Building an “elite, compact, and strong” Army is a central political task of the entire Army in the current period. In light of that spirit and based on the practice, the Party Committee and High Command of the Engineering Corps have led and directed the implementation of this task through a set of synchronised and appropriate measures, which creates a foundation for modernisation.
In recent years, the Party Committee and High Command of the Engineering Corps have thoroughly grasped the Resolution of the 8th Plenum of the Party Central Committee regarding Homeland protection, the Resolution of the 11th Military Party Congress, especially Resolution No. 05-NQ/TW, dated 17 January 2022, of the Politburo, Resolution No. 230-NQ/QUTW, dated 02 April 2022, of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and Plan No. 1228/KH-BQP, dated 25 April 2022, of the Ministry of National Defence (MND) on the reorganisation of the Vietnam People’s Army in the 2021 - 2030 period and beyond. Based on this, the Engineering Corps can formulate thematic resolutions and plans to reorganise its forces to be “elite, compact, and strong”. Moreover, it attaches importance to directing the task implementation, with high political responsibility and scientific, appropriate measures, initially achieving positive results.
Accordingly, the Engineering Corps has directed a rigorous review and implementation of a 10-percent reduction in the organisational structure of combat units, reducing intermediary agencies and support units and prioritising troops for combat-ready units. Besides, it has effectively merged logistics and technical agencies at the grassroots level and streamlined and adjusted the organisation and the strategic deployment of specialised engineering units. Currently, the organisation of the Engineering Corps has been appropriately adjusted according to the decision of the MND, ensuring balance and relative coherence among agencies, units, and colleges. Although the number of intermediary agencies and units has decreased, the overall quality and combat strength have been enhanced. In conjunction with the organisational adjustments, the Engineering Corps puts emphasis on breakthroughs in building comprehensively strong, “exemplary and typical” units as per Directive No. 79/CT-BQP, dated 22 July 2022, of the Minister of National Defence. The focus is put on establishing a strong political foundation and enhancing training quality, combat readiness, regularity, and discipline. In 2023, the Corps effectively fulfilled its advisory role to the MND regarding its expertise and directed all engineering units throughout the Army to carry out training, exercises, and combat readiness tasks. This includes mine and explosive ordnance disposal, construction, management, protection, and preservation of combat infrastructure, border patrols, and search and rescue, which were highly praised by the CMC and the MND.
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Currently and in the coming years, the task of building the Army and safeguarding the Homeland faces increasingly demanding requirements. Meanwhile, the organisational structure of the Engineering Corps has not kept pace with the development of these requirements; the variety of technical equipment, which has been in use for many years, has degraded and lacks high synchronisation. These are the difficulties in training and mission execution. Faced with these challenges, to contribute to the entire Army achieving the target of basically building an “elite, compact, and strong” Army by 2025, the Corps’ Party Committee and High Command advocate continuing to thoroughly grasp and effectively implement the resolutions and directives of the Party, the CMC, and the MND regarding military and national defence tasks, among which, importance is attached to effectively implementing the theme of the year titled “basically consolidating the reorganisation of forces” to build an “elite, compact, and strong” Engineering Corps.
To achieve this objective, first and foremost, the Engineering Corps strengthens leadership and direction from party committees and commanders at all levels and fosters coordination among agencies and units to leverage the comprehensive strength in implementing breakthroughs in force reorganisation. This is crucial to ensure unity in understanding and thought and to emphasise the responsibility of officers, party members, employees, and soldiers during the implementation process. Therefore, party committees and commanders of agencies, units, and colleges need to thoroughly grasp the resolutions, directives, and instructions of the Party, the CMC, and the MND, particularly Resolution No. 230-NQ/QUTW, dated 02 April 2022, of the CMC, to creatively apply in leading and directing force reorganisation, ensuring that plans and action programmes are closely coordinated, systematic, scientific, and suitable to the characteristics and tasks assigned. In the short term, the Engineering Corps will coordinate with functional agencies to ensure the unified implementation of adjustments and upgrades of regimental-level engineering units to engineering brigades. Additionally, the Corps will enhance the operational efficiency of the Vietnam National Mine Action Centre (VNMAC) to ensure suitability with its development in peacetime. The Corps will consolidate the organisation, rearrange departments, and supplement weapons and equipment for engineering units and dual-role engineering teams, such as the ASEAN Disaster Relief Engineering Team, the Counter-Terrorism Engineering Team, UN Peacekeeping Engineering Team. Moreover, the Engineering Corps is set to adjust and merge several agencies according to the general organisational structure of the agencies and units across the Army. Regarding strategic-level engineering forces, the Corps continues to advise and propose to the CMC and the MND to establish additional reserve engineering brigades and adjust their deployments as per the strategic plans on different battlefields. For campaign-level engineering forces, based on the organisation of understrength engineering brigades in peacetime, they will be ready to expand during wartime. For tactical-level forces, the Corps will advise the MND to continue to streamline and upgrade engineering forces within infantry divisions, regiments, and equivalents. For the system of arsenals, it will be rearranged in line with Project KA-10.
