Romanian People's Army

The title of Supreme Commander-in-Chief was held by the de facto leader of the nation, General Secretary, despite the fact that the President of the State Council was the de jure head of state until 1974, when it was replaced by the President of Romania.

No.		Supreme Commander-in-Chief	Took office	Left office	Time in office
1		Gheorghiu-Dej, GheorgheGheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1901–1965)	30 September 1955	19 March 1965	9 years, 170 days
2		Ceaușescu, NicolaeLieutenant general Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989)	22 March 1965	22 December 1989	24 years, 275 days

The office of Minister of National Defence (Romanian: Ministrul Apărării Naționale) is the chief political leader of the military. Before that, it was the Minister of War (Romanian: Ministru de Război) who handled military affairs in the government. The country's defense policy was managed by the agency the minister headed, the Ministry of the National Defense, led by a professional officer with the rank of Colonel general or above. The minister was a permanent member of the Politburo of the PCR.

No.		Minister of War (Ministru de Război)/Minister of National Defence (Ministrul Apărării Naționale)	Took office	Left office	Time in office
1		, GheorgheGeneral of the Army Emil Bodnăraș	27 December 1947	3 October 1955	7 years, 280 days
2		Sălăjan, LeontinGeneral of the Army Leontin Sălăjan	3 October 1965	28 August 1966	329 days
3		Ioniță, IoanGeneral of the Army Ioan Ioniță	29 October 1966	16 June 1976	9 years, 231 days
4		Coman, IoanColonel General Ioan Coman	16 June 1976	29 March 1980	3 years, 287 days
5		Olteanu, ConstantinColonel General Constantin Olteanu	29 March 1980	16 December 1985	5 years, 262 days
6		Milea, VasileColonel General Vasile Milea	16 December 1985	22 December 1989[13]	4 years, 6 days

A graphic of the structure of a Romanian People's Ground Forces Motor Rifle Division.

The senior most units in the ground forces was the Tudor Vladimirescu Division and the Horia, Cloșca și Crișan Division, both of which were used as politicical tools by communist leaders. They were composed of former prisoners of war, Soviet trainees and Communist activists such as Valter Roman.[18]

In 1980, the Romanian Ground Forces was reorganized in 4 Army Commands:[19]

• 1st Army Command (Bucharest)
• 2nd Army Command (Buzau)
• 3rd Army Command (Craiova)
• 4th Army Command (Cluj-Napoca)

All four Army Commands consisted of 8 Mechanized Infantry Divisions, 2 Armoured Divisions and 1 Armoured Brigade, as well as 4 Mountain infantry Brigades as specialized motorized infantry units, in addition to an administrative division of 4 parachute infantry regiments. Between 1960 and 1964, the rifle/mechanized divisions were converted to mechanized infantry (motorized rifle) divisions, which resulted in reductions in size due to it being a merger of both types of units. The newly established mechanized infantry divisions were structured similarly to the Soviet ones, organized into a division HQ, three mechanized infantry regiments, a tank regiment, an field artillery regiment, as well as in battalion-size subunits of other specialities, while the armoured divisions were structured in three tank regiments, a mechanized infantry regiment, an field artillery regiment and a number of other battalion-size subunits of other specialities.

The degree of mechanization of the infantry was not complete, unlike the other member states of the Warsaw Treaty, for in 1985 only two of the three infantry battalions from the composition of the mechanized regiments were equipped with wheeled armoured personnel carriers TAB-71 and TAB-77. Even though since 1985 the infantry regiments began receiving new amphibious tracked infantry fighting vehicle MLI-84 the mechanization of the whole infantry had not succeed until 1989.

Disbanded by the Soviets in the early years of occupied and post-war Romania, the Vânători de munte (Mountain Huntsmen) was reestablished in 1958, being the equivalent of the Soviet 7th Guards Mountain Air Assault Division or the American 10th Mountain Division. It was considered the Ground Forces' best-trained unit due to its equipment consisting of MLVM APCs and 76mm. mountain guns, and was organized into 4 brigades stationed in the mountainous areas. The Special Counter-terrorism Unit (Unitatea Specială de Luptă Antiteroristă, USLA) was a key part of the Ground Forces security aspect, preventing terrorist attacks such as a May 1985 attempt by two Arab terrorists to bomb cars belonging to Syrian students the Grozăveşti Campus parking lot.

