The narrative of the Soviet-Romanian War in All Union focused largely on the northern front, where advanced mechanized units burned through the Romanian countryside in a rapid (but not bloodless) stomp. However, by far the hardest going was the southern front, a push across the Danube with Soviet and (majority) mobilized Bulgarian troops.

Shown here are several of the Romanian defenders in fortifications prior to the battle. Most of the troops in the fortified positions were mobilized Patriotic Guards , almost all from areas ineligible for the (itself stretched and mobilized) regular army: Women and men both too young and too old for “regular” service.

There was very little standardization for these desperation formations in terms of either equipment or uniforms. The blue uniforms designed for the Patriotic Guards can be seen in these [pseudo] photos and drawings of them in the fortifications prior to the war, but so can plain and camouflage uniforms.

All pictures made in Stable Diffusion.

Note: Stable Diffusion, at least the models I use most, is currently not very good at doing exact military equipment pieces well. Hands are pure genius in comparison. Hence why I don’t have them actually holding weapons. You can justify it by saying that the Securitate was afraid of mutinies or wasting ammo. -C