The Tank – Armoured General Training Centre under the Tank – Armoured Corps was founded on March 23rd, 1962 under the Government’s Decision 40/CP, tasked with organising training courses on tank and armoured vehicle driving, shooting, and swimming, serving such courses, testing weapons on general training grounds, and supervising training results of armoured units from Military Region 5 northwards. Over the past 60 years of construction and development, cadres and soldiers of the Centre have always remained a sense of unity and revolutionary ideal, overcome all difficulties and challenges, and improved their political zeal and professional competence to successfully fulfil all assigned missions and build up the Centre’s tradition of “unity, democracy, creativity, surmounting difficulties, good training and services, strict discipline, winning victories when deployed.”
In recent years, training courses, exercises, training services, and weapon tests have increased in frequency within the Centre (24 – 28 days per month). Meanwhile, its weapons, technical equipment, and training grounds have been in use for ages and deteriorated. Materials have become scarcer. Budgets have been limited. Many staff members of the Centre have been at advanced age. COVID-19 has had complex developments. All of those things have directly negatively impacted on the Centre’s task performance. Being fully aware of that, the Centre’s Party Committee and Command have promoted cadres and soldiers’ solidarity and creativity to improve the quality of training services on training grounds and the Centre’s task performance. Between 2015 and 2020, the Centre exploited tanks and armoured vehicles with a distance travelled of more than 110,550 km, used cars of various types with a distance travelled of 60,058 km, and employed machinery in 18,718 hours with the absolute safety, while carrying out 5,028 maintenance checks and 131 small-scale repairs of tanks and armoured vehicles.
To obtain those results, first of all, the Centre has thoroughly grasped higher echelons’ resolutions, directives, and conclusions, particularly the Central Military Commission’s Conclusion 60-KL/QUTW, dated January 18th, 2019 on continuing realising the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 765-NQ/QUTW, dated December 20th, 2012 on “raising the quality of training in the period of 2013-2020 and beyond” and combat training directives of the Corps’ Commander. The Centre Party Committee has developed annual specialised resolutions on training work, with the outcome and quality of training and safety assurance during weapon tests being used as a yardstick for evaluating the task performance of the Centre’s affiliates. Significance has been attached to concretising higher echelons’ resolutions and directives and friendly units’ coordination plans into the Centre’s goals and targets of training services, developing scientific measures, and assigning specific tasks to each organisation and individual. The Centre has directed all-level party committees and commands and heads of service groups to formulate plans for their tasks in an inter-connected, smooth fashion. In the process, the Centre has attached great value to promoting the role of its staff offices in directing, managing, and supervising training work and training services, while ensuring sufficient logistics and technical support. At the same time, it has required all-level political offices, commanders, and commissars to actively renew methods and forms of political education and ideological management, raise the quality of party and political work, and stepped up the Determination to Win Emulation Movement and the building of “units good at training and services.” Besides, it has brought into play the vanguard, exemplary role of its cadres and party members and encouraged its staff members to heighten self-reliance, overcome difficulties, and proactively master weapons and equipment. Doing so has enabled all troops to be fully aware of the importance of service work to training and helped build up their incentive for all tasks.
 |
| Providing logistics and technical support for the Military’s “Tank Crew” Contest |
Due to the complexity, great frequency, large space, and dangers of training services and weapon tests on training grounds, the Centre has adhered to plans by the Corps’ Staff, proactively cooperated with friendly units on plans of training and weapon test, and developed projects of training services, materiel and training ground use, and logistics and technical support so that friendly units could accomplish their pre-set training contents and programmes. For each mission, the Centre established guard, first-aid, and lifeguard groups/teams with specific tasks in each step and phase, particularly for new weapon tests and armoured vehicle swimming. Moreover, with reference to its supervisions of units and schools’ training and exercise results, the Centre has attached significance to commanding supervisory work in each section and activity so as to build up its cadres and soldiers’ honesty, ensure accuracy in supervisory work, and give exact results of training and exercises to units under regulations.
