Despite vigorous resistance, nascent, inexperienced and poorly armed units of the Croatian Army, police and local militias succumbed to superior force and had to abandon their positions, including the strategically important Maslenica area, the site of a key bridge connecting Dalmatia with the rest of Croatia.

Fighting continued in subsequent months, during which the JNA and Krajina Serbs managed to gradually expand territories under their control and even threaten the major urban centre of Zadar.

[4] In January, 1992, the Sarajevo armistice and the arrival of UNPROFOR solidified battle lines into the boundary between Croatian government control and the self-proclaimed RSK (Republic of Serb Krajina).

Although this provided months of relative peace to citizens of Croatian-controlled Dalmatia, the situation proved to be untenable in the long term, because the region was severed from the rest of the country, despite nominally having a land link.

Furthermore, the Serb army also controlled the Peruća hydroelectric dam near Sinj and threatened its destruction, which could have flooded the Cetina valley, leaving Dalmatia without power.

Since the Sarajevo armistice, the government of Franjo Tuđman was constantly criticised for using apparently ineffective diplomacy instead of direct military action to liberate the rest of the country.

The Republic of Serbian Krajina was, on the other hand, much weakened by the retreat of the JNA following the Croatian diplomatic recognition and the eruption of war in neighbouring Bosnia, which gobbled up much of the military, economic and other resources of Serbia proper and left the RSK forces more or less on their own.

Six days later, seeing RSK forces being overwhelmed, the 126th Home Guard Regiment of the Croatian Army near Sinj conducted its own offensive operation against the Peruča dam.

The government in Belgrade failed to honour its promise of military intervention in the case of a major Croatian offensive against the Krajina, but the arrival of volunteers from Serbia proper, including units commanded by Arkan, improved RSK-morale to a certain extent.

The fighting continued in a series of local attacks and counterattacks, with minor pieces of territory changing hands and the Dalmatian coastal cities of Zadar, Biograd and Šibenik being occasionally shelled by Serb artillery.

They also secured Velika and Mala Bobija, Tulove Grede and Mali Alan in Velebit, a strategic area that allowed them to check Serbian forces in Benkovac, Obrovac and Gračac.

The Croatian Army's failure to properly exploit the initial success of the offensive is usually attributed to tactical mistakes in the latter stages of the operation and its lack of superior artillery - an issue that would be addressed in 1994 and 1995.