Naval Commando Brigade 5 of the Commando Corps is a mobile unit of the Defence Ministry, which is tasked with training, combat readiness and operations in battlefields including seas and islands.
For over half of a century of building, combatting and developing, generations of cadres and soldiers of the Brigade have united, proactively and creatively inherited and brought into play the unique art of naval warfare of our ancestors, achieving many glorious victories, and contributing to the tradition of the Heroic Commando soldiers.
In recent years, given the complicated situations in the region and the world, plus the potential instability in the East Sea, the Brigade’s tasks have been advanced, requiring them to not only meet the combat demands in waters and seas nearby, but also operate longer time, independently in far islands and seas in difficult and complicated conditions. To meet such task requirements, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have synchronously implemented breaking solutions for building the highly skilled units, continuously improving their high sea combat capacity, being ready to receive and successfully accomplish all assigned tasks.
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| Leader of the General Staff and the Commando Corps watch the equipment of the Brigade |
Building units which are politically elite
In combat, Naval Commando Soldiers must operate independently, dispersedly, far from land, even deeply in the enemies’ lines, facing many dangers. Hence, soldiers with stable political spirit, strong will and determination, endurance, etc. become a factor directly deciding the survival, combat capability and victory of each individual and unit. With such understanding, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have paid attention to leading and directing the building of politically elite units, which are absolutely loyal to the Party, State and People, ready to sacrifice and overcome difficulties to successfully accomplish all assigned tasks.
To make this happen, the Brigade has focused on the political and ideological education for soldiers. The contents are to thoroughly grasp the resolutions, directive and conclusions of the Party, State, Central Military Commission, Defence Ministry on security and defence, the protection of sovereignty over seas and islands; tasks of the Corps and units; updates of the world, region, situations in the East sea, especially new situations at seas and islands in our protection; clarify all plots, tricks and sabotage plans by the hostile forces at sea; and the viewpoints and policies on tackling conflicts at sea by our Party and State, through which, to raise soldiers’ awareness of the opponents and the tasks of each unit in order to heighten their vigilance, effectively handle all situations without any passiveness and unexpectedness.
Notably, to educate and train the strong will, spirit and high “resistance” for soldiers, together with enhancing the innovation and quality improvement of political education with many creative forms and methods, the Brigade has paid attention to including the political and ideological education in all intensive training subjects such as long-day field training at sea, survival training in extreme weather conditions, combat military exercises, etc., creating the “iron will” of the Naval Commando Soldiers who are especially brave, ingenious, courageous, absolutely loyal and always ready to sacrifice for the Fatherland.
Additionally, focusing on improving the leadership capacity for party committees and party organisations, the responsibility for cadres and party members, presiding cadres in particular. Accordingly, together with strengthening the all-level party committees and organisations in quantity and quality, the Brigade’s Party Committee has made many solutions for improving the quality of meetings and implementation of resolutions of all-level party organisations; dignified the spirit of “7 dares” among cadres and party members in their working and learning; improved the efficiency in inspection, supervision and maintenance of the Party discipline; proactively ensured the internal political security, firmly prevented any degradation of political ideology, morality, lifestyle, etc. With such practical and effective solutions, over the past 5 years, the Brigade has had 100% party organisations successfully completing their tasks, 90% of which have been good and excellent; 100% cadres and party members have successfully completed their tasks, 95% of which have been good and excellent without any bad party organisations or members, nor cases shirking the duty. These are the core factors deciding the building of the Brigade which is highly qualified in politics.
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| Floating training |
Breakthroughs in specialised and battle-hardened training
Maritime and island warfare in general, the far sea one in particular often happens in large space, in erratic weather and hydrological conditions; the opponents have more advantages of vehicles and facilities to detect and prevent the opposing intrusion from afar, etc. To successfully accomplish the tasks, it requires soldiers to own elite knowledge and skills of commando techniques and tactics, the capability of independent combat or coordination, good heath, resistance, and the ability of suffering from all difficulties and hardships in severe conditions.
