In order to meet the demands and duties of building the Military, strengthening the national defence and protecting the Homeland in the new situation, recently, together with enhancing the adjustment of organisation and staff; attentively building the comprehensively strong, “exemplary, typical” offices and units, the Party Committee and command of the 75th Artillery Brigade (Military Region 7) have paid special attention to reforming the combat training, making breakthrough in improving the general quality and combat strength, ensuring that the Brigade could successfully accomplish all assigned tasks. Accordingly, the Brigade has grasped and concretised the implementation of Resolution No. 1659-NQ/QUTW by the Central Military Commission, Resolution No. 1908-NQ/ĐU, dated 27 April 2023 by Miliraty Region 7’s Party Committee on “Improving the training quality in the 2023-2030 period and the coming years”, directions and instructions by the Artillery Corps and the superior offices with drastic and synchronous guidelines and solutions, and gained positive achievements. The Brigade’s training has been comprehensively reformed and developed with improved quality. Through evaluations, the training results of all contents have been equalised and relatively stable, making a foundation for the Brigade to continuously improve its skills and level of combat readiness; in the past three consecutive years, the Brigade was awarded the Flag of “Excellent Training Unit” by the Defence Ministry. These results have been made by many factors, in which the main ones are as follows:
First and foremost, the Brigade has strengthened the leadership and direction by the party committees and commands at all levels over the tasks of training, enhancing the political and thought education, creating the unity of awareness and responsibility for cadres and soldiers on these important tasks. Before each training period, the Brigade has seriously grasped the training and combat readiness orders from the Military Region’s Command, directions and resolutions from the superiors on training. On those bases, the Brigade has made specific resolutions and built its action plans and programmes. In implementation, the Brigade has prioritised the reform and improved the quality of leadership and direction by the party committees, political commissars and junior political commissars at all levels over the training task, at the same time, promoted the propaganda and education for cadres and soldiers to be clearly aware of the meaning and importance of the training task, also the difficulties, challenges and new requirements for each specific sector. The Brigade has attentively combined the political education and task grasping with well doing the studying and following of Ho Chi Minh’s thought, morality and lifestyle, and the Campaign of “Promoting traditions, devoting talents, deserving to be “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new situation”; promoted the emulation movements and brought into play the roles of public unions in leading the implementation of the training task. Together, the Brigade has applied many drastic solutions for making the training task practical, especially enhanced the training inspection and re-examination, sudden and level-crossing inspection; combined the training with regularity building; timely rewarded and encouraged excellent collectives and individuals; firmly remedied the satisfaction thought, formalism expressions and achievement disease in training to make stable changes in the awareness and responsibility in the whole Unit.
Being a combat unit , which consists of many different sectors, forces, contents and requirements, to gain high results, the Brigade has regularly paid more attention to the training preparation. Annually, before any training section, the Brigade checks, adjusts and consolidates the organisation, staff and equipment of all units and directs them to comprehensively make the training preparation. In particular, the Brigade has attentively strengthened the staff of commanders of training units, the junior levels in particular, prioritised the units training new soldiers; concurrently, maintained the disciplines, training quality and re-training for all-level cadres with general methods; followed the motto of “training the weak, superiors training juniors, offices training units”. The training contents have focused on dealing with problems and shortcomings in the last year, new contents, key points of the year especially in terms of organisation, training methods, practice, contents, methods, planning, training schedules, registration, statistics of troop numbers, weapons, equipment, vehicles, training results, etc. With suitable solutions, the quality of cadres of the Brigade has been significantly improved. So far, 100% training cadres have been working in echelon. Together with the personnel factor, the Brigade has directed the proper preparation of weapons, vehicles, supporting materials and training grounds for each specialised subject. Units have actively mobilised supporting resources for training; brought into play the initiatives, reforms of models, training tools and other training aids. The Brigade has made many good and creative initiatives, etc., which have been highly appreciated by the Military Region, making practical contribution to the improvement of the combat training quality of all units.
In the training process, the Brigade has organised the comprehensive training combined with professional one, focused on key points which are close with the features and tasks of each force, suitable with the existing weapons and equipment; considering the professionally technical training as the foundation, tactical training as the centre and cadres’ training as the key. For office commanders, the contents have focused on improving the operational staff and commanding skills, training and exercise methods, etc. For junior-level cadres, it is necessary to train the artillery - specialised techniques; training organisation and methods, the approval of lesson plans, teaching trials; attentively repair the shortcomings and weaknesses in training by cadres at all levels and unify the new and repaired contents. For political officers who have not been trained on artillery and newly-graduated officers, the Brigade has privately trained them on specialised techniques. Besides seriously maintaining the in-service training, on a monthly basis, the Brigade tests cadres on the basic contents such as tabletop artillery firing, measurement recce, accounting, logistics, techniques, etc., due to their responsibility to timely correct their weaknesses; on a yearly basis, it organises commanding exercise using troops on the maps and on the fields, etc., in order to improve the comprehensive skills for cadres, especially the skills of analysing and evaluating the situation, correcting the training and the operational staff and commanding.
In order to meet the demands of the modern wars, the Brigade has highly appreciated the training of fast maneuver, especially the fast deployment and retreat of artillery, ammunition and leaving the battlefields; the training of far marching over terrains; the enhancement of night and situation-based training; the combination of tactical training and practice of moving plans, combat readiness and returning-fire defence; the application of information technology into training. Besides, the Brigade attentively focused on improving the quality of group training and technical officers. The Brigade has required offices and units to train soldiers so that they could be skillful at artillery techniques and tactics, good at individual and joint combat, and Military Regional defence operations; trust the combat methods, skillfully exploit and use the existing weapons and facilities, take from 01 to 02 different responsibilities and substitute each other within the battery. To make it effective, the Brigade has closely followed the standards of “Excellent Training Artillery Unit”, specifically concretised for the roles of artillerymen, scouts, accountants, radio operators; directed the enhancement of practice training, night training, practice on the artillery and equipment or on the fields; closely combined between the technical and tactical training with specialised one, training with regularity building, discipline training, physical health, etc. Right after the new recruits training, the Brigade has proactively arranged time for the artillery specialisation training, making sure the new recruits could quickly approach and integrate to the training formation of the artillery batteries. In its implementation, the Brigade has considered the classification of objects; brought into play the model’s roles; combined the traditional with modern training, basic with professional training, given focus on personal and battery’s training to be the foundation for joint training of artillery company and battalion level; scientifically organised the training shifts to make full advantage of time, materials, training grounds, etc.
As a towed artillery unit, since it is important to ensure the fighting mobility, the training of logistics and technical support, especially improving skills for drivers, mechanics, etc., has been the focus of the Brigade. To make it happen, the Brigade has paid attention to researching to renew the contents, promoting the organisation of all-level general loop tactical drills; live-firing exercises; long-range mobility; joining the joint military exercises, the Military Region’s defence operations, etc. considering these as the important and practical ways to train and improve the competence and the capability of advising and commanding for cadres and the technical and tactical skills for soldiers.
Together, the Brigade has proactively carried out the training support. The requirements for the Artillery Soldiers are both physically strong to be “bronze feet, iron shoulders” and skillful to “well fight, accurately shoot”. As a results, the Brigade has proactively coordinated with localities to do the selection and enlistment; of which, they have selected citizens who have met the demands for health and skills and fulfill the tasks and requirements of the units. At the same time, they have well prepared the reserved materials for the training tasks. Due to locating in the urban area, the system of training grounds of the Brigade are not enough in quantity and weak in quality, which sometimes leads to overlap of contents. To deal with this problem, the Brigade has advised the Military Region and proactively mobilised all sources, coordinated with the local party committees and governments to complete the projects of firing ranges and training grounds, making sure they are synchronous and united as the regulation. Presently, based on the fact that some vehicles, weapons and equipment which have been used for many years have been downgraded and asynchronous together with the lack of budget, the Brigade has promoted the movement of “good maintenance, durable use”, actively repairing, maintaining and improving the quality, reliability and expiry extension of weapons, equipment, etc. Besides, the Brigade has directed the implementation of logistics, especially the insurance of working conditions, quality of meals, life and health so that all cadres and soldiers could feel motivated and secure in their working, successfully accomplishing their tasks of training and combat readiness, and well meeting the task requirements in the new situation.
Senior Colonel NGUYEN HOANG BONG, Commander of the Brigade