Stalingrad performance

On one thing you are right, it was the 8th Cavalry Division. The 6th was in the Caucasus. On the rest, you mostly completed what I said earlier. Anyway, we are talking of 6 to 10 months of continuous action in Crimea or the Ukraine before Uranus. Those would have been tired and depleted units altogether.

Cheers
Mat

I suppose I asked that some time ago, but I'll repeat it anyway:
Why did Antonescu changed the number of batallions per division from 9 to 7? To send less soldiers on the front - sending weaker divisions, thus? Isn't this the very definition of sabotage?

No matter his faults, Antonescu wanted to recover the lost territories and his idea was to ensure there were enough troops inland to be ready for Transylvania whenever the occasion would present itself. Besides the 1941 campaign losses had been heavy and it was necessary to keep manpower as much as possible, even more in a political situation where there was much opposition to the continuation of the war against the Soviet Union. Maniu among others publicly wrote a lot against this action.
Antonescu was trying to please everyone. Changing the name of mountain and Cavalry from Brigade to Division was also the same idea, to show by numbers that Romania was participating more than others, notably Hungary. Besides Romanian Cavalry and Mountain were as large as their equivalent in the soviet, Hungarian or German armies so the move was logical, I think!

Cheers
Mat

As at the time of Romania entering the war the infantry division was a large and rigid organization, based on WW1 doctrine, the reasons of reorganization were to decrease the manpower but to increase the mobility and firepower.

In 1940, a full strength Romanian infantry division had about 22,000 men while a German division had 17,500 men, but in equipment, the German unit was surpassing the Romanian one in almost every aspect (780 vs 83 trucks, 270 vs 42 motorcycles, 387 vs 303 light machine-guns, 133 vs 158 heavy machine guns, 84 vs 18 mortars)

After the reorganization of 1941/1942, the manpower of the infantry division was reduced to 13,500 men, but the firepower increased considerably. For example, each infantry squad had a light machine-gun and a light mortar.

The cavalry divisions were strengthened not only in firepower but in manpower also. Here are the numbers for 1941 and 1942 respectively (1941 values in parenthesis): 8,137 men (6,842), 46 machine-guns (35), 32 anti-tank guns (20), 44 mortars (6), 24 field guns (16) etc.

I only supported my earlier post in which I said that most of the units they had been fighting since 1942, not 1941, because otherwise there wouldn't have been any divisions to talk about at all.

The 1st Infantry Division, which entered action at the end of January/beginning of February 1942 was down to around 25% in combat strength in November. The 2nd, 4th and 20th Infantry Divisions were also below 50%. Only the 18th Infantry Division, which had served in Crimea, was in better shape.

This is a sample of wrong thinking - both from Antonescu and those who supported it back then, and from those who nowadays keep repeating it!
How could that occasion come otherwise than by Germany and Italy being defeated? Oh, wait, we fought along them! Not even in 1944, after Margarethe I, Hitler wouldn't give back the territories - when we already lost again northern Bessarabia! It's much more plausible the reorganising thing; however, in these times, one could see how many km's had a division to cover! Why didn't he send more divisions (now we know it would have been to their certain destruction, but then it wasn't even clear whether the Soviets would counter-attack, even less the future catastrophe from Stalingrad).
The fact remains that the German blamed us for the thin front at Stalingrad - and that wasn't entirely false!

I'm not sure if I understand it correctly: these divisions were reorganised, but no reinforcements or completions have been sent? Why?

This post has been edited by MMM on May 15, 2009 03:06 pm

I'm not sure if I understand it correctly: these divisions were reorganised, but no reinforcements or completions have been sent? Why?

These divisions were not reorganized.

Were they neither reinforced? I'll check in "Istoria militară a poporului român" - later, that is

No, they weren't.

Indeed (I checked) - and no explanation is given except the subtitle "Preserving the fighting potential of the Romanian people". I'm getting back to the idea that Antonescu didn't do too much to strengthen the line troops...

The plan was to reorganize and overhaul these divisions during the winter of 1942/43 somewhere near Rostov.

Yet there were information regarding an attack weeks before november 21st. The Romanians later complained that OKW didn't listen their warnings. But why didn't the Romanians do anything, then? This is my question!

This post has been edited by MMM on August 04, 2009 05:52 pm

So what did you want? The Germans to divert forces from their key OBJECTIVE (Stalingrad) to help the "in awe" Romanians (the Romanians were always in awe of "the Russians") who in theri minds were probably overestimating the Russian threats?

Do you know many times in the 6/1941 thru 11/42 time frame had the Romanians overestimated or rather exaggerated the Russian forces on their front? The Romanians had repeatedly done this at Odessa!

No, I for one do not know. How many times exactly? I expect a sourced answer.

The events have showed that the Romanian intelligence on the strength and intentions of the Soviets were correct and not a figment of someone's imagination. The fact that the German command lacked the necessary strategic thinking and resources to successfully conduct the operation is hardly the fault of the Romanian command.

In order to reach the rather pointless objective of capturing Stalingrad, the Army Group had to defeat the Soviet forces opposing it on the whole front, not just those inside Stalingrad. And for this to happen, the strengthening of the two overextended flanks was a sine qua non condition. It wasn't a favor for the Romanians, it was common sense. Unfortunately, common sense lacked in the OKW.