The reconstruction of Arges River Battle

Some aspects from Friday 1st of September commemoration, in Park Carol, at the Grave of the Unknown Soldier.


Before the commemoration…


The 30th Guard Regiment platoon ready for the drill demonstration.


The 30th Guard Regiment torch carriers.


The drill demonstration.


The commemorative march.


Saluting the Unknown Soldier.


Carrying the honour wreaths.


The Grave of the Unknown Soldier.

Hello! I was allso at the reenactment and I am, like most other forumists, very desapointed in the way the media coverage of the event. However, I was able to find one article whice is IMO better written (and does not pan the Romanians for loosing the battle). Enjoy: Romania a intrat in razboi?!?

As for the actual event, I can't say very much because it's the first such event I see and I didn't know what to expect. To Kepi I can say that the number of spectators vas definitely greater than his estimate. I for example arrived a bit late and didn't get any "ticket" and I think there are other people in my situation. I think that if such an event is organized again, more people ill come, because now those who attended it for the first time will know what to expect and they will bring along some of their friends.
After reading your comments, I realized the difficulty of organizing this event. But some of the "goofs" (like the machine gun jamming) actually added tho the realism of the battle. The only really hilarious moment I can remember is when one shot of the cannon would cause two explosions. Everybody around me laughed at that. (But I figured out it must have been the "off map" artillery .
I allso think it was a nice touch of realism that the Central Powers soldiers/reenactors were more experienced than the Romanians (which is historically accurate for 1916).
In the end, I wish to congratulate everyone involved, and I'm looking forward to the next event.

This post has been edited by SiG on September 05, 2006 07:31 pm

Kepi, first I want to congratulate you again - you did a splendid work in organizing all this ! In fact me and other forum member are considering of joining this reenactment thing as mountain troops
About the MG not firing - at the event were present 2 friends from Finland who came to visit Romania, one of them told me they still have in the army depos lots of Maxims but cannot use them in staged battles due to the fact that blanks have less recoil then real bullets thus the gun gets jammed, maybe this helps.

PS: I still don't have the pics from the event, when I get them I will post here.

Several video clips from the action here:
http://82.208.178.234/Mogosoaia/vid/

The Maxim 1910 used in the reenactment had a strange behavior so I'm trayng to explain it to everybody and I hope to combat some of the critics. I was present at all of the trials on thursday, friday and saturday morning so I know what I’m talking about.

Firstly both MGs were fitted with blank firing adaptors but from what I heard they weren't made to specifications (the hole that allows the escape of gasses was too big therefore the pressure in the barrel was not able to completely reload and rearm the weapon).

Secondly the original Maxim ammo belts are made from cloth that becomes hard after many years, thus making the reloading procedure very hard, the loading of the ammo belt was complicated by the fact that the blank ammo is shorter and blunter than the normal ammo.

Finally many of the blank cartridges didn't react at the first percussion (they were duds) for example when we tested the rifles one rifle had 4 misfires out of 5 however all of the worked at the second percussion.

In my opinion the temperamental action of the MGs was caused by the blank adaptors this would be the only explication to there odd firing rate sometimes jamming after one round other times after 10 rounds. A good example of the temperament can be seen in short video clips posted by dragos above.

One brave soldier...













The photos are from here: http://www.diginews.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=363&st=40 and here http://foto-quest.blogspot.com/2006/09/instructia.html

A fair presentation of the event in “Observatorul Militar” – “Reconstituiri”: http://www.presamil.ro/OM.htm

For this event Colonel Ceraceanu asked Castel film studios to make a dummy gun over one of the fort side turrets.



As you see in the photo, the turret and gun has nothing to do with the end of 19th century artillery cupolas. The props maker was probably influenced by some WW2 classical movies of the 1960s or 1970s, such as “The guns of Navarone”.



The gun “fires” on the wrong opposite direction.

I had a hard time trying to immagine the shape of the defences because of that.

Well, the turret would have looked something like this:



This is a drawing of the Grusson turrets test-fired at the military polygon at Cotroceni in 1885, but the actual ones fitted to the fort would have had inner workings more closely mirroring the Mougin turret, although the distinctive "turtle shaped" cuppola and the lowering mechanism remained.
Mougin turret, also test-fired at Cotroceni: (both pictures come from here)



Of course to make an even better visual image, here's a picture of a similar cuppola used in the "Kaiser Wilhelm II Feste" built in Alsace in 1893, from their official site http://www.mutzig.net/



edit: typos

This post has been edited by Wings_of_wrath on September 10, 2006 10:13 am

He he! I see you caught me in the picture too! I'm the one with the orange T-shirt.

He he! I see you caught me in the picture too! I'm the one with the orange T-shirt.

He caught me too in the picture. I'm the "ugly guy" standing near the gun barrel and having a cola bottle in one hand and the digital camera (which just went dead) in his other hand.

It's made in the wrong position because it's for the spectators. It's used just to look more realistic

There was a similar reenactement event taking place in Komaron on 15th and 16th September 2006, which included also some our reenactement groups (IR 87 and a Sturmpatrouille from GbSchRgt. Nr 2). As you can see "our boyz" had the Hungarian huszars on the run. I am sure this will "please" many Romanian visitors on this forum

URL: http://prohereditate.com/gallery2/v/GSR2/K...+15_-16_9_2006/

Hmm I thought that there was going to be no battle this year at Komarom otherwise, I think, instead of the Hungarian hussars there would have been Romanian troops...