Emptying the prisons and giving every prisoner a weapon to fight against a surrounding force.Has this ever worked in history?How would you make it work?Any other funny forlorn hope strategies (besides a Tang decisive victory)?
Konstantin Rokossovsky was a Russian officer at the start of WW2. As the Russian defenses collapsed in the face of the Wehrmacht's blitzkreig thousands of Russian soldiers were fleeing eastward from the front.Rokossovsky was tasked with rounding up fleeing Russian soldiers and setting up defensive positions around Moscow. He had some junior officers with him and basically put together a defensive force made up of soldiers of all of the broken units that were fleeing the advancing German army. His story is very interesting. This isn't penal battalions as OP asked but organizing thousands of fleeing conscripts into a capable defensive force is pretty impressive.
>>65577424The problem is that countries wait too late to do it. You should do it very early in war while most of your pre-war conventional forces are alive to coordinate the prison troops.
>>65577424Worked pretty well for the British. Get rid of undesirables and feed the meat grinder with “good enough” meat at the same time.
>>65577424Desperation move.
>>65577424The US technically did it during the Gulf War?
Spartacus' rebellion I guess?
Towards the end of World War II, the Red Army incorporated liberated prisoners of war and forced laborers as replacement troops, but I have never heard of them being granted rewards such as the expunging of dishonorable records.
>>65577424If you're in a situation where prisoners look like good additions to your front, you're either maneuvering, losing, or about to get completely and utterly skill-gapped.
I guess if I had to do it in the current year. Id ideally "recruit" from military prisons but be very selective and then from civilian prisons id take the "recruits" that would qualify for firefighter duty in normal times. Theyd still be sent on the worst missions, but at least they probably wouldnt become a warcrime. If I was in a situation like Ukraine, id use the worst criminals who cannot be trusted for sweatshop labor to produce war materials, or organize them into chaingangs and for them to dig trenches and other defensive positions at gun point.
>>65577459>capable defensive forceThey were saved by winter and the over-extension of German logistics. All they needed to do was supply their biomass to clog the treads of panzers for a hot minute while nature and German horse-drawn carts did the rest
>>65577424I don't get it: why not arm the civilian population? Quality wise they are not that below inmates (all that shooting in air during the weddings must have taught them the basics) and they are far more motivated, expecially if you start circulating horror stories about the approaching army.
>>65578637These are prisoners, not civillians. They'd need to be heavily vetted if they are to be given a weapon because:>Can't really trust prisoners to be loyal to you and not pivot over to the sieging army>Prisoners might just end up starting an armed revolt that you can't contain>Could just kill you because why the hell notAnd what not
>>65578658Yes, that was my point. Better to arm the civilians than the prisoners.BTW I would go out of my way to specifically recruit these guys. You talk tough? Now you will have the chance to prove it! https://www.youtube.com/shorts/H7Q5AJUlEj8
>>65577424Wait, the Houthi fucking pocketed Taiz. Holy shit. That's the only notable population center still in yemeni government hands other than Aden.
>>65578743Sandal wearing Yemenis performed a succesful chauldroon before puccia ever managed to. SAD
>>65577459Significant point is that Rokossovsky was basically himself pulled from prison & missing teeth because the Germans invaded.>>65577424It kinda depends, both Germans and Russians did it in WWII. I doubt it was ever decisive, but Russians had an enormous list of penal battalions in the war, Germans - far less.There’s also this nuance of a totalitarian state where you have political prisoners that are likely to feel patriotic sentiment to the country even if they hate the leader.Stalin promised amnesty in exchange for blood, mostly a lie. German penal units, from what I read, sometimes did result in amnesty.Ya’ll might enjoy the Russian tv series “Shtrafbat” (2000), made in a brief window when there was this raw, realistic, humane view of WWII.
>>65578792>maybe this time Stalin won't betray us!Fools
>>65577424>forlorn hope strategyThat's not a forlorn hope. That's last ditch. The "Forlorn Hope" term refers specifically to the first group assaulting a castle or fortress. They were offered up to 20 times the normal shares of plunder, sometimes knighthood, and often land if they lived. Knights participating in a Forlorn Hope could expect full ennoblement, meaning a hereditary title for their descendants and usually an estate to accompany the title. Forlorn hopes had extremely high casualty rates, sometimes 100%, but the rewards were sufficient to offset the risk for many men. Emptying prisons and arming convicts is a last-ditch measure, or done simply for the sake of adding numbers to overwhelm an enemy.
