On this day 26th November 1942.

On this day 26th November 1942.

The composition of Soviet penal units was standardised by Georgy Zhukov's order, "The Status of Penal Units of the Army".

The list of offenses that could result in assignment to a penal unit was long: cowardice in combat, desertion, neglect of military equipment, sabotage, drunkenness, and many more. 

Shtrafniki, as the disgraced soldiers in the units were known, were stripped of their titles, medals and orders. 

Although able to serve as junior commanders in their new units, the senior commanders came from regular units,

These penal battalions, would have an official strength of 360 former Gulag prisoners plus a small heavily armed guard detachment. 

The former prisoners would only be issued with weapons and ammunition immediately before going into action. 

They were typically required to serve in the penal battalion for between one and three months, and would be eligible to transfer to a Red Army unit if they were to sustain a combat wound. 

The official view was that, as the men were unreliable, they were highly expendable and should be used to reduce losses in regular units. 

It is estimated that some 500,000 military personnel and Gulag prisoners were sentenced to service in penal battalions during the war.

The German Army used similar military formations. The German army’s strafbattalions were infantry units made up largely of convicts, felons, malingerers and thugs.

Inmates in these de facto ‘marching prisons’ could expect only the most hazardous and backbreaking of assignments. 

When they weren’t being deployed as common labourers, penal units fought as shock troops or were thrown into losing battles to defend hopeless positions. 

In some cases, whole strafbattalion units would be ordered at gunpoint to march across minefields in order to clear them.

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