Romanian Armored Forces in World War II, by Eduardo M. Gil Martinez

Length, 128 pages, including bibliography

This is a history of Romania's tank force in WWII. We start off with the 1930's and Romania's trying to build up an armored force for the coming war. They first get the French FT-17 and other vehicles from France, then turn to Czechoslovakia, and finally Germany, as the Soviets, Hungary and Bulgaria carve up the country in 1940. They get an unexpected bonus when a Polish tank battalion crosses their border in October of '39 and is interned.

Germany then becomes their main supplier with the coming of Barbarossa. We follow the Romanians into Ukraine and their siege of Odessa. Their greatest struggle is at Stalingrad, when their bravery isn't enough, together with their pitiful number and quality of armor, against the Soviet juggernaut.

From there, it's the fight at home to try to get more tanks from Germany, and their own attempts to build indigenous designs, but with constant Allied bombing, and no help from the Germans, who keep what they have for themselves, it ends up badly for Romania. They switch sides in August of '44, and use what they have in service of their Russian masters to invade Hungary, Austria and Slovakia and Moravia. The Russians impound what armor is left, and Romania starts from scratch with the coming Cold War.

Gil Martinez does give us some wonderful pictures, including the sole remaining example of the TACAM R2 tank destroyer, in a striking red primer coat. There are good copies of maps as well, in addition to color plates of the Panzer III's, Panzer IV's and Stug. III's Romania used, so a modeler could recreate one of their vehicles.

The bad news, as with another work from this publisher, Kagero Publishing of Poland, is that they translated his work literally from Spanish to English, and you would have to re-read things a few times. You might just be better off with Zaloga, or some of the other works Gil Martinez used to make his book.

 

.....as I stated in your other thread, I think, these German '''Allies''' --like Italy and Romania--- stories are very interesting.....some of the citizens think they are on a winner's side...a lot are skeptical..a lot are scared of what they see as a bad choice/etc ...and in the end--they all ''pay'' the price