Operational history
Weapons and equipment

Weapons and equipment

The everyday uniform of the paratroopers was a copy of that of the land forces, but it was made out of blue thick cloth, with just 2 pockets on the chest and long pants, very wide down to the ankles. For bad weather, they used the same time of thick cloak that the army had, with the sole difference that it was blue rather than dark green.
For combat, the Romanian paras had blue-grey overalls, made out of duck, with zippers in front and pockets that were also closed with zippers. Initially, the paras were equiped with french - made leather helmets, with a reinforced cap. In late 1943, they received special helmets, equipment and some weapons manufactured in Germany.

 

 
The parachutes employed by the Romanians were the IRVING type, purpose made for them by the Romanian branch of the Irving Air Chute Company Ltd.
 
The 4th Paratroop Batalion was supposed to be airdropped by the Junkers Ju-52's of the 105th and 107th Transport Squadrons, while the heavy weapons, personnel and whatever equipment that couldn't be parachuted would be flown in using DFS 230 transport gliders. It was calculated that some 54 Junkers Ju-52 planes would be needed for a combat drop of the entire batalion, but unfortunately, the Romanian Air Force never had that many. To solve the problem, in early 1943 it was decided to create a new flight school where glider pilots were to be trained. The man in charge was lieutenant Gabureanu Mircea, an IAR-39 pilot which had fought in the Bassarabian campaign with the 19th Observation Squadron. From the 1st of April to the 1st of September 1943, the school was based on the Focsani airfield. During this period, a total of 18 Romanian pilots were trained to fly the DFS 230 glider, with the assistance of 3 German flight instructors. On the 26th of July 1944, lieutenant Gabureanu was ordered to start training another batch of pilots.
   Romanian paratrooper armed with the MP40 submachine gun during a training exercise. Summer 1944  
Though in July 1944 the training had started on the Petresti-Dambovita airfield, a lack of gliders and towing aircraft hampered the school's activity ( only 4 DFS 230's were left after the 23rd of August ) so that only 13 of the 29 initial trainees graduated to become ceritified glider pilots. In the end, the initial group of 18 pilots formed up the 109th Transport Squadron, equiped with 12 IAR-39's ( production numbers 244 - 255 ) that were supposed to toe DFS 230 gliders, a number of civilian transport aircraft ( possibly Potez Po-56 borroughed from LARES - a Romanian airline ), and even some aging Potez Po-65 light bombers that had been relegated to transport duties. This bizare mixture was in theory sufficient to get the batalion to its target.
   
But in the end the services of the 109th squadron were not needed, as the battalion never made a combat jump, although they did see action in late August 1944. Starting from February 1945, several IAR-39's and DFS gliders were used to create the 2nd Glider Transport Section, which flew in some 500 tons of supplies on the west front until the end of the war
  

The organisation of the infantry company was the following : 3 rifle platoons equiped mostly with rifles, light machine guns and submachine guns + 1 heavy machine gun platoon + 1 light mortar platoon + 1 assault engineers platoon equiped with flamethrowers. Additionally, there was a reconnaissance platoon equiped with Zundapp KS 600 motorcycles attached to the HQ of every company.

The heavy weapons company had the same structure as the other companies, but besides the individual weapons it also bolstered a medium mortar platoon and an antitank platoon.
The rifle used by the Romanian paratroopers was the Z.B. model 1924 rifle. This was a conventional 7,92 mm bolt-action rifle, made in Romania after a Czech Skoda model, and it equiped most of the Romanian divisions throughout the war.
For additional firepower each platoon had the Z.B. model 1930 light machine gun ( designated as "Pusca mitraliera Z.B. model 1930"). It was a 7,92 mm LMG using the same type of ammo as the Z.B. rifle.
Most of the paratroopers carried as personal weapons submachine guns, and they had two types of those: the Mauser 7,65 mm ,model 1932 ( initially ) and the MP 40 9 mm, model 1940 ( since late 1943 ). Both of them were equally praised by the paras.
First among the support weapons was the Z.B. model 1937 heavy machine gun ( designated as "Mitraliera grea Z.B. model 1937"). This weapon was a development of the Z.B. light machine gun, with superior range and rate of fire. It had the same caliber ( 7,92 mm) and fired the same Mauser cartridge.

Indirect fire support was provided primarely by the Brandt/Voina 60 mm light mortar of each infantry company ( they were produced in Romania by the Voina Company )

For additional indirect fire the paratroopers could call upon the Brandt/Voina 81.4 mm medium mortars of the heavy weapons company (they were produced the Voina Company)

The primary weapon of the assault engineers was the Pignet model 1937 flamethrower
Antitank firepower was assured by the 47 mm Bohler antitank guns

 

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