I'm who do think would be better at killing people IRL, you the average Joe or the asshole who got himself rightfully shoved for 20-life in prison?????
It was allowed to take people with a light or medium conviction to penal companies: fraud, theft, and so on. A 20-year sentence is clearly a heavy conviction. These are murders and so on. Such people were not taken to the penal company because in this way a person (or a group) would most likely arrange an escape with murder and the seizure of weapons.
Second, civilian prisoners were not the majority in the penal company. Most are guilty soldiers.
While we're citing sources, does anyone have a source for this claim that Katitof keeps posting?
I'd like to know where the distinction between "Penal Company" and "Penal Battalion" comes from here because that doesn't make any sense. A Battalion is a larger formation than a Company, comprised of 2-6 Companies as well as command, supply, and and communications elements. One would assume the standard unit designations apply to Penal units, with Penal Battalions being made up of Penal Companies made up of Penal Platoons made up of Penal Squads.
Penal units comprised of disgraced officers did exist and were considered "Elite" and were used as disposable shock troops, but I see no evidence tying the word "Battalion" to the formations of disgraced officers. Aside from the officer formations, most penal troops were enlisted personnel who got in serious trouble, and were issued equipment equal to that of the regular troops.
Order No. 227 established that each front must create one to three penal battalions (Russian: штрафной батальон, romanized: shtrafnoy batalyon, lit. 'penalty battalion', commonly known as штрафбат, shtrafbat) of up to 800 middle-ranking commanders and high-ranking commanders accused of disciplinary problems. Penal battalions were sent to the most dangerous sections of the front lines. Each front had to create penal companies for privates and NCOs (from 150 to 200 people for a penal company). The number of penal units was not constant and fluctuated depending on the number of military personnel sent there. The average monthly number of their personnel almost never rose to the level established by Order No. 227.
Thank you very much. I must admit that I am once again not able to find the book (I see it mentioned on several other sites but was not able to find a site that sells this book) Do you have the ISBN by chance?
Regarding the video: Luckily the auto-translated Subtitles are somewhat ok. 19:21 : Here it is talked about Leningrad Militias (and it is mentioned that they had an abundance of mortars, although no 2:1 abundance is mentioned) so I assume that this is the part you were referring to?
But it reads like he is only referring to one Militia Division(the auto-translation for this part is a bit of a mess, there is even a Donut mentioned for some reason).
(just gonna quote what the auto-translate wrote)(exact time is 19:28)
"Militia Leningrad, it had about 9 thousand people, seven thousand rifles, this is, this is normal, absolutely the number of rifles for a fighter 1 line, she had an abundance of mortars, she had an normal amount of machine guns"
(20:09: Here is the part about the commander that ran over to the germans)
I then went through the transcript and the word militia is only mentioned at the very end two times again (around minute 40 and at 47:44). At 47:44 it is mentioned that the Militia played an important role in the overall strategy.
Literally find neither the Autor nor this Book on the internet and to be honest it seems a bit odd that he would write about Militia formations of the Russian Federation ... wouldn't Militia formations of the Soviet Union be more fitting. Are you sure this is the correct title?(but then again there are lots of strange translations out there so maybe bad book-translator?)?
Could you please provide a link, screenshot ... anything? All the sources I quoted are freely available on the internet
Which lecture? Is it avaible on the internet? Do you have a timestamp?
Don't get me wrong but this all is a big "Trust me bro"
If you understand Russian:
here is a generalized lecture on the defense of Leningrad in 1941. Isaev also has a book: from the border to Leningrad.
Kolesnik Alexander. "Militia formations of the Russian Federation during the Great Patriotic War"
Lectures by one of the best and authoritative modern historians Alexey Isaev.This person practically lives in the archives.
The real problem for the Leningrad militia is the width of the defended front. The 1939 field manual of the Red Army indicates that a rifle division can successfully defend a front with a width of 8-12 kilometers. The Leningrad Militia Divisions had to defend a front 40 (!) Kilometers wide.
Badly armed can again be interpreted in variing ways so here is another quote from one of Beevors Books.
And here is complete nonsense - confirmation of this, the instructor sergeant submissive ran over to the Germans and during interrogation clearly said that each militia had a rifle, a gas mask, and each was dressed with the same uniform. Moreover, the Leningrad militia turned out to be very stubborn and staunch in defense, the reason for the double staff of mortars, mortars were produced in Leningrad and the militia received a double staff of mortars.
in the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation there are documents on the degree of staffing with weapons of all twelve divisions of the people's militia on September 3, 1941.
The provision of rifles, machine guns, light and heavy machine guns, 50-mm mortars, 76-mm divisional guns, 122-mm howitzers is 100% in them. Among the total number of heavy machine guns, there are 412 Colt heavy machine guns model 1915.
From a thematic and realistic standpoint I always felt Guards should be swapped with Penals even if it was just the name only as it would make sense.
While Penal Battalions were used in WW2 by the Soviets, they were small in number which fits more with being a call in Unit rather than a Core Soviet Army Unit in which Guards would fit that better.
Absolutely. The many millionth Guard as a doctrinal opportunity and 1% which is the main infantry. This should have been done for a long time.
There were Soviet Divisions that lacked rifles that is for sure and it is confirmed by reports:
And there are also sources that state that poorly armed soldiers were sent into battle:
In which it is not said that these soldiers went into battle without weapons, and they say about the difficulty of the offensive, because these soldiers could not immediately go into the attack. This often happened when the soldiers arrived at the front line before the weapon.
In the second link there is a lack of guns but not rifles
And in the third, you talk about a hastily created militia. The militia, depending on the situation, received an old weapon, or was armed with SVT-40 (Tula militia), even in your example it says badly armed but not unarmed.
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