>>65578889Ain't no rule says you can't use your conscript fodder for a forlorn hope
>>65577424>Ctrl+F>Dirlewanger>Phrase not foundBakadesudesunetbhfamalam
>>65577925They did it through the whole war. They did it at scale during the fighting around Stalingrad. Germans also did it late war.
>>65581622Useless unit that accomplished little to nothing aped by cringe edgelords.
>>65581636Killed at least 150000 civvies. Also killed enemy combatants sometimes.Were those not the orders? Kill ze untermensch?They only failed at humanity.
>>65577424Doesn't work as well as a penal battalion. It works okay as a "go to prison or go to war" for lesser crimes. The criminally insane and worst offenders cannot be made useful except as an unarmed laborer, even then that probably isn't worth it.When you group the prisoners together they misbehave more. An outright penal battalion lets them form rival gangs. >>65578670>Better to arm the civilians than the prisoners.That's called the draft. Or more immediately a levy.
>>65581622>a bunch of losers that didn't help anyoneYou're giving a counter example of things not to do.
>>65577424Once you freed them, you have lost any leverage, promises of amnesty wont work.If I HAD to make it work, then I guess I would create fake prison papers for each of the inmates, stating they were imprisoned for whatever crime my opponents think is most heinous (being a Saudi spy maybe), then letting the inmates know that a "spy" handed those papers to the enemy.Then free said inmates. They can try to run away if they want (good luck doing that in a surrounded city, BTW the pocket is being cut in two) or they can fight.That of broom the freewill out of them puccian style I guess (do they even have that in Yemen or do they use a bundle of twigs?).
>>65577517It is a matter of optics. The public sees the government making conscripts out of convicts and unironically thinks it's over. This is doubly true in countries that are accustomed to a volunteer-only military. The next logical step is of course robotic soldiers that don't experience stress.
>>65577424The Song empire ran on penal battalions. They also gave them (and the normal conscripts) tattoos so they couldnt desert as easily, for example you could have your crime or battalion number tattooed on your forehead.If you had higher status you could have gotten away with having written>I SERVU DA EMPAROR VERY WELLor the like on your hand.A nice book on this subject is Inked: Tattooed soldiers by Alyagon.
>>65583459Isn't a similar idea jap Yakuza? More back in ye olde days than now when people get tattoos on a whim, back when tattoos especially in jap culture was a permanent brand saying "LOOK AT ME I'M NOT A NORMAL PEASANT" so you couldn't just dip out of the gang you were in it for life, even if that life is much shorter than usual
>>65582249They accomplished zero military objectives and when they were finally thrown into the front they killed their officers and starting raping/looting their way across south-east Germany. And the thing is there were waay cooler penal units in the German military had the 999-series and 500-series battalions and the SS penal unit was a parachute battalion. The SS parachute penal battalion did some cool shit - a big jump over Yugoslavia to capture Tito. Beat the fuck out of his army and almost got him. Afrika-Division 999 full of political prisoners and degenerates fought in Tunisia at a battle called "Longstop Hill" which is a really famous battle in the British Army. They had to drive Churhills up the side of a mountain and do repeated bayonet charges to push the Germans off it. Infantry Battlion 540, full of soldiers who had been court marshalled, did some gangster shit with Army group north. Closed Russian breaches in the line, got repeatedly wiped out, ect. I truly hate the glazing of Dirlewanger's unit. They were fucking pussies who folded the second someone shot back.
>>65577459Most of them went to the Gulag afterwards, so you could call it a reverse prison battalion.Just Russian things.
>>65578637>and they are far more motivatedYou've never heard of the Southern Transitional Council. The specific territory in question is not populated by people who view their government as legitimate.
>>65584337>Isn't a similar idea jap YakuzaYeah, in China too both tattooing by criminals / people outside of society and penal tattoos from the state predated the Song. Though the people that underwent mass tattooing by the Song were even lower in status than those earlier tattooed criminals, they were more or less serfs.
