Fifty years ago, given their creative, ingenious, splendid fighting spirit, the Northern military and people, with the Navy as the core, won the victory against American imperialists’ naval blockades to timely clear the waterways and sea lines of communication. Based on such an outstanding victory, the Naval Party Committee and Command have been adopting synchronous solutions to improve quality of combat training and readiness, which contributes to the building of a revolutionary, regular, elite, and modern service.

In the war of resistance against the US for national salvation, facing vigorous attacks launched by our military people, the American imperialists frenziedly escalated the war and laid tens of thousands of naval mines and magnetic bombs in estuaries and harbours in the North with a view to destroying our economic, military potential; halting the supplies from the Northern great rear to the Southern great front line; hindering international aid for Viet Nam; surrounding, isolating, and undermining our people’s willpower to liberate the South and reunite the country.

Right in the first blockade (1967 – 1968), the American imperialists laid nearly 7,000 naval mines and magnetic bombs to blockade 24 estuaries and ports from Cua Tung (Quang Tri province) to Van Uc (Hai Phong city). In the second time, US military applied the then cutting-edge advances in science and technology to tighten the blockade. More importantly, they dropped improved MK-52 naval mines in conjunction with DST-36 magnetic bombs with 4 types of arming devices, which were far more powerful than the previous ones and brought the destructive war to an unprecedented scale. With these malicious schemes, the US hoped to stop our transportation completely, thus stifling the Southern revolution and weakening our people’s war of resistance.

Given the aspiration for peace and reunification of the country as well as the resolve to fight the enemy and clear the way to advance, Viet Nam People’s Navy (VPN) brought into play its core role and directly conducted research and detected and neutralised all the naval mines and magnetic bombs, thereby reopening lanes of traffic in support of production and transportation of supplies to the theatre of war. Regardless of hardships and sacrifice, given its determination, indomitable spirit, wisdom, and bravery, the Navy, together with the Northern military and people, defeated the enemy blockades completely and created a remarkable feat of arms, which can be considered an exploit of the VPN. This is a victory of the people’s warfare; the strategy to lead the revolutionary war of the Party; and sound, timely direction of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and Ministry of National Defence (MND), directly the Naval Party Committee and Command. It is also a victory of Vietnamese military art in general, the naval operational art in particular; a victory of daring to fight, resolving to fight, and knowing to win of our military and people, contributing to common efforts of the military and people nationwide “to fight to chase out the Americans, fight to overthrow the puppets,” liberate the South completely, and reunite the country.

Removing waterway blockade in Hai Phong in 1972 (A file photo)

Currently, high demands of the mission to safeguard the Fatherland require the entire military and the Naval Soldiers in particular to further inherit and bring into play that glorious tradition to step up building the service in a revolutionary, regular, elite, and modern direction and into the core force in defending the sacred sovereignty over waters and islands. Of note, enhanced quality of training and combat readiness of the service is one of the key elements, which needs to be led and implemented through many synchronous, suitable solutions, especially the following.

First, strengthening of party committees’ and commanders’ leadership of training and combat readiness. On identifying training and combat readiness are key political tasks, the breakthroughs, and prerequisites for accomplishing all assigned tasks, the Naval Party Committee and Command promote leadership of comprehension and effective implementation of resolutions, directives and instructions of the higher echelons, most notably the Resolution No. 1659-NQ/QUTW, dated December 20, 2022 of the CMC and the Resolution No. 1378-NQ/DU, dated March 30, 2023 of the Naval Party Committee on improving training quality in the 2023 – 2030 period and beyond. This provides the foundation for party committees at all echelons to issue specific resolutions to lead the training; work out concrete measures conducive to missions, trainers, and characteristics of the waters; deal with shortcomings and weaknesses completely.

