Mate, you really have to stop with these threads.
Open your extra and mind for what really happend in WW II besides what the propaganda told you or what you want to believe as true. History is always blurred by blind patriotism.
Most soldiers were criminals in WW II. They raped, they stole, they murdered prisoners of war and they killed civilians. All sides, no exceptions.
Think about that before demanding "Angry, brave and absolutelty unstopable." heroes like in Call of Duty which is as historical correct as Braveheart and The Lion King.
Sorry for slight off topic but I had to say that!
Good news for you - there are no "criminals" on war, actually, in our everyday understanding of that word, we don't talk about "military crimes" now. There are no civil rules, just can't be. All those conventions, morale cryings of naive politics/hippies and all that bullshit - just dissapers after first hours of real war for people. Rape, steal, murdering and killing civilians - can't say, that it is all OK, but that's how things on all wars goes. It's understandable.
People killing each other, losing everything, that they had... Imagine, how much soviet people, soviet soliders lost during all those tough years of fighting. Houses, families, friends... It becomes understandable, why soldiers wanted to revenge so hard to their enemies.
And for history correction should say, that Soviet high command tried to prevent all those things as hard as they could. For raping, killing civilians in liberated cities or even for stealing - executions mostly or serivce in Penal, if soldiers/officers had some achivments. It wasn't like in "Enemy at gates" or how that bullshit called... Dicipline was important, so commanders keeped eye on that hard.
Btw, that's all about "moralistic cryings about war". Thread is about Penals, which were 100% formated with military criminals (low diciplines, alcogholics, same rapist, thiefs, etc...) and criminals from prisons and camps, who wanted to go on front and protect Motherland as all other people did.
We have 2 stock soviet infantry squads in game. First are clear and good Conscripts, real combat and morale core of Red Army. Second are Penals - we already understood, who they were mostly. What Relic did - overbuffed Penals, totally ignored underpowered (personal opinion) Cons. So, now soviet players will just have to use Penals as core, as mainline infantry, ignoring Cons - so small their firepower is. I don't think that it is historically or logically correct.
That would be same as "overbuffing expandable for Reich Osttrupen traitors" ignoring "good and race clean soldiers of Reich - grenadeers". It just goes against simple logic! I don't have anything against buffing Penals but... It doesn't make sense.