Vietnam Defence Forum

[Viet]

female soldiers in wartime clothing during a victory parade, fall of Saigon 1975 April 30th.

 

[Aqsuperman]

We may print more money but that will cause our inflation rate go sky rocket :v
About the air-defence for our fleet , we may have to depend on inland fighter for a while , atleast until the third pair of Gepard equip with new level air-defence systems (this will take a while :v ) and about the aircraft carrier..........even Thailand with a considerable strong economic found it hard to maintaince 1 aircraft carrier which is only able to send out helicopters ,............think about the jets-capable carrier and the cost to operate 1 ,..........make me want to cry :v
For now this is all we get

 

[Carlosa]

We may print more money but that will cause our inflation rate go sky rocket :v
About the air-defence for our fleet , we may have to depend on inland fighter for a while , atleast until the third pair of Gepard equip with new level air-defence systems (this will take a while :v ) and about the aircraft carrier..........even Thailand with a considerable strong economic found it hard to maintaince 1 aircraft carrier which is only able to send out helicopters ,............think about the jets-capable carrier and the cost to operate 1 ,..........make me want to cry :v
For now this is all we get

Hey, do you know if there is something "interesting" going on at Eldad reef?

 

[William Hung]

You seem to have an special relationship with the mods man.

As the most kind most compassionate and most friendly Viet member of this forum, the mod just want to look after me.

 

[Viet]

Việt Nam sản xuất súng Galil ACE và hơn thế nữa | soha.vn

translate

z111 factