In response to the requirements of safeguarding national sovereignty over seas and islands in the new situation, in recent years, Brigade 171¹ of Naval Region 2 has upheld its tradition, actively overcame difficulties, and focused on raising its overall quality and combat strength and coordinating with other forces to maintain a peaceful and stable environment in the Southern seas, islands, and continental of the Fatherland.

Over 60 years of construction, combat, and maturity, generations of cadres and soldiers of the Brigade have remained absolutely loyal to the Party, Fatherland, and people, upholding self-reliance, ingenuity, and creativity, surmounting hardships to obtain numerous brilliant achievements, thereby forging their tradition of “fighting bravely, overcoming difficulties, continuously staying present at sea and determined to fight and to win”.

Combat readiness training at sea

In the resistance war against the US for national salvation, predecessor units of the Brigade, together with other forces, shot down 78 aircraft, sank 3 vessels, captured 9 commando boats, and set 17 US - puppet warships ablaze. Notably, during the 1975 Spring General Offensive and Uprising, the Brigade participated in liberating Son Tra Port (Da Nang) and taking over Nha Trang, Cam Ranh, and Vung Tau ports; it also engaged in the liberation and takeover of naval bases of the Saigon puppet regime around Saigon, Con Dao, and islands in the Southwest of the Fatherland, while cooperating with the Navy and people across the entire country in liberating the South and reunifying the nation.

In the Southwest border protection war, the Brigade took part in combat to reclaim Southern seas and islands, coordinating with other forces during an international mission to help the people of Cambodia escape genocide. In 1988, together with other units, the Brigade excellently accomplished the task of preventing foreign encroachment on the sovereignty of Truong Sa Archipelago. With those extraordinary achievements, the Brigade and 7 affiliates were honoured with the title of Hero of the People’s Armed Forces by the State, along with many other noble awards.

In recent years, in the face of complex developments and many potential risks to stability in maritime areas, more demanding requirements have been imposed on the Navy in general and the Brigade in particular. In response, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have focused their leadership and direction on adopting synchronised measures to improve the Brigade’s overall quality and combat strength for readily undertaking and successfully fulfilling all assigned tasks under any circumstances.

First of all, the Brigade has focused on making itself politically strong as a solid foundation for improving its overall quality and combat strength. To that end, the Brigade has renewed and improved political education via diverse forms and methods, ensuring comprehensive educational content, clarifying complex developments in the East Sea and the maritime areas under its management, unmasking hostile forces’ plots and tactics of sabotage, disseminating our Party and State’s viewpoints and policies on resolving maritime disputes. Regarding its troops’ ideological issues, it has well implemented the Regulations on troops’ ideological management and psychological measures in resolving ideological matters. As a result, the overwhelming majority of its cadres and soldiers have been fully aware of their tasks, maintaining their political steadfastness, considering “ships and islands as their home” and “the sea as their homeland”, remaining vigilant, readily fighting and sacrificing for protecting national sovereignty over seas and islands of the Fatherland.

In addition, the Brigade has paid particular attention to Party building work. Party committees and party organisations at all levels have strictly sustained regulations and routines of Party activities and continued to build themselves according to the “Four-Good” criteria, thereby creating solid improvements in their leadership capacity. The principles of democratic centralism, self-criticism and criticism, collective wisdom, and individual accountability in task performance have been upheld. All-level party committees have concentrated on the work of managing, training, and cultivating party members, ensuring party members’ political willpower, exemplary role, and readiness to overcome all hardships, turning party members into the nuclei of leadership and centres of unity within their units. Consequently, on a yearly basis, nearly 86% of party organisations successfully or excellently complete their missions; over 90% of party members successfully or excellently fulfil their duties. For many years, the Brigade Party Organisation has excellently accomplished its tasks.

In the face of complex, unpredictable developments at sea, the Brigade has strictly maintained combat readiness, considering this both a mission and great honour of “Naval soldiers”. To that end, it has regularly, proactively studied and grasped situational developments, tasks, goals, and viewpoints, principles, and methods of direction in protecting maritime sovereignty, as well as approaches to resolving maritime disputes, as the basis for determining methods of handling situations under its assigned authority. It has stringently sustained combat readiness regimes and systems at all levels, ensuring synchronisation in personnel, materials, weapons, and means. It has frequently reviewed, supplemented, and completed combat plans and scenarios in accordance with situational developments and its task requirements, thus providing a solid foundation for organising training and exercises to improve its officer’s command and coordination and its soldiers’ combat readiness capacity. To avoid passivity and surprise, it has proactively worked with local party committees, authorities, and competent forces to monitor the overall situation and promptly propose coordinated patrol and control measures to resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, peace, and stability at sea. It has also maintained readiness for disaster mitigation and search and rescue as well as provided support for fishermen to reach out to the sea.

