Budapest Hippodrom Jan. 1945

Paul, this piece of text is focused on citations (official congratulations) toward few Romanian artillery regiments, mentioning also what they did to deserve this. There is no mentioning of AFV's, with the expection of the term "care de lupta" beloging to Axis. "Care de lupta" is a very general Romanian term. Literally, " war chariots" – but the usage if for any kind of AFV, including tanks. Writers are using it mostly for tanks. (Of course, we also other more specific words. )
I am sorry, I don't have time to translate.

This post has been edited by Florin on September 14, 2012 01:23 pm

Here is your translation:

For these deeds, 7th Army Corp is citing the regiment in the Order of the Day nr. 10/15th of October: “7th Heavy Artilery Regiment suported the atacks of the infantry, having as efect the breaking of enemy resistance and the ocupation of enemy positions; ”; “1st (Divizion - I dont know the term in English) from 36th AT Regiment (comander: Major Ivanov Alexandru) in all the fights of 7th Army Corp and especially on 4th of January 1945, had an unflinching atitude against the enemy counterattacks with AFV's, keeping it's position and continuously firing against them and against the enemy infantry he managed to stop the counterattack”.

“On 4th of January 1945, the german-hungarians gave a strong counterattack suported by AFV's in order to conquer the hipodrome and to reach the railway. The only heavy artilery (7th Heavy Artilery Regiment and 1st Heavy Artilery Regiment) together with AT artilery stoped this attack inflicting heavy casualties to the enemy”.

Many, many thanks for that. This is very valuable. I think we are moving forward.

I understand that the art. regiments that are referred to (1th, 7th and 36th) are regiments that are organically subordinated to the 7th corps (i.e. they are NOT organically attached to infantry or cavalry divisions).

Further, I understand that the "divizionul" is a subunit of such regiment. The unit the CO of which is Major Alexandru is a "divizionul" of an antitank regiment. Thus the term "divizionul" is probably best translated by batailon (in German : Abteilung).

If someone would know something about the equipment of those units or the unit of Major Alexandru, this would be great. Is it possible that Regimentul 36 antitank could have been equiped with 75mm Resita AT guns?

This post has been edited by paul panzer on September 14, 2012 03:32 pm

From what I know paul panzer the 36th Antitank Regiment used the romanian produced Resita 75mm at gun, while the 1st and 7th Heavy Artillery Regiments used both the french Schneider 105mm guns and the czech Skoda 149mm howitzers.

This post has been edited by aidan zea on September 14, 2012 11:14 pm

"Divizion" is indeed translated by battalion.

For details on the artillery regiments, read here: http://worldwar2.ro/organizare/?language=en&article=36

Was divizion and divizie the same? I don't think so.

Gen. Dénes

Divizie is a great military unit, designation used for different branches: infantry, cavalry and so on. Divizion is a smaller unit, equivalent to a infantry batalion, designation used exclusivly for artilery.

Was divizion and divizie the same? I don't think so.

Gen. Dénes

Divizie and divizion are two different things and I don't see where I might have implied that they weren't.

Divizion was up until recently the designation for artillery battalion in the Romanian Army. It was also used to designate cavalry battalions until this branch of service was disbanded.

In January 1945 the schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503 (heavy tank battalion 503) (from 21 December 1944 called schwere Panzer-Abteilung "Feldherrnhalle" when he was part of the Panzer Division "Feldherrnhalle") had no heavy tanks Tiger II operational anymore. Is therefore presumed that the soviet and romanian troops advancing in Pest in January 1945 could not encounter anything but Panthers equipping the 13th Panzer Division and Panzer Grenadier Division "Feldherrnhalle" (at that time reunited into one single division the "Feldherrnhalle" Panzer Division after heavy losses in the previous battles). So I guess we can assume that the Panthers were the tanks that the soviet antitank gun crews could not destroy in the quoted battle scene.

This post has been edited by ANDREAS on September 16, 2012 05:41 pm

Many thanks for your useful comments.

Another comment from my side: I suspect that Mr Popeanga was watching from the "S-Bahn" line, i.e. urban train line (not strictly speaking a tramway), located North of the race field. It is interesting to note that the axis troops counter-attack supported by AFVs of the afternoon of the 4th January was also reported in the diary of the (romanian) 19th inf. div. which seems to have been affected as well, though to a much lesser extent than the cavalry division. I understand that Mr Popeanga served in a regiment organically belonging to 19th inf. div. I am still a bit puzzled by the reference to soviet soldiers manning the AT guns he saw: Can it be that he refers to romanian soldiers who were veterans of the Eastern front or is the wording clearly indicating that the soldiers were Udssr soldiers/citizens? Regardless of this issue it seems that the merit of repulsing the counter attack was ultimately with Romanian field artillery/AT guns. Would be good to have more witness statements. Does the Dascalescu book of 1974 say something (I do not have a copy)? Is it worth trying to obtain the book?

This post has been edited by paul panzer on September 16, 2012 06:41 pm

Some further data input:

- I understand that on the left/southern wing of the 9th cav. div., the soviet 297th rifle division (18th sov. corps) reached the area of the horse race field (southern part) in the night of the 4/5 January 1945 which ultimately speeded up the conquest of the race field. Any info about 297th rifle division involvement is welcome.

- The axis resistance in the area of the race field seemed to have been concentrated in the spectators' stands ("tribunes") of the race field. It seems that the last of the two stands was conquered on 7 January by Romanian troops

-I also read a reference to the support of the 7th romanian corps by a 114th (soviet) anti-tank regiment in January 1945 (note: reference does not relate to figths in the race field area).

Question: Is it possible that Mr. Popeanga refers to (soviet) gunners belonging to the latter (soviet) unit?

This post has been edited by paul panzer on September 20, 2012 03:37 pm

Old film footage of the "hippodrom" in Budapest. Note the tribunes:

http://filmhiradok.nava.hu/watch.php?id=3431

This post has been edited by paul panzer on September 28, 2012 12:39 pm