tank fright

strange, this quote remember me about the "Descriptio Moldavie" (1716) by Dimitrie Cantemir when he talk about the fighting characteristics of the Moldavian soldiers .... Cantemir said the same thing about Moldavians ....

you think that after 23 august 1944 the training and tactics of romanian army was changed ? no my friend, it was the same army, (almost) the same soldiers - some times less trained and with waeker artilery suport than at the eastern front.

we can consider those examples completely on topic.

Not on the Romanian army's Eastern front but related to this subject, of "tank fear", a fragment from a book available on Google books: "Fallen Soviet Generals: Soviet General Officers Killed in Battle, 1941-1945" By Aleksander A. Maslov, David M. Glantz, talking about tank fear being present in the Soviet army even in 1944:

Quote:
"On 19 October 1944 in Hungary, when the 2nd Ukrainian Front's 53rd Army was participating in the Debrecen operation to drive German forces westward to Budapest, Major General G.F. Tarasov, the army deputy commander, was killed during a fierce battle on the outskirts of Kisujszalla. The 53rd Army commander's report about the combat operations of his forces in the Kisujszalla region emphasizes, in particular, that the offensive operation which the enemy conducted from 19 to 22 October 1944 sought to encircle 53rd Army by the use of powerful tank strikes. He wrote:

As a result of the instability of Major General Kirnoga's rth Rumanian Infantry Division, at 0630 hours on 19 October 1944, German tanks struck a blow in the Szolnok, Tisza, and Vezheni sector, penetrated a considerable distance, and the Rumanians ran and surrendered in massive numbers.

The enemy continued to burst through toward Kisujszallas, and, during combat around Mezotur and Turkeve, some rifle units and formations displayed "tank fear" and retreated without engaging the tanks. The situation was aggravated when the shells available to army artillery units failed to penetrate the armor of the German "King Tiger" tanks. The report pointed out that, "While liquidating the enemy tank penetration, the 71st and t2nd Artillery Brigades suffered serious losses and required replenishment with personnel, equipment, means of communications and auto-transport"
End quote.

As a comment - obviously, the reference to the behaviour of the Romanian army on that special day of 19th of October is written entirely from Soviet perspective and therefore, it's quite biased.

Off topic remark: in Perry Moore book Panzerschlacht: Armoured Operations on the Hungarian Plaines September-November 1944 or in the more detailed and accurate Szaveber Norbert: Pancelosok a Tiszantulon it reveals that only two Tiger II heavy tanks were destroyed and several other damaged (without being taken out of action) by the romanian troops in the fight you mention!

I'm sorry in advance for leaving a little the subject discussed, but sensing the intentions (or attempts) of some coforumists to not tuch the image of the romanian soldiers by saying that some of them were frighting by the soviet tanks at Stalingrad... I can give you this: the hungarians admit that their army (to be fair some units of their army!) had soldiers with tank fright! They admit that they are human so afraid is no shame! In the book written by Csaba Becze -Magyar Steel (Hungarian armor in WWII) on page 23 you can read that "some infantry units without any effective weapons against the steel colossus and infected by tank fear started to flee also." (battles from january 1943 in the sector of the soviet winter offensive held by the hungarian 2nd Army) So I wonder why everyone is afraid to admit evidence that fear of tanks is normal when you have no effective antitank weapons?

Well, Romanian soldiers were soldiers and humans like everyone else, so my personal believe is that tank fright could appear in their ranks like it happened in other armies, too.

Regarding the incident presented here in wich 2 tiger tanks were destroed by the romanian antiaircaft 75 mm cannons . In 92, 93 I met the widow of the former ww2 lieutenant in an antiaircraft regiment . In the book was described probably this event 3 tiger atacked romanians positions and 2 were burned, romanians all so had some losses with dead soilders and 2 cannons destroed. The name of the lt was lt.Opran .I will try to find the book.
About the tank fright is a normal feeling especially if you don,t have an adecvat antitank weaponand most of the time romanians don,t had.

A very good point.
I am not blaming others - soon 70 years will pass since the Stalingrad encirclement, so I think it is time to rise above reciprocal blaming. However, a fact: by November 1942, Germany still did not mobilized her industrial potential to fully speed up for war needs, so at that point Germany could barely supply her own army, and no means were left for the allies.
In the same time, others should not blame us that we did not stop the offensives above and below Stalingrad, considering that the 75 mm anti-tank that could stop a T-34 was available for the Romanian army at about one piece per 4 kilometers of frontline.
I understand that Germany was too busy to supply her own army. But the Romanian army also had many French made canons, and Germany was sluggish in using the industrial potential of the conquered countries. I dare to say that they misused the vast potential of the French industry. The result: before "Operation Uranus" some French made Romanian canons had 6 rounds of ammunition - 6 shots !
The Romanian soldiers were brave enough for waiting an attack in their lines, with no ammunition available.

P.S: When the Germans conquered Poland, there were 3 Polish aircraft factories, reasonably modern and runing. Some Polish aircraft (like the twin engine bomber P-37) were as good as anything else from that moment. Instead of implementing the German designs into full time production, the Germans barely used these factories as repair workshops.

This post has been edited by Florin on September 22, 2012 02:18 am

That's debatable. Tooze* claims that's a myth born out of some historians' over-reliance on Speer's opinions.

* http://www.yale.edu/history/faculty/tooze_a.html

This post has been edited by Imperialist on September 22, 2012 10:28 am

Actually the low ammunition availability for the Romanian artillery prior to Operation Uranus was due to logistical problems, not manufacturing issues.

Going back to the actual subject, of course tank fright occurred, but the truth is that it did not occur as much as post-war German memoirs make it seem it did.

Tungsten core projectiles were a rare thing even in the German army, and used only on canons designed for special applications, like the canon installed on the Junkers Ju-87 variant designed for ground attack against Soviet tanks.
There also few Junkers Ju-88 designed for ground attack and having installed medium canons - maybe they also used tungsten core projectiles.
The only big source of tungsten in Europe was Portugal, a neutral country - under political pressure from both sides regarding the usage of her ore reserves.

This post has been edited by Florin on September 30, 2012 06:37 am

Regarding the Romanian will to fight in the battles around Stalingrad:

Major General Mihail Lascar, commander of the 6th Infantry Division of the 3rd Romanian Army, was the first foreigner to receive "Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves" on 22 November 1942.
He did not get it for beautiful eyes.

This post has been edited by Florin on September 30, 2012 06:38 am

Here is an interesting tidbit i found on wikipedia about Russian "Terror Tanks" during the siege of Odessa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NI_Tank