Missile Regiment 93 plays a leading role in the management of protection of airspace, critical targets, waters, islands, and the southern continental shelf of the country. It is also one of the units which is built in the direction of advancing straight to modernity with many types of new, advanced weapon systems, especially the long-range surface-to-air missiles S-300PMU-1. Clearly perceiving their honour and responsibility, over the past few years, cadres and soldiers of Regiment 93 have tried their best to overcome difficulties to complete their missions, contributing to firm protection of the airspace within their area of responsibility. Nevertheless, during task execution, the Regiment faces numerous difficulties as its subordinate units are widely dispersed, the scope of protection is large, and the modern weapon systems pose strict requirements for the management, storage, exploitation, and use. Meanwhile, the adversaries’ weapons and concepts of operations have improved in leaps and bounds, presenting units of the service in general, the Regiment in particular, with new and high requirements. Besides, the knowledge, expertise, and experience of its cadres and soldiers are uneven. Units are mostly composed of noncommissioned officers whose families face many difficulties in life, thus having considerable influence on combat power of the Regiment. Based on correct apprehension of situations and assigned missions, the Regiment Party Committee and Commanders concentrate on establishing high political resolution and carrying out work comprehensively through synchronous, suitable solutions to ceaselessly enhance comprehensive quality and combat power. Some fundamental experience is drawn as follows.
First, the Regiment focuses on cultivating cadres’ and soldiers’ high combat willpower to provide foundation for making the unit politically strong and improving comprehensive quality and combat power. Additionally, the Regiment attaches importance to party building and enhancement of leadership competence and combat power of party committees and organisations. The Regiment Party Committee and Commanders lead and direct increased political, ideological education with a focus on making soldiers fully understand friends and foes of the revolution and People’s Army, especially the direct enemy in the surface-to-air front. The political, ideological education provides a basis for fostering soldiers’ political steadfastness and unity of willpower and action without losing vigilance; making them confident in the leadership of the Party, military art of Viet Nam, human factor, and existing weapon systems and equipment; cultivating their sense of honour and responsibility when serving in a unit advancing straight to modernity. The educational content concentrates on clarifying fundamental issues of the Party’s Resolution on the Strategy to Safeguard the Fatherland in the New Situation and missions of the People’s Army, Service, Division, and the Regiment, which aims to enable cadres and soldiers to thoroughly grasp enemies’ plots and ploys for conducting airborne operations. To achieve effectiveness, the Regiment actively reforms content and methods to provide political, ideological education; combines general education with individual education and basic education as well as between traditional education with task-oriented education. Attention is paid to introduction of experience and operational art of the Air Defence Soldier in liberation wars as well as experience and issues relating to operations of S-300PMU-1 missiles in recent wars. As for units deployed far from the headquarters, the Regiment assigns commanders in charge of separate directions to directly carry out education through political lessons and democratic dialogue. It also closely monitors the devolution of grasping, predicting, directing, and resolving cadres’ and soldiers’ ideology. In addition to enhanced study and imitation of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality, and style, campaigns, emulation movements, etc., the Regiment takes initiative in disseminating information and guiding cadres’ and soldiers’ ideology of emerging events, which aims to defeat hostile forces’ plots and ploys for “peaceful evolution,” inciting “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” within the Party, and “depoliticisation” of the military. Consequently, cadres and soldiers of the Regiment have good political awareness, ideological steadfastness, high determination, and readiness for fighting and winning wars in any situations.
