Die militärischen Handlungsschemata der ... - Dr. Alois Mock

offensive. From Holbrooke’s point of view the order to stop the offensive was more
than logic.
The joint forces of Croatia and Bosnia could have taken Banja Luka then. But the US
only had the aim of dividing Bosnia on the 51:49 percent line.
But it has to be said that neither the regular Croatian Army nor the Bosnian Army
alone militarily had the possibility to take a big and defended town (beside the stoporder
from the US in front of Banja Luka). The Bosnian-Serb Army did not defend the
Banja Luka area very strongly because nearly every soldier had his family and
belongings in that certain area and of course wanted to take all this with him. But we
must not glorify the strength of the Croatian Army because the Krajina was not really
taken by fight. In combat the Croatian soldiers were far weaker than the the soldiers
of the Bosnian Muslim Army.
The Muslim soldiers were those with the highest fighting morale. The Bosnian
Muslim Army was fighting a war to survive and for their national identity. Also they
had very strict rules in war and often they were forced to fight.
The Bosnian-Serb Army was less disciplined than the Muslim force (but no Serbian
soldier was ever killed because of war crimes). There existed a big lack of war-laws,
judges and discipline on the Serbian side.“
• How did the structure of the Bosnian-Serb Army look like in 1995?
„The Bosnian-Serb Army had quite a constant potential of 170.000 men during the
whole war. About 30.000 Bosnian-Serb men had run away from Army duties. The
Bosnian Serb-Army consisted of six Korpses. The strongest unit was the I. Krajina
Korps. ¾ of the I. Korps were stationed around Banja Luka and Bjelinja. The other
Korps consisted of about 15-20.000 soldiers each.
Because of the No Fly-order of the UN there was nearly no possibility for the
Bosnian-Serb Army to use air-power ecxept in the beginning of the Bosnian war in
1992. Beside that the Bosnian-Serb Army’s Artillery-, Tank- and Infantry-units
operated integrated. But it has to be said that the tanks were mostly used as static
and quite immobile Artillery-pieces. On most of the Bosnian front-lines there
happened no change of positions for two to three years. All in all the Bosnian-Serb
Army had about 400 tanks and some thousand Artillery-pieces.“
• What impact did operation “Oluja” have on the VRS?
„The Krajina-Serbs did not exspect the Croats to really attack the Krajina in August
1995 and hoped for protection by the UN-forces. Before ‚Oluja‘ US-Generals helped
the Croatian Army with Know How and weapons. The US-government gave the
Croatian government the permission to launch the ‚Oluja‘-offensive in August 1995.
When the Croatian Army attacked in August the small Army of the Krajina Serbs
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