“All terrain” commandment and liaison vehicles in, What types, models and how many of them?

Actually most (if not all) of the AFVs had registration numbers.

Yes indeed. I only wanted to say that some AFVs had not registered numbers, especially on the front line or when they were camouflaged.

By the Ministry Decision Nr. 2345 of 1st September 1939, all military vehicles should have registered numbers. It was a repartition of numbers among military units as fallows:
• Light infantry battalions: 01-01000;
• Motorized infantry units: 01001-04000;
• Motorized heavy artillery units: 04001-07000;
• Bridges and other engineer motorized formations: 07001-010000;
• Armoured fighting vehicles units: 010001-011000;
• Cavalry light armoured vehicles and tankettes: 011001-012000.
I don’t know if this situation was also respected during the war when new units have been created and a lot of civilian vehicles were requisitioned. Only the military archives could give us more information on this subject.


According the “Instructions on the traffic and maintenance of military motor vehicles” (“Instructiuni asupre Circulatiei si Intretinerii Autovehiculelor Militare”) published in 1944, during the war, only “U”, “A”, “M” and “I” letters were written on the military registered plates.
I already mentioned that “A” in front of the registered numbers was adopted about 1950.

Thanks for the info, Bill, and for your prompt reply.

Would someone like to try identifying some of the officers?

Very nice photos.

The photos were made since 18th October 1942, when Gheorghe Avramescu was promoted Army Corps General.

In Photo 1, the mountain troops Brigadier General on Avramescu’s left is Leonard Mociulschi.

Photo 6. The officer smoking in the back ground is not a general but senior officer (single row of oak leaves on the visor cap). The colonel on the right, maybe a mountain group commander, has the typical mountain troops two colours (gray/green) embroidered collar patch, carried before the war. Unfortunately I don’t know their names.

Sorry, I initially misread that the system was abolished in 1940, not at the end of the forties.

This post has been edited by dragos on October 10, 2005 07:57 am

It wasn't, at least for the 1st Armored Division. In 1941, for example, the 1st Tank Regiment had allocated the registration numbers U 0301 to U 0400 and U 010051 to U 010500. The 3rd Motorized Vanatori Regiment had allocated the registration numbers between U 01571 to U 01770 and from U 06711 and U 06790. Col. Constantin Cristea, the unit's CO, had the registration number U 03000.

The tank regiments received registration numbers starting with 039 (plus three numerals) since 1942 for the AFVs and some of the trucks. The motorcycles of the 1st Armored Division, for example, in 1944 had registration numbers starting with 015.

What does the white club on the car mean?

mabadesc:
Sorry, those photos were so bloody big I missed a caption/question.
On the #8, the car on the left is probably the same Ford seen earlier.
The car on the right could be one of the senior series Horch (5 liter) passenger cars so much liked by the "brass".
Cheers
Bill

Thanks Bill, thanks Kepi for your answers.

Yes, I realized the pics were too big only after I posted them, and I didn't have the time to resize them.

Carol, good question! I also meant to ask about the white club. I don't think it's a divisional symbol, but I couldn't venture to guess as to what it actually represents.

It must be a unit symbol, but I don't know the unit. Vehicles of different units bore distinctive marks painted in white (for example an white stork for the trucks of the 2nd Heavy Artillery Regiment).

You can edit your message and leave only the thumbnails in the message with links to the full photos. An example for the way you have to write the address is:

<URL=http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/609/avramescumasina66mk.jpg><IMG>http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/609/avramescumasina66mk.th.jpg</IMG></URL>
where you obviously replace '<' by '[' and '>' by ']'. Notice the extra '.th' in the address for the thumbnail.

The result of the above lines is the image in my message above:

The Mărăşeşti destroyer was nicknamed 'The Ace of Clubs', but I doubt that it had any relation with the car in the photo.

I don’t know what is the ace of clubs significance on a road vehicle. It might be a good luck personal symbol (?).

This post has been edited by Kepi on October 13, 2005 08:45 am

If we look at the ace of clubs through Dragos' proposal ('unit symbol'), how extensive was the use of unit symbols in the Romanian Army?

And another hypothesis: Could it be that the car in the photo was not Romanian, but German for example (either on loan or recently purchased by the Romanians and hence still with the 'old' markings)?

Logical guess, Carol, but I doubt it.

It was Avramescu's "staff" car throughout '41-'43 in Crimea and maybe even later. In most of the pictures I have of him where he's next to a car, the car is always the same Horch. It's hard to believe that during all this time he didn't bother to remove the markings of the previous owner.

So the symbol must be somehow associated with him. Since it doesn't correspond to any Mountain Corps symbols that I know of, then I'm led to believe that it's just a personal, good luck charm (although that's surprising, too, since he didn't like to play cards and he wasn't a superstitious person).

Therefore, I personally tend to agree more with Kepi's supposition that it's a personal "good luck" symbol.

Thanks for the reply. In the light of the extra information you provided, it appears that the 'old marking' hypothesis falls.

However, before reading your post, while thinking about the possible meanings of the ace of clubs, another idea came to my mind. Was it a rank sign? Do not take this as an attempt to reject the 'good luck charm' proposal, but only as a plain question. Were there any rank signs used on the vehicles of the Romanian Army?