Well, like I said previously, while penal bettalions did exist and some Soviet officers shot retreating soldiers, the extent of this is often overexaggerated. ""blocking detatchments had only small arms--rifles and pistols--and therefore were not considered tactical units. In fact, if the front lines broke during an attack, rather than gunning down fleeing soldiers, as the myth would have it, blocking detachments usually fled in advance of the retreat." Less than a paragraph later, Reese states that "depending on the personalities of the members, blocking detachments sometimes did not [shoot or] detain soldiers but merely warned them to get back to their units before they got into trouble." -Reese, Roger P.: Why Stalin's Soldiers fought. The Red Army's Military Effectiveness in World War II. University of Kansas: Kansas, US, 2011, p. 164

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