Talk:Shtrafbat

message: I removed this info for now as suspicious:
* ...10 years of prison equaled to 3 months of shtrafbat, 5-8 years to 2 months, 5 years or less to 1 month.  
*...convicts released from prisons and labor camps who volunteered into active military service;
mikka (t) 05:38, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Dubious phrases

message: "The holding units [established under Order 227] were in operation for about three months; on 29 October a new order was issued which cancelled them as from November 1942." Generals didn't implement the terms of Order 227 since they perceived it as a waste of their own troops. Hence, the alleged barrier units that were supposed to arrest deserters were more likely to be "posted to keep guard over command posts" or used to divert "less useful manpower [to] menial jobs." Combined with the negative effect it had on morale, the decision to have regular army units self-police was abandoned by the Soviet leadership shortly after it began. 
From Anthony Sellas, The Value of Human Life in Soviet Warfare, (NY: Routledge, 1992) p.159.
Of course, the NKVD (as a political security force) systematically arrested deserters in the rear throughout the war. But the army did not waste its own manpower doing so.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheShadowDawn (talk • contribs) 09:32, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order 227 only remained in full effect for three months! It's not relevant to this article. 

message: Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 20:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008 

message: The article claims that the movie " The Dirty Dozen " was a dramatization.In fact, that movie is just a fiction.Agre22 (talk) 02:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Dirty Dozen is just fiction

message: The para:"Pursuant to Order No. 227, any attempt to retreat without orders, or even a failure to advance was punished by barrier troops ('zagraditel'nye otriady') or "anti-retreat" detachments of the Soviet special organization known as SMERSH (Smert shpionam), Russian for “Death to spies”.[20][21] SMERSH units were used to shoot retreating men serving in penal units should the latter commence a retreat after failing either to advance to secure an objective, or to stop a German attack via counter-attack.[22][23] As a result, with nowhere else to go, the penal battalions usually advanced in a frenzy, running forwards until they were killed by enemy minefields, artillery, or heavy machine-gun fire. If the men survived and achieved their objective, they were rounded up and used again in the next assault.[24]" looks odd. The order 227 did not state that any attempt to retreat automatically lead to conviction to penal units. "Anti-retreat" detachments (in actuality, defensive squads) weren't subordinated to SMERSH, according to the order's text. According to the Order 227, the defensive squads were put "directly behind unstable divisions and require them in case of panic and scattered withdrawals of elements of the divisions to shoot in place panic-mongers and cowards". Nothing was said about penal units in the defensive squads context.Since no full references are provided that support the paragraph I have no opportunity check if the cited sources really contain these statements. In addition, since Suvorov's "evidentary base (or lack thereof), his dubious assertions of facts, have been critiqued devastatingly by Gabriel Gorodetsky in Mif Ledokola"(the quote was taken Teddy J. Uldricks Source: Slavic Review, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 626-643), I am not sure Suvorov to be a reliable source. This my assertion is in concordance with many reputable scholars, such as Derek Watson (Source: Slavic Review, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Summer, 2000), pp. 492), Hugh Ragsdale (Source: Slavic Review, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Summer, 2000), pp. 466), Roger Reese ( Slavic Review, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), p. 227), Stephen Blank (Russian Review, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Apr., 2000), pp. 310-311), Robin Edmonds (Source: International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 66, No. 4, Seventieth Anniversary Issue (Oct., 1990), p. 812), David M. Glantz (Source: The Journal of Military History, Vol. 55, No. 2 (Apr., 1991), pp. 263-264), Cynthia A. Roberts (Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 47, No. 8 (Dec., 1995), pp. 1293-1326) who agree that Suvorov's writings are based on "virtually no evidentary base" (Cynthia A. Roberts) and cannot be taken seriously.Summarizing all said above, I am intended to remove this paragraph.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order 227 

message: I removed the statement based on the Lebed's memoirs from the article per discussion there --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:46, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lebed's memoirs. 

message: Off the top of my head, I think 'Inglorious Bastards'(the original) and the game Battlefield: Bad Company follow the story of fictional penal units.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.20.84 (talk) 07:36, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pop culture references 

message: It seem to me that this whole article is written by some child who watch too much hollywood movies.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.164.35.106 (talk) 17:26, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  what a crap is this? 

