Depot K5 (Technical Department, Military Region 2) is an operational-level Depot, whose central political task is to receive, allocate, preserve, maintain, repair, and store armoured, military vehicles, construction vehicles, ground artillery, and anti-tank artillery and assure equipment and armoured supplies for units throughout the Military Region. Since the early days of its establishment, despite small number of troops, insufficient facilities, the Depot’s cadres and soldiers have always upheld the spirit of self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and efforts to overcome difficulties to fulfil all assigned tasks and well assure weapons and technical equipment for training, combat readiness, and other tasks of the Military Region’ armed forces. For that achievement, the Depot has been awarded many noble awards by the State, the Ministry of National Defence, and the Military Region to build up the tradition of “Proactiveness, creativity, discipline, safety, and determination-to-win”.

In recent years, along with technical assurance for the tasks of the Military Region’s armed forces, the Depot has been tasked with organising training in driving combat and chain vehicles; fostering, testing, and assessing vocational skills and qualifications of technicians of the whole Military Region, etc. Facing multiple tasks and high requirements, insufficient number of technical staff, and uneven qualifications; cadres’ limited experience, especially young graduates; outdated, deteriorated, and unsynchronous weapons and equipment leading to great need for preservation, maintenance, repair, and storage; and assurance facilities and supplies not fully meeting the needs of preservation, maintenance, repair and storage, the Depot’ Party Committee and commanders have drastically and synchronously implemented many solutions and promoted the spirit of solidarity, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency to overcome all difficulties and fulfil all assigned tasks.

Firstly, to strengthen the leadership and direction of the Party committees and commanders at all levels in the organisation of the performance of technical assurance tasks. By firmly grasping the practical situation, the unit has thoroughly observed the superiors’ resolutions, directives, and orders on the technical work, particularly Resolution No.382-NQ/ĐUQSTW of the Central Military Party Committee (now the Central Military Commission) and programs plans of the Party Committee and commanders of the Military Region’s Technical Department to implement this important work seriously and effectively. Annually, the Depot’s Party Committee and commanders have formulated and implemented thematic resolutions on technical work, among which, attention has been paid to measures for leading the building and development of the contingent of technical staff; unifying the management, administration, and strict maintenance of the regime of preservation, maintenance, repair, and storage of weapons and technical equipment; strengthening and upgrading infrastructure and the Technical sector’s regularity building; and promoting the spirit of self-reliance and self-sufficiency to actively research and apply science, new technologies, and technical improvement initiatives to the process of technical assurance, etc. The Depot has always focused on promoting the roles and responsibilities of the Party committees and commanders at all levels, especially the presiding cadres and highly-qualified, experienced, and skillful technicians, in performing central political tasks and other unscheduled ones. At the same time, it has directed the subordinates to strengthen political and ideological education for cadres and professional staff to be deeply aware of the task of technical assurance to contribute to building strong and clean Party organisations and comprehensively strong, “exemplary and typical units”.

Testing the Su-85 self-propelled artillery

As the Depot’s existing equipment fails to fully meet the requirements of technical assurance task, it has enhanced the movement of promoting technical improvements and initiatives. Every year, the Depot’s Party Committee and commanders lead and direct the Council on Technical improvements and initiatives to develop plans and specify and assign tasks to each agency or unit. At the same time, it launches emulation movements, such as: The military youth advancing into science and technology; Working well, working creatively, etc. Based on registered concepts and initiatives, the Council has reviewed, evaluated, and conducted close acceptance of the quality of initiatives and projects and apply them to practice with high efficiency. In implementation, the Depot has always created the best conditions in terms of facilities and time as well as supplement highly-skilled staff and technicians to assist and complete initiatives to apply in practice. Therefore, every year, the unit has from 7 to 8 technical improvements and initiatives that have been applied in practice. Since 2010, the Depot has had more than 40 technical improvements and initiatives, including 2 initiatives winning the third prize at the Creative Military Youth Contest and 1 initiative winning Prize A and 2 initiatives winning Prize B at the Military Region level. In addition, to solve working problems, K5 troops have also introduced dozens of other valuable initiatives, such as bearing uninstaller, emission collector, ATS-59 chain axle head cushioning kit, etc. The highly applicable initiatives that help simplify the operations of disassembling machine assemblies and large details of vehicles and artillery have been highly appreciated by the acceptance council at all levels to contribute significantly to improving the quality and efficiency of technical work and ensuring safety in the performance of the unit's tasks.

