Carol II fortified line, Photos from casemates-today

About what plans do you speak, MMM?

The functionality of entire line was a bullsh*t. There was so small numbers of casemates properly armed and manned, that in the case of an enemy atack they were useless.

The bells of casemates were not existing, the artilery was not available in numbers, the landmines lacked in most of cases, the number of soldiers to serve the casemates was too low and there were no specialised troops for manning the casemates.

The remarcable facts about the casemates was their number (aprox 300), their emplacement on the field, the firepower, the big antitank ditch and the capacity to endure enemy artilery and aviation fire. Also, it is remarcable the speed of their construction, from 1938 to 1940.

Well, the plans that were made - and partially realised in the second half of the 1930's: I don't remember if you have access to Petre Otu's book, which offers also interesting data (I quote from page 50): "...in 1936 was made a new plan for the Western fronteer, conventional, thus opened to any aggression. At 05.03.1937 the CSAŢ approved the project "Permanent defensive organisation of Western Front". It comprised the development of fortified areas Someş, Crişul Negru, Mureş and the group of fortifications Ţibleş-Rodna. At a later date there was the idea that the Oradea sector is to be fortified and in april 1938 the Mureş Gate fortifications plan was adopted [...] in the summer of 1939 the works at the Some; Gate fortifications were finalized [...] in july 1939 were finalized 160 machine-gun bunkers and 12 bunkers for the platoon comand centers. Those were weaklz endowed with artillery materials. There were 24 km. of anti-tanc ditches and barbed wire networks in total length of 107 km. There weren't any spots made for howitzers, though."
All these are based on archive documents from AMR Piteşti, currently unavailable now (I'm still waiting for news from them).
Is it clearer now?

Yes, it is.

Unfortunatelly, I dont know any serious book about this fortifications and about detailed plans of them: clasification of bunkers, types, armament and any other info usual for a serious book. I have access only at "Politica de aparare a vestului Romaniei" by colonel Constantin Mosincat, book which is good in the absence of other. However, despite the big effort made by the author, there are a lot of blank spots in the history and the story of this casemates.

In Mr. Otu's book there are more references, more numbers, but no effective placement of the bunkers and such... I have to say that is not my priority, as well...

Today i took my camera when i was at the casemate around the forest.
Some pictures:
http://imageshack.us/g/259/dscn6447r.jpg/

Hello

These were taken fresh today during us scouring the location near Nojorid/Oradea within point blak range from the most accesible 3 casemates.

Also below there are some items we unearthed during this detection. From left to right :

1. Pyrotechnic capsule of what appears to have been a signal flare (notice the red paint on it's bottom and pin impact point)

2. Superior top neck of a metalic recipient (skirts of former body can be observed, coroded)

3. Unidentified iron part. I'm guessing it could be some sort of self screwing rivet used for the infrastructure of the casemates or metallic bunker doors ? Lemme know if you think of something else.



























Me and my buddy will combe the area more thorough if the weather is kind with us in the upcoming days however we've had a pain in the neck with a ton of beer bottle caps, tin cans and beer cans etc ... it's a pitty folks often mistake our wooden areas with personal dump holes.

Will keep you informed of future finds.

P.S. A question for the mods : What's the correct section where one may post metal detection military finds (for future refference) ?

Cheers

It was like a curse: none of the Romanian fortifications built during peace time with a lot of expenses, since the end of the XIXth century, were used according to their designation.

And considering WWII, interesting enough, one of the most useful fortification line was the German West Wall, built in the beginning mostly for political reasons, rather than military, then totally neglected and looted for other lines from the summer of 1940 to the summer of 1944, until it got dilapidated.
Upgraded in a rush in less than 4 weeks by teenagers and old men, it kept the American, British, Canadian and French armies at the border of Germany for 6 months.

This post has been edited by Florin on November 24, 2013 01:40 am

1. This can be so easily explained, as the fortified areas were built (of course) on the threatened borders; when push came to shove, the political decision was NOT to fight, thus NOT to use the fortifications. The notable exception is the over-rated FNB line, on which we could (perhaps) have resisted the Soviet onslaught in early september 1944. (off-topic: so what?)
2. Really? SIX months? From September 1944 to March 1945? But did the allied forces attack the line for six months? Check your data a little, please...

1. This can be so easily explained, as the fortified areas were built (of course) on the threatened borders; when push came to shove, the political decision was NOT to fight, thus NOT to use the fortifications. The notable exception is the over-rated FNB line, on which we could (perhaps) have resisted the Soviet onslaught in early september 1944. (off-topic: so what?)
2. Really? SIX months? From September 1944 to March 1945? But did the allied forces attack the line for six months? Check your data a little, please...

