The Romanian Army in ww2

[Eduard Chivu]

csaba wrote

It seems not a small mole-hill, made by some poor peasants, but evidently you know it better

a picture of a big bunker can sure act as good propoganda and make a big impression. why didn't they take pictures of the whole line from up in the sky? honestly i've never heard of this line up till now, and i've never read about it in any books.
panzerking wrote

The IAR 80, such a great plane. It's too bad almost no one knows it existed! I wonder what it would have been like with that new engine in it...it would have flown at 390-400 mph max right?

i like the plane a lot too, i think it was good up until probably late 42 when the russians started introducing the la5, la-7, and other fighters which were very good. the iar-80 was weak in armament though, but with that new engine in it, and maybe 2 german 20mm guns in there, it would of been hell.
eduard

[Maresal-06]

Witch-King of Angmar wrote :

I'd say the only thing that could make Hitler change his mind was fear.

Of what?

Our conspiracy theorist, Maresal-06, should know better.

[Victor]

BTW, why tought some Rumanian officers, that Yugoslavia wanted to attack Rumania?? Maybe some officers were a bit paranoid in this situation? They tought that all of their neighbours and Germany also wanted to attack Rumania? In my opinon, only Hungary had a serious plan to attack Rumania (and the Sowiets, if Rumania didn't get back Bessarabia)

Romania had some trouble with Yugoslavia over the Banat region in 1919-1920, so it was not just milk and honey. Even today the Romanian minority does not enjoy too many rights (as the Serbs have in Romania for example). But that is another story.

The Soviets were a real threat. Bessarabia was just the first step for them. They wanted more. Whether that was only political control in Romania or it was the rest of Moldavia I do not know, but all the provocations were not just because of some trigger nervous soldiers.

And about the MiG-1 fighters: it was a small series, and if I know correctly, was used just around Moscow to defence the city. In summer, 1941 the Southwestern Front's MiG regiments had only MiG-3's.

Only 100 were built, but they had poorer characteristics than the MiG-3.

The Russian nationalist opinion, that Russia save Rumania in WW I from the total collapse (btw, this is true), and Rumania's gratitude was after the war, that they made a backstab against Russians with the occupation of this land. The ethnic maiority is secondary importance from this question

The annexation of Bessarabia was recognized by several major powers after WWI. Thus the territory was not only de facto Romania, it was also de jure.

The fact that Russia saved Romania in 1916 it is very debatable. If they had provided the assistance when it was necessary it would not have been a need for saving. In stead they chose to wait on the Siret line and let us on our own. Not to mention the fact that the supplies the Allies were sending were purposely delayed by them. But that is another story.

[Victor]

yes i'm pretty serious, tell me in which way the soviets were better TECHNOLOGICALY, not in numbers than rumania. as i said the t-26 matched the r-2, the bf109 was a lot better than the i-16 which was the major russian fighter at that time. the russian infantry had in service bolt action rifles and submachine guns which were pretty equal to the z.b(which is a lot better than the magant, sorry about spelling). the ppsh though was better than the orita, i'll admit that. navy i can't compare, it's obvious.

Well the SU could build airplanes, tanks, artillery pieces, rifles, machine-guns, tractors, trucks, cars, motorcycles etc, etc more advanced than Romania could. How is it then that they were not technologically superior?

You say the Bf-109E was superior to the I-16.So what? There were only 12 of them IIRC. What could12 do against hundreds?

The Orita entered service in late 1943. What does is have to do with 1940?

i was talking technologicaly, not numericaly.

Does is really matter? The few things that we had and were probably a little better could not turn the tide.

why didn't they do the same thing in finland? where there were fewer roads and they could of encircled the finnish fighters. finland is mainly forest, but they do have roads.

Finland has a much more difficult terrain than Romania. Also take into consideration the weather conditions then. Anyway the Soviets won, eventually.
But in June 1940, they already had the experience of that war and knew what to correct.

you also said in that reply that the ss in targul frumos had good air support. they barely had any air support, because the at the time the russians had almost all aircraft superiority on the eastern front.

Actually the GD Division was not SS and it did most of the fighting at Targu Frumos. The Totenkopf was also there, it is true.
There was no "all aircraft superiority" on the Eastern Front, except maybe in 1945, when the Germans could not fly anymore (no more gas). Only local air superiority. The 8th Assault Group, for example carried out 40 sorties on 1 May 1944, 32 on 2 May, ? on 3 May, 33 on 4 May and I could go on. And this was only one Romanian group in that area. So, did the Germans have air support or not?

[Csaba Becze]

Eduard:

Ccc... This photo about the bunker is NOT a propaganda photo. It is the only photo about the Carol line FROM MY COLLECTION. It is not a propaganda photo, just an amateur snap, it was taken by a simply Hungarian soldier. The rest of his photos was taken about the cities and roads in Autumn, 1940 in Transsylvania, because he just met with this line during his unit's road to the new border. I use just my genuine photos with my name, I am not a thief. BTW, this is a good snap, because you can see some Hungarian soldiers in front of the bunker, and you can see the scale of the bunker.
I am enclosing another picture about a Carol-line bunker. It was from a book, NOT from my collection. In this picture you can't see the real scales.
BTW, the Hungarian recon planes made photos about the whole line from the sky, but after the 2nd Vienna decision, it was not important to use. Your train of tought is too complex for me... Why did make the Hungarians propaganda photos AFTER the decision about the Carol-line? It had not any importance after August, 1940...

