page_title: Árpád Line
section_title: Layout of a typical völgyzár
hierarchical_section_title: Árpád Line / Layout of a typical völgyzár
caption_attribution_description: A destroyed pill-box of the Árpád Line near Yasinia
context_page_description: The Árpád Line was a line of fortifications built in 1941-44 in the north-eastern and eastern Carpathian Mountains, along the border of Kingdom of Hungary. It was named after Árpád, the head of the Hungarian tribes. The main function of the Line was to protect Transylvania, Székely Land, and Kárpátalja from the east.
  The Árpád Line was the main line of defence; the Hunyad and Prinz Eugene Lines lay in front of it.
context_section_description: There were 29 fortresses in the Árpád Line. A typical völgyzár was operated by a fortress company comprising 200-300 soldiers.  In comparison, a similarly sized defensive area was operated by a division-sized force in the Maginot Line. The fortress company was divided into three to four circularly defensible independent sectors. Each had a platoon-sized manpower with two light machine guns and few submachine guns, and every squad and heavy weapon had its own shelter. The platoon had three or more concentric trench-rings, and a few dugouts surrounded by a 30–50 m wide zone of anti-personnel obstacles. The independent sectors were interconnected by communication trenches and telephone lines. The fortress also had heavy weapons concentrated at most vulnerable areas. Typically, a fortress had four heavy machine guns, two to four light (37 or 40mm) anti-tank guns, and a few mortars (all of them operated in multiple earthen-wood, open artillery positions). At the rear side there were two to four well camouflaged independent MG pillboxes in case of attack from behind. The "fortress" also had a HQ bunker, a medical station, some dugouts for ammunition and equipment, a small engineer squad (equipped with mines and flamethrowers), and a kitchen. The whole fortress was surrounded by two or more "V" or "U" shaped anti-tank trenches or anti-tank walls, minefields, and natural obstacles (e.g., escarpments or steep slopes); thus, there was no passable way for tanks to approach the fortress.
  All soldiers and heavy weapons have multiple (three or more) open firing positions connected by trenches in order to make it difficult to keep them under fire. Concrete bunkers, usually only shelters (in case of artillery bombardment), just a few MG pillbox had loophole. Concrete MG and gun pillboxes in the Mannerheim and Árpád Lines were particularly well camouflaged, and almost all of them were side-firing in order to defend anti-tank obstacles against sappers; thus, none of them fired directly toward the enemy. Because these buildings were not exposed to the enemy's line-of-sight artillery, they could have been made much thinner than the Maginot-type ones. Therefore, it has vastly less concrete per kilometer compared to other lines. Few types of buildings on the Árpád Line have unified plans; the main types were: heavy MG pillbox (4.6 x 4.6m), light MG pillbox (1.2 x 1.2m), shelter for a squad with rounded top (5 x 4m), shelter for a gun or mortar (7x4m), HQ bunker (6 x 4m), medical bunker (7 x 4m), observation post (1.2 x 1.2m), dragon's teeth,
caption: A destroyed shelter of the Árpád Line near Yasinia
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