How did the Romanians deal with Soviet Armour?

I was wondering, given the lack of modern Anti Tank artillery among the Romanian troops on the Eastern Front, how did they manage to cope when attacked by Soviet heavy and medium armour? I can imagine the Bohler 47mm being ok against T60s and T70s, or against T26s, but against T34s and KVs?
Also, what tactics did Romanian tank units use to counter Soviet armour?
If anyone has any ideas.

They ran.

They ran.

Not necessarily, and not all the time. They also raised the airplanes’ tails from the ground and used them to aim the tanks with the 20 mm airguns (while the pilots were in the cockpits, ready to fire), or used the 75 mm AA cannons for direct AT firing, or even tried to smash the tank armor with a hammer. By the way, these were real occurrences (around the time of the Don's Bend Soviet offensive), and in all cases, in the first instance, the Soviet tanks withdrew... The tanks were also engaged with improvised weapons, such as Molotov cocktails or, as mentioned by Gen. Mociulski in his memoirs, tent sheets, packs of hay and bottles of gasoline.

Imperialist I recommend to you "Romanii la Stalingrad", that will contradict your theory.

Imperialist, this was a serious question. If you are unable to provide a serious answer, better refrain from doing it.

saudadesdefrancesinhas, you brought up a pretty complex, but interesting question.

Usually, when heavy AT guns were not in available, tank hunting teams were used. Their equipment evolved in time from simple, but effective Molotov cocktails and grenade bundles to Panzerfausts in 1944. Maybe you read the recollections of sergeant Zamfir. He describes the effectivness of the Molotov cocktails, but also the risks the tank hunters took. I have seen a tank hunting recommendations manual, but the notes I took are at home. Ideally, the Soviet infantry had to be pinned down and separated from the tanks in order for them to be destroyed. When this happened, the Soviet tanks roamed for a while through the Romanian infantry line, before they were forced to retreat or were destroyed. In the Kuban, because of the close cooperation between Romanian and German troops, German tank hunting teams usually intervened from behind the Romanian line and knocked out several tanks. After Panzerfausts began to be used in the Romanian Army as well, things became much easier for the tank hunters.

Victor, Saudadesdefrancesinhas asked 2 questions. First, how did the romanians cope under the russian medium/heay tank assaults, without modern anti-tank artillery. And the second one, what tactics did they use against the soviet armor.
I answered the first one. They couldnt repell a major armored assault since they lacked the necessary equipment.

http://www.historynet.com/wwii/bl-stalingrad-wwII/

Your answer on the other hand clearly referrs to the tactical "tank hunter"/"search and destroy"/"behind enemy lines" type of action. I hope you're not implying that the romanian troops successfully substituted the anti-tank weapons with molotov cocktails and grenades in the face of a soviet blitz!

And again I say you should read "Romanii la Stalingrad" you will see how they coped with heavy tanks without AT weapons and not running away. It is tragic, but it happened.

The article you quoted has little or no value regarding the topic at hand.

First of all it is not dedicated to the Romanian troops during Operation Uranus and only treats the problem in a couple of sentences, without getting into details, because the author didn't know much about it either.

Secondly, I find it strange that you would hold the recolletions of a German veteran as ultimate proof to back up the nonsense you posted initially. The recollections are from 1985, a lot of time from actual events and there is absolutely no way for a one German soldier to know what has happened on the front hundreds of km from his position. Not to mention the fact that the Italian 8th Army was attacked a month later, during Operation Little Saturn, but such historical details would spoil the pretty picture painted by the author and hearsay from one German veteran.

If you really want to know more on what happened at the Don's Bend, then follow Mytzu's advice and a read a well documented book.