[Eduard Chivu]

csaba,
lol, don't think i thought you were stealing photos or anything. when i wrote propoganda picture, i thought that it was a rumanian picture meant for the rumanian public. hungary didn't have anything to do with it.
victor wrote

The Orita entered service in late 1943. What does is have to do with 1940?

i remember seeing something about it being made in the early 1940's, but i guess i'm wrong.

victor wrote

Well the SU could build airplanes, tanks, artillery pieces, rifles, machine-guns, tractors, trucks, cars, motorcycles etc, etc more advanced than Romania could. How is it then that they were not technologically superior?

i know the su could build more than anyone at the time, but i meant technologically as in the quality of the weapons. of course it wouldn't of made a difference, when you have division after division of tanks going against one tank division, there's not really a chance.
i know rumania would of lost for sure, but my point was would it at least put up a good fight?
eduard

[Cezarprimo]

The Carol Line

I never heard until now abut this defence line and I would like to thank Csaba Becze for the photos and for bringing it up for discussions.

I personally doubt such a line would have had any strategic importance. WW2 showed that such defence lines, build from the lessons of WW1 were outdated by 1940. On top of that, to my understanding, this Carol line wasn't even finished...

In 1940 it wasn't Hungary that forced Romania to accept the Vienna Dictate but rather Hungary's conjectural (if you want) friends Germany and Italy. The hungarian army alone wouldn't have been able to defeat the romanian army. Even if Bulgaria would have also attacked, Romania would have had a serious chance to defeating the two of them, but fighting at the same time Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and Russia would have meant certain defeat.

Now we can debate if Russia would have also attacked once they've got Bessarabia, but if we look at Poland and the strategic importance of Ploiesti I belive Russia would have at least occupied the eastern part of Romania.

In short, in 1940, as I said, Romania would have died nicely if it had choosen to resist.

Bessarbia

Bessarabia was always romanian. The russians got an interest in that once they started with their ambitions for Constantinople. It was also light to defend against the turks and could control the Danubes' exit.

As the russians usually did during their history, they've got once there and than forgot to leave and started sperading the word that it would have been their land.

A good question would be on what are they building their claims? Maybe somebody may answer to this...

The demographical factor speaks for the romanians as well as the recorded history.

Regards

[Balrog]

one member of this forum has a web page detailing the german investment in airplanes and training given to their romanian allies, it even includdes interviews with veteren pilots living today. if the page is accurate, germany did contribute quite a bit of state of the art fighters and bombers to the romanian airforce and trained some top notch romanian pilots to fly them. i read a book on the defeat at stalingrad which seemed to place alot of blame on the romanian units fighting along side the germans. if the romanian army was an obsolete mess it appears the air force was in good shape. the historian blamed the poor morale of the romanians on fighting for a cause(hitler's) which was not really theirs. i don't know if the majority of the romanians fighting on the eastern front were members of the "iron guard" facisct group or just conscripts . sorry, i don't remember which member of the forum has the romanian air force web site, i read it several months ago. but it is worth a look.

[Csaba Becze]

Evidently you have met Victor Nitu's excellent website about the Rumanian Air Force:
http://www.arr.go.ro/

Maybe your source was Beevor's book, the Stalingrad abot the Rumanian force's disaster near Stalingrad?
IMHO this book is good about the Wehrmacht, but simply useless about the Hungarian Army (90%of his statemens are wrong) Maybe it contains mistakes about Rumanian Army also. Some Rumanian commanders and units distinguished themselves during the Soviet counteroffensive (general Mihail Lascar, etc)

[savantu]

The IAR 80, such a great plane. It's too bad almost no one knows it existed! I wonder what it would have been like with that new engine in it...it would have flown at 390-400 mph max right?

Acording to some romanian pilots(Carol Anastasescu) IAR81B could hope over 440mph with overboost on.But that put on awfull lot of stress on the engine.

One problem for the engine was that it had only a 1stage altitude compressor for up to 3600m.Over that the engine losses power.So it was in fact a low-medium altitude fighter.

We asked the germans to license us the FW190's 1600hp engine.But they refused.
With that engine the IAR80/81B could have sustained 440mph or something like that.

[Victor]

Acording to some romanian pilots(Carol Anastasescu) IAR81B could hope over 440mph with overboost on.But that put on awfull lot of stress on the engine.

The top speed of the IAR-81C (the 2x20 mm cannon version) was 485 km/h= 303 mph

[savantu]

Acording to some romanian pilots(Carol Anastasescu) IAR81B could hope over 440mph with overboost on.But that put on awfull lot of stress on the engine.

The top speed of the IAR-81C (the 2x20 mm cannon version) was 485 km/h= 303 mph

I dunno..That's what he said.Maybe he was reffering to IAR80B.He said it could do over 700kmh.

[Victor]

The top speed of the IAR-80 familly was 485-500 kph. Maybe he was referring to the top speed in a prolonged dive...

[Victor]

one member of this forum has a web page detailing the german investment in airplanes and training given to their romanian allies, it even includdes interviews with veteren pilots living today. if the page is accurate, germany did contribute quite a bit of state of the art fighters and bombers to the romanian airforce and trained some top notch romanian pilots to fly them.

Both pilots started fighting in 1943. In 1940 there was a different situation. The Air Force was still under strong French influence.

[Dan Po]

Eduard,


Umm, and I have an interesting question. Why didn't fight Rumania for Transsylvania in August, 1940? Why accepted the foreign arbitration tribunal's role and decision? The German pressure is not a real proof (Hungary was pressured by the Germans also, but it was ineffectual, they really wanted to attack Rumania)

Do not forgot about soviet ultimatum from june 1940 when Romania lost Basarabia and the NE part of Bucovina. In august 1940 the soviet threat was still very present and the soviets stop the border incidents only in octomber-november 1940 after the german troops entered in Romania.

The romanian army wasn t able to fight against two enemies (3 if we consider Bulgaria), and one of them were Soviet Union.

We can talk endless if Hitler will let those 2 turbulent kids to fight when the soviet bear will take the oil fields .....