I've been little busy in real world, I got a
photo fair coming up on 22 October so don't except to see much of me until then. :sad:
How much weaponry had TO? Don't know exactly but I know that they had some heavy stuff (e.g. howitzers, POVs) but no tanks. Bajlo should know this.
This is little mystery for me to, JNA had lots of older weapons type transferred to TO, virtually nothing got scraped no matter how obsolete it was, so bunch of T-34, M-18, M-36 with T-55 engines, 88mm Flak-18 with 85mm gun barrels as coastal artillery got used in action once again. Several local museums holding Partisans and Axis weapons got plundered... I think I saw somewhere a photo of Lewis gun or something similar! But no clear info what was used by TO and what was stored under JNA control.
Did the TO division later become real "divisions" in Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia? My idea is like you say to create these TOs as militia and some with attachments. And then via event disband and put full divisions instead in historical places that those divisions operated.
One of the huge blunders at the beginning of war in Croatia was distrust in TO Croatia and its officers unlike Slovenia where it TO quickly defeated JNA initial actions. While Dalmatia managed to successfully defend itself relying on TO organization for quick mobilization despite lack of weapons in many places TO got abandoned in favor of political appointments to command positions. Basically instead of regular TO brigade with battalions which could be then deployed to the front line local militia were formed with companies divided with each one defending its own village and local warlords refusing to obey orders from higher commands.
It took weeks before ex-JNA officers who defected to sort that mess up since they were also distrusted despite the fact that they risked firing squad for treason if Croatia lost the war. Former Legionnaires were highly praised but there were too few of them to have much of an impact and they lacked experience with high level command so once again politics and war profiteering ruled.
Luckily for Croatia, TO raised by Serbs was in no better shape with exception of having plenty of weapons and ammo and JNA was constantly undermanned badly lacking infantry to support its armored-mechanized formations, still many local Croatian militia companies defending their villages got easily overran since lack of Croatian centralized command meant that JNA had full initiative allowing it concentrate everything on single point of attack without any risk for its flanks since militia weren't in any shape to pose threat even if they obeyed orders to attack. (Unlike WW2 when Germans risked losing huge areas if they concreted their units against Partisans in single area)
I'm still trying to collect data on all Croatian units but if we want realism there is no single rule for their creation at best several individual battalions would be formed by single event with extra battalions being formed as player takes control of key location (JNA warehouses). We can use DH decisions for that, there is even decisions for buying obsolete equipment to form units so we can recycle that to represent weapons smuggled from abroad at ridicules prices.
So events should give player regular guard and militia TO battalions (divisions in HOI) which later get attachments (brigades in HOI) in form of tanks platoons, artillery batteries etc. Also Croatian police should be part of the OOB since police officers often played first line of defense before regular units were formed and Special Police was key formation during the war. BTW I received e-mail few years ago from members of Bosnian Special Police, before the war they had the best weapons money can buy and when the war begun unit split by ethnic lines and fought on both sides... talk about complex scenario...
We don't want too many Croatian units on the map from start since it would allow player to easily exploit HOI engine, Croatia ended war with over 200 000 soldiers under arms while JNA and Serbian TO never had more then 100 000 (limiting Serbian manpower with mobilization events is a must, unless Croatian or Bosnian player decides to invade Serbia
)
