• Please make sure you are familiar with the forum rules. You can find them here: https://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/index.php?threads/forum-rules.2334636/

Romania's declaration of war against U.S.S.R.

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
T

trench

Grizzled Veteran
Nov 22, 2005
498
2
#1
I ran across something that I had not seen before and was stated in Black Cross /Red Star Vol I that the Luftwaffe or maybe FAAR bombed a Romanian City in June 1941 - but the planes perhaps carried Soviet markings and at least one bomb was found undetonated that had Russian writing on the bomb. I have been lightly searching around but have found no other sources that confirm this.

Any thoughts or info on this particular event?
 
#5
Bauer said:
I honestly doubt the validity of this claim, Romania had enough of a casus belli even without staging something like this, especially after the annexation of Basarabia by the russians.

Is there a reason given as to why something like this would have been staged?
Click to expand...

You are right to doubt - I was incorrect. It was late last night when I read it. :eek: :eek: :eek: The country in question is HUNGARY.

"In the context of strategic air raids, the Romanian FARR carried out one of the most decisive air raid missions in history during these days. On June 26, 1941, three P.37 Los bombers of the Romanian Grupul 4 Bombardament were sent on an ultrasecret mission: Posing as "Soviet" planes, they dropped thirty 50-pound bombs on the Hungarian town of Kosice with the intention of provoking Hungary to delcare war on the USSR. Thirty two people were killed and 280 injured. The sinister plan is revealed by the fact that one unexploded bomb (intentionally unarmed?) carried writings in Russian. The plot worked, and Hungary joined the war on the German side. "
 
Upvote 0
#8
M.C.Darkness said:
What did Hungary have that could help the war effort? Romania,Italy,Germany and other fascist's were enough.
Click to expand...

For the record, Romania was not fascist. The only reason why they associated themselves with Axis was in the hope that they could recover the territory lost to the Russians.

The only fascist movement existent at the time in Romania were the "Legionnaires" a.k.a. "Black Shirts", who were incarcerated and/or executed after trying to stage a coup against Marshall Antonescu (short version of the story).

There was no majority ideological support for nazism/fascism in Romania.
 
Upvote 0
#10
M.C.Darkness said:
What did Hungary have that could help the war effort? Romania,Italy,Germany and other fascist's were enough.
Click to expand...

Hungary didn't really have anything to offer, one of ther reasons they were trying to stay out of the war.

The army was behind technologically, it was in the middle of a behind schedule modernisation programme, and it had been designed for more local conflict (actually tensions were getting close to boiling point between Hungary and Rumania prior to the war. Hungary had territorial claims against Rumania).

They also had a shortage of equipment. There weren't enough tanks, rifles, SMG's you name it, they were short of it, especially in the effective AT weapons. The Germans are partly at fault for this, a number of times equipment that had been ordered and paid for was delivered somewhere else.

At it's height, the army contributed 200,000 fighting men to the war effort, rather small compared to other contributions.

As for the bombing of Kassa and Munk
 
Upvote 0
#12
The Hungarians aided the rear-guard and helped keep check on Axis-Conquered territory deep within the USSR. But beginning in January 1942 they were requested to prepare a combat-ready Army. The 2nd Army was sent to participate on the front, along with stripped equipment and weapons of the 1st and 3rd Armies to compensate for a lack of quantity at the time.

A battle worth mentioning was where the Hungarian 1st Army (Combined with a German Corps) successfully broke through Soviet lines in the region of Otynia-Kolomyja, which began on the 18th of April, 1944. This force faced four Soviet Armies.
 
Upvote 0
#14
M.C.Darkness said:
Wow I never knew that...So thats why they did so poorly in Stalingrad. Does anyone know what type of tanks or spg's they used during the war. All i've heard about them was the humiliating defeat by Zhukov during Operation Uranus.
Click to expand...

Turan I, II and III - this was their home-built tank model, the Turan I was comparable to the Pz-III, while the II and III models were like earlier Pz-IVs. They lost a good deal when the 2nd Hungarian Army was destroyed in the retreats from Stalingrad, but they kept producing and using them until the end of the war, for want of anything better.

Zrinyi Assault Gun - The Hungarians were impressed with the performance of the Stug, so they developed their own model, the Zrinyi. It was a pretty successful copy, originally armed with a 76mm howitzer but later upped to a 105mm gun. They made up a large portion of the Hungarian armored forces since they were cheaper than building full tanks, and they were pretty effective against Soviet medium tanks during the Seige of Budapest.

They also used a lot of hand-me-down Pz-III, Pz-IV and Stug-IIIs from the Germans. They even had a handful of Panthers, Hetzers and Tigers that were delivered in 1944 and fought in Budapest. There was also a hodgepodge of other vehicles, from WWI era Italian tanks used by police units in Budapest to Nimrod AA vehicles, captured Czech and Soviet armor, even some Swedish tanks built on contract. The Hungarians had to make do with whatever they got, and for the most part managed to hold their own with it, considering the circumstances.
 
Upvote 0
#16
By that time Romania had joined the Allies, and I believe the Russians had stripped them of all their armor. I don't think the Hungarians received any Tiger IIs, since Germany was trying to outfit their own heavy tank detachments with them at the time. That Tiger II you saw was part of the German 503rd Heavy Tank Battalion that was sent to shore up the Hungarian defenses around Budapest. I think only a handful were actually in the city when it was surrounded, the rest of the unit was deployed to the north and west and took part in Operation Konrad.

I don't know much about the Romanian forces, but from what I've heard they didn't recieve as many tanks from the Germans as the Hungarians, and lacked the proper factories to build many of their own. They had a handful of Pz-III, Pz-IV and some Czech and Polish tanks the Germans gave them, plus whatever Soviet tanks they could capture.
 
Upvote 0
#19
FYROM said:
Turan I, II and III - this was their home-built tank model, the Turan I was comparable to the Pz-III, while the II and III models were like earlier Pz-IVs. They lost a good deal when the 2nd Hungarian Army was destroyed in the retreats from Stalingrad, but they kept producing and using them until the end of the war, for want of anything better.

Zrinyi Assault Gun - The Hungarians were impressed with the performance of the Stug, so they developed their own model, the Zrinyi. It was a pretty successful copy, originally armed with a 76mm howitzer but later upped to a 105mm gun. They made up a large portion of the Hungarian armored forces since they were cheaper than building full tanks, and they were pretty effective against Soviet medium tanks during the Seige of Budapest.
Click to expand...

Just a couple of clarifications. The Tur
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Community News
Forums
Merch
Menu