For your information, on 19 November in the north and on 20 in the South, the first line infantry died were it stood. It repulsed the first Soviet infantry assaults, even though it had been seriously shattered by the artillery barrage and stubbornly stuck to its line. The line was pierced by the tank and mechanized corps (and the 8th Cavalry Corps) by driving through it en masse. Since there were no means to stop such a large force only with a couple of 75 mm AT guns and mines, they passed and drove on according to the Soviet deep battle doctrine of disrupting the enemy's rear echelons, while the rifle divisions dealt with the remains of the first line. Those who ran were in their vast majority the rear echelon troops of the Romanian divisions, who had little training, equipment and nerve to oppose the Soviet armored assault. If regular infantry was present in a village, they would oppose the attackers, but kitchen and supply depo staff, paper pushers etc. wouldn't.

saudadesdefrancesinhas' question clearly referred to tactics used by the Romanians to deal with Soviet heavy and medium armor. Hence my answer regarding the tactics and weapons used. Your answer however was given without explanations or details, chat-room style. When we discuss history on the forum, it would be preferable to write longer posts with more explanations.

saudadesdefrancesinhas, I forgot to mention that the pioneers also used Romanian built AT mines to disable Soviet tanks and on one occasion they were quite successfull on 19 November.

Right, OK, they didnt run, they died on the spot. Whatever....

The tank hunters must have been brave men!

During the Spanish Civil War the Nationalist infantry used similar methods to engage the Republican T26 tanks.

As far as that quote goes, I think it was quite common among Germans to lay the blame for Stalingrad and other defeats on their allies. Hitler himself even seemed to start doing it days or weeks after the Soviet offensives actually began, and it became a standard idea.

A while ago I read an interesting book about the Russian soldier in WWII. The author, a British Academic called Catherine Merridale, pointed out that Soviet infantry never fought as well as they could because they were often not trained properly, and their commanders actively discouraged initiative, developing trust and bonds between members of the unit, team work etc. because of political paranoia. I was wondering, does anyone have any ideas about the quality of the Romanian infantry's training, what the Romanians thought about the Soviet troops?

The info. on anti tank tactics was really interesting, the title about Stalingrad is another book I will have to look for when I come to Romania...

Why the snarky attitude Imperialist? You're not making much sense here.

Victor's answer certainly does not refer to any "behind enemy lines" situation. Unsupported infantry without AT weapons seldom looks for trouble by attacking armored units. But there are things they can do on defense if there is no alternative. It's more than just running away or dieing in place.

Clearing away the supporting infantry is key, as Victor noted. Of course if the tanks attack without supporting infantry (such as the Soviets in some of the early attacks in the Winter War) that makes the defenders job easier.

While you're doing that, you fire small arms at the tank to force them to button up. The commander's MG is a bigger threat to infantry than a coaxial MG because he can see more and traverse it faster.

Some armies used concealment to get their teams close enough. In the Pacific Island fighting, the Japanese would dig deep, covered foxholes to let their tank-killer teams get close enough to attack the US Marine's tanks with satchel charges on poles.

Obstacles can help too: mines, AT ditches, cribs of logs with rocks in the middle, a tram tipped over on its side if you're in a city. Whatever the terrain and your engineers can provide. It's always best if they are covered by fire, even small arms fire.

Then you send in some guys who are either very brave or suicidal and hope for the best: satchel charges... grenades in the vision ports... limpet mines.... molotov cocktails on the engine compartment... pistol fire in the vision ports... even logs jammed into the running gear can make the tank throw a track. Sometimes it succeeds.

That remark is simply nonsense... between "running away" and "dieing on the spot" is a huge difference, especialy for those that went trough situations like that. Not someting to be treated with a "whatever" remark, especially since (and if you would have read about the nov 19th fights, you would have known this) "after the infrantry was mopped away from them, the tanks, after a short "walk" trough the enemy positions, will either have to retreat, or risk being kille by the tank hunters". As much as my memory helps me, this is a quote from "Romanii la Stalingrad", written as a conclusion, after some engagements witht the soviet tanks and tanks-mounted infantry in that battle. Read the book, it's definitely worth it.

This post has been edited by D13-th_Toppy on May 17, 2006 04:33 pm

OK, I see you're all upset about the "they ran" remark. One options would have been to treat it as humor, but since you're all so damn serious, I'll take it back, OK? You can continue your discussion with something else.

And I wont read any Stalingrad book, I dont give a sh*t what they did out there, they had no reason to be there. It was a pointless fight and they didnt even win it. Sorry for putting it bluntly.

cheers

But what was the reason for russians to be in Berlin

Imperialist, the topic was about about the tactics used against Soviet armour, not about the whereabouts of the Romanian soldiers. For this discussion, there is a number of topics, including this one:

The decision of crossing the Dniester