Resisting on the FNB line, in August-September 1944!

Hi Guys,

Any mention of the FNB Line requires that it be explained that it was only a small part of the strongest natural position ever available to the Axis on the southern half of the Eastern Front.

North of the FNB Line for hundreds of kilometers ran the Carpathian Mountains not only covering much of Romania, but Hungary and Slovakia as well. They were the greatest natural North-South obstacle anywhere on the Eastern Front.

South-East of the FNB Line was the Danube Delta - also an extremely difficult natural obstacle hard for the Red Army to exploit through.

The FNB Line was the short link between the two. It was less than 100 kilometers long and was behind the natural obstacle of the River Siret. The Romanians had already fortified the line between the wars as it was the natural route for any Red Army assault into central Romania. During the war Antonescu made sure that further fortifications were built.

It had a permanent garrison of, I think, three fortress brigades and if these were reinforced by line infantry divisions and 88mm anti-aircraft guns brought up from nearby Ploiesti, and backed by armour, the FNB Line might have proved a significant obstacle. This was certainly the German assessment. The Germans believed that they could hold it even without Romanian support.

So, in short, the FNB Line, along with the Carpathian Mountains and Danube Delta on either side, were significantly more formidable than other Eastern Front "lines".

Cheers,

Sid.

This post has been edited by sid guttridge on June 06, 2008 05:20 pm

Well, that was in theory. I think however that an analysis of what was possible on 23 August 1944 would be more fruitful.

The map I made and posted has the main drawback of not showing the positions of the Soviet and of the German troops in the area, but it can give us an idea of what forces were available to the Axis command to rush to the line if the fighting would have continued. I think we can safely say that the fortification detachments manning the defenses would have only been able to stall a Soviet advance.

So, the Romanians had only several divisions not committed into the fight, but close enough to be rushed to the line:
- the 9th Infantry Division on the seaside
- the 8th Motorized Cavalry Division, near Bucharest and Cernavoda
- the 6th Cavalry Division, near Bucharest and Ploiesti (reorganizing after retreating from Crimea)
- the 1st Armored-training Division (the Mechanized Training Center) was in Targoviste
- Antonescu's Motorized Bodyguard Regiment was in the area around Ploiesti

The 10th Infantry Division was manning the line in Northern Dobruja and would be needed there if resistance was to continue.

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd Mountain, 1st Cavalry and 19th Infantry Divisions were reforming on the border with Hungary in Transylvania. With the exception of the 1st Cavalry Division, all were crippled after a long campaign in the Caucasus and the Crimea and were undergoing a reorganization process. For instance, the 3rd Mountain Division had only 1 (one) AT gun.

The rest were training-divisions with little combat value in face of a Soviet offensive. These could be used to defend secondary front lines like the seaside, in case the 9th Infantry Division would have been rushed to the FNB line.

Of the troops already engaged in the fighting, the following were closer to the line:
- 2nd Infantry Division: only several thousand men managed to cross the Prut River from Bessarabia and reach Galati
- 7th Infantry Division, retreating in relative order
- 8th Infantry Division, would eventually fall prey to the advancing Soviet mechanized forces and probably only remains would reach the line
- the 21st Infantry Division, retreating in relative order
- 1st Cavalry Division was the reserve of the 3rd Army wasn't committed to the fighting
- 4th Mountain Division, retreating in relative order

To sum it up, the forces available were 3 infantry divisions of which one at full strength, one motorized cavalry division, 2 cavalry divisions of which one at full strength, one reduced strength mountain division and one partial strength armored division (including the machines from Targoviste and obsolete tanks of the 2nd Tank Regiment in Bucharest). These would have been too few to hold the line against the Soviet attack.

The Germans, to my knowledge, had no combat worthy troops behind the front, with the exception of the 5th Flak Division, but its the relocation would have left the oilfields without defense.

Hello,

Does anyone have any map of FNB line? Any pictures of the bunkers?

Do you have any information about Trajan Stellung?

To sid guttridge:
I would rather say, that along Carpathians to Slovakia you have Arpad Line, Hunyadi Line and Szent Laszlo line, which were Hungarian fortifications. More to east you have Prinz Eugen Stellung, going paralelly to Carpathians.

regards
herring

How do you think the Soviets would have stopped at a few dozen kilometres from the most important oil source of Germany? And neither the Carpathians were unpassable, nor the Danube - just harder to cross, that's all!
And - even more important - would the Romanians have continued the battle?

This post has been edited by MMM on February 12, 2009 01:57 pm

Hallo everybody,
I agree to MMM oppinion that in reality the FNB line could not be maintained without seriousely artillery and armoured reserves. By end august 1944 not our troops nor even the germans had something like that in the region, and it's doubtful that without german help our troops alone could stop the soviets. And we must not forget the negative performance of some romanian units in the eary days of the soviet offensive, 20-22 august.

