The JNA defeats Slovenia in the Ten-Day War

[aktarian]

evribody had RPGs, especially in Slovenia wich still kept all its weapons

Not at all. You are confusing RPGs with Armbrusts

you can bet slovenians would fanatically defend all major cities, they basically have olnly two, and theid put everithing they can into keeping them, thered be streetfighting for months, and the situatio in the JNA in Slovenia during those ten days was probbably worse there than it was in Croatia

Fanatically defend? Hardly. When there was serious JLA attempts to fight orders were to pull back and minimize casualties (specially around border crossings). How long do oyu think defences of major cities would last? TO had little heavy weapons, little in terms of air defences and so on. My bet is if Vrhnika units strike toward the capital (short drive along motorway, as I'm sure you are aware) they'd be able to seize ledership fast, then deploy on cruicial points.

and for some reason during 1990/1991 even in early 1992 yugoslavian tanks tended to be linged up nicely
exactly like that
hundreds of people died for no good reason becouse the top comanding officer would order a soviet stile tank colum attack he saw in some official booklet, and anyone inteligent enough to divert from the plan would be shot for desertion
some tankists were even chained to their tanks interior so they couldnt run off

They were lined up that way because they were in traveling, not attack formation. And even then the casualties weren't that high. Now imagine column traveling protected by infantry and heavy weapons.

it would be a bloody and fucked up couple of months, Slovenia would go trough hell just like Croatia and Bosna, but eventually JNA would lose, theres no other way

I doubt it. Had there been a good plan with maximum show of force and willingness to use it I doubt things wuld last more then a month, likely much less.

And JLA didn't loose in Bosnia and Croatia, it didn't operate there, at least not in that position, it was local Serb population.

 

[aktarian]

provided that teenager has guts to do it, has RPGs (which TO didn't have, BTW)

Dude.

"The Slovenes were well aware that they would not be able to resist the JNA for a very long time. Under Defence Minister Janez Jansa, they adopted a strategy based on an asymmetric approach. TO units would carry out a guerrilla campaign, using anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft missiles to ambush JNA units. Tank columns could be trapped by destroying the lead and rear vehicles in favourable terrain — for instance, on a narrow mountain road where room for manoeuvre was limited – enabling the rest to be tackled more easily.

That is assuming there is will to fight to the death. I doubt it was very present, public statements notwithstanding. And once initial weapons run out, where will new ones come from?

"In preparation for this, the Slovenian government covertly bought lightweight missile systems from foreign suppliers, notably the SA-7 Grail (Strela) anti-aircraft missile and the German-designed Armbrust anti-tank system. Hit-and-run and delaying tactics were to be preferred, but frontal clashes were to be avoided since in such situations the JNA's superior firepower would have been very difficult to overcome."

yes, Armbrusts and Sa-7 against heavy weapons. I wonder how that will turn out in the long turn.

Brief googling finds an interview with the Slovene Minister of the Interior a few months later:

Q: It is known that you have been friends with Janez Jansa, Slovene defence minister. Whose department - yours or Mr. Jansa's - is, according to you, more responsible for the import of German arms to Slovenia?

A: I know nothing about that. We didn't import a single rifle from Germany. The arms we've got are of Russian, i. e. eastern origin. We also have "Armbrust" anti-tank weapons supplied by a south-Asian source.

A: Nevertheless, some "Armbrust" weapons from Germany were found at the Croatians front. They came via Slovenia.

Q: [They] definitely don't originate from Germany. These are weapons from Singapore. Besides, "Armbrust" is in the inventory of the Slovene territorial defence units.

This is like twenty seconds with google. There are even more hits in Serbian because the Serbs made an urban legend about how the Germans had supplied the Slovenes with those weapons. (Because, you know, Germans just hate Serbs!)

Arbrusts were imported via Austria (using a very clever ploy, I must say). they were good because they allowed to be fired from closed space (like rooms) unlike other hand-held AT weapons. but their biggest problem was that they were single-shot so once they run out, then what?

In my last post, I said that JNA was worse off at Vukovar in September than it had been in Slovenia in June.

But it wasn't /that/ much worse off. Top command was still a bunch of dinosaurs, the conscripts were still miserable, morale was still low.

Also, Vukovar had about 20,000 soldiers attacking a city of around 50,000 people. Here you have a bunch of brigade-sized units, scattered and disorganized, attacking a city of 250,000 people. I'm just not seeing how "half a day" works here.

but there is difference between attacking defended city head on or rolling into one against little to no opposition.

I think Broz is making a more convincing case.


Doug M.

*shrugs*