Yugoslav Partisans

Work is progressing well on this project. Lots of research, lots of reading and lots of planning. By the end of this I'll be able to write a book with my notes!​

One thing I lack is a decent book on the subject (Unlike Antony Beevor's The Battle for Spain). I have purchased a few Osprey titles which are useful, but I really want to find a book which covers the whole Partisan war. So far I have come up blank. If anyone knows of a good book please let me know.

All this research has been spawning ideas. One that has just come to me:

Once a certain late war objectives are taken the Partisans receive the technology to build very cheap factories and Steel Works which will allow them to pump out units at a much higher rate. This is to represent the swap over from voluntary enlistment to conscription that occurred in 1944. Prior to this the player will rely on events, such as units from city capture and the Italian capitulation, to build and maintain their Partisan Army.
 
Are you fluent in Serbo-Croatian (at least it was classified as one language in my youth; I believe the Croatian, Serbian, and Bosniak dialects are now considered separate languages for political reasons)? I ask, because there's probably a tonne of books, even ones written by actual veterans of the conflict, that never did get translated, but are invaluable nonetheless.
 
Unfortunately my Serbo-Croatian is a bitrusty nowadays ;)

Luckily I found a site with a lot of the information I was after: http://www.vojska.net/eng/world-war-2/yugoslavia/

This will save me a ton of time researching. Now I have the OOB for the major participants I need to decide on unit scale. I was thinking about Battalion size, but with 222 Partisan Brigades (of 3-4 battalions each plus mortars and artillery) that would mean thousands of units. Divisions (50-60) seems too small an amount of units for a map of this size so it looks like I will be going with Brigade size units.

This works well as the Partisan Brigades were designed to operate independently (at least until they were grouped together to form divisions later on in the war) and the types of Brigades (Proletarian, Assault, Dalmatian, Montenegrin, Slovenian, Macedonian etc...) roughly correspond to the units I have already picked.

I will need to bend the rules for units like the two tank brigades (one British equipped with M5 Stuarts and AECIII armoured cars and the other one Russian supplied with T34/85s) as two tanks just isn't going to cut it. I will probably use each vehicle to represent one battalion.

 
That makes a lot of sense. The Partisans could have a lot of units but with limited combat power, which will represent their lack of heavy weaponry in the early years. This will improve as they capture more weapons from the Axis and receive aid from Britain and Russia.
 
I see problema with fascist aviation: If it is too strong could devastate the Partisans because the units in Civ-2 can not pass unnoticed or hidden aviation.
 
That is a good point. I intend to keep the number of air units fairly limited, especially early on in the campaign. In 1941/2 the Germans needed all the first line aircraft they could get for Barbarossa. The Croatian Air Force would have had some old Breguet Br.19. I will only introduce aircraft in larger numbers later on when the Axis launched their larger Anti-Partisan operations.

Of course, later in the scenario the Partisans will gain their own Air Force from Russia and the US/British supplied Balkan Air Force.

 
If I were to try such a rating system for Fall of Rome, it strikes me that white (or red) stars wouldn't be era appropriate. Any opinion on what simple symbol would be?
 
Hi McMonkey,

I have to admit at first I was skeptical about a scenario about the Yugoslav resistance movement during the Second World War. I was thinking how will this even work. But I shouldn’t have doubted your incredible creativity, as the more I read your thread the more intrigued I’m becoming about your scenario. The screen shot above is just fantastic and gives me I’m sure just a small glimpse of what the final product will look like.

With regards, the usage of icons to represent the different expertise levels I agree with Curt that you should probably limit it to the veteran and elite class, otherwise you’ll just end up seeing stars all over the place. As some may have noticed on my last screen shot on my Vietnam thread, I was also contemplating using a ranking system for elite units but was using a lettering system instead, i.e. “E” for elite, “V” for veteran. But I wasn’t overly satisfied with the result as the letter wasn’t standing out like your stars.

Would you consider sharing your star graphic and object if I tried implementing it in my own scenario for my elite type units? I would therefore use one star for veteran (not to be confused with veteran status gained through combat) and two for elite units.
 
Of course, please feel free to use them. I think I ripped them from Curtsibling anyway. As far as I'm concerned any scenario designer is free to borrow whatever they like from any of my scenarios, I know I do from everyone else's!

I also had some doubts about this scenario to begin with, but the more I work on it the more I think it is achievable. It is going to be tough, like the Spanish Civil War, and the chances of complete defeat early on will be high with your small, ill equipped Partisan detachments hunted by a remorseless enemy. Later on as the war evolves into a more orthodox campaign the pressure will be on to liberate Yugoslavia before the Soviets arrive.

With regards to the stars. I quite like the way they look in game at the moment, but I may well take your advice on board once I start testing. I agree that a map covered in stars could be too much. I will see how this pans out. Here is a preview of the current unit roster that has been in a process of almost daily evolution for months now:



There are a few of my own copy & paste adaptations amongst this lot. I have filtered out many superfluous units and I wouldn't be surprised if one or two don't make it to the final cut.
 
Are you referring to the unit above the Bosnian Militia? If so that is a 1944/45 era Yugoslav Army soldier. These late war Yugoslav units were armed from Soviet sources and created in the post-volunteer period of conscription and will be the first build-able regular infantry unit for the Yugoslavs, the rest coming from events. The Soviet Infantry and Guards will both be event created on the eastern side of the map.

If the player survives to this point in the game they will find themselves in control of not just Yugoslav Partisans, but also large numbers of British, Italian, Romanian, Bulgarian and Soviet troops. I haven't yet made a final decision if the Soviet, Bulgarian and Romanian troops will be player controlled or AI. If they are human controlled there will be some epic battles in Hungary and Northern Yugoslavia. If I go with the AI option it will be a race to liberate Yugoslavia before the Red Army reaches Belgrade. The only problem with that is the lack of an eight Civ, though I could possibly use the barbarians as the Romanians and add the Soviet Civ back in. My concern with doing that is that I can set the Germans and Bulgarians as allied to the Barbarian-Romanians and if I mad the Soviets barbarians they might not conduct a proper military campaign and would attack their Yugoslav allies as well. I have some decisions to make for this final stage!


Montenegrin communist partisans of the 2nd Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Proletarian Brigade of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia
 
Say, McMonkey, I just happened to notice the feature article on the English homepage of Wikipedia today is the Hungarian Invasion of Yugoslavia during WW2 (no joke, you can check). I don't know if you mentioned which AI player "runs" Hungarian forces, as you seem to have divided the Axis in the region AI players. Which AI player runs the Arrow Cross regime (no doubt the one you were looking for Turan tanks for)?
 
Wikipedia knew about my project, obviously ;) I LOVE Wikipedia. I'm on it every day checking bits and pieces. You may not rely on it for a college dissertation but for a Civ2 project it is invaluable. I even pay a monthly donation to help keep it add free and support the excellent work. A real collaborative effort, by the people, for the people.

Hungary will be an independent Civ and will stay loyal to Germany to the end. Romania and Bulgaria will both switch sides when Uncle Jo's boys turn up.
 
Hi McMonkey,

To make my units more visible on the map I'm trying out the health bar style you are using for SCW and Partisans.

So far it's looking favorable but can you confirm from what graphic file does the nation health bar color come from? I initially though it was from the bottom left section of the city.bmp file but I think that's only for the city names and flag.
 
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