Being highly aware of the assigned political task, in recent years, the Warehouse’s Party Committee and Management Board have drastically and synchronously implemented measures for improving the capacity to receive, preserve, maintain, seal, store and distribute ammunition, technical supplies and equipment, meeting the requirements set by the Tank-Armoured Force’s training and combat readiness tasks.

Participants in the Conference to review the Determination to Win Emulation Movement of 2019

Founded on May 9^th, 2000, the Warehouse Y under the Technical Department, the Tank-Armoured Corps, is responsible for receiving, managing, preserving, maintaining, sealing, storing and distributing ammunition, technical supplies and equipment. After the Warehouse’s inception, despite insufficiency in troops and facilities, its cadres and soldiers overcame difficulties in a positive spirit, with proactiveness, creativity and hard work to receive, store and supply thousands of tons of ammunition and technical equipment in a safe, secure and timely manner, thereby meeting the requirements set by the Tank-Armoured Force’s training and combat readiness tasks. With its outstanding achievements, the Warehouse has been given many awards by the State, the Ministry of National Defence and the Corps, building up the tradition of “solidarity, democracy, self-reliance, safety, quality, and to fight is to win.”

In recent years, the Warehouse’s mission has developed with a huge volume of technical equipment and higher technical requirements of new-generation tank-armoured weapons and equipment. Meanwhile, the qualifications of cadres and employees haven’t satisfied the task requirements. The system of equipment, sub-warehouses and facilities is not synchronized. Sub-warehouses scatter in different faraway places. Being aware of the situation, the Warehouse’s Party Committee and Command have formulated guidelines and solutions to build a comprehensively strong unit and improve the quality of assuring ammunition and technical equipment, meeting the mission requirements.

First of all, the Warehouse’s Party Committee and Command focus on building a politically, ideologically and organizationally Warehouse, considering this as a decisive factor to improve its task performance. Thoroughly grasping the assigned political task, the Warehouse always attaches great importance to the work of political and ideological education for cadres, employees and soldiers. In particular, emphasis is placed on educating them to fully comprehend the characteristics and tasks of the Corps and the Warehouse as well as the management requirements of ammunition, weapons and technical equipment. Doing so enables the Warehouse to improve the political spirit, determination and solidarity of cadres and soldiers so that they would overcome difficulties and challenges in storage and maintenance and prevent degradation, loss or explosion. To this end, the Warehouse directs agencies, units and sub-warehouses to actively renew educational content, form and method suitable to each group of troops, combine political education with traditional one, and integrate mission introduction with action guidance for their troops. Simultaneously, these units are directed to strengthen measures for grasping, managing and orienting the ideology of their troops, especially recruits or soldiers in difficulties, strictly maintain the Grassroots-level Democracy Regulation, promptly detect and completely solve emerging issues, as well as avoid falling into passive and unexpected situations.

In addition to political and ideological education, the Warehouse’s Party Committee and Command lay emphasis on leading and directing the building of pure and strong party organizations at all levels. The centerpiece is to improve the leadership and fighting power of party organizations and promote the role and responsibility of party committees and commanders in managing, educating and training cadres and party members. Via self-criticism and criticism under the 12^th Party Central Committee’s Resolution No.4, low task performance by some individuals and units is mainly due to cadres’ limited capacity and responsibilities in managing and training soldiers as well as the party committees and cells’ weak leadership capability and fighting power. Against that backdrop, the Warehouse’s Party Committee and Command direct units at all levels to focus on renewing and improving the quality of party meetings, stringently exercising democratic centralism, collective leadership and individual accountability, strengthening the inspection and supervision work of Party Committees at all levels, promptly detecting and preventing signs of discipline violation. Besides, the Warehouse pays due regard to studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics and lifestyle with specific and practical jobs, upholding its cadres and party members’ pioneering and exemplary role, and maintaining safety regulations on receiving, storing and maintaining ammunition, weapons and technical equipment.

