Mareșal (Tank destroyer)

[Louis]

The Maresal Tank Destroyer represented Romania’s greatest ambition in developing and building its own modern light tank destroyer in WWII, capable of standing against the Soviet tanks.

Comparison with T34

None of the Maresal tank destroyers that were built ever saw combat. On Aug 23, 1944, Romania switched sides and joined the fight against the Axis powers. The events that followed this decision, meant also the end for the Maresal tank destroyer project.

On Oct 26, 1944, the Soviet Armistice Commission, added a secret protocol to the Armistice Agreement between Romania and the USSR.
The Soviets used this additional protocol as an excuse and demanded the dissolution of all Romanian mechanized units, thus everything related to the Maresal destroyer project (prototypes, documents, photographs, plans) were either confiscated or destroyed.

Undoubtedly, the Maresal tank destroyer was one of the most ambitious Romanian engineering projects during WWII. Although it didn’t saw actual combat, the introduced features, and technical innovations, contributed to the development of the German Hetzer tank destroyer, which proved to be a serious opponent for the Soviet T-34 tanks.​