message: And yet we have no evidence of this other than the propaganda claim. Please, I understand that people have very ignorant or biased beliefs, but at least make an EFFORT to make it appear that it has any basis in reality.
0G  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.94.5.235 (talk) 23:07, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: 'Very well documented that the ussr made people march onto minefields'

message: How do I report this page. This page needs serious assessment, because it is clearly very poorly written and full of dubious information. The voice is not academic, like the reference about the good supply of vodka. As this is the very sensitive topic, I urge the admins to take action. Articles like this will discredit Wikipedia, especially for CIS- countries readers, who are very sensitive to WW II history.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.64.93.159 (talk) 12:22, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Admins do not 'police' article content. Content is improved by editors. You can become one. If you have better sources, please contribute. If you see dubious information, please be specific. I removed the 'vodka' and another sentence from dubious source. -No.Altenmann >t 06:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Report 

message: Just because you don't like what it says, doesn't mean you can just go around removing it.65.209.62.115 (talk) 09:09, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Altenmann, enough with the vandalism. 

message: "were greatly increased in number by Joseph Stalin in July 1942 via Order No. 227" - I'd say "were first introduced", at least until someone shows me a shtrafbat before the mentioned Order.
"The order... introduced severe punishments, including summary execution, for unauthorized retreats." Very big words. Actually it said - relieve from duties and court-martial any general or officer who ordered a retreat unauthorized. Sure, barrier units were introduced with orders "to shoot cowards", but this part of the article, in the form it is now, is vastly exaggerating and heavily biased.
"In addition to the battalions already serving with Armies..." - please help me against my ignorance. Which battalion, with which Army, when exactly? Who told you of such?
"Положение о штрафных батальонах Действующей армии" - "of November 26, 1942 by Georgiy Zhukov, then a Deputy Commander-in-Chief" - here we can see either a grave mistake or a blatant lie. The mentioned Status was put in force by the Order of Narcom (Minister) of Defence #298 dated September 28, 1942. Needless to say, the Narcom's name was Stalin and not Zhukov.  
"Penal companies (штрафная рота, 100 to 150 per unit) were commanded by sergeants (NCOs) and privates." - it is a downright lie. Penal companies were commanded by so called permanent personnel, which included only officers.
  
"Interesting to note is that on paper, the battalion was to be commanded by a Colonel..." - nothing of interest here. Any Detached units were commanded (and still are, by the way) by officers suitable to command next biggest non-Detached unit, in this case, a regiment. A Colonel for the battalion commander, therefore, is quite usual.
"Soviet Gulag labor camp inmates.[citation needed]" - there will be no citation as this is just another lie.
"the death penalty, the standard punishment for Order No. 227" - no punishment was specified with this Order, as I said before, speaking nothing of "standard".
"were eligible for commutation of sentence" - my English is so poor, I don't understand, if that means "were considered as having served the sentence", as it should be? 
"They could also theoretically receive military decorations for outstanding service and if released were considered fully rehabilitated" - thank you for the hate-word "theoretically" and the hate-word "if", where "when" should be. If decorated, they were freed immediately and into previous ranks, same with being wounded.
"In reality, the promise of rehabilitation was (in most cases) propaganda" - I demand for me to be shown at least one case when a wounded or decorated person was NOT immediately freed from a penal unit, to prove the propaganda character of this promise. Otherwise I shall consider the phrase as a hateful lie (which it surely is).
"penal infantry battalions were administered and commanded by the feared field units of the NKVD secret police" - just a lie. Sure, they kept an eye on shtrafbats, but NOT administered nor commanded them. By the way, show me "a field unit of the NKVD", I beg you. An op officer for a combat unit, plus a driver, a bodyguard and a secretary - no field units, so sorry.
"treated shtrafniki as a particularly loathsome and dangerous subspecies of cannon fodder" - is it Wikipedia or what?
"hazardous patrols in large groups (reconnaissance-in-force) to determine enemy strength" - drop "hazardous patrols", "разведка боем" means just an attack in force.
"wearing dark, instead of snow camouflage clothing to draw enemy fire away from regular Red Army units).[citation needed]"
"sent into battle unarmed, or with sticks to mimic rifles.[citation needed]" - both examples are LIES until HARD proven, and you will see NO citations on them since there are none.
I am growing tired of all that stuff, sorry. The topic is indeed highly sensitive for us. So would you be so kind as to clean it up of all the lies, hate and bias? 77.243.99.35 (talk) 01:42, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just some notes. 

message: There is this text:
The total number of people convicted to penal units from September 1942 to May 1945 was 422,700. Very few of them were known to have survived the war.
At the end of this is reference [4] to p. 92. of Krivosheev. The implication is that the last sentence is from his book. However, only the number comes from a footnote on this page. There is no mention of the loss rate for penal units, or how many survived the war. In fact as I read Penalty Strike by Pyl'cyn, there are regula reference both to temporaries being released from the penal battalion after being wounded, knocking out tanks, or having served their sentence (usually 2-3 months). What then is a source for this sentence? 142.126.221.96 (talk) 17:51, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading reference