Focsani- Namolaosa 24 august 1944

Much was debated about the posibilitty of romanis and germans to stop the soviets at least for a while at Focsani-Namoloasa fortified line if the 23 august 1944 didn,t happend, but not so many put on paper the exact available forces that were present in the area on 23-24 august 1944 and what reifrocements we and germans have to send to the fortified line.
So some questions if somebody can answer :
1. How many romanian troops manage to fell back behing the fortified line on 24 august 44 ?
2. How many german troops manage to escape the russian first phase of the Iassy - Chisinau offensive?
3. How many cannons, tanks, stugs AT canons do we and the germans have on 24 august 44 to stop the russians at the fortied line ?
4. What reinforcements we and the germans could have bring fast to Focsani area on 24 august 44 ?
That it for the moment .

3 x Fortification detachments and some heavy artillery battalions with old pieces (120 mm DeBange, 122 rusesc, 155 mm); Some AA 88 mm Flaks were rushed to the line to occupy AT positions.

I am not sure what do you mean by first phase, I am assuming 20-23 August. At that moment, except the units destroyed in the front break points, most German units were still in good condition, the issue was the retreat order didn't come from them and they were trying to cover the gaps instead protecting the other units from retreating. Another issue was that some Germans believed that this wasn't a big scale offensive, e.g. 6th Army soldiers were playing football in the evening of 20th August. With a good reaction in first phase, most of the German troops would have been able to escape.

Enough. By the time the Russians would have reached the FNB line, they would have been at the limit of their supply range. There were still a decent number of units in the interior and probably some of the units from Moldova would have escaped retreating on the area between Siret and Carpathians. In fact some units involved in heavy fighting in Moldova and Bessarabia managed to maintain their operational level, some being involved in Transylvania as soon were able to be moved there (e.g. 1st Cavalry, 11th Infantry, 21st Infantry.

at a glance: 8th Cavalry Motorized, few training infantry divisions (in fact brigades) like 21st Infantry, 3rd Infantry, 11th Infantry, 5th Infantry, some units from Buchares (2nd Battalion of a Vanatori Moto regiment), a lot of sedentary part (training units) of those on front, 2nd Tank Regiment, 1st Armored Division (training branch) etc. German could have probably provide some infantry divisions and probably 1-2 armored battle groups.

It is very unlikely that Soviets would have had the gas to make it over the FNB line in August. In fact the objectives of Iasi-Chisinau offensive was limited to Moldova and encirclement of 6th Army and not passing over Carpathians or reaching Bucharest.

This post has been edited by amz on September 09, 2020 06:39 am