Myth of Tigers in Romanian Use

Florin,
according to the magazine Magyar Steel signed Bécze Csaba, on page 36 is written that as a result of the battles waged by the (Hungarian) 2nd Armored Division in April 1944 in SW Ukraine -division which was equipped with tanks Turan I and II- the germans who were impressed by their performance because they knew well the weaknesses of the Turan tanks, gave them, as a compensation for the material losses 12 Pz.IV H, 10 Pz.VI E 'Tiger I' and more StuG III G. The tanks were received in the second half of may 1944. The Tigers were formely with the german 503rd Heavy Tank Battalion. The 3/I Battalion of the Division received the german tanks, the Tigers were partitioned between the 2nd Tank Squadron -Lieutenant Ervin Tarczai and 3rd Tank Squadron -Captain Janos Vedress. The tanks took part in strong battles with the soviet troops in July and August 1944, with only 3 Tigers survive the retreat in the Carpathians -none of the 7 Tigers lost was destroyed by the enemy -all by mechanical failures, fuel shortage and transport problems! Interesting isn't it?

Andreas,

The Hungarian Tigers were initially part of Sch PA 503, delivered in May 1944 to Sch PA 509, who gave them to the Hungarian allies.

Al



This post has been edited by Alexei2102 on April 11, 2010 09:25 am

Hallo Alexei2102,
So you say (the source you quoted) that Hungary received 14 Tigers in june 1944? Than where are the other 4? I mean the 2nd Armored Division received 10, according to Csaba Becze, if he's right about that! In any case, at least in this matter, the Hungarian Army was favored by the Germans in summer 1944, compared to the moldavian front where most german armored units were withdrawn (by july 1944) but none didn't leave any tank or SPG to the romanian units. But I am not upset -without that retreat maybe we wouldn't have succeeded in the coup of August 1944!

I intended a short answer for you, but due to the interesting messages posted by "Andreas" and "Alexei2102", it is no need for my answer.

This post has been edited by Florin on April 11, 2010 03:15 am

Not going in to much details as I guess that we can only speculate at these sightings, the Tiger is an interesting object. Besides being frequently mistaken for various tanks like the PzIV and even T-34/85s, (everythings goes under combat conditions) the German allies and Russians tended to call German tanks "Tigers" for slang. So no matter the version it was called a Tiger. This has apparently caused some troubles for historians reading diaries and such.

The Hungarian Tigers we already know of.

That Romanian units could have attached Tigers from German tank brigades that is hard to find in documents is not impossible as some German units where scattered widely (I have seen units being on two or more places at the same time).

Also at least Russian units of captured Panthers where used on the eastern front and its believed that many more local units with captured German tanks where in action a few days (with no spare parts, limited stack of ammunition and vehicle experience these units is most likely to be used as means of travel then an offensive unit). Especially when the Romanian switched sides and in the German retreat in Hungary where lots of German tanks had to be left, not being destroyed due to the some times hasty retreats, this surely happened. Although we must think of how smart it is to drive an enemy tank in friendly lines .

This post has been edited by Vakond on May 06, 2010 11:54 am

Are we?

Gen. Dénes

I think the info about Romanian Tigers can be found on pages 260 and 261. It is possible that the new tanks were delivered to Romania a few days before August 23rd 1944, being used for a short period of time, before the Soviets "requisitioned" them