Training is identified as the key political task and direct measure to enhance the combat strength of a unit. Therefore, the Brigade has consistently adhered to the principle of “basics, practicality, solidity”, making a breakthrough in “fundamentally, proficiently exploiting and using weapons and technical equipment, mastering safety regulations, and raising the quality of cadre training”, focusing on “whole-ship combat training”. The task of protecting national sovereignty over seas, islands, and continental shelf has been seen as the objective of training. The Brigade has required its affiliates to make good preparations from planning and facilities to training areas and hold refresher courses for cadres at sector and ship levels and above to improve their command and management capability in training work. In cadre training, emphasis has been placed on new issues and weaknesses linked to cadres’ duties and methods of technical and tactical training. At the same time, young officers have been assigned to maritime duty forces to enhance their mettle and situational handling skills and enable them to meet the operational requirements at sea. For technical personnel, the Brigade has focused on training them to operate, exploit, and maintain new, modern weapons and equipment. For ships, importance has been attached to tactical training and skills in handling complex simulated incidents under time pressure. Thanks to proper approaches, annual training tests, live-fire exercises, and general drills have all been rated good or excellent, with absolute safety. The capacity to master modern technical equipment among personnel has continued to improve and meet the increasingly high mission requirements.

A live-fire exercise at sea

The Brigade has identified regularity building and discipline management as a goal and solution to improving its combat power. It has thoroughly grasped resolutions, directives, and regulations on regularity building and discipline management, especially Directive 103/CT-BQP, dated 28 November 2019, by Minister of National Defence on strengthening discipline management and education and safety assurance in the Military and Directive 11/CT-TM, dated 12 April 2023, by Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army on raising the quality of regularity building and discipline management across the entire Military. In the process, it has closely managed its troops, particularly their social relationships, strictly maintaining daily and weekly regimes, ensuring absolute safety in all activities. Inspection work has been maintained; violations have been seriously handled; responsibilities have been assigned clearly to each party member and cadre. Education has been closely combined with disciplinary action to ensure deterrence and create sustainable improvements in troops’ compliance with State law, military discipline, and unit regulations. Cadres at all levels have been required to work according to their duties and act according to military regulations, with superiors setting examples for subordinates, agencies setting examples for units, and cadres setting examples for soldiers. As a result, the work of regularity building and discipline management has been maintained stringently, with no serious violations and minor violations kept below 0.2%.

As a unit equipped with many new and modern weapons and technical systems, operating for long periods at sea under complex weather and hydrological conditions, the Brigade has always paid great attention to logistics and technical support. To that end, it has ensured sufficient logistics and technical material reserves for combat readiness under regulations, while proactively developing support plans for rapid deployment of ships on missions. In routine logistics support, it has promoted crop/animal husbandry and raised the quality of food processing and health care for troops. It has maintained strict procedures for preservation, maintenance, storage, repair, and service-life extension of weapons and equipment, combining regular and irregular inspections, effectively adopting the criteria for building “regular, exemplary ships”. In recent years, it has made a breakthrough in “building technical regularity and mastering technical equipment” in tandem with the campaign entitled “Managing, exploiting, and using weapons and technical equipment in an effective, durable, safe, economical manner, and ensuring traffic safety”. It has worked with competent agencies of the Region to organise training courses to improve its technical personnel’s skills in operating and maintaining equipment, while promoting the role of its mobile repair teams. Moreover, it has stepped up the movement entitled “promoting initiatives and technical improvements” in managing, exploiting, preserving, and upgrading equipment; consequently, the technical coefficient of its equipment systems has always met or exceeded the prescribed targets.

With the synchronous implementation of the above measures, the overall quality and combat strength of Brigade 171 have been continuously improved as the basis for the Brigade to remain its steadfastness “at the front line” and coordinate with other forces to firmly safeguard national sovereignty over the Southern seas, islands, and continental shelf, worthy of its tradition as a Hero of the People’s Armed Forces.

Sr. Col. LE THANH BINH

Commander of the Brigade

__________

1. Its predecessor was Regiment 171, established on 9 July 1966.