The General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army conducts a comprehensive inspection of Missile Regiment 250 in the first half of 2024

Missile Regiment 250 (hereinafter referred to as the Regiment), aka Thang Long Missile Unit (under Air Defence Division 361, Air Defence - Air Force Service), whose forerunner was Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment 685, was founded on 21 September 1954. The Regiment was one of the main units on the surface-to-air front during the fierce years of the resistance war against US aggressors for national salvation. Advocating the Party’s offensive revolutionary line and the spirit of “daring to fight, knowing how to fight, and being determined to win” against US invaders, the Regiment continuously manoeuvred within the ground force’s formation to safeguard crucial targets in various areas, such as Hanoi capital city, Military Region 3, Military Region 4, and especially the legendary strategic transport line 559, directly engaging in 3,800 battles, shooting down 190 enemy aircraft of different types, making worthy contributions to liberating the South and unifying the country. In the period of national construction and protection, the Regiment has continued to promote its glorious tradition, actively overcoming difficulties, successfully fulfilling the tasks of S-125 missile system transfer training, protecting the airspace of Western and Southwestern Hanoi, defending Hoa Binh Hydroelectric Plant, and other important missions. With its brilliant feats of arms and achievements, the Regiment was given the title of Hero of the People’s Armed Forces (2005), Third-Class Fatherland Protection Order (2006), and many other noble rewards.

In recent years, despite facing numerous difficulties and challenges, thanks to great political resolve, the Regiment’s Party Committee and Command have adopted various measures of leadership and direction, with a focus on building an “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong Regiment, thus achieving significant results. Notably, cadres and soldiers of the Regiment have always upheld revolutionary vigilance and combat readiness to avoid falling into passivity in the air; the quality of training and troops’ task performance have been improved; logistics and technical work has been synchronously, creatively carried out, thereby meeting the requirements of training, combat readiness, and contingency missions.

To obtain those good results, first of all, the Regiment has focused on making each office and unit politically and ideologically strong, considering this as a top element enabling troops to undertake and successfully accomplish all assigned tasks. There is a fact that the Regiment has a large number of troops, its affiliates are scattered across the two provinces of Phu Tho and Hoa Binh, its cadres and soldiers are frequently on combat readiness duty far from their families, thereby easily leading to a comparison of military and civilian life. In order to make its troops keep their mind on their work, the Regiment’s Party Committee and Command have directed offices and units to well carry out the work of political education and ideological orientation to raise public awareness and a sense of responsibility for surmounting difficulties and successfully fulfilling all assigned tasks among cadres and soldiers. Emphasis has been placed on rendering troops fully aware of the Party’s military and defence lines, the task of Fatherland protection, traditions of the Military, Service, and Regiment, hostile forces’ “peaceful evolution” strategy, the stationed areas’ political security and social order and safety situation as well as targets, requirements, and measures of the building of “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong offices and units as the basis for the performance of their tasks.

The Regiment Party Committee’s Conference to issue the whole-year Resolution of 2024

To raise the quality of political education, the Regiment has fostered the training of all-level political cadres (via good party cell secretary, political teacher, and rapporteurs contests), while stepping up the implementation of the Project on “renewing political education within military units in the new period” with practical forms and methods appropriate to each target group, the particularities of each area, and tasks of each office and unit. The Regiment has combined basic political education programs with tasks-based political education, legal propagation and dissemination, and movements, with a view to building up troops’ incentive, ideal, responsibility, and determination to successfully accomplish all tasks.

A part from political education, the Regiment has frequently enhanced the leadership capacity and combativeness of all-level party committees and organisations, aligning the building of typically pure, strong party organisations, party committees, and party cells with the building of “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong offices and units, opportunely detecting, preventing, and resolutely combating negative practices, ideological deviations, and a lack of responsibility in the performance of tasks. It has grasped and effectively applied the Politburo’s Conclusion 01-KL/TW dated 18 May 2021 on continuing to implement Directive 05-CT/TW on the study and following of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle in line with the Determined to Win Emulation Movement. It has opportunely commended typical collectives and individuals to encourage cadres and soldiers’ self-improvement and political responsibility. As a result, in recent years, the Regiment Party Organisation has always excellently fulfilled its tasks; all troops have got pass in political knowledge tests, with 83.5% of them achieving merit or distinction; all cadres and soldiers have kept their mind on their work.

