This thread should've been done back in Dec as a 60th anniversary tribute to the Battle of the Bulge, but anyways, after the initial German offensive in the Ardennes, there were actually proposals among Ike and SHAEF to remedy the chronic manpower shortage in ETO, by recruiting replacement bns from the ranks of military convicts. This plan nevr came to fruition due to the lack of enthusiasm among these prisoners to sign up, which resulted in the successful recruitment of 5000-odd black service troops as inf combat replacements who as all-black plts were attached to white coys during the Bulge fighting and gained a phenomenal reputation as fighting men and caused the majorority of white soldiers serving alongside these black guys to see them as equals and favour integration.
But WI the plan to utilise military convits had been more successful, so's that the US army committed convict bns as frontline shock troops in the same way the Red Army used its NKVD-driven punishment bns as human shields on the Eastern Front ? Would these guys have been more of a liability or an asset to Ike, Bradley Patton et al ? Could there actually have been real 'Dirty Dozen' type units in action ? What about the black soldiers- would they still have been allowed to fight, and if not how much further back would the OTL racial integration of the US armed forces been set ?
But WI the plan to utilise military convits had been more successful, so's that the US army committed convict bns as frontline shock troops in the same way the Red Army used its NKVD-driven punishment bns as human shields on the Eastern Front ? Would these guys have been more of a liability or an asset to Ike, Bradley Patton et al ? Could there actually have been real 'Dirty Dozen' type units in action ? What about the black soldiers- would they still have been allowed to fight, and if not how much further back would the OTL racial integration of the US armed forces been set ?