Perix

It was issued the ideea that, if Romania would not defected in 1944, the germans would delayed russians on Carpathin lines, even 6 months. What is your oppinion? How long the germans would resisted on Carpathian lines?

sturm

The russians could just pass around the Carpathian mountains, like many nations before that did.

sylla1

The Romanian defection was indeed a terrible blow against the III Reich at several levels; however, given the momentum of the Soviet offensive and the fact that the main Romanian cities (and the Ploesti oil fields) were already in the range of the RAF & USAF from Bari, six months might seem a little too optimistic.

Perix

The german hopes were not linked only by the Pliesti oilfields. They hoped, of course, to delay the fallen of the oilfields, by concentration of troops, in Focsani-Namoloasa line, but they were aware, they couldn't resist much there. Instead, they hopped they would delayed much the russians, on Carpathian line, where they would be able to resist with minimum troops and materials.

Edward

The Carpathian Mountains will not slow down Russians main trust towards Berlin. The Russian Balkans operation was only supportive to their main Berlin operation. IMO, Rumanian defection did have no major effect on the Russian timetable.
It may be delayed fall of Vienna or Budapest, but had no major influence on fall of Berlin and German capitulation.

sylla1

IMHO, that is a fair assesment.

After all, there were still German soldiers fighting in Soviet land (the pocket in Curland) to the very last day of the War.

Perix

Anyway, after some, it would had a significant influence. The germans could retreated troops from Balkans theatre, and sent against Zhukov.

Edward

The defection of Romania was a political act; military value of this defection was relatively low.
Romanian soldiers, pushed by political leaders from one extreme to another, did loos the will to fight (and I do not blame them for doing so).
Look at statistic (data taken from Wiki):
Over 538,000 Rumanian soldiers took part in action against German forces.117, 000 become POW. That is 22% of overall Romanian forces. And this happened during offensive action where percentage of POW is usually very low.
Looking at these figures, we could assume that the contribution of Romanian soldiers to the offensive capacity of Red Army was rather meaningless.
Assuming that Romania will not defect, the logical course of action for Romanian High Command will be defence of Romania. In such case the forces in Romania could be easy bypassed and contained by relatively small Red Army Group.

Perix

You are not quite on the subject-this is, mainly about germans resistance on Carpathian line. Anyway, it is not such bad like you assert-I'll come back with details.

Perix

I've made some search on internet, and it is amazing how many gaps are in this subject. Yes, on wiki is like you said, but, in other works, which quote sources, the POW number 117,731, is the number of german(axis) POW, taken by romanian army(I'll carry on searching, and I'll comme back). This is far more credible, considering the incapacity of the germans to support such new many POW's. The great numaber of KIA(more than 21,000) is due to soviets tactics;
- in Transylvania and Hungary, the romanian units were used as cannon meat-they were sent in the front line, after them arriving the soviet units.
- In Czechoslovakia, romanian units alone, were sent to conquer highlands german positions, were germans had a huge terain advantage(20 german fortified positions).
Neverthenless, romanian army eliberated almost 4000 localties, fron which more than 50 towns.