The embargo prevented the newly formed state from legally buying equipment abroad, so they chose to try to design and produce some new weapons locally, mostly based on second generation of submachine guns (like the British Sten gun or German MP40).

The Pleter (named after the Slavonian town of Pleternica) was produced in the local factory OROPLET, heavily copied Sten Gun characteristics, despite having a vertical rather than a horizontal magazine.

Out of probably dozens of domestically designed and produced submachine guns from the 1991 conflict, the Pleter proved to be quite a good insurgency weapon, which somewhat filled in the gaps of the undergunned Croatian Army and was suitable for the combat environment of the Yugoslav Wars.

One of these guns was found 2011 in the weapons arsenal of the German Neonazi terrorist group NSU.

It is believed that, when German Neonazis fought as mercenaries in the Croatian War of Independence, some of them may brought the guns they used back home and later offered them to the group.