The Naval Building in Constanța served as the headquarters for the People's Navy.

In the early postwar years, the Romanian Navy was deprived of its merchant fleet due to the rapid takeover of the Romanian vessels by the Soviet Navy. In September 1944, the Soviet Navy transferred all Romanian warships to ports in the Caucasus near Azerbaijan and Georgia, all of which were not returned until just over a year later, with the exception o the Regele Ferdinand-class that was kept by the Black Sea Fleet until the early 1950s.[20] A number of warships such as Amiral Murgescu were never returned and stayed in Soviet service until they were decommissioned.[21] Once in possession of patrol ships, the Romanian People's Navy formed Danube Squadron, which later changed its name to the River Brigade in 1959. As a result of the 1940s reform of the naval forces, a patrol squadron was converted into an independent unit, which operated under the Naval Headquarters until May 1951. Four years later, naval ships and Marine units were subordinated to the headquarters.

In 1962, the 42nd Maritime Division was founded, continuing the traditions of the Sea Division, a large unit was had ceased to carry out functions since the end of World War II. In the late 70s and early 80s, several naval ships were built in the Romanian shipyards, specifically the Midia and Constanta escort ships fron Braila shipyard.[22] In the early 1980s, the People's Navy ramped up efforts to develop its own domestic naval industry by building new patrol boats using Chinese and Soviet technology and designs. In 1989 the Romanian Navy had more than 7,500 sailors, all of whom were organized into the Black Sea Fleet, the Danube Squadron, and the Coastal Defense. Its major naval bases and shipyards were the ports of Mangalia and Constant on the Black Sea. Based in Constanta, the 2,000-member Coastal Defense Regiment was the shore-based component of defense against attack from the Black Sea.[23][24]

On 15 February 1949, the Romanian Aviation Command was established following on the Soviet model of aviation regiments instead of the British model of squadron. This would later be renamed to the Romanian People's Air Force. In 1969, an air defence unit was created to provide protection against air attacks while a paratrooper regiment was founded in 1980, both of which were assigned to the Campia Turzii (now RoAF 71st Air Base). A Romanian-made IAR-93 attack aircraft flew its first flight on 31 October 1974 over Bacău[25], marking the first jet fighter in the Eastern Bloc to be domestically manufactured. The Mikoyan MiG-29 aircraft entered the inventory of the Air Force just a few days before the Romanian revolution of December 1989.

Two patriotic guardswomen training near an industrial park.

Formed in 1968 after Ceaușescu's speech of 21 August 1968, the Romanian Patriotic Guards was an organization dedicated to public security, with its functions including civil policing to an active reserve for the People's Army. During wartime, the President of the Republic could authorize the guards to become a large "People's Militia" that would provide military police-style security, as well as augment the ground forces, and operate as guerrillas forces. The force was not part of the Ministry of National Defence but was instead a directly reporting unit of the PCR and the Union of Communist Youth, of which it drafted members of both. Members of the guards were considered territorial troops (Forțele teritoriale), as they were organized into companies and/or platoons and were based in every județ, municipality, and industrial/agricultural area under the command of the first secretary of the local PCR.

On 23 January 1949, the communist government disbanded the Royal Romanian Gendarmerie only to purged its personnel and redistribute them to the newly created Directorate for Security Troops (DTO) of the Securitate (Department of State Security), modeled after the NKVD'a Internal Troops and the KGB.[26] It acted as a 20,000-strong eilite paramilitary force consisting of selected people form the conscripts pool for the People's Army who performed routine law enforcement functions such traffic control and issuance of identification cards. It was organized into infantry units who were equipped with small arms as well as artillery, and armored personnel carriers. The security troops were directly responsible to the Minister of the Interior and there the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, giving then the ability to guard important installations including PCR office buildings and state radio and television stations.[27]

The regime of Ceaușescu could have theoretically called in the security troops as a private army to prevent a military coup d'état and/or suppress antiregime riots. It was also responsible for ensuring total loyalty among the rank and file in the People's Army, employing political officers to push the country's military doctrine. It operated under a more strict discipline and routine than the regular military, which resulted in their special treatment and enjoyment of better living conditions then their counterparts.[27] In late 1989, the directorate was disbanded and replaced first by the Guard and Order Troops (Trupele de Pază și Ordine), and later on the reformed Gendarmerie.