FNB was more like a myth - back then and, what's worse, still now! I mean, look what happened with the Maginot line! And look what happened in Finland, as well! The Red Army finally broke through the Mannerheim Line - nd we didn't even have the advantage of winter.
Obviously, ww2 was a war of movement, of large manouevers, thrusts etc. It was not a static war. I repeat myself - FNB line was too close to Ploiesti to be of a real value for the Germans. Also the Baragan fields (thus grains) would have been in the line of fire, right?
To answer Andreas, the Wehrmacht didn't have armoured reserves even in 1942; the little they had was hammered at Kursk and the last major armored thrust was AFAIK in december 1944. So, no chance of idle tanks or artillery waiting for a Russian offensive in the southern sector, not when the Center sector was crumbling!

No. The last major German armoured 'thrust' (as you say), happened in March 1945, in Western Hungary (Operation 'Spring Awakening').

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on April 09, 2009 05:12 pm

Well, one might argue that:
a) It wasn't really major - how many tanks were used?
It had no results, unlike "Wacht am Rhein" aka "Battle of the Bulge".

Mihai, it's not my intention to enter in debate (again) with you, as it's pointless. All pertinent information on this issue is widely available on the net.

Gen. Dénes

Well, so be it! It also suits me, as they still haven't had the armour necessary to mount a counter-attack or even a succesful resistance! I wonder - from april to august 1944, what works were done to reinforce the FNB line, the obvious next frontline? In fact, were any?

All this is useless debating! About the line and equipment and all. What really mattered was the elan and determination of the Romanian soldiers. There was alot of defeatism in Romania in the summer of 1944. Most legionaires still supported the war in the Ost, but all other elements of Romanian society knew that Germany was beaten. One month before 8/23 Hitler's own generals tried to kill him realizing this. Maybe if Hitler was killed on 7/20/44, and the German generals made peace in the West, there may have been a determination to hold the FNB line.
It was all a matter of what the final terms were. There was no willingness on the Romanian side to die for a war that was deemed lost by all. Ergo the poor effort.

I don’t know weather the things were so obvious. According to „România în anii Celui de-al doilea razboi mondial” [Romania during World War II] - Editura Militară, 1989 - which is quoting Soviet sources (in this case, a 1985 book published in Moscow) nor the 2nd August nor the 21st August operation orders issued to the 2nd and 3rd Ucrainean fronts did not envisage a breakthrough, not even an attack of the FNB line. According to these, the main objective of the August 1944 Soviet offensive was to destroy or to eliminate the enemy/Axis grouping from Chişinău area. Also, in a communiqué issued towards noon on August 23rd (source - Romanian military archives, quoted in the same „România în anii Celui de-al doilea...”), gen. Friessner asserted that the resistance on FNB line is perfectly possible and asked for more air cover.

By August 1944 the Focşani-Nămoloasa-Brăila line consisted in about 1600 reinforced concrete casemates (a density of about 18 casemates/km), over 60 km of anti-tank ditches (denying the acces on the routes considered to be most suitable for an armoured advance) and around 1800 emplacemente for anti-tank and automatic infantry weapons (same source).

As for artilery reserves, I think at least this info should be taken into account: The motorized heavy artillery regiments were strengthened. Each had 12 150mm Skoda model 1934 howitzers and 12 105mm Schneider model 1936 guns, instead of 8. It also had 8 25mm Hotchkiss model 1939 AA guns. With the captured 122mm and 152mm howitzers and the 120mm De Bange model 1878 howitzers (used during WWI) were equipped 17 new independent motorized heavy artillery battalions in 1944. The same year were created the fortification artillery battalions for the 106th, 115th and 121st Fortification Detachment, which were defending the AFNB line (http://www.worldwar2.ro/organizare/?article=36). The armoured reserve was probably less impressive, but on the 23rd August the 8th armoured/motorized Cavalry division was on its way to the frontline, and the 1st Armoured division was not destroyed.

No, feic, it was the superiority of the Red Army! That was what mattered in 1940 with Finland and in 1942 at Stalingrad and in 1943 at Kursk!

Yes, as long as it wasn't frontally and full-scale attacked!
Do you have any example of a fortified line that actually resisted in WW2? I cannot think of one now - and forget Mannerheim, because it was eventually over-ran!

Agarici, a few comments.

Friessner did not have a real picture of the situation. The Soviet offensive was well underway for a couple of days and he hadn't yet realized it was a big offensive. I wouldn't put too much value in his words.

Regarding the 8th Cavalry Division, it wasn't armored, because it lacked tanks and self-propelled guns. All the T.4s and TAs were taken by the German instructors from the 20th Panzer Division and formed into the German Braun Detachment. The incomplete 8th Cavalry Division was only a motorized unit on 23 August 1944.

In 1944 the Soviets had no time to waste on "limited offensives", thus I can hardly think they intended to reach just the FNB line and then stop and... what? Regroup after less than 200 km? Not very plausible plus, it was already said that if the resistance on FNB line was really intended, the front should have been moved there since April 1944; politically, it was impossible, as the entire Moldavia should have been abandoned, so... nope!
However, it remains a great mystery to me (although slightly off-topic) why did it take so long for the Red army to reach Bucharest? I mean, the first units entered Bucharest on 31.08 AFAIK. Why so late? Or perhaps there were some unmentioned recon forces before that?!?!