Shtrafbat ("Penalty Battalion") entire series

Military histories don't like to talk about the penalty soldiers, nameless in their graves.
Penalty battalions were thrown into attack against the most impregnable parts of the German defenses. There was no need to equip or provision penalty battalions - often they were reduced to scrounging what food and weapons they could come across once already in battle.

Death surrounded them on all sides: in front were the machineguns of their enemies, to the rear were the machineguns of the NKVD's blocking detachments. This film tells the story of the tragic fate of the penalty soldiers whose deaths contributed to victory in the most difficult times of World War II.

Shtrafbat was one of the first films to go into this dark part of Soviet history. This was filmed in 11 episodes.

Sound is the original Russian, subtitles are in Russian and English.О штрафниках военные историки говорить не любят, их братские могилы безымянны.
Штрафбаты бросали в атаки на самые неприступные участки обороны немцев. Штрафбаты было вовсе не обязательно снабжать боеприпасами и провиантом, часто еду и оружие они добывали сами, в бою.

Смерть окружала их со всех сторон: спереди их косили пулеметы противника, сзади — пулеметы заградотрядов НКВД. Фильм рассказывает о трагических судьбах штрафников, жизнями которых добивались победы в самый тяжелый период Великой Отечественной войны…