/k/ - Weapons

Yes, why wouldn't they be? Those IED and mines aren't going to blow up by themselves. And enemies aren't going to waste their ammunition by themselves in any timely manner. Neither are the bodies going to bury themselves.

Even if the penal legions are viable, it isn't a good use of resources to put them on the front lines. Sure they might stop a few of your regulars from dying, but that's all. They have little motivation to fight so they're unlikely to secure any major victories, and for the same reason attrition is going to be high. It's a far better use of resources to put them into work camps: you won't lose your free time labor as quickly, the lack of motivation isn't as much a factor, and you don't need to worry about a bunch of potentially dangerous criminals being armed. One thing you could do is tell your prisoners that the bottom 10% of workers in the camps are sent to a penal legion at the end of each month to encourage them to work.

>>603726

This. There is enough physical work going around in a war to not have to arm criminals.

Soviet/Chinks penal battalion were/are different due to the insane amount of political prisoners they had/have (threadly reminder that China still has an extensive gulag network and you've certainly bought shit from them made that was made by political prisoners). You could make fighting battalions out of them because for most them their only crime was having said bad things about communism, a party official or just having ended up in the wrong class of people subjected to this year purge.

Recently I think Iran used some in the Iran/Iraq war that were like that.

But basically if you're not living in a socialist/Islamic paradise, prisoners should get to dig trenches and make ammo and you put in fine print "wartime service doesn't count toward completion of sentence" that way you alleviate any unfairness to the fact you're sending honest people to their death while scum gets to stay safe in the back.

>>603726

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_service_in_Hungary_during_World_War_II

Unlike in Ace Combat world, where both prisoners and aircraft are disposable and thus there's no big roadblock to sending them into combat with minimal fighter training, in this world prisoners are disposable but everything else they need to actually fight isn't. There's no point in even loading up your prisoner battalions in surplus gear to run into the meat grinder (or the irradiated ground zero your front line is due to the tactical nukes) because it would be just a waste of training time, and you'd be throwing away ammo, food, tools, etc. that could be better used with your actual troops too. Prisoners would be best utilized to do manual labor and building things needed for the war effort, that's it.

>>603718

I have to agree with the other anons, giving jailed criminals weapons and even crude training is too much of a risk to be worth it in anything but the most desperate of circumstances. furthermore, modern combat doesn't necessarily become more successful in a linear rate as formation size increases and even in the old days there are diminishing returns to total unit strength assaulting a position. However, many construction tasks do speed up linearly relative to workforce.

imagine the US pushing into an enemy country, your supply lines are choked because most roads leading to most sections of the front arent motorways, and even the motorways are choking. which is better, using your 2 million plus convict population as very inneffective soldiers which will consume somewhere between half and the full amount of supply replenishment? or using your 2 million plus convicts to expand every road into a three or four laner, supplying them with only cans of ham, bread, and basic tools. you wouldn't even need many MPs if you put a reward bounty on any that fled.

then again, when you have such a large criminal population an army should probably be "fixing" that issue at home rather than invading other countries.

>We're sending you in as the aerial equivalent of a single-use minesweeper. Go in and get shot at so we know where they're hiding.

<Now watch as I proceed to singlehandedly clear out three entire bases.

I'm sensing a tiny little bit of plot / gameplay dissonance.

>>603734

>Recently I think Iran used some in the Iran/Iraq war that were like that.

I have a personal case about that in my family. Pls no bully.

My uncle deserted when he was told to smash Kurds up north a few years before the Iran-Iraq-war. He ended up hiding from the government for years. When the Iran-Iraq-war broke out and the government got desperate they apparently pardoned all former soldiers and asked them to return to service for their country. He did and got to be a tanker. He doesn't like to talk about it. He never said which role he had, though it's likely was the commander, since most of our family were officers back then, and he had the education for it.

>>603718

Aside from considerations of combat effectiveness and resource efficiency, if you forcibly conscript prisoners the desertion rate is going to be through the roof. Even all the Commissars and collective punishment the Soviets implemented couldn't stop it for their normal conscripts; for a penal unit it would be even worse.

>>603783

Are you the one who always posts about ayyncient Indians when there is a discussion about immigration?

>>603787

That's hwy our labour service was so brilliant: in theory it was proper military service, they even had uniforms and all, just not weapons. And so they had no more reason to run away than a normal soldier.

>>603796

Нет тоьарищ. I never heard about that guy. I hope I never have to see him in action.

What about suicides? Are there any statistics about how many penal soldiers killed themselves once they were handed ammunition during WWII?

I know suicides during the retreat of the army group center were through the roof during the great retreat because nobody wanted to be a Russian prisoner, but did anybody even bother to track how many penal conscripts decided to shoot themselves in the head instead of going into battle?

Polite sage for double post.

And exactly why would rapist, thieves, bandits and other such scum in penal units do anything you tell them to do properly instead of half assing and sabotaging absolutely everything?

>>603806

Because the loser dies in this game.

>>603718

zerg rushes are tactically/strategically retarded almost always, even with cannon fodder that isnt made up of degenerates. Suicide bombings kinda are as well, just look at syria they were an effective shock tactic at first but they are relatively easy to combat with combined arms or even just a couple of guys with atgms if they are good

the VC would occasionally zerg rush but more as a diversion for an assault somewhere else(asiatic despotism at its finest, they would send 300 men to their deaths in these kinds of assaults, my old man would tell me about how the army would aim 109s loaded with 155mm flechettes at the jungle 50 meters away, he had a vivid memory standing guard as a bulldozer mulched a bunch of dead chicoms into the mud a day or two after such an attack. Even in the dense jungle against a demoralized enemy these kinds of human waves barely ever worked

>>603806

well, if you're ordering someone into a minefield you generally cut of all means of retreat with machine guns. that said, generally when rapists, thieves, and bandits, etc are in the military they will use it as an excuse to rape, steal, and rob people. this is regardless of whether they are in a penal bat' or not. to a lesser extent even general conscripts will commit more wartime crimes than other groups to enrich themselves and aid their wartime survival. tbh if there were ever such a war my country would conscript me at their own peril.

Pressing rapists, murderers, and their ilk into service would be detrimental to the moral of your troops, and any crime the pressed criminals commit would be a major propaganda victory for the enemy.

>>603862

>Pressing rapists, murderers, and their ilk into service would be detrimental to the moral of your troops

Yeah, but your island doesn't have any other troops so it's fine.

>>603797

similar things did commies in czechoslovakia in 50s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_auxiliary_battalions

You guys realize that up until the 70s felons could most of the time choose between jailtime or military service? And it didn't have any magical devastating effect on moral? Retards

>>603726

What about putting the prisoners to work in some labor camp while offering reduced sentences or even pardons if they volunteer for frontline service?

Why not just use them as test subjects for science and shit?

>>604055

>join forces

>get pardoned

>run away as soon as you get the opportunity

Unless you want to watch your entire army like they were prisoners, you are going to run into a lot of trouble.

>>604059

Because we don't behave like savages, we pretend that we are civilized people, with standards and principles!