Rules For Penal Troops

[waynebaumber]

    Another typical good looking Russian

[vince hughes]

Pravda fairy-tales ...... Nothing more !

[campsawyer]

Well, Shad's wins with the propaganda poster award and Wayne gets the contemporary film award. Shad get's the gun and Wayne gets the two bullets, NOW GET INTO THE BATTLE, COMRADE!!!!!


But here are some interesting points, "by the end of 1944 346,344 men served in Shtaf (Penal) units, 50% (170,298) had become casualties and most of these were in the first two years of the war." "It was Stalin's choice for military crimes, serve or be executed, most choose to serve and eventually received a cleared record, if they survived."

These are from "Why Stalin's soldiers fought" by Roger Reese. Very good read on why the Soviet soldiers fought in WWII.

[plloyd1010]

I think you guys have missed the essential problems when it comes to penal troops. I see the problems as being they count as step losses, they out run the main attack.

If the objective was to give free steps to the Axis, forced full movement and counting as regular casualties does that very well. On the other hand, if the intent was to create an unwieldy, expendable cover force (as they were actually used), it doesn't happen. Why it doesn't happen? Remember my oft complaint about march times? Penal troops moving at 3 outpace infantry attacks moving at 2, or force the follow-on troops to abandon their support weapons. How many of you leave you HMGs behind?

I don't know what Mike's intentions were, and PY's only partially. Since PY is on the forum, perhaps he might enlighten us, or at least me, as to what the intended operation context of the penal units is and how he thinks this was accomplished in RW and HoSU. "As for me and my house", we error on the side of history, so long as it doesn't mess up the system.

[vince hughes]

"As for me and my house", we error on the side of history, so long as it doesn't mess up the system.

Mmmmm ?

[vince hughes]

I think you guys have missed the essential problems when it comes to penal troops. I see the problems as being they count as step losses, they out run the main attack.

Peter, it seems you have missed the problem.

These do NOT count as step-losses for initiative in our game ?

[Hugmenot]

I think you guys have missed the essential problems when it comes to penal troops. I see the problems as being they count as step losses, they out run the main attack.

I played Blue Division #04 - Ispanskii Kaput! last week and penal units were definitely excluded from the number of steps eliminated.

An excellent scenario with penal troops and Spanish fanaticism.

[larry marak]

"History calling...History calling" I still say every scenario featuring a Soviet offensive from Aug 42 till Berlin should include 3 to 6 penal units, as was the case historically. Penal units were still being formed in April 42. Even penal aircraft units! Wherever possible the Soviets began the charge with an unarmed human wave.

[Poor Yorek]

I don't know what Mike's intentions were, and PY's only partially. Since PY is on the forum, perhaps he might enlighten us, or at least me, as to what the intended operation context of the penal units is and how he thinks this was accomplished in RW and HoSU. "As for me and my house", we error on the side of history, so long as it doesn't mess up the system.

PLloyd: well, I didn't have any "intentions" save for trying to understand the rules as set forth in Section 10 of RW in response to the Original Post - and I'm not sure how one might infer otherwise. So I am afraid you will have to remain in the dark regarding how APL did or did not accomplish meshing game rules with "reality" or "history" (history according to whom?) as I have no and made no attempt to offer anything perspicacious along those lines. I simply tried to interpret vide infra paragraphs #2 and #3 in light of the (given) language of paragraph #1.

Part of the problem with having, in my judgment, frequently poorly written rules (c.f. the recent discussion here on OBA), is that determining the mind of the lawgiver becomes difficult if not impossible (hence, for example, whether paragraph #3 was really intended to determine what DIS-not-adjacent units must do or did so accidentally as it were: as per my query in the later part of my earlier post in this thread). Camp's reply seems to suggest that he is far more confident that paragraph #3 was definitive and intentional ... and that might be so. I just didn't share that confidence, necessarily, unless the question had been "officially" clarified earlier.

[plloyd1010]

Actually they do sometimes count as (ie: not excluded from) step losses in RW & BD. Do not in HoSU. Do in TB. What exactly do you think I missed about that?