Penal Battalions

[Tim41]

On our discussion of Penal Battalions:
Jason, please review Hoyt's The Battle of Stalingrad, C-1993, Edwin P. Hoyt, and Beevor's Stalingrad, The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943. Hoyt talks of how Eisenhower discussed the problem of mine clearence with Zhukov after the war. Zhukov said they simply sent infantry in as tramplers and that the losses were equivelent to those expected of a conventional attack. These were normal units.
Beevor discusses a figure of over 420,000 soldiers who served in penal battalions.
According to Hoyt, there were over 16 Penal battalions in 21st Soviet Army and 23 in the 65th Army alone. That's way more than a battalion per Division in each of those fronts at the time of Stalingrad.
Maybe we should rethink the point cost of wasting a truck as cannon fodder....unless considerable Penal units are available in Campaign Games like Case Blue in the next update. Food for thought.

[Arkady]

for each Corps there were 10-15 penal battalions for various duty

and don't forget Rokossovsky's 16th Army...entire formation was penal !
for me is Rokossovsky one of the best russian commanders during WWII...with very disgraceful career after war when he turn against his roots and tied Poland under Soviet rule
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Rokossovsky