As the Centre is stationed in a region with rapid economic development, expansion of industrial and service zones, and a large population, its training grounds and especially shooting ranges are faced with safety risks. Against such a backdrop, the Centre has frequently attended local security and safety conferences to grasp activities of citizens and enterprises that could be threatened by military training and exercises. Grounded on information collected from those conferences, it has given advice to the Corps’ Command and the Ministry of National Defence on compensating citizens and businesses and expanding the safety belt. At the same time, it has closely cooperated with local party committees and authorities in encouraging the people to follow shooting ranges’ regulations and providing information about training activities and weapon tests for citizens. It has collaborated with friendly units in preparing personnel, training grounds, and training materials for contingency missions. As a result, it has always met all military units’ demands for training and weapon tests with the absolute safety.
As the Centre is tasked with providing technical support and advice for units’ training work and weapon tests, its cadres and employees’ technical knowledge and competence play a decisive role in its task performance. Thus, it has frequently organised refresher courses for its cadres and technical employees in accordance with their tasks. Emphasis has been placed on technical and tactical features of equipment, procedures for small-scale maintenance and repair of equipment, command signal system during training and exercises, search and rescue procedures, safety regulations, labour protection, and safety assurance on training grounds. To make this work more effective, the Centre has attached great importance to decentralising the training of cadres, combining training work with discipline management and military standard order building, and strictly maintaining regulations on training grounds. For each scenario of training, exercise, and weapon test, the Centre has organised additional training courses for its teams, groups, and staff members, practised necessary projects, and joined friendly units taking weapon tests in their training sessions in order to minimise shortcomings during its services. Moreover, the Centre has assigned skilled technical employees to provide technical support for weapon testing forces, learn from exploitation, preservation, and maintenance of new weapons, and make comparisons with preservation and use of traditional weapons and equipment. Doing so has helped friendly units to have more valuable experience in design and manufacture and enabled the Centre’s cadres and technical employees to gain more documents and knowledge to master new weapons and technical equipment.
Up to now, all cadres and technical employees of the Centre have grasped procedures for exploitation of weapons and technical equipment, mastered training services and supervision of training and weapon tests, and reinforce units’ vehicle crews when being requested.
As the Centre is assigned to provide all weapons, technical equipment, materials, and petroleum for friendly units’ training, it has enhanced Campaign 50, regularly inspected weapons, technical equipment, and devices on training grounds, and ensured safety regulations comprehensively prior to, during, and after each training session in order to opportunely detect and settle shortcomings and possible incidents during training work. At the same time, due regard has been paid to strictly maintaining regulations on preservation and maintenance, maximising on-the-spot repair capacity, proactively dealing with errors during training courses, enhancing inspections of technical equipment, and ensuring the technical coefficient of training weapons and equipment. Consideration has been given to stepping up technical innovations and upgrading training grounds to be relevant to technical and tactical features of new weapons and equipment. Besides, the Centre has enhanced animal and crop husbandry, consolidated its barracks, and provided sufficient clean food and accommodation for friendly units and their troops during their missions. As a result, between 2015 and 2020, the Centre provided services for thousands of training sessions and hundreds of weapon tests, with tens of thousands of cadres, cadets, and soldiers from friendly units and schools across the Military. Notably, between 2018 and 2020, the Centre provided training services for Vietnamese tank teams taking part in International Army Games, while hosting and serving military contests held by the Corps or the Military with the absolute safety, being highly appreciated by commanders at all levels, tank – armoured units in the region, and friendly units.
Bringing into play its 60-year tradition, the Tank – Armoured General Training Centre will determinedly further improve the quality of services for training courses on tank and armoured vehicle shooting, driving, and swimming and weapon tests and build an “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong Centre capable of meeting its task requirements in the new situation.
Lt. Col. DAU HUY HOANG, Commander of the Centre