USSR 1941

Of course, the "absolutely" that Major Mikhailvich said did not hold true, because Major Mikhailvich went to the Ministry of Internal Affairs ten minutes later...he was going to ask someone from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to demand that at least the 82nd During the period when the infantry regiment was "maintaining order" in the port, deserters were handed over to the 82nd infantry regiment.

This request was readily granted.

Because this was originally in line with the original intention of the Soviet army to establish a "punishment battalion". On the other hand, the battle in Stalingrad also entered an extraordinary period of shortage of soldiers. Being able to use these deserters can be regarded as solving a problem for the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The 82nd Infantry remained in port for two days.

In two days, more than 200 deserters were taken in... Most of the deserters were soldiers, and a few were workers.

The reason why workers are defined as "deserters" is because some workers are not allowed to leave Stalingrad, such as metallurgical factories and tractor factories.

Major Mikhailvich originally did not want to accept these workers, but the officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs raised a question: "Why not? Are you worried that they will not be able to fight?"

"Of course!" replied Major Mikhailevich: "They can't even pull the bolt!"

This is an exaggeration. In fact, workers are conducting military training in their spare time, and it is impossible for them to fail to pull the bolt.

"But what's the difference?" The officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs asked back: "What you need is a 'punishment battalion', isn't it?"

Major Mikhailvich couldn't help being speechless. Of course he didn't dare to answer that there was an arrogant deputy commander in the regiment who thought he could restrain these "deserters" and lead them into normal battles.

So in the end none of them were left behind, 215 people, the size of a reinforced company, and the company commander was of course Sokolov.

"I have to remind you, Shulka!" Mikhailvich said as he handed the list to Shulka, "We probably don't have time to train them at all, and you know why!"

Shulka nodded.

Of course he knew the reason. The battle in Stalingrad was tight, and the 82nd Infantry Regiment only returned to the second line to rest for a few days, and would soon be sent to the battlefield again.

In other words, the "deserter company" will follow the troops to the front line without receiving any training.

"What performance can we expect from them?" said Major Mikhailevich. "That's a company of deserters!"

"Comrade Mikhailvich!" Shulka replied: "Not so long ago,

The same goes for the 82nd Infantry! "

Major Mikhailvich was momentarily at a loss for words.

After a moment of silence, Major Mikhailvich asked: "Comrade Shulka, I just want to know why you believe they won't run away again!"

"Dignity, Comrade Mikhailvich!" Shulka replied: "Dignity!"

"dignity?"

"Yes, dignity!" Shulka nodded: "This is the only thing I can give them, but I believe this is what they need most!"

Shulka did exactly that.

Sokolov's company was incorporated into Valery's first battalion by Shulka and became the fifth company of the battalion.

During this period Valery also protested.

"Comrade Captain!" Valery said, "I thought they should be added to each unit separately!"

"Tell me your reasons!" said Shulka.

"Then we can better use and supervise them!" Valery replied: "If we compile them together and send them equipment, they are likely to..."

Valery didn't go on talking about the next words.

But Shulka knew what Valery meant, and he was worried that it would be difficult to control if he did not break it up.

"Don't worry, Comrade Valery!" Shulka said: "It doesn't need any control or supervision, you just need to assign them normal combat tasks!"

"But……"

"No, but, Valery! This is an order!" Shulka emphasized his tone: "At the same time, I emphasize again, as the battalion commander, you should assign combat tasks 'normally', just like other troops, understand?"

"Yes, Comrade Captain!" Valery stood up and answered helplessly.

One headache is the issue of resupply.

Supplies are divided into two aspects, one is to equip and the other is food.

The main problem of food is that the normal ration of food for "deserters" has been halved.

According to the above statement, these "deserters" are going to be sent to the battlefield as cannon fodder anyway, so what difference does it make if they are full or hungry?

What's more, it is a waste to give these traitors so much food, and it is right to leave precious food to the heroes who fight on the front line.

Therefore, Sokolov could only be allocated half a loaf of bread a day, which could only ensure that they would not starve to death within a few days.

Shulka used the principle of equal distribution to solve this problem, and asked other soldiers of the 82nd Infantry Regiment to tear a small piece of bread from their own rations to make a bucket, and then sent it to Sokolov Company.

"What is this?" Sokolov looked at the bread pieces and asked Shulka suspiciously.

"I promised you that I would treat you as ordinary soldiers!" Shulka replied: "At least in my unit, if so, you should be given the same food as everyone else!"

"You don't need to do this, Comrade Shulka!" Sokolov replied: "I believe you..."

Shulka laughed: "If you even have less food than others, then what can you trust me?"

Sokolov was silent for a while, then nodded heavily and took the bucket of crumbled bread.

"I see, Comrade Shulka!" Sokolov said. "We are an ordinary army, so we deserve it!"

"Yes!" Shulka patted Sokolov on the shoulder.

There is no way to solve the problem of equipment. A normal infantry company should be equipped with machine guns, mortars, submachine guns and other weapons, but the superiors can only allocate one rifle to the "deserters", and there are only two bullets. Holds 10 bullets.

This is because the "punishment battalion" is often just cannon fodder. They only need to rush forward against the enemy's artillery fire and bullets, step on mines or lay barbed wire with corpses, so they don't need too much ammunition.

On the other hand, they are worried that the "deserters" will rebel.

Shulka's method is to give each of them a base ammunition amount according to the normal amount of ammunition, plus 4 additional grenades.

As for heavy equipment such as machine guns...

"You should go to the battlefield and equip yourself!" Shulka said, "Is there a problem with getting it from the enemy or a dead comrade?"

"No, no problem, Comrade Shulka!" Sokolov replied.

He knew that equipment could not be distributed equally like bread, because the fifth company's military quality could not keep up.

Therefore, this kind of deliberate distribution that damages the combat effectiveness of the entire army is abnormal.