Shipbucket

Bulgarian Advance

Along Yugoslavia’s south-eastern border, Bulgarian troops in their ex-Italian trucks mounted their own push to link with the Italians at Skopje, and quickly advanced to Uzem before encountering any resistance. Reports of combat at Uzem reached the shattered 3rd Bomber Regiment at Petrovec who were arming and fuelling their remaining Dornier Do 17’s for a strike against Bulgaria. With breakdown of communication with Belgrade the command of the 3rd Mixed Air Brigade at Skopje took the initiative and ordered their remaining Dornier’s and Furies to strike at the Bulgarian column.
Arriving overhead the Yugoslav aircraft found the lead elements of the Bulgarian force being held by a small contingent of Yugoslav border guards being a part of 5th Independent Army, the remainder of the column spread down the road towards the border. With no anti-aircraft defences and with complete air superiority the Yugoslav bombers attacked the column at low level with impunity. Although the Bulgarian column was absolutely defenceless below them, the Yugoslav bomber crews were untrained in low-level attacking and their bombing runs had little effect, with the action of their machine gunners probably causing more damage to the Bulgarians.
The Yugoslav air attack was soon over, with the aircraft returning to their home airfields at Petrovec and Kosančić with no losses, but a significant boost to their morale. On the ground though, the border guards were soon overwhelmed and the Bulgarian column resumed its move west into Yugoslavia.

Belgrade

With multiple raids over Belgrade during the day, the centre of the city was a flaming ruin. The Italian plan to destroy Yugoslav coordination was successful, and the multiple air raids during the day led to streams of civilians and government personnel clogging the roads from the city seeking the relative safety of the hills, while the command infrastructure became progressively more difficult to operate successfully.
As the strategic bomber force had triumphed in their daylight raids, as night fell medium bombers were given the chance to put into practice their night attack skills. A single night raid of Fiat BR.20 medium bombers struck the Belgrade after midnight, guided in by the light of the fires still burning throughout the city, further demoralising the beleaguered populace.

28th April 1941

With the concentrated bombing of Belgrade, Yugoslavian central command was crippled, but still operational. Information flow was poor, but combat reports were still coming in and orders going out – albeit in a haphazard fashion. The Italian bombing of Belgrade continued, now expanding out to include the airfields around the city, further degrading Yugoslav air defences.
With insufficient strategic orders, individual Commands also struggled with their own mobilisation problems while under attack from both without and within. While movement from Italian and Bulgarian ground forces had been reported on three fronts, a lack of reports of action from the German, Hungarian or Romanian borders was only an uncertainty that hostile contact had just not yet been received. Fully half of the Yugoslav forces remained committed to positions that were defending against attacks that had not yet occurred. But worse news was yet to come to the Yugoslav defenders as the pre-war Italian political subterfuge now bore fruit to further destabilise the country.
Within the 7th Army, holding against the Italian push from the northwest, morale had started to collapse as fifth columnists argued that the Italians were working to liberate the Yugoslav peoples from Serbian domination, and that the troops should stop fighting the Italians. To the northeast along the Hungarian border additional sabotage by fifth columnists meant that even though less than a third of troops had reported for mobilisation, transportation for their deployment was unavailable. Already on the first day of the invasion the Governor of Drava Banovina which encompassed all of the Italian and German borderlands, announced the creation of the National Council of Slovenia with the aim of establishing a post-Yugoslav Slovenian Republic, while Ustaše operatives continued their campaign of sabotage and disruption through the centre of the country.

Ljubljana

Having pushed through the initial Yugoslav defensive line Italian troops had captured Postojna in the late afternoon of the 27th. At first light on the 28th April the 32nd Tank Infantry Regiment deployed forward M11/39 medium tanks as the vanguard of the advance on Ljubljana.



Pushing through minimal resistance, the Italian tanks paused at the village of Vrhnika to allow the following infantry column to reform behind them. By 10AM the Italian tanks pushed into the Ljubljana Plain towards the city, expecting strong resistance. Italian air attacks had already “softened up” Yugoslav attempts at resistance, but even more powerfully the actions of the Ustaše and the new National Council of Slovenia had drained the Yugoslav forces of any will to resist. As the Italian lead elements approached the city, they were greeted by a delegation led by the city’s mayor. With the arrival of the Italian divisional commander, Generale di Divisione Romero, the Italians were given the keys to the city, and treated as liberators from Serbian authority. While isolated mountain troops continued to hold out, the main pass into north-eastern Yugoslavia had fallen to the Italians with minimal casualties, and the remaining Yugoslav forces fell back in disarray.

Battle Of Sušak

The Italian troops in Fiume had not attempted to enter Yugoslavia on the first day of hostilities, instead had only fired artillery intermittently across the River Rječina into Yugoslavian Sušak. The Yugoslav 5th Mountain Artillery Battery answered with sporadic fire back into Fiume from their positions in the hills to the north.
Italian intelligence had previously identified the presence of Yugoslavian tanks in the city, and had dismissed them as no more than a handful of the Great War-vintage Renault FT’s. In fact they were 20 Panzer I’s from the tank company attached to the 7th Army, having deployed from Ljubjana down to bolster the defences of the obvious early invasion target of Sušak.
Early in the morning of the 28th Italian infantry units crossed the Rječina and entered Sušak. The Italians expected a pitched urban battle in the narrow streets, and so were operating without heavy weapons and without aircover. Defending the city were the 12th Mountain Battalion, a well-trained and equipped formation, support by the Panzer I’s.
Advancing from their initial bridgeheads the Italians suddenly found themselves facing the Panzers. Although lightly armoured and armed only with machine guns, the Italian troops had no answer to the light tanks and with the mountain troops following them up, the Italians were repulsed and forced back to Fiume. Regrouping, the Italian force launched two further attacks, but by the evening only a bridgehead had been established across the farmland to the northeast across the Balde Fućka Road.

