Contests and competitions are considered not only a chance to examine and evaluate the competence and result of organising, commanding, directing training, but also the process of training and improving the determination, technical and tactical skills and coordination of cadres and soldiers, through which, to timely learn from the limitations and discover, encourage and cultivate the typical individuals, and spread the role models, contributing to improving the training quality and combat readiness capability.

Clearly understanding such significance and importance, Regiment 213 of the Air Defence Division 363 has chosen contests and competitions as the breakthrough to make a steady change in their training and in the building of all strong, “exemplary, typical” units, continuously improving overall quality and combat power, firmly managing and safeguarding the Fatherland’s airspace in all situations.

At first, the Regiment strengthens the leadership and direction of all-level party committees and commands, and brings into play the synergy of all organisations and forces in order to synchronously and effectively conduct all contests and competitions, ensuring the unity of goals, determination and actions in the entire regiment. This is a primary solution which decides the quality of all contests and competitions, especially when the Regiment is doing their tasks in the condition of their subordinate units being located dispersedly and doing tasks independently in large areas.

Based on the thorough grasp of directives, plans and instructions by the Service and Division, the Regiment Party Committee has issued the specialised resolution on the training tasks; deciding the organisation of contests and competitions to be the breakthrough, and directing all offices and units to build and conduct their action plans, clearly define the goals, standards and solutions which are feasible and practical with the features, tasks and real conditions of the units; established the Steering Committee and teacher groups with the attention of the Regiment commanders, leaders of offices and units, and experienced cadres and technicians. At the same time, it assigned tasks to each individual, attached the responsibility of all party committees and commands to the results of contests and competitions, considering these as important criteria in evaluating the cadres’ competence, being a foundation for planning, promoting and appointing cadres.

Leader of the Regiment opens a contest in 2025

Closely following the defined goals and standards, the Regiment has directed all offices and units to promote the education for all soldiers to clearly grasp the plans, technical and tactical requirements, and safety precautions, at the same time, be aware of the advantages and disadvantages in training, contests and competitions, building the correct motivation, the spirit of solidarity, responsibility, and readiness for any difficulties to complete all assigned tasks. Following the guidelines of the Regiment, recently, all offices and units have flexibly applied a variety of briefing and educating methods; closely combined the regular education with task-based education; promoted the emulation, commendation, training ground cheering and the propaganda of achieved results after each period and task. At the same time, it proactively discovered and firmly struggled against any expressions of subjectivity, simplification, hardship hesitation, and the “fighting cocks” phenomena in contests and competitions; timely encouraged cadres and soldiers, creating the high unity of consciousness and action, and bringing into play the overall power in task performance.

Together, the Regiment has boosted the renovation of organisation, methods and process of training for competitions in a way which is scientific and close to the goals and requirements. Based on the selection and classification of participants, the Regiment has organised the intensive training combined with the group training in order to improve the competence for all units, at the same time, actively renovated the training methods in the way of closely combining the presentation, demonstration with the situation-based training in order to help soldiers both clearly understand the basic knowledge and flexibly apply it into reality. To have high effectiveness, the Regiment has actively made research and built the system of exercises being practical to the reality of modern warfare with complex situations such as: enemies making sudden airborne raids using the electronic jamming devices; enemies using cruise missiles, unmanned suicide aerial vehicles, and guided bombs; equipment being damaged in fighting; the battlefields being suppressed with fire; moving and transforming the combat formation in complicated weather conditions and terrains. In each situation, the Regiment has attached much importance to training cadres and combat crews the ability of analysing and evaluating the situations; improving the coordination and skills of dealing with situations timely, correctly and flexibly. On this basis, the handling of weapons and equipment, the tactical thinking and the combat capability of soldiers have been clearly improved, contributing to the completion of contests, competitions and combat readiness task in all situations.

On the training process, the Regiment has made suitable reforms to each content of contests and competitions; the preparation and practice of night combat has been considered a difficult and complex phase because of the poorly-lit conditions and obstacles to observation and actions, plus the strict requirements of secrecy and safety in deploying weapons, and soldiers’ highly-stressed psychology. To overcome these difficulties, the Regiment has directed the training organisation in a strict process, closely following the “basic, practical, solid” motto. The training is required to be conducted step by step, from day to night; firstly on simulated facilities then on real equipment; among individuals at first to groups and then sections. Meanwhile, signal lights and the observation aids are included in order to train the capability of handling weapons and equipment in poorly-lit conditions, focusing on educating and fostering skills and firm mentality, maintaining strict discipline, absolute secrecy and safety in moving and deploying the fighting formations.

