to be one of the longest serving tanks during the entire war originally discussions were had in NUMBER_TOKEN for romania to purchase the license to produce NUMBER_TOKEN rNUMBER_TOKENs in their own factory but this never occurred i'm not sure the exact reason behind this since france instead opted to sell them a total of NUMBER_TOKEN tanks clearly some information must be missing regarding why the license was not given considering france themselves were ramping up production as the germans became more and more aggressive so the reasoning behind exporting domestically built tanks rather than allowing romania to build their own seems confusing to me granted this is far from the strangest thing the french leadership would have done prior to world war ii so who knows of these NUMBER_TOKEN tanks it was planned to deliver NUMBER_TOKEN in september of NUMBER_TOKEN followed by NUMBER_TOKEN in january NUMBER_TOKEN in may and NUMBER_TOKEN in september NUMBER_TOKEN with the final order of NUMBER_TOKEN in september of NUMBER_TOKEN. however only NUMBER_TOKEN were actually delivered before the fall of france this number was somewhat increased during the invasion of poland by the germans when in september an additional NUMBER_TOKEN tanks were snagged from a polish tank battalion that escaped to romania this brought the total r-NUMBER_TOKENs in the romanian arsenal to NUMBER_TOKEN tanks these were re-designated as carol de lupta r-NUMBER_TOKEN and would see use following romania joining the axis in late NUMBER_TOKEN. the reason for them joining the axis was clear due to their fear of the soviets who had already been causing issues along their border this was further reinforced with the romanians having seen firsthand what happened to poland despite the promises of france and britain to support them against the neighboring threats the r-NUMBER_TOKENs were assigned to the second armored regiment and when the additional tanks were confiscated from the polish this grew their forces allowing two battalions of tanks these would first see action against the iron guard in january of NUMBER_TOKEN within the city of bucharest this resulted in the loss of NUMBER_TOKEN rNUMBER_TOKEN which is reported to have been burned out during the rioting as the romanians had joined the axis it should be no surprise that the tanks were next used during the invasion of the soviet union in june for this the tanks were sent to support the NUMBER_TOKENth army corps in july NUMBER_TOKEN. this was primarily due to the slower speed of the tanks as they would have lagged behind the first armored regiment who were equipped with faster rNUMBER_TOKEN tanks the rNUMBER_TOKENs would go on to see action in the so-called liberation of bessarabia as well as the assault on odessa during this latter assault one source notes that the armor of the r-NUMBER_TOKENs performed well against the soviet anti-tank rifles although their NUMBER_TOKEN millimeter guns proved only useful as infantry support weapons following this attack NUMBER_TOKEN tanks had been lost leaving NUMBER_TOKEN in inventory seemingly indicating that the one loss during the earlier rioting was later repaired it was clear by this point that the tanks were no longer suitable for frontline service due to their weak armament with the romanian industry being fairly small this meant that the tanks were relegated to anti-partisan duties aside from eight which were used for training during this time several improvements were made to the tank including metal trimmed road wheels replacing the original rubber ones which were found to be fragile some romanian
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