The reorganisation of forces is a crucial and complex task involving various levels, sectors, and units, directly impacting the thoughts and emotions of officers and soldiers and the combat readiness and strength of units. Accordingly, to achieve the set objectives, during the implementation process, the Engineering Corps needs to attach importance to political and ideological education to create unity in understanding and transparency in thoughts, making officers and soldiers, especially those redeployed, believe and approve higher echelons’ directives and stay united, determined. The combination of force reorganisation and ideological work, organisational work, policy work, and involvement of organisations and forces will ensure the maintenance of internal unity, avoiding affecting the execution of regular tasks and limiting the impact on the thoughts and daily life of officers and soldiers.
In addition to the effective reorganisation, the Corps focuses on breakthroughs to enhance the quality of training and combat readiness, thus fostering a firm transition towards regularity building and discipline management. Following the objectives, targets, and guiding principles outlined in Resolution No. 1659-NQ/QUTW, dated 20 December 2022, of the CMC on improving the training quality in the 2023 - 2030 period and beyond, the military work Order issued by the Chief of the General Staff and the assigned tasks, agencies, units, and colleges within the Engineering Corps and the engineering forces actively study and grasp the situation, particularly the tactics, plots, new weapons, equipment of the enemy, the characteristics of the terrain, organisational structure, weapons, and equipment of our forces in order to adjust, supplement, enhance, and standardise the training content, programmes, and scenarios for various units. Emphasis is placed on comprehensiveness with focal points, especially units undertaking specialised tasks and newly formed or newly merged units. The Corps also regularly updates the development of science, technology, and military art suitable for the requirements of ensuring engineering aspects and in the face of enemies employing high-tech weapons during wartime. Additionally, attention is given to training the engineering forces capable of fulfilling missions as part of the UN peacekeeping forces under the orders of the MND.
To enhance the quality, the Engineering Corps requires units to proactively prepare all aspects, from formulating plans and training programmes, training officers, making lesson plans, and approving lesson plans to preparing facilities and training grounds, with officer training and development being pivotal. Furthermore, the Corps enhances the innovation of training methods and content tailored to each specialisation and field. Training content focuses on enhancing the level of command and staff in engineering strategic planning, training, content, methods of organising and directing command-agency training on maps, off-site exercises, engineering assurance training in joint-forces exercises, defensive exercises at the military region level and provincial-level (city-level), or exercises to deploy new technical equipment. For engineering platoons, the emphasis is on mastering weapons, especially specialised and modern equipment; mastering specialised technical skills; being agile, flexible, and capable of deploying engineering operations day and night under harsh and complex conditions, with short preparation time; participating in disaster response, search and rescue missions, etc. Additionally, units regularly review, supplement, and adjust engineering operations plans to suit the practical situation and conduct rigorous training. The Corps integrates training with discipline training and regularity building and improves the units’ combat readiness and combat capabilities.
As a combat support corps indispensable in combat, to meet the requirements of being “elite, compact, and strong”, alongside organisational development and human resource cultivation, the Engineering Corps emphasises advising and proposing the development of engineering technical equipment towards synchronisation and modernisation. In implementing this task, along with effectively maintaining and utilising the existing technical equipment inventory, especially newly acquired ones, purchased or produced and repairing, restoring, and modernising the technical equipment in planning, the Corps actively researches and advises the CMC and MND to mobilise investment resources for purchasing, upgrading technical equipment and means towards modernisation and mechanisation, particularly amphibious equipment, construction of defence works, border patrolling routes, mine clearance, explosive ordnance disposal, etc. suitable for Vietnam’s conditions and the art of engineering assurance. During the implementation process, emphasis is placed on the compatibility and integration between old and new technical equipment systems, ensuring continuity and development. The Corps plans to step by step procure amphibious engineering vehicle according to the organisational structure, with strategic reserves, gradually replacing outdated civilian engineering vehicle. Besides, it will purchase and produce engineering obstacles, handheld military equipment, and camouflage equipment to meet the requirements and tasks.
With a firm grasp of the directions, objectives, and guiding principles set forth by the Party, directly the CMC and the MND, the Engineering Corps is determined to overcome all the challenges to successfully fulfil the task of building an “elite, compact, and strong” Engineering Corps, laying the groundwork for modernisation and meeting the requirements for building the Army and safeguarding the Homeland in the new situation.
Major General TRAN TRUNG HOA, Commander of the Engineering Corps