lthough it has more
than 100 years of local
military aviation tradition- dating back to the army and
naval air elements of the former
Austro-Hungarian Empire –
Croatia recognises December
12, 1991 as the foundation of
its contemporary air force. On
that date, the command of the
Hrvatsko ratno zrakoplovstvo
i protuzračna obrana (HRZ i
PZO, Croatian Air Force and Air
Defence) was officially established
in the capital Zagreb, during the
country’s war of independence.
Croatia has been a NATO
member since 2009. Twenty-
six years after its administrative
formation, the air force consists of
around 1,300 active-duty military
personnel, six squadrons at two air
bases, a training centre and an air
surveillance and control battalion
with five modern 3D AN/FPS-117
air surveillance radar stations.
As for the ‘protuzračna obrana’
(PZO, air defence) element, despite
acquiring components of the S-300
surface-to-air missile (SAM) system
during the war, Croatia now only
operates anti-aircraft guns, man-
portable air defence systems
(MANPADS) and vehicle-mounted
Strela-10 (SA-13 Gopher) short-
range SAMs for troop air defence.
These assets are the responsibility
of the Croatian Army, as are
a small number of unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs) – so at the
end of March the government
officially renamed its air arm the
Hrvatsko ratno zrakoplovstvo (HRZ,
Croatian Air Force), dropping the
‘PZO’ part of its former title.
Coincidently, on March 29the government
announced its choice
of second-hand Israeli
F-16C/Ds as the HRZ’s
new multi-role fighter.Born in combat
Back in 1991, when Croatia
declared independence from
the former Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY),
it faced armed mutiny by Serb
rebels, supported and organised
by the Yugoslav People’s Army
(JNA) and the regime in Serbia.
The JNA took almost all the
SFRY’s weapons and equipment,
including those belonging to the
Territorial Defences (TO) of the
individual Yugoslav republics.
Croatia’s aviators had to rely
on small sports and agricultural
aircraft to provide any kindof air support to
its soldiers on the
ground, confronted
by overwhelming Serb
and Yugoslav forces.
The situation in the air began
to change with the defection of
Croatian JNA pilots – following the
example of Captain Rudolf Perešin,
who flew from Bihać to Klagenfurt,
Austria, in a Yugoslav Air Force MiG-
21R Fishbed-H (L-14i) on October
25, 1991. The following year three
defectors managed to fly Yugoslav
MiG-21bis fighters to Croatian
airfields. The jets were soon
involved in HRZ combat operations.
Meanwhile, despite a UN
weapons embargo, Croatia
managed to arm itself on the
international black market and
had gradually won back its key
territories by autumn 1995.Following Croatia’s
decision to choose
the Israeli F-16 Barak
as its new fighter,
Antonio Prlenda
assesses the current
state of the Croatian
Air Force and
its aim to
modernise
and fully
Westernise
its fleet.Looking
West
A
PART ONE
Croatian MiG-21bisD ‘Fishbed-L’
serial 118 with a typical QRA load
of two Vympel R-60MK air-to-air
missiles and a 490-lit drop tank.
Tomislav Haraminčić104 // JUNE 2018 #363 http://www.airforcesmonthly.comCroatian Air Force
Force
Report