To meet increasingly high demand of missions, the Regiment implements organisation and staffing as stipulated, promotes good order, seriously maintains regulations, and improves its combat readiness. On the basis of grasping Decision No. 744/QD-TM, dated 14 May 2019, of the Chief of the General Staff and directives and instruction of the Air Defence – Air Force and Division on force design, the Regiment is committed to reorganising itself in an “adept, compact, strong” direction with a priority for combat teams. It attaches importance to selection of cadres with fine dignity, competence, and experience in managing and training soldiers as commanders of single units. On clearly understanding the role of discipline in units, which are scattered, regularly tasked with combat readiness, and negatively influenced by the social environment, the Regiment promotes good order and discipline and strictly maintains regulations on daily, weekly activities and duties of combat readiness guarding, discipline in teams performing combat readiness guarding in particular. Moreover, it popularises and seriously implements orders and directives of the Ministry of National Defence (MND), Service, and Division about combat readiness and control of the airspace, especially on important holidays and New Year. The Regiment requests its departments and units to intensify inspection and review to timely supplement and adjust regular combat plans and combat plans for important occasions to avoid being made surprised; proactively formulate plans for combat coordination between its department and units and departments, localities, and units concerned according to given combat plans. The Regiment also directs its departments and units to actively practise combat plans, especially the cooperation and coordination of fires between S-300PMU-1 missile systems, ZSU23-4 howitzers, and targeting of radar systems; seriously maintain duties of commanding, A2 guarding, and watching to secure the stationing areas. To improve quality and capacity of combat readiness and combat, the Regiment ensures smooth communications over all networks and directions, most notably the communications for command and control; buy new equipment for the headquarters and observation posts according to instructions from higher echelons; and make good preparations for shifting combat readiness modes as provided in plans for command and staff tabletop exercises directed by the Division.
Increased training quality is identified as a vital measure to enhance comprehensive quality and combat power. Seriously grasping and implementing resolutions and directives of the higher echelons on training, most notably Resolution No. 1659-NQ/QUTW, dated 20th December 2022, of the Central Military Commission (CMC) on enhancing training quality in the 2023-2030 period and beyond, the Regiment Party Committee and commanders work out policies and measures to make breakthroughs in training quality. This lays the foundation for departments and units to concretise into resolutions and plans to achieve the highest goals of improving combat capacity and power. Accordingly, together with making good preparation of plans, processes, lesson plans, and lessons, the Regiment pays attention to give training courses for cadres, especially the newcomers to units. During the training process, apart from closely following the “basic, practical, solid motto,” “synchronous, in-depth training,” three viewpoints, eight principles, and six combinations, the Regiment requests its units to take practical training as the key, ensuring closeness to combat realities, adversaries, fighting methods of the Missile Soldier, and existing weapons and equipment. Departments and units must seriously comply with training regulations and focus on training to master new weapons and equipment; training of combat teams at the Regiment Headquarters and in subordinate units; training to enhance the capacity to maneuver on all types of terrain, to rapidly deploy and pack up devices, and to camouflage weapons and equipment; training to coordinate operations among combat teams; and “four-know training” in the management of the airspace. More importantly, as the Regiment must conduct fully automated combat training on the computer network, it attaches special importance to proficiency in foreign languages and information technology, which aims to enable cadres and soldiers to exploit, use, and bring into play technical features of weapons and equipment. To gain substantive results, the Regiment steps up inspection and supervision of training, especially that of independent units, and resolves to deal with subjectivism and obsession with achievements in training. Therefore, the training is maintained in a regular fashion and reaps increasingly high quality, especially in command and control of weapons in operations.
Good logistical, technical support is a vital factor that contributes to enhancement of comprehensive quality and combat power of units. On grasping this spirit, the Regiment directs correct, sufficient maintenance of logistical, technical supplies for combat readiness and maneuver. Since the areas where units are stationed still face many difficulties and infrastructure in units has been deteriorated, the Regiment requests its units to actively engage in growing vegetables, raising animals, planning farming areas, and applying high technologies; always provide sufficient rations; improve soldiers’ living standard; successfully carry out environmental sanitation, prevention and response to epidemics and pandemics. Additionally, the Regiment prepares all types of plans for technical support. Departments and units actively manage, use, and preserve weapons and equipment in their service. Despite being equipped with some new, modern weapon systems, most of the weapons and equipment in units’ possession have been used for many years, thus lacking synchronicity and stability. Consequently, in addition to efforts to master new weapons and equipment, the Regiment steps up the technical innovation movement among their corps of cadres and technicians, which aims to ensure technical factors as provided, timely provide weapons and equipment for training and combat readiness, and continue to pursue steps of the Project S as planned.
Being proud of achievements, Missile Regiment 93 keeps trying to improve its overall quality and combat power to deserve to be the leading long-range surface-to-air missile unit of the Air Defence – Air Force and to meet requirements of safeguarding the Fatherland in the new situation.
Colonel PHAM VAN KHUONG, Regiment Commander