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    Morar Andrei

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    Everything posted by Morar Andrei

    1. I agree with you. Someone really needs to make a serios, unbiased documentation. At least I would like to keep this thread open to discussion. Thank you anyway, gentleman, and have a great weekend!
    2. Indeed. The Romanian army has been always affected by national politics, corrupt politicians, incompetent generals (problems that can still be seen). One thing I do not agree for example is that after WW1, marshall Averescu became a politician, with his results being quite mediocre. Also, how can you not build even one factory to produce armoured vehicles but rely solely on exports? There are many things that contributed to the lack of equpment in the Romanian army, since there not even so many factories that could build goods for the army. My big point is that in time I heard different versions about how useful were the Romanians in wars. Some of them are ranging from "they fought bravely, with a lot of skill against an outnumbering enemy", or by citing generals like Manstein and Rommel who they clain to have said about us that " we were the best allied soldiers of the Axis" (mostly Romanian sources), while others say we were complete cowards and traitors (WW1 because we were initially part of the 1883 secret treaty and WW2 because we switched sides on August 23rd 1944). I can still remember the comment of a guy who claims that his grandfather was a German reconaissance plane pilot at Stalingrad. He also said that from his grandfather's stories, the Romanians just ran from their positions without firing even a shot, even if they had the weapons needed to repel that attack, and thus lost his respect on us as allieds. Where can we get a definite balance, and maybe solve this issue once and for all?
    3. I heard many times that the army of Romania during time was very weak, and they are blamed for many military defeats of the 20th century. How true is it? And how can be considered in fact the capability and performance in the most important wars it was involved from 1860 onwards (The Russo-Turkish War of 1877, The Great War, the involvement of the Romanion legions from Italy, France and USA, the Hungarian-Romanian War of 1919 and the Second World War)? I would like to get an honest opinion, accompanied by facts. For example at Stalingrad: was it totally the fault of the Romanians that the northern and sounthern flanks fell, or they were also used as a scapegoat?
    4. Does this look like my corporal uniform, or at least is similar?
    5. I have found this recently. You may find it interesting https://web.archive.org/web/20091001190507/http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/romania/romania-tanks.html
    6. The white pain can be explained on the next way: it was done in order to protect the sword a few dousins of years later. They hoped that it will be eventually restored to its former glory.
    7. Thank you! I will ask her again for names soon.
    8. I am nit sure about that measure. It was quickly done on roulette. Would there be any other way to determine its origin? Maybe this can bring some light: http://www.rft.forter.ro/17_bibvirt/pdf/004-artileria-romana-in-date-si-imagini.pdf
    9. Yesterday, I went to visit an old Saxon lady who said that she has some old military objects, in a nearby village. One member of her family was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, then, after the war, became priest in that village, so he had to "hide" the old object from his army time. Because I like history, I wanted to go and check them out. Initially, from the stories told by a friend, she had some old pieces if uniform. But, when I got there, I was somehow wright, but not entirely. This is what I discovered: I have two questions: - from what kind of artillery piece may come that shell (don't worry, it has been deactivated)? After a quick measure, it is 55 mm diametre - what sword model is this one? I don't know if the writing is clear enaugh
    10. What can I find about this photo? All I surely know is that the two gentlemen are from south-east Transylvania. And a bonus: soldiers returned home to their village, winter 1918. Location: Cuciulata, modern Brasov county.