As an operational-level general depot, K5 is currently managing, preserving, maintaining, repairing, and storing many vehicles, armoured vehicles and tanks, artillery, and armoured vehicle and tank supplies of all kinds. However, most of these supplies, vehicles, and equipment are outdated and degraded, requiring maintenance, repair, and storage requirements. Meanwhile, the Depot’s technical assurance facilities, despite of being built, renovated, and consolidated, still faces difficulties such as insufficient and unqualified auxiliary works. To limit the damage and degradation of weapons and technical equipment, thanks to its internal resources and superiors’ funding, the Depot has proactively built, upgraded, renovated, and repaired warehouses and auxiliary equipment. At the same time, it has strictly maintained and implemented the regular order and regime of the technical sector. Closely following the functions, tasks, and practices of the unit, the Depot Party Committee and commanders have led and directed the close coordination with the functional agencies in reviewing and evaluating the conditions of technical infrastructure, especially warehouses stations, workshops, and auxiliary equipment. On that basis, they have advised the Technical Department Party Committee and commanders on plans for developing the Planning of warehouses and technical areas in the 2015-2020 period and a vision to 2030. At the same time, they have focused the unit's resources and the superiors’ fundings to comprehensively consolidate and upgrade the warehouses and technical areas towards basics, unity, and synchronisation to meet the immediate and long-term task requirements. In the Technical Area regularity building, under the motto: “Easy to find, easy to see, easy to get, and easy to check”, the Depot has directed its subordinates to arrange, classify, and reallocate the storage area for all kinds of supplies and technical equipment in a strict and scientific manner; regularly inspected and strictly monitored the update of books and forms in accordance with the prescribed regime; promoted the application of information technology to the management of quantity, quality, and time of preservation, maintenance, repair, storage, and classification of weapons and technical equipment; and unified books, forms, and layout diagrams in accordance with regulations to create favourable conditions for preservation, maintenance, repair, and storage as prescribed in a safe and highly efficient way.

Along with the above contents and solutions, the Depot has always attached importance to and constantly innovated the contents, forms, and methods of organising technical training to improve qualifications and capacity for technical staff to meet immediate and long-term requirements. Notably, in recent years, the Depot has been entrusted by the Military Region with the task of organising training, fostering, testing, and evaluating the level of technical personnel, training of chain and military vehicle drivers, etc. To perform this task well, the Depot has actively prepared human resources, facilities, technical equipment, yards, inspection processes, and lesson plans, especially experienced and highly qualified trainers and tutors, to improve the quality of the work. Along with implementing the annual training plan, the Depot has actively fostered, trained, and retrained its cadres with new, weak, and missing contents. Regarding technical staff, it has focused on training in methods of management, commanding, and organisation of technical work, especially advising and proposing to commanders based on their responsibilities. For technical staff, it has focused on training and fostering professional expertise, management methods, technological processes, safety assurance, labour protection, fire and explosion prevention, etc. At the same time, it has attached importance to training to improve the level of exploitation and mastery of technical management software. In the process of deployment, agencies and units have always paid attention to training and task performance, taken practice to improve workmanship, draw experience, and strengthen skills and actively organised and participated in technical competitions held by superiors. In the 2015 - 2022 period, the Depot has successfully hosted and organised dozens of fostering classes, more than 15 contests and training courses to test and evaluate vocational skills for 204 staff to make an important contribution to improving the qualifications and capacity of cadres and technical staff. Currently, the number of high-level workers of the Depot reaches nearly 20%, and technical staff assigned with proper jobs accounts for 98%. This is the core force that makes the Depot’s technical work in general and technical assurance in particular constantly develop to meet the requirements and tasks in the new situation.

Colonel PHUNG XUAN HAU, Depot Commanding Officer