blocking unit

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English

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Noun

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blocking unit (plural blocking units)

  1. A unit of barrier troops; a military unit deployed behind or at the front line to shoot or otherwise prevent members of that military who attempt to desert.
    • 2015 April 28, Jochen Hellbeck, Stalingrad: The City that Defeated the Third Reich, PublicAffairs, →ISBN, page 58:
      The blocking unit of the 62nd Army contained the retreat of these units and restored the position.
    • 2017 November 9, Dan Reiter, The Sword's Other Edge: Trade-offs in the Pursuit of Military Effectiveness, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 92:
      There were 87 recorded instances of blocking unit deployment in 483 pre–World War I observations []
    • 2020, Alex Halberstadt, Young Heroes of the Soviet Union: A Memoir and a Reckoning, Random House, →ISBN, page 51:
      Dug in near Smolensk, he was a member of an NKVD blocking unit that marched behind the front lines. It was an innovation of the Soviet secret police designed to deter potential deserters, []