After peace was restored in the North, in response to the requests on building the Army in the new phase of the revolution, on October 25th, 1954, Artillery Regiment 86 - the precursor of Artillery Brigade 164, Army Corps 2, was established in Trai Co, Hiep Hoa, Bac Giang. Shortly thereafter, the Brigade’s officials and soldiers united to actively overcome difficulties and focused on strengthening, expanding barracks, and urgently stabilizing payroll to organize training and mastering of weapons and equipment and improve the technical and tactical level, especially the combat coordination with the infantry, other arms, and local armed forces to be ready to receive and complete all assigned tasks.
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| Sr. Col Nguyen Van Thu at the launching ceremony of training year 2019 |
In 1965, the Brigade was assigned to fight in the battlefields of the Central and the South. It participated in hundreds of battles and campaigns and won resounding victories that were characterized by the art of artillery combat. The Brigade damaged and destroyed many American warships and aircrafts on the battlefields of Military Region 4. It vented "fire storms" on Con Tien, Doc Mieu, and Gio An bases in counterattacks against the enemy’s artillery on the southern bank of Ben Hai River and provided combat coordination and fire reinforcements for the infantry to attack on solid enemy defenses on Route 9 - North of Quang Tri province.
Along with that, the Brigade also participated in the Tet Offensive and Khe Sanh Campaign (1968); liberation and protection of Quang Tri citadel, Hue, and Da Nang; speedy maneuver in the formation of Huong Giang Corps to liberate the coastal provinces in the Central region; and liberation of Saigon. In particular, in the historic Ho Chi Minh Campaign, the Brigade organized a campaign artillery cluster in the South of Saigon to launch an attack on the inner city; ambushed Tan Son Nhat airport to cut down the enemy’s airway withdrawal, and provided fire support for infantry and tanks’ attacks on the last base of the puppet army to completely liberate the South and reunite the country. Besides, the Brigade made outstanding achievements in the fight to protect the Southwestern border of the Fatherland and on international missions in Laos and Cambodia. Whether in the conditions of combat coordination with the armed forces of neighboring countries, in the combat squad of Military Region 4, the 2nd Corps, or in independent combat, the Brigade’s officials and soldiers always fought valiantly, cunningly, and creatively to contribute to the tradition of "Resilience, self-reliance, good fight, and accurate firing".
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| Implementing technical day at the brigade |
With particularly outstanding achievements in construction and fighting, the Brigade and many of its collectives and individuals have been awarded with the title of "Hero of the People's Armed Forces" by the State. Upholding its glorious tradition, in recent years, under the high demands of the cause of building the Army and defending the Fatherland in the new era, the Brigade Party Committee and commanders have performed synchronously and drastically several solutions to build a comprehensively strong unit. Currently, the Brigade has a high overall quality and combat readiness. Its organizations have strong political, ideological, and organizational structure with internal solidarity, unity, and determination to successfully complete all assigned tasks. This is thanks to the Brigade Party Committee and commanders’ good performance of the following basic contents:
Firstly, focusing on building a politically strong brigade as a basis for improving the overall quality and combat strength. This is the most important content to ensure the soldiers’ strong political stance and absolute loyalty to the Party, Fatherland and people and uphold the sense of responsibility to well fulfill assigned functions and tasks. First of all, the Brigade Party Committee and commanders have directed the committees and commanders at all levels to concretize the superiors’ resolutions and directives, especially the Project entitled "Renewing the political education work at the units in new stage” into resolutions, plans, and educational programs to suit to the objects, characteristics, and tasks of the units. In education, the units have focused on renewing the content, programs, forms, and methods with much importance attached to educating Marxist-Leninist, Ho Chi Minh thought, the Party’s military and defense viewpoints and guidelines, the Corps and the Unit’s duties and traditions, etc. Besides, clear class political views and stance have been formed with full awareness of partners and subjects, active participation in the combat against wrong and hostile views, especially in cyberspace, and clear establishment of determination and responsibility in performing the tasks. Accordingly, political test results of the Brigade in recent years have always been 100% of satisfaction, including 85.6% of good and excellence, while the officials and soldiers have had peace of mind in term of ideology to work and well determine their tasks.
