Fully aware of its role and function as a combat unit in the formation of a mobile main corps, the Party Committee and Command of the Armoured Brigade 202 (under the Army Corps 1) have paid special attention to leading, directing and successfully carrying out the technical work while regarding this as a determinant to the improved quality of its combat strength. In recent years, the Brigade’s task has had new developments and increasingly higher and more comprehensive requirements. Meanwhile, its materiel has been in use for a long time; the budget, materials and accessories for the repair work have been limited; there has been a dearth of technical staff. Against that backdrop, the Brigade has adopted proper measures synchronously to overcome weaknesses, improve the quality of technical support, and readily accomplish all assigned tasks.

First, enhancing leadership and direction of party committees and commanders at all levels over the technical work. Grasping and implementing the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 382/NQ-ĐUQSTW on “leading the technical work in the new situation”, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have built the plan/program to implement the Resolution. Goals and targets of technical support have been included in regular resolutions and working plans at all levels. At the same time, it has directed its offices and units to enhance propagation and education to raise troops’ awareness of the importance, advantages and disadvantages of technical support as well as of the role of technical support in the unit’s fulfilment of political task. Accordingly, a sense of unity in troops’ awareness and responsibility as well as their self-reliance have been built while the signs of self-satisfaction, regard only paid to maintaining new weapons and equipment, and disregard paid to old-generation ones have been resolutely eliminated.

Maintaining the tanks after training

Moreover, consideration has been given to promoting the core role of the Technical Branch in the staff work and the implementation process. On a yearly basis, grounded on the Combat Training Order and the Technical Support Order by the Corps, the Technical Office has developed the plan to ensure the unity of contents and time limits for conducting the technical work, particularly new points and breakthroughs. In the process, the Brigade has directed the Technical Office to cooperate with offices and units in reviewing the quantity and quality of materiel to ensure the synchronization in performing the training and combat readiness tasks as well as in opportunely repairing and supplementing materiel in order to maintain the technical condition. At the same time, it has directed offices and units to strictly maintain the order for the technical work, particularly the daily, weekly and monthly maintenance order as well as the order for ignition and trial run of vehicles for combat readiness. To achieve the efficiency, the Brigade has stringently decentralized the technical support work and clearly assigned the responsibity of units and the Technical Branch for the repair work. While directing the advisory and technical offices to strengthen the work of inspecting and maintaining the technical order, the Brigade has promoted the role of Garages to improve the quality of unit-based repair and combined the technical support with the implementation of the Campaign 50 at all levels. In addition to maintaining and improving the quality of the “Technical Hour” and “Technical Day” in units, every month, the Brigade holds 2 “Technical Days” in which key commanders directly assign the task and inspect the implementation process in cooperation with commanders of other offices and units. As a result, it has always maintained the good technical conditions of its equipment for operations, training, and support.

To deal with the shortage of the technical staff, the imbalance of specialization and generation as well as the weaknesses in professional competence, the Brigade has consolidated its contingent of cadres and technicians both qualitatively and quantitatively as the core force in the technical work. To do so, it has taken measures properly. More specifically, it has adjusted the technical force with priority given to staffing the group of companies under the Brigade Command, particularly the Garages, strengthening the planning work and improving professional competence of this staff. In addition to selecting and dispatching cadres and technicians to attend the training courses held by the Armoured Corps and the Army Corps 1, the Brigade has enhanced technical training courses in units at each level; encouraged this staff to self-study and improve the professional competence among one another; attached importance to training the crew’s capability in self-repair. To that end, the Brigade has advocated comprehensive but specialized training with practice as the main; attached significance to combining repair and maintenance with training; and encouraged the transmission of experience to young technicians. Besides training courses on repairing and maintaining its materiel, the Brigade has directed the Technical Office to set store by training on the sequence of removing the seals and repairing weapons during the states of combat readiness; on the repair of popular failures of tanks and armoured vehicles during manoeuvre; on mobile rescue and repair; and on night-time driving. Up to now, many of the Brigade’s technical cadres have held bachelor’s degree, and many of its technicians have been capable of synchronized repair and maintenance for tanks and armoured vehicles.

A part from training and building the human resources, the Brigade has mobilized resources to acquire equipment and improve the capability in the technical support of units, particularly the Garages. Over the past time, in addition to effectively using the budget from higher echelons, the Brigade has promoted the internal strength to upgrade its depots and technological equipment, thereby creating a huge change in its facilities and capability in technical support. Its garages have been provided with modern equipment and technology and planned to become specialized offices for repairing, maintaining and preserving each type of materiel or each functional block of tanks and armoured vehicles. Moreover, the Brigade has accelerated the movement on promoting initiatives and technical innovation and organized technical competitions, such as “Technical initiatives and innovation, and training models and aids”, “Driving safely”, and “Armoured technique” as the basis for improving the capability in technical maintenance. Since 2013, the Brigade’s staff have studied and managed to apply 72 initiatives to the work of technical maintenance. At the Corps level, the Brigade won the second and third prizes at the competition “Technical initiatives and training aids”, the first prize at the competition “Tactical level arms depot”, and the second prize at the competition “Driving safely”. It won the second prizes at the Ministry-level competitions “Armoured technique” and “Excellent Head of Technical Department”.

To raise the technical coefficient of vehicles and materiel, the Brigade has paid due regard to strengthening periodic maintenance and repair at each level and directing the Technical Office to build the plan for weekly and monthly maintenance and repair, inspect and assist offices and units’ regular maintenance. At the same time, it has actively conducted the work of level-2 technical maintenance at the Garages with emphasis placed on closely taking steps, such as material estimate and materiel transfer, reception and inspection prior to and after the repair. The process of maintenance and repair has been carried out according to the assembly line to ensure the quality of each cluster and block before general assembly and inspection. The Brigade has directed offices and units to dispatch technicians to take part in the process of maintenance and repair to both study and control the quality, while ordering the crew to support the Garages to accelerate the process. With those measures, the Brigade’s technical quality has unceasingly improved. In 2016 and 2017, it maintained and repaired over 400 cars, tanks, and armoured vehicles, sealed and preserved 168 cars and tanks, maintained and repaired thousands of infantry guns, military hardware and equipment. Besides, it took part in synchronizing 20 tanks T59, PT76 and ĐM2, and maintained and repaired 100% of its tanks and armoured vehicles. Up to now, 100% of its tanks and armoured vehicles have stood ready for combat manoeuvre.

In addition to focusing on the technical support for regular and contingency tasks, the Brigade has been proactive in technical support for operational missions to meet the requirements of a raid force in the formation of the mobile main corps. It has directed the Technical Office to develop, regularly inspect and complete the technical maintenance plans for each combat project as the basis for preparing forces, means, materials and training. Over the past years, the Technical Branch has practised the technical support for the shift of combat readiness states and the company and battalion level tactical exercises as well as manoeuvre exercises within the Brigade. Those exercises have helped technical cadres grasp the staff and command work in technical maintenance and the work of organizing forces for each type of tactics and campaign; build up the determination, enhance their capability in technical support and their skills in settling the situations in mobile maintenance, repair and rescue of weapons and equipment in fierce, hard combat conditions, meeting the task requirements in all situations.

Taking those measures synchronously and properly, the Brigade 202 has always fulfilled the targets and tasks for technical support, thereby ensuring its accomplishment of training and combat readiness tasks and deserving to be an important raid force of the Army Corps 1

Sr. Col. Truong Pham Ngoc, Commander of the Brigade