wrong ???. I obviosly wouldn't know if that was correct :P

I have no clue. But if you have ever used a site that translates stuff back and forth through google translate you will see how wrong it gets over time.

http://www.ackuna.com/badtranslator

QuoteOriginal text:

"I am having a very pleasant evening in the country of America."

...40 translations later Google gives us:

"Severe sleep."

Last edited October 25, 2011 at 2:48 AM by Cranialwizard

BAHAHAHA

Here's another:

QuoteOriginal text:

"This thing is extremely ridiculous when it comes to translations."

...56 translations later Google gives us:

"Is glad to serve."

Google/Bing Translators are horrible. Infact most online ones are because they don't account for grammar and translate basic ideas not necessarily sentences.

Yeah I remember our German teacher in school gave us an example of a report someone did, translated into German. Epic fail :D. She told us that cheating wouldn't work.

My spanish teacher did the same thing with us :P. She showed us a hw that had been google translated. It didn't end well :P

BTW I checked my google translation. It was actually correct ;D

I taped in I like Pie.
40 Later.
I came out as I enjoying Urinating a lot.

Wtf. Seeme + 50 = Tuum?

Last edited October 25, 2011 at 9:29 PM by Seeme

Perhaps you should change your name to Tuum

I have found interesting article which probably will help to understand the nature of a penal battalion, but it is necessary to tell that this article is written in Russian and more likely reminds the analysis of the facts.
http://samlib.ru/z/zamjatin_s_s/vrem_boets.shtml

Please post sites everyone is able to read..

The basic thought:
(Google translate)
WEAPONS
 
  Penalty infantry battalion usually has five of the company commander and consisted of three rifle, machine gun, mortar and mouth. Armed with machine-gun company - 12 heavy machine guns, armed with mortar - 6 82-mm mortars. In the rifle companies of machine guns Degtereva - from 3 to 9 in each group. Sometimes, in the penal battalion antitank platoon added armed with two anti-tank guns. At the end of the war, penal, like other soldiers of the Red Army used everywhere in the battle trophy faustpatrony.
  In his book "Free Kick" Alexander Pyltsyn recalls: "I want to draw attention to the fact that our battalion was constantly replenished with new weapons in sufficient numbers. We have not yet been widely applied in the armed forces new machines instead of PCA RPE. We have obtained new anti-tank guns SSS-C (ie, Simonovsky) with pyatizaryadnym store. In general, a lack of weapons we have never experienced ...
  .... In the military penal companies, when their number exceeded one thousand times as I have already told many years after the war, the officer Vladimir G. Mikhailov, the commander of such a company then in the 64th Army, there were occasions when you simply do not have time to bring up the right number of weapons and then, if before you urgently combat tasks did not have time to re-armament, one was given a rifle and the other - hostile reception from them. Testify that it does not apply to officers Shtrafbat. Weapons, including the most modern, there is always enough. "
 
  Another recollection of a front of armed officers penal battalions "were supposed to trehlineyku, shoot from which to attack - things torment. We had to stop and juggle bolt after each shot ... ... But lucky - got a shotgun, self-cocking and shorter trehlineyki and a half times. Automata penalty box was not supposed to. But in every platoon had only one light machine gun. Ammo is also allowed to take, who, as it can carry. In other parts were given to each of five to ten pieces, no more. "
 
  But in the companies of the penalty and in fact, with arms "was not a gift", and received his penal basically just before the battle (as a rule, only rifles). Here are a few memories of soldiers passed punitive company:
  "Shtrafroty - five rounds per rifle, thirty by machine gun, as a rule, German, - and that's all the ammunition."
  "I do not know how it happened ... I just remember that before the first attack, they gave us ten rounds per rifle. And then I stand, I click the shutter, shooting, and I have no ammunition."
  "I got into shtrafrotu, where we had about 150 people. We were only armed with rifles. No machines, no machine guns, we did not have."
  "Arms trophy was used everywhere, and it was very popular. Sergeant hand over weapons drop-out system, but it is a" ledger "his looks and asks:" What are you out there fighting for? Statements on all the weapons company has long passed ". A trophy without a gun - at the end of the war - it is difficult to imagine any infantry commander. It was a craze."
 
  But again, I stress once again that life is - it is relative. So look for comparison to the "Blackshirts" moving to the completion of ordinary field pieces. Think and Feel ...
 
  Well, so I was not accused of worn-out cliches like, "Oh, we know ... the corpses had stopped, the Germans with their bare hands tore at the throat," I will answer - words from a song you can not throw. Rifles actually missing. Only in the context of the military disaster and confusion of the initial period of war, chaos typically Russian in all spheres of life, they have not always been there, where they were most needed. And why were fighting - that is. Requests for short truce to bringing up ammunition to the Germans did not offer.
 
  And not we alone, Sivolap, yes nekultyapistye this suffering.
  Here is what General Gorev: "... It's happened many times in the German army. For example, Lt. CF Brand to found his diary he wrote us that he was sent into battle at Kursk, and they had one rifle for three ".
  This - not forty-first summer near Mogilev in the Red Army. This summer 1943, the Kursk - in the Wehrmacht.

This may sound dumb but this passage is pretty long. Can I get a small summary  :P

I have been occupied by examinations.::)

Penal battalion (arms):
- Degtyaryov's machine gun, later PTRS.
Penal company (arms):
- A rifle 1:2.