Most of weapons and technical equipment in the Warehouse are modern, which requires strict sealing, storage and maintenance. Although the technical assurance facility has been developed, it has yet to meet the storage requirements or to lessen the weather impact, especially for electronic components and optical devices. Moreover, the quantity and quality of auxiliary works are not guaranteed. In order to limit damage and degradation of weapons and technical equipment, the Warehouse proactively constructs and upgrades standard modern depots and auxiliary equipment, while stepping up the standard order for reception, preservation and maintenance. In order to make a breakthrough in technical infrastructure, the Warehouse’s Party Committee and Command actively cooperate with functional agencies in conducting reviews and counselling the Corps to formulate the Plan on technical system in the period of 2010-2020, with a vision towards 2030. Besides, they closely combine superior funds with internal resources to comprehensively consolidate and upgrade technical facilities in a basic, unified, synchronous and standard fashion. Thanks to proper orientation and high determination, since 2010, the Warehouse has completed the project on constructing 3 technical depots, 8 ammunition depots, 1 technical operational zone, 1 storage sub-warehouse, 1,650 m³ of anti-explosion mound to separate the ammunition area, while building 1,120 m of new fence walls, thereby helping significantly improve the quality of preserving, maintaining, sealing and storing weapons and technical equipment.

In addition to investments in basic construction, the Warehouse directs its depots and technical zones to organize, classify, rearrange storage areas for all kinds of ammunition, weapons and technical equipment, under the motto: “Easy to find, easy to see, easy to get, easy to check,” unify the system of model diagrams, technology norms, documents, cards and invoices, and create favorable conditions for reception, distribution, maintenance and anti-explosion measures. At the same time, it centers on applying modern preservation measures, such as vacuum packaging and insulation in order to preserve electronic and optical equipment as well as limit degradation caused by climate. The Warehouse also requires agencies, units and depots to strictly abide by the norms of fuel, labour and technology in preservation, maintenance and sealing of weapons and technical equipment in a closed process from delivering to putting on shelves preserved goods and materials with the guaranteed technical quality and standards and maintain the regulations on daily, weekly and monthly technical preservation and maintenance. In addition, the Warehouse actively applies technical innovation and gradually automates the maintenance and repair of weapons and equipment to save materials and labour as well as heighten the quality and capacity of technical assurance on the spot.

Safety is put as top priority by the Warehouse. Every year, the Warehouse’s Party Committee and Command thoroughly grasp and strictly implement superior resolutions, directives and instructions on safety, especially the Directive 96/CT-BQP by Defence Minister on “Safety assurance of ammunition and weapons,” regularly direct agencies and units to strictly observe the regulations on fire and explosion prevention as well as on contact with weapons and ammunition, and closely check the technical status of weapons and equipment before use. Measures are also strengthened to ensure safety of ammunition depots, with a focus on clearing safety corridors, consolidating anti-explosion mounds, inspecting and renewing fire and explosion prevention and fighting systems. The Warehouse regularly reviews, builds, supplements and practises projects on fire prevention and fighting, actively applies science and technology to the management of ammunition and technical depots, and closely cooperates with local party committees and authorities in building safe units and areas.

In order to well perform technical assurance, the Warehouse’s Party Committee and Command focus on reviewing and arranging technical cadres and employees according to their specialities. More specifically, on the one hand, the Warehouse actively requests superiors to deploy more cadres and employees with in-dept expertise in ammunition and preservation of tank-armoured materials and equipment to itself, while gradually consolidating its organizational structure under the regulations. On the other hand, it maintains the regulations on technical training and promotion exam and combines training with task performance to foster its technical personnel’s professional competence. In order to add an incentive to fulfil its task, the Warehouse’s Party Committee and Command accelerate emulation movements, build typical collectives and individuals, and well implement policies so that cadres and employees would keep their mind on their work and units. The movements, including “Youth army advance into science and technology” by the Youth Union, “Five-Best and Three-No” by the Trade Union, and “Military women are active in study and creative in work, fulfil tasks and build up happy families” by the Women’s Union, have attracted a large number of members and produced practical effect. Since 2015, the Warehouse has always completed and exceeded the assigned targets for receiving, distributing, preserving and maintaining ammunition, technical equipment and materials. In particular, between late 2018 and the first half of 2019, the Warehouse received, preserved, maintained and safely stored more than 90 tons of technical materials and equipment for new-generation tanks, exceeding 160% of the planned targets, thereby receiving the Certificate of Merit by the Ministry of National Defence.

Celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the Warehouse’s Traditional Day (May 9^th, 2000 - May 9^th, 2020), bringing into full play the obtained results and experience, the Warehouse’s cadres, employees, soldiers continue to promote tradition and devote efforts to overcome difficulties and challenges to make the Warehouse comprehensively strong and capable of receiving and completing all assigned tasks.

Colonel LE VAN HUAN, Head of the Warehouse Y