In leadership, the Brigade has closely combined the consolidation of quantity and assurance of the quality and structure of party committees, commanders, and leading officials at all levels with fostering to improve the leadership capacity and combat strength of the Party organizations, promote democracy, and substantial assess without indulgence and avoidance, taking the construction of clean and strong Party committees to be the highest goal. At the same time, attention has been paid on the management, education, fostering, and development of Party members as well as the work of inspection, supervision, and enforcement of Party disciplines in order to enhance the leadership strength and timely prevent signs and actions of discipline and law violation.
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| Artillery brigade 164 conducts live firing exercise |
Secondly, improving the quality of training, combat readiness, regularity construction, and discipline training. Annually, pursuant on Resolution No.253-NQ/ĐQQĐ of the Corps Party Committee on "Improving the quality of training for the period of 2013-2020 and the following years" and the Corps Commander’s order on the Military and Defense Work, the Brigade Party Committee has concretized into a resolution with appropriate requirements, contents, measures, and targets and directed units to develop thematic resolutions on leading the combat training task. The Brigade has also reviewed, supplemented, and adjusted fully and promptly the system of documents and combat plans and organized training and maneuvers. Through maneuvers, the commanding level of officers and the combat coordination ability of the soldiers have been improved. Since 2015, the Brigade has continuously achieved the title of "Excellent Training Unit" at the Ministry of Defense level.
Along with training, the Brigade has made breakthrough in improving the quality of regularity construction and discipline training via several synchronous and drastic measures with importance attached to building "exemplary" units and closely, completely; effectively maintaining daily and weekly regimes; performing work according to plans and duties and acting according to military regulations; and strengthening measures to manage ideology, internal discipline, and new regulations on military manners. As a result, the observance of the State law and the Army disciplines of the Brigade have always been stable and sustainable with common violation rate lower than 0.2%, and it has upheld the title of "Comprehensively Strong Unit" for four consecutive years.
Finally, well ensuring technical and logistics work to fully and promptly serve the tasks. Recognizing the importance of technical work, the Brigade has focused on maintaining and ensuring the technical coefficients for training, combat readiness, and maneuver tasks. As the Unit uses both old and new artillery weapons and equipment, the Brigade Party Committee and commanders have advocated a close combination between exploitation, use, preservation, and maintenance of the new with research, improvement, repair, upgrading, and extension of life of the old. In addition, the Brigade has promoted the effective implementation of the Drive entitled "Managing and exploiting weapons and technical equipment effectively, sustainably, safely, and economically and Traffic safety ".
Regarding the logistics work, the Brigade has instructed agencies and units to closely combine the effective exploitation and use for the right purposes of the superior-provided sources with promotion of agricultural production to contribute to improving the life of soldiers. During the implementation process, the Brigade has attached importance to the emulation movement entitled "Military Logistics Sector follows Uncle Ho's teaching" in association with the Drive entitled "Good troop rearing and good military supplies management". It has performed well the management and care of the health for the soldiers to ensure food hygiene and safety and prevent disease outbreaks. In particular, the Brigade has focused on thoroughly and seriously grasping and effectively implementing the new financial management mechanism in the Army for the period of 2018 - 2025 and strict and appropriate control and management in accordance with procedures and principles to ensure openness and transparency and save budget, funds, petrol, electricity, and water, etc.
Good implementation of the above contents is a practical contribution to building an all-strong, typical, and exemplary unit to successfully fulfill the assigned tasks to be worthy of the tradition of "Resilience, self-reliance, good fight, and accurate firing" of the Heroic "Ben Hai Artillery Brigade ".
Senior Colonel Nguyen Van Thu, Brigadier Commander