Conducting the ST125-2TM missile fighting contest

In the coordination among combat crews, the Regiment has followed the phase by phase process; focused on training the coordination among partners in combat crews; between missiles and reconnaissance radar; headquarters, communication and  logistic-technical forces. In training, the Regiment has promoted the unity in commanding, the harmonious coordination among factors, assuring the continuous and exact communication, timely solving any situations. All coordination subjects have been trained in a basic to advanced way and closely to the combat practice, i.e. coordination in transforming the status of combat readiness; coordination in detecting, following, classifying and aiming targets; coordination in launching and intercepting missiles when enemies use the advanced jamming and electronic devices. As a result, all cadres and soldiers have been trained with their working style, close coordination, flexible behaviour. They could improve their combat readiness, assuring the “winning right after the first rocket”. Especially, as all weapons and equipment have been used on the system of computers, the Regiment has advocated training and improving the knowledge of IT, foreign languages for cadres and soldiers, helping them effectively use and master the existing weapons and equipment, exploit fully their technical-tactical features in training, contests, competitions and combat readiness.

Since air defence operations happen in high intensity, short time and in various scales, soldiers have suffered from serious psychological pressure, easily made mistakes and missed opportunities if not been regularly trained. This is an important issue directly deciding the results of contests and competitions. Hence, the Regiment has enhanced the inspection and organisation of “practice” contests among groups and crews; considering this as a basic way to train and improve the knowledge, skill and spirit for cadres and soldiers to attend official contests and competitions. The Regiment has organised both regular and unscheduled inspection, at the same time, organised contests among groups and crews right after each training session. The inspection contents have covered both theories and practice, ranging from political comprehension, the sense of self-discipline, regularity, staff and command capability to the movement, deploying and usage of equipment, and logistic-technical work.

To gain the practical effectiveness, after the inspection, the Regiment has required all offices and units to summarise the weaknesses, and make suitable solutions, assuring “clear person, clear job, clear responsibility, and clear progress”. In recent years, the Regiment has organised over 200 inspections and contests at all levels of battalions, companies, groups and crews, and 26 regiment-level contests, through which, to timely find out strong points and clearly point out limitations and shortcomings of each individual, crew and unit. This is an important foundation for the Regiment to direct, guide and assist them in figuring out solutions, adjusting the training contents and methods in order to achieve the best results in the contests and competitions.

As training for contests and competitions requires high intensity and great support, the Regiment has paid attention to the logistic-technical support, creating the solid basis for the quality improvement. Closely following the training schedules, the Regiment has directed the building of logistic-technical support plans closely to each unit, and the suitable storage of technical materials and supplies for each period. Especially, since the equipment is easily damaged due to the high usage intensity, together with strictly maintaining the regular and intensive maintenance, the Regiment has arranged the technical staff to be on combat readiness duty, timely solving any arising problems, and maintaining the technical coefficient of equipment in the best conditions. In the logistic support, although there exist many difficulties caused by the large quantity and instant requirements in long time, and the dispersed locations, the Regiment has proactively prepared the food sources, scientifically organised the messes and assured the food safety and hygiene; promoted the on-site production to improve the meals for soldiers, and properly arranged the places of eating, staying and relaxing, etc. making sure the rate of training attendance of over 99.8%.

With a variety of scientific and effective leading and directing methods, together with the high will and determination of cadres and soldiers, the Regiment has gained many achievements in all contests and competitions. Especially, in 2023, all goals of technical, tactical, staff, political and logistic contents were reached; many collectives and individuals won good prizes, receiving praises and awards from the seniors. 100% cadres and soldiers successfully completed their tasks, assuring the absolute safety for people, weapons and equipment.

These results have affirmed the correct direction applied by the Regiment in their training organisation; created the bases to improve the training quality and combat power, firmly safeguard the Northeastern airspace of the Fatherland, and embellish the glorious traditions of Tran Phu Corps – the unit being twice awarded the title of Hero of the People’s Armed forces.

Colonel VU XUAN LONG, Regiment Commander