Answer to.1 : We know why, but it was as I said: big expenses during peacetime that did not fruit to an use during wars.
When I wrote my first comment, I did not forget the FNB line, but that was not built during peacetime.

Answer to.2 : Please spend 100 minutes to watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y074_mT7ECU

You can also spend 105 minutes to watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A34iQr1DyV8

But as the focus of the two documentaries occassionally overlap, if you don't have time look at the first one only. And even though that documentary is very interesting from start to end, if your interest is for the West Wall only, start at about minute 46.

This post has been edited by Florin on November 25, 2013 01:00 am

The constructions of the Carol line wa questioned buy some ploticians and military that to expensive and not so very efective and that with the money that was spend the army colud buy other necessary things like tanks etc. Many be they were wright but all so because of the politicians those fortifications never get the chance to show some military value.
Regarding the effectivness of the German West Wall not only the fortifications were very effective agains the allied army but the weather all so _ the harsh winter, the bad roads, the dense forests that made the defence much more easy for the germans.

This type of fortress was a popular idea in the days of "horizontal warfare" but they became obsolete with the advent of aviation.
There is also ring of forts around. Bucharest built during the reign of Carol I. http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistemul_de_f...ureștiului
Some of these were destroyed, but some are still in use, the most famous being Jilava.
You can see them from "Soseaua de centura" hidden in small forests. You can also see then in Google Earth (some with Panoramio photos).
Radu

As teenager I walked through the tunnels of one of them. For a teenager it was a cool experience, but not completely without risks. Another guy of my age fell somewhere, because the floor occasionally was not at constant elevation. It was a nasty experience for him, even though he did not need to go to the hospital.
Other guys of my age claimed that they found a skull somewhere in a tunnel. I did not see that, and knowing today that they were not used in combat, I have doubts about it.
Interesting enough, at one location a horizontal steel gear (with inner pointed teeth) was encased in a cylindrical concrete wall - the kind of gear allowing a canon to revolve 360 degrees. Either it was a modern feature installed in the beginning of construction (end of XIXth century), either it was a later addition.
All this "survey" happening before 1989, and ignorant as we were at that age, we thought that they were built by the Germans.

This post has been edited by Florin on November 26, 2013 03:09 am

Really? But when was it built, then?
FNB / FNG
Is this wrong? I will search into "Istoria Militară a Poporului Român", if you believe it is wrong, but I DO remember it was begun in XIX-th century.
Re: documentaries and stuff, two small things: 1. one should not believe ad litteram everything on TV...
2. I was saying that the "West Wall Battle" did not unravel for six months of continual attacks of the Allied Forces. Or is your oppinion (YOURS, not History Channel`s) that it was?

Really? But when was it built, then?
FNB / FNG
Is this wrong? I will search into "Istoria Militară a Poporului Român", if you believe it is wrong, but I DO remember it was begun in XIX-th century.
Re: documentaries and stuff, two small things: 1. one should not believe ad litteram everything on TV...
2. I was saying that the "West Wall Battle" did not unravel for six months of continual attacks of the Allied Forces. Or is your oppinion (YOURS, not History Channel`s) that it was?

1. This is an occasion to clarify something peacefully. Should I understand that "FNB / FNG" are abbreviations for the ring of forts around Bucharest ? First time when I read the initials I took them as "Focsani - Namoloasa - etc. "
OK, if I made a horrendous mistake, you'll live happily ever after.

2. Regarding:

Following this logic, why should we trust books ? Why not trusting only what we saw with our own eyes? But I think our lives are too short, and we cannot be in too many places, so this is not an option. If we can trust some books, why we should not trust some documentaries ? Especially when we think that we already know a lot, we can use our judgement regarding them. In your quote under my second answer, the word "everything" is really misplaced. No person with a positive IQ trust everything on TV.
Even when the positive IQ is between 0 and 1.

And ...
Was the German Army attacked every day on the Eastern Front ? No. But the truth still is, that they resisted to the Red Army in defensive for more than two years.
Was Great Britain attacked every single day after the fall of France in June 1940 ? No. But the truth still is, that Great Britain resisted alone for one year.
Was the Romanian Army attacked every day in 1917 ? No. But we can still claim that the Romanian soldiers stopped the Central Powers in Moldavia, for the whole year 1917.

This post has been edited by Florin on December 04, 2013 03:34 am

Aviation didn't have much of an impact on well built forts. At least not until later in the war when the US came up with huge bunker-busting bombs.

This post has been edited by Imperialist on December 04, 2013 12:34 pm