Grasping and implementing Resolution No. 2741-NQ/ĐU, dated 24 February 2023 by the Corps’ Party Committee on improving the training quality in the 2023 - 2030 period and the following years, the Brigade’s Party Committee has built the specialised resolution, focusing on the breakthroughs in specialised and battle-hardened training; taking the training for sections and groups as the core, training cadres as the key, and destroying the enemies’ all-level headquarters, troops, technical equipment and vehicles as the objectives of training. To achieve the breakthroughs, together with promoting the renovation of the training contents, forms and methods, improving the training management quality closely to the tasks, plans, battles and opponents, the Brigade has paid attention to training techniques and tactics of platoons, companies, battalions and equivalent levels; increased the extended practical training at sea in complicated weather conditions, night training and maritime combat training. In the training process, all units have closely followed the “basic, practical, solid” motto, conducted many creative models, such as: “The 9th-hour martial art”, “Aim right, fire well”; cadres at all levels have conducted “4 togethers” (together eat, together live, together work), they all have “together practiced, dived and swum” with soldiers, giving detailed instructions of basic to professional techniques.
Especially, following the direction by the Corps, the Brigade has combined the training and doing tasks of field survey, researching of terrain and oceanography, familiarising and mastering the battles in all assigned waters and islands, the main ones in particular, focusing on enhancing the training on professional and complex contents including long swimming, drifting, deep diving, etc. in high tides, strong wind or bad weather; adversarial exercises and other exercises of combined forces with the Navy and other forces at sea, etc. As a result, the quality of training and combat readiness of the Brigade has been continuously improved. The annual test results reach 100% passing with 90% being good and excellent, 50% of which are excellent. In 2024 and 2025, the Brigade successfully accomplished the task of battle research, training and the professional real-troop exercise in coastal areas of the Central, Spratly Islands, DK1 and the Southwest sea, which was highly appreciated by the Corps Commander and the Defence Minister.
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| Practice landing |
Mastering modern weapons, equipment and developing new fighting methods
To maintain the advantages and combat capacity in the conditions that the opponents could use modern tracking devices from the air, at sea or in the water, place multi-layer obstacles, and train battle-hardened and highly-skilled soldiers, the Brigade has enhanced the training to master modern specialised weapons and equipment including high-speed boats, specialised boats with remote control, diving machines, systems of controlling and supervising frogmen, sonar communication devices, underwater night vision goggles, etc. in order to improve the capability of moving and raiding, hidden operations, recce and operation command, etc.
Together, the Brigade has paid attention to researching the recent wars and military conflicts in the world, at the same time, summarising the reality of tasks of field reconnaissance, training and exercise to create new fighting methods; building detailed operation plans considering the most complicated situations. The Brigade has made a special combination between the frogmen, counter-terrorism forces and the unmanned vehicles in order to perform deep infiltration and assault, secret movements, troops concealment, ambushes, etc.; attacked main targets of the enemies at sea, islands and platforms; improved the combat performance, making the enemies surprised, terrified and quickly to be defeated.
Building the stable and synchronous system of logistic-technical support
Being aware of the “lifeline” role of the support work in the maritime combat, the Brigade has intensely built the system of logistic-technical support which is synchronous, self-supplied and solid, being able to “closely follow” soldiers in all tasks. Accordingly, together with frequently checking, adjusting and completing all logistic-technical documents and plans, focusing on the logistic-technical plan in transforming the combat status, the logistic-technical plan for protecting the sovereignty over seas and islands; managing and maintaining the storage of logistic-technical materials for combat readiness due to the seniors’ orders, the Brigade has timely and sufficiently supplied military rations for combat tasks of individual units; actively made research on providing food and water, improving military supplies and individual equipment for naval commando forces, frogmen, divers, etc., which is suitable with the training and combat requirements in modern warfare, self-care and mutual care, etc., at the same time, paid attention to the punctual support, sufficient quality, quantity and synchronicity of weapons and technical equipment for ships, boats and diving equipment, meeting the requirements of combat readiness plans. The Brigade has also checked the technical conditions before, during and after the tasks; combined the conduct of the Campaign 50 and the implementation of 2 breakthroughs in the technical work, especially for the new and modern equipment in special tasks, avoiding the unsafety in training caused by the technical equipment.
Seas and islands are the sacred territories and survival spaces of the Fatherland. Clearly understanding the honour and assigned responsibility, Naval Commando Brigade 5 continues to make drastic and synchronous solutions for building the elite Unit, continuously improving the maritime combat capacity, contributing to maintaining a peaceful and stable environment for the country to develop in the new era.
Senior Colonel NGUYEN CONG LONG, Brigade Commander