In order to improve its synergy as the basis for safeguarding the airspace and completing its assigned tasks, the Regiment has concentrated on raising the quality of combat training. To that end, it has grasped and seriously implemented the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 1659-NQ/QUTW dated 20 December 2022 and the Service Party Committee’s Resolution 877-NQ/ĐU dated 9 March 2023 on “raising the quality of training in the period of 2023 - 2030 and beyond” as well as the Service Commander’s Combat Training Order and the motto of “basics, practicality, solidity”. It has carefully made preparations for training, from the development of training plans, content, programs, facilities, documents, and grounds to the training of cadres, combat crews, and components in training. Significance has been attached to holding refresher courses for cadres, especially for technical staff and battery commanders. Those refresher courses have been centred on methods and forms of training, new training topics, and drawing lessons from weak points to improve the capabilities in training-related organisation, command, and operation.

In technical and tactical training, the Regiment has attached special importance to raising the quality of combat crews and introducing procedures, verbal commands, and movements during basic shooting exercises as well as steps of withdrawing and deploying military hardware and procedures of general exercises in a uniform way, with a view to enabling troops to grasp technical and tactical features of weapons and upgraded, digitalised equipment. At the same time, due attention has been paid to improving the quality of automated command system training, manoeuvre training, field training, and tactical-level staff training to ensure victory in any situations. The Regiment has enhanced inspection of training work, well organising contests for combat crews, commanding officers, and technicians as well as general exercises among its units. Consequently, the Regiment’s yearly training work has always been highly rated, with 80% of troops achieving merit or distinction; since 2019, the Regiment has been continuously given the Good Training Unit Flag by the Ministry of National Defence.

In addition to the improved quality of training, the Regiment has strictly maintained combat readiness duty and followed the “Four-knows”¹ motto in airspace management. Offices and units of the Regiment have regularly grasped and seriously executed resolutions, orders, and directives on combat readiness and airspace protection, with importance attached to closely managing flight activities and avoiding wrong, omitting, delayed, or inflated information about targets. At the same time, the Regiment has closely coordinated with air defence forces of friendly units to opportunely issue warnings, well handle situations in the air, avoid passivity, protect the assigned targets, and remain readiness against the enemy from afar.

As the Regiment is assigned to manage and use a large quantity of weapons and technical equipment in a large area, its Party Committee and Command have frequently exercised leadership and direction over logistics and technical support to meet the requirements of training, combat readiness, and other contingency missions. Regarding technical support work, while technical support must be provided in a very short period of time with increasingly high requirements, the Regiment’s weapons and military hardware have been in use for many years, alongside a scarcity of spare parts; besides, many units are stationed far from the Regiment’s headquarters. Hence, the Regiment’s Party Committee and Command have focused on directing offices and units to step up the Campaign on “managing and exploiting weapons and technical equipment in an effective, sustainable, safe, economic manner and ensuring traffic safety”; offices and units have also been required to strictly maintain regulations on technical work. At the same time, the Regiment has regularly improved its technical staff’s professional competence and skills, equipping them with new knowledge, promoting collective knowledge and capacity to deal with incidents and errors of weaponry and ensure a high combat readiness coefficient. Since 2019, the Regiment has developed 5 technical models and 10 technical initiatives which have been effectively applied to training and combat readiness realities.

With reference to logistics support work, the Regiment has frequently adjusted, supplemented, and refilled logistics material reserves for its tasks, with priority given to combat readiness, training, and exercises. It has enhanced the movement titled “Military Logistics Sector follows Uncle Ho’s teachings”, actively fostering animal and crop husbandry, guaranteeing the exceeded targets of vegetable, fish, and meat, practically improving troops’ life.

Bringing into play the 70-year tradition of construction, combat, and maturity, cadres and soldiers of Missile Regiment 250 will continue to strive to achieve a breakthrough in raising synergy and combat power as the basis for building an “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong Regiment capable of excellently fulfilling all assigned tasks, worthy of the title of Hero of the People’s Armed Forces.

Lt. Col. DINH TRONG TUE

Commander of the Regiment  

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1. “Four-knows” motto: Know flight forecast plans; know whether a flight has been taken or not; know how to exactly track a flight; know actions performed during a flight in the air.