Air Attacks On Sušak

Sušak had been considered a crucial point of advance for the Italian force, opening up both the Dalmatian coast and an advance on Zagreb. The Regia Aeronautica had demonstrated their willingness to conduct strategic bombing of urban centres, and so the SM.81’s of the 40° Gruppo were ordered to crush the Yugoslavian resistance from the air on the 29th April. The SM.81’s had been held back from the initial attacks as they were acknowledged to be outdated for European warfare. The SM.81 crews and commanders had been agitating to join the attacks, and with minimal air defence available they were released for the mission.



Having already repositioned to northern Italy, the SM.81’s left their forward deployment airfields at dawn, arriving over Sušak having encountered no opposition. With its packed building and narrow streets Sušak was a training school exercise for Italian bombing, and within hours the city was flaming rubble and the defenders’ tank force had been neutralised. However Sušak’s value had now also been negated as the smashed city was no longer accessible as a transport hub. With artillery fire still falling on Fiume, Italian mountain troops penetrated into the hills to neutralise the Yugoslav’s. Positioned without infantry support the Yugoslav artillery could not defend themselves from assault and were rapidly overrun.
Now with command of the field, Italian engineers constructed temporary bridging to consolidate the advance to the north at the Balde Fućka Road, and allowing the town to be bypassed to the south as well. The Italian force now split into two components, one heading north for Zagreb, and the other south for Šibenik.

Hey Sheepster, your work is fantastic, and you have drawn out some rare planes, but... I noticed several aircraft that you've drawn, were previously drawn by me, such as the Ikarus, and Beech Staggerwing, and I don't want to accuse you of not properly crediting, just figured you used the same references as they look damn close to my work, and that you were unaware or unable to find those versions completed previously.

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"It is better to type nothing and be assumed an ass, than to type something and remove all doubt." - Me

Hi @nighthunter. Yes I've redrawn a few aircraft that have already been modelled, and updated a few others. I have been as accurate as I can with the crediting. Where I've redrawn an aircraft completely its because I didn't like the original enough to be able to tweak it to the sources I found, or because the horizontal reference used was too many degrees out to my eye. Length of aircraft has been probably the biggest concern with previous models. An example of that is as simple as "bomber length is 20m, but does that include the fore and aft guns?", or as annoying as using the B model length for an A model aircraft. The SM.81's are an example of that; 3 different engines giving 3 different lengths, but the references don't note that.
I've preferred to update models that are already made if I think they need it (far easier job), but sometimes the redoing panel lines etc just becomes too hard and easier to start from scratch.
And then of course there's 2 models simultaneously independently drawn, and I've bumped with @Bordkanone75 on this one several times (and I'm sure will again) as we are both working through machines of the same time period.
For 747's with big components different models will always look different - even using the same source diagrams, but for the little chaps like the Staggerwing they'll always look pretty similar. BTW I was completing a series set of all the models of the Be17 which is why I redrew that one to ensure conformity across the versions, but as it will feature in the US sections I didn't complete it then.

Croatian Insurrection

The pre-war Italian agitation of Croat separatism led to an almost immediate breakdown in Yugoslav military discipline and national coherence. Anti-Serb sentiments spilled over into civil disobedience and open revolt.
Buoyed by the declaration of Slovenian independence, ethnic Croats in the 40th and 42nd Infantry Divisions of the Yugoslavian 4th Army mutinied and arrested their Serbian officers, taking over command of their units along the Hungarian border. With the support of the rebellious troops entering the city of Bjelovar, the city's mayor proclaimed the independence of Croatia, and issued a call for all Yugoslav troops to rise against their Serbian overlords. Frantic messages from Yugoslavian command elements urging the continuation of the fight against the foreign invaders and now fifth columnists was largely ignored in the west as the rebellion of civil and military officials spread.
In contrast to army units who were predominantly comprised of called-up civilians, both the Yugoslav navy and air force were fielding mainly professional servicemembers. This difference in make-up showed itself in the reaction of the different Services to the Italian-inspired sedition; while the Army was tearing itself apart, both the Navy and Air Force remained largely committed to fighting the invaders.

Second Siege of Zara

Having recognised the Italian enclave of Zara as a breakout point for Italian troops in the event of a war, a pre-emptive assault on the city had already been included in Yugoslav war plans. The combined arms assault was to include the naval flotilla led by the destroyer Beograd, the Savoia-Marchetti SM.79’s bombers of the 81st Bomber Group at Mostar, and the 12th Infantry Division of the Coastal Defence Command.
As international tensions had risen, the civil populace of Zara had been evacuated to the Italian mainland, and in the place of the 14,000 civilians was a force of 9000 troops. Due to the small size of the enclave no airstrip existed but with Ancona only 100km’s away aerial support was available without being itself at risk. At the time of the start of hostilities there were only transport vessels in harbour at Zara, but likewise Italian naval support was readily available.
As dawn broke on the 27th the bombers of the 81st Bomber Group were arming and fueling as the Italian Stukas screamed down. Within 30 minutes the planned bombardment of Zara disappeared in oily smoke, and instead became a battle to salvage the remaining bombers from the spreading fires. At sea, Italian aircraft discovered the Yugoslav flotilla, and although no vessels were sunk, the destroyer Beograd was badly damaged and forced to limp back to Kotor for repairs.



Without knowing it the Italians had neutralised 2 of the 3 prongs of the planned Yugoslav attack, and without support an out-numbered assault on the enclave became untenable. Without a mission and horrendously outnumbered, the radio reports of massive attacks throughout the country led to the already mobilised Yugoslav troops to pull back to defend Šibenik.