includes Battalion HQ with one Company Command Battalion Komissar team & one 2iC Command Rifle team, one Rifle Platoon with Command Komissar team & ten Rifle team, one optional Light Mortar team, three Small three-hole bases, one Small two-hole base, five Medium four-hole bases & five Medium five-hole bases.
Stalin’s great purge (1936 to 1938) took a punishing toll on the professional officers of the Red Army. Many talented, but outspoken, officers were dragged off to the gulags of Siberia for re-education, or in other cases simply shot as enemies of the state. This resulted in a state of perpetual fear among those remaining military officers.