The Navy has to undertake training and missions in the severe maritime environment. Therefore, the Naval Command requests its party committees, commanders, commissars, cadres, and soldiers to raise their awareness and responsibility for training and combat readiness, regarding this as the basis for enhancing its comprehensive quality and combat power. It also steps up the “Determination to Win” Movement and carries out regular, peak emulations in training, combat readiness, and building of “exemplary, representative”, comprehensively strong units in connection with campaigns and movements at all levels and branches, which aim to create momentum and encourage cadres and soldiers to accomplished all assigned tasks.

Second, proactive, careful preparation in every aspect to meet requirements of training and combat readiness. The Navy is composed of many forces from various services and arms. During the training process, units use many types of weapon systems and technical equipment and cover large areas. There are forces undertaking both training, combat readiness, and combat at the same time. Consequently, the Navy attaches special importance to training and combat readiness and timely instructs its departments and units to proactively make full, good preparations in terms of humans, weapon systems, technical equipment, and training grounds. Pursuing the viewpoint of taking cadre training as the key task, the Navy directs building of training departments and cadres at all echelons, who possess comprehensive capacity and good command of foreign languages and information technology and are capable of satisfying demands and assigned missions. To obtain the above-mentioned goals, units organise training courses, which cover comprehensive contents and match positions and duties of trainers; attach importance to enhanced capacity to advise the higher echelons on and respond to situation quickly as well as the ability to command and control departments and units. Apart from preparing human resources, departments and units also prepare training materials, training aids, and training grounds; bring into play technical innovations to reduce budgets and save soldiers’ time and effort, contributing to increased quality of training and combat readiness.

Third, it is necessary to reform and promote quality of training and conducting exercises as well as combat readiness of forces. This is a vital solution, which has drawn close, comprehensive leadership and instruction of party committees and commanders at all levels. The solution is strictly implemented in the direction of taking outcomes of task performance and combat readiness as criteria for assessing training. Units are to actively concretise the training motto of “basicness, practicality, and firmness,” with a focus on modernity oriented, intensive, synchronous training and closely tracking realities of the service, especially the operational plans, theatres of war, and weapon systems; take the maritime environment and islands as their primary training grounds; and regard firm protection of sovereignty over waters and islands as the main training objectives.

Training is carried out in both technical and tactical spheres and in alignment with focuses. Attention is paid to practical training, training with new weapon systems and equipment, night training, and long-time training at sea during harsh weather condition. In addition to training, the Navy promotes quality of exercises, especially the force-on-force exercises, offshore field exercises, and joint exercises, to assess their closeness to adversaries and validate forces’ plans and abilities to safeguard sovereignty over waters and islands. These exercises also serve as platforms to improve command and staff quality of commanders and staff departments at all echelons as well as train cadres in the spirit and capacity to respond to swift, complex situations flexibly.

There is a need to step up application of advances in science and technology, especially those related to simulation, automated examination, combat preparation, combat, command, etc., to training and exercises. Moreover, the service requests its units to enhance training and exercises during their voyages, considering this the most realistic, substantive, effective way. This helps to both deliver training contents and experience and appraise soldiers’ training results most accurately.

Fourth, special importance is attached to sufficient, timely provision of logistic, technical support to training and combat readiness. On grasping the Resolution No. 1658-NQ/QUTW, dated December 20, 2022 of the CMC on military logistic work by 2030 and beyond, the Navy continues to step up effective use of the defence and state budgets and proactively explore other sources of money to invest in facilities for training and combat readiness; promote planning and building of shooting ranges and training grounds. It also seeks to renew and enhance quality of logistic support for training; propose improvement of uniform and individual gear to make them fit for training and combat requirements in modern war.

The Technical Department and units attach importance to good maintenance of technical factors and synchronicity of weapon systems, vehicles, and ships for training; increased quality of repair and improvement of weapon system and equipment, especially some unique weapons (missiles, torpedoes, naval mines, submerged bombs, etc.,), contributing to enhanced quality of training and combat readiness, deserving the tradition of “fighting the enemy and clearing the way to advance”, and creating overall power for winning victories in any situations.

Rear Admiral PHAM MANH HUNG, Deputy Commander and Chief of the Naval Staff