    11. The construction of the fortress began in 1310, on the site of an older fortification of wood and wood in the 12th century. The purpose of building the fortress was extremely strategic, more specifically for defending Transylvania's southeast by the incursions of the Tatars and Ottomans. During the XVI-XVII century, the fortress was attacked or sieged for at least 25 times, but it resisted every time, thus gainig the reputation of "impregnable fortress" for the following centuries, as it was one of the most important defensive points from the southern part of Transylvania. In 1526, Transylvanian voivode, Stephen Mailat, a son of a regional boyar, entered Fagaras and the surrounding areas and began the works of transforming the fortress into a true fortified city. The defense walls have been doubled in thickness from the inside. New spaces were arranged in vaulted rooms and halls. In 1541, the Ottomans led by Mustafa Paşa attacked the fortress. Mailat fell into a race and was imprisoned in the prison of the Tower of the Seven Towers (Edikule) in Constantinople, where he died 10 years later. In 1599, Mihai Viteazul occupied the fortress, gave his wife, Mrs. Stanca, together with the domain, and, becoming the prince of Transylvania, sheltered his family and the domineering treasure a few years later. In 1617, the last two levels of the southwest tower (donjon), also known as the Red Tower, which has five levels, were erected. During the seventeenth century, with short interruptions, Fagaras was a true capital of Transylvania, the fortress becoming the residence of the Transylvanian princes. The Transylvanian Council gathered here in 11 times. In 1630, the defensive ditch surrounding the fortress was enlarged and bound by a secret channel of the Olt River. A hinged bridge was installed at the entrance. Later, the cellars were refurbished in dungeons where the serfs who revolted were imprisoned. In 1657 Zsuzsanna Lorántffy (wife of Prince Gheorghe Rákóczi I), master of Fagaras Fortress, established the first (middle-level) school with a Romanian teaching language at Fagaras, which operated under the patronage of the prince. In 1661, the Ottomans raided Făgaraș, burning the town, but the fortress rezisted to all assaults, due to its strong walls and position into the middle of a swamp, which prevented the posdible mining of the walls. After the passage of Transylvania into Habsburg rule, in 1696, the Fagaras Fortress was taken over by the Austrians and became a garrison fortress, starting in 1699, and a military prison. In 1721 Făgăraş became the headquarters of the United Romanian Episcopate with Rome (Greek Catholic), the Bishop's residence being on the first floor of the south wing of the castle. However, Bishop Ioan Giurgiu Patachi preferred to live at the Brukenthal Castle in Sâmbăta de Jos and Inocenţiu Micu-Klein moved his Episcopal residence through a property exchange from Făgăraş to Blaj in 1737. Nicholas Iorga visited the city in 1903 and found it close to ruin. During the Great War, it was used by the Austro-Hungarian authorities as prison, and fron 1916, as a POW camp for the captured Romanian soldiers. Between 1948 and 1960, the city served as a prison for opponents of the communist system in Făgăraş Land, political detainees, Făgăraş becoming one of the prisons in the Romanian Gulag system. In the years that followed (1965-1977), repairs, restoration and preservation were carried out.
    12. Thank you very much! It's very interesting. But now I realised that I made a little confusion: in fact, Măgura is the name of the commune, and the village itself is called Guruieni.
    13. Tomorrow, May 17th 2018, we are celebrating Heroes Day in Romania. Placed on the same day as the Ascension, this year's comemoration will have even a greate significance, because this year there are 100 years from the end if the Great War, and 100 years since the Great Union. Commemoration has already begun at this hour in many Romanian towns, and they will continue tommorow with large parades in the big cities. Glory to all of the fallen, and rest in peace!
    14. "Romanian inventor Henri Coanda considered his Coanda-1910 aircraft the first jet-propelled aircraft in history." "The weird-looking flying machine was called “Turbo-Propulseur” by its inventor, the brilliant Romanian aeronautical engineer Henri Coanda. A hundred years ago this week, on December 10, 1910, the Propulseur accidentally flew—or so Coanda would later claim—during taxiing tests at Issy-les-Moulineaux, outside Paris. If true, it was the world’s first jet flight. But Coanda’s accounts of the alleged flight changed markedly over the years, and a close examination of his stories, as well as his patent documents, leave more than a little doubt that it happened at all. The Propulseur caused a sensation when it was exhibited at the Second International Exposition of Aerial Locomotion, held at the Grand Palais in Paris from October 15 to November 2, 1910. Coanda’s invention was strikingly different from the usual flimsy biplanes of the day. Instead of a propeller, the revolutionary monoplane had an inverted flower pot-shaped front, with built-in rotary blades arranged in a swirl pattern. The heart of the machine was an internal turbine screw driven by a conventional four-cylinder, 50-horespower Clerget engine. The Clerget was to turn the rotary blades, thus sucking in air through the turbine while “the heat of the exhausting gases…exited...at the rear, driving the plane forward by reaction propulsion,” according to a December 1, 1910, article in the journal La Technique Aeronautique. Coanda’s patent (French patent No. 416,54, dated October 22, 1910) gives more insight into how the engine actually worked. When air rushed in the front, it passed though different channels that contracted and expanded it. In this way, the air’s “kinetic energy [was] converted into potential energy,” according to the patent. Next, the air was “directed to the diffuser...which then discharges it.” To improve the efficiency of his machine, Coanda suggested that the channels be heated to increase the pressure of the air passing through them. Any heating agent would work, including exhaust gases from the engine. Moreover, this propulsion system could be applied to any vehicle, said Coanda—including a ship, “motor car,” or airplane. What is notably lacking in the patent (including identical ones taken out in England and the United States) is any mention of injecting fuel, which in a true jet engine would combust with the incoming air. Judging only by the Turbo-Propulseur’s patent, it was no more than a large ducted fan, a super vacuum cleaner with wings. And it couldn’t have flown. Throughout the Exposition, Coanda’s airplane was well publicized. Yet none of the reports hinted that the Propulseur on display was capable of actual flight. For instance, L’Aérophile observed: “If the machine would ever materialize as the inventor hoped, it would be a ‘beautiful dream.’ ” And the accidental flight? At a speech before the Wings Club in New York in January 1956, when Coanda was 69 years old, he said of the Propulseur: “I intended to inject fuel into the air stream, which would be ignited by the exhaust gases....Thus I hoped to obtain the jet reaction desired...” That would appear to close the case: The inventor never finished his invention. Why then, did he make a contradictory statement in an article published just a few months later in the Royal Air Force Flying Review, titled “It Actually Flew in 1910!” In the September 1956 issue, Coanda is quoted (by writer Rene Aubrey) saying that he did inject fuel. While taxiing and “concentrating on regulating the flow of petrol [gasoline] in the jet engine,” he said, “I suddenly saw the fortifications around the airfield looming up in front of me. There was only one thing to do. I lifted the machine off the ground.” Aubrey then writes that Coanda lost control of the plane and, “Injecting more fuel into the turbine, he suddenly found himself surrounded by flames. Desperately he cut off the fuel. The aircraft stalled and Coanda was thrown clear of the machine as it gently collapsed to the ground and burst into an inferno of fire. Coanda escaped with a few bruises....It was the end of his first jet flight.” Another article on Coanda, in the March 1967 issue of Flying magazine, gives a precise date for this supposed flight: December 10, 1910. Could the date have been chosen to add authenticity to an unsubstantiated claim? A page-by-page search through the Paris newspaper Le Figaro for the entire month of December 1910 turns up no story about a flight or accident at Issy. Nor is there any mention in leading aviation journals of the day. Nothing. The only reference even closely related, in Flight, reports (under “Doings at Issy”) that in mid-December 1910 there was no flying due to bad weather. So the claim of a jet flight in 1910 doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, or at the very least needs corroboration. But Coanda’s story doesn’t end there. After the Propulseur was displayed in Paris, he was approached by Grand Duke Cyril, first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II, to make a sled for the Russian royal family. After all, the engine could propel an “aeroplane, ship, motor car, etc.” Coanda built it immediately, with the help of a French boat manufacturer. Instead of a Clerget, he fitted it with a six-cylinder 30-HP Grégoire engine." - Quoted from "Air&Space Smithsonian" The reproduction of the plane, found now at the National Military Museum from Bucharest At the International Aeronautic Exhibition from 1910...
    15. You are right, all of the Romanian TACAM T-60s have been confiscated by russians, but they could keep the 20 TACAM R-2 tank destroyers.
    16. Personally, I thought for a long time that many tanks from Wargaming's game World of Tanks are just made-up to complete the gaps in their 10-tiers tech tree system, especially when talking about premium vehicles, such as the Skorpion G project from Rheinmettal. But I found out it was an actual tank design from 1943, but not used.
    17. I haven't seen the VK Leopard listed there. Honestly, now I'm confused what to belive or not. It wiuld be indeed a bit exagerated to call proposed projects as fakes. But I still think they got right about some tanks, didn't they?
    18. Here is the site where I read the article about German fake tanks: http://panzerpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Fake_Tanks Strangely, many is the midels you mentioned are here. But they are still very interesting as a tank design (I like the StuG E100 Krocodil and the Flakpanzer Aligator)
    19. I know about the E100 chassis. Do you think they would have planned an SPG or tank destroyer variant?
    20. Yeah, I would think so. It looks very strange. Something that mifht have been in German style, but still a fake tank. That's why I mentioned in thus topic that I will present rare, strange or fake tanks that were considered German by origin. We can make a short list of possible fakes in my images: - Panzer V Asf D "Leopard" - Panther II (possibly) - Flakpanzer E100 "Alligator" - Jagdpanzer E100 (the 2009 design that appears in World of Tanks - the much more plausible one - if there was one - would have been on the design of the Jagdpanther) - E-90 Bison / Tiger III L - Jagpanzer E90 - Flakpanzer E50 - Jagdpanzer Leopard - Panzer IX - Panzer IV with Tiger turret - Panzer IV with Schumaturm turret If there is any other one, please help me complete the list.
    21. Yeah, I also find interesting that the modern territory of Romania was like a buffer zone, a battlefield during the 16th-19th century between the great powers of Europe, with many battles involving the Russians, Austrians, Ottomans.
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