Flash Movie - Romania in the Ostfront, Work in progress - research project

[Nestor Makhno]

Movie is here: Romania in Ostfront


As part of my study of the Romanians in Russia (related to my work on the Carpathian Crosses mod for Red Orchestra) I am creating a flash movie that hopes to show the entire course of the Romanian presence in Russia from the liberation of Bessarabia and Bukovina through to 1944.

The movie is very much a work in progress and I am hoping that your members will be able to point out glaring errors to me and provide extra info where required.

At present I have only put in any kind of detail up to 1/10/1941 so please confine comments to before that period.

As a starter, I would like to know what happened to the 2nd Corps after the completion of operation München. Any info?

This post has been edited by Nestor Makhno on January 10, 2008 12:20 pm

[Victor]

The 2nd Corps remained in Dobruja and Southern Bessarabia until the fall of Odessa. Afterwards it took over the garrison in Trans-Dnestra.

[Nestor Makhno]

Thanks for that - I will position the unit accordingly for October.

Please note that if you click on a unit on the map you get its OOB appearing in a window to the side. At present all I have is the OOB on 22/6/1941 - I wish to have these change over time to reflect the actual situation.

as you can imagine, this is probably going to be the most labour-intensive feature of this movie; I am sure that the OOBs changed all the time.

I have generally based the OOBs on those found at Dr Leo Niehorster's section of orbat.com. The actual link is here: ORBAT.COM - please let me know if any of the OOBs he gives for 22/6 are debatable.

I would also appreciate any links to other, later, OOBs for Romanian forces.

I am also looking at the 4th Army in the peiod immediately following the siege of Odessa - I understand that the army took quite a beating during the taking of the city so what did it do in the month or so immediately after the siege? and where?

This post has been edited by Nestor Makhno on January 10, 2008 05:09 pm

[Victor]

After the siege most of the 4th Army returned to Romania and was demobilized. Most thought the war was over for Romania. Only several units remained in Trans-Dnestra to secure the area.

In October the total number of men on the front was 386,752. In November it went down to 62,611 on the front and 103,358 as occupation forces in Trans-Dnestra.

[Victor]

A more detailed reply.

After the fall of Odessa, to the 2nd Corps were subordinated the 4th and 10th Infantry Divisions, the 1st and 9th Cavalry Divisions and the Ocheakov Detachment. The HQ was in Tiraspol and it only moved to Odessa on 20 December 1941.

[Nestor Makhno]

Thanks Victor,

I am a bit puzzled by information I have found on the site Die Deutsche Wehrmacht which suggests that the Romanian Cavalry Corps, Mountain corps and 4th Corps were all directly subordinate to the 11th Army during the period of Operation München, rather than subordinate to the Romanian 3rd Army.

Can you throw any light on this matter? is the site just wrong? I particular I am bothered about the discrepancy between what they say was the situation on the 1st July and what is described in your site's section about the operation.

*Edit* I have actually decided to just ignore DieDeutchewehrmacht's info for the 11th Army at that time - they have some stuff there which leads me to mistrust the info for that period.

This post has been edited by Nestor Makhno on January 12, 2008 04:44 pm

[Victor]

The 3rd Army was directly subordinated to the 11th Army and, throught it, the Mountain and Cavalry Corps were suboridinated to the 11th Army.

There was no military convention between Germany and Romania to set the basic collaboration rules. Because of this there were many cases where Romanian commanders were subordinated to German commanders of similar or lesser rank and position or when German commands made use of smaller Romanian units as they pleased, without the Romanian army or corps commands being able to do anything but protest as they were left to take care of the administrative duties of the troops. This was the case for the 4th Corps during Operation Muenchen.

However, the 3rd Army did directly command the Cavalry and Mountain Corps at that time.

[Dénes]

One should mention that during Operation München the German 11th Army was subordinated (at least theoretically) to Gen. Antonescu.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on January 13, 2008 12:43 pm

[Nestor Makhno]

Good Point - I should add some of the larger unit icons for Sovient Fronts etc.

The map has now been updated and I am reasonably happy with it up until 10th July.

Crits please.

[yogy]

Wow, will be cool when it is finished!

I personally would prefer the Soviets in RED and the others maybe in BLUE (DE), GREY (SLOVAK), ORANGE (ROMANIA) etc. Orange for Romania like the Micheals cross...

Looking forward to its completion!