Any penal battalion knows that he has no more chance of surviving in defense than in an attack, because penal battalions fight to the death in every battle - to the last drop of blood, not a step back, according to Suvorov’s precept: “Die, but hold on!” He is a penitentiary “changeable” from the “encirclement” - a fighter of the “variable composition” of a separate penal battalion, condemned by Stalin’s order No. 270 as a “cowardly element” and “deserter”, although he was captured wounded, unconscious, and fled at the first opportunity , fighting his way out of the “cauldron”, but the “encircled” officers were court-martialed ten times more often than privates, and the former tank lieutenant received the full sentence: three months in a penal battalion. He will have to “atone for guilt with blood” on the Kursk Bulge, at the forefront of the main attack of the Wehrmacht... A new novel from the bestselling author of “Atone with blood” and “Penalties did not shout “Hurray”! Officer penal battalion against elite SS tank divisions! Russian suicide bombers against the Ferdinands, Panthers and Tigers! Die and hold on!