penals right now are way too strong. so you give them ptrs and seeking AT satchels? whaa?? heres my 2 cents. penals make no sense currently. historically they were given the worst equipment, often times given sticks and told to run directly across minefields and at defensive positions. the only rifles they got were the ones they beat out of the hands of germans if they could. so why do they start with an advanced SVT rifle? i think they should start with mosins, and given the option to buy svt rifles with munitions. penals just dont make any sense in this game. why do untrained prisoners defeat volksgrenadiers and grens 1v1?
From my reading this is incorrect. First off, there were different types of penal battalions. Most were made up of infantry who were arrested for various crimes including political dissident. A handful during the early war were made up of disgraced officers, many convicted for ordering unauthorized retreats. The officer penals were used as assault troops, they were outfitted similar to assault engineers (SVT's, PPSh's, ROKS') and forced to storm enemy strongholds. The more common penal troops were used as cannon-fodder, they would be stationed at the part of the front line expected to take the most casualties. This meant that an area expected to be heavily assaulted or bombarded may be stationed with penal battalions, so that regular infantry wouldn't take that burden. Divisions without penal battalions would suffer those casualties just the same.
While charging through minefields did occur, it was not limited to penal troops and it was not done just because they can. The Red Army Officer relied on statistics to operate. If charging through the mines would result in less casualties than storming the machine guns, then the troops (infantry, penal, guards, etc) will charge through the mines. and that is that.
Penal battalions were less of a suicide squad marked for death, and more of a unit that you could lose and have your only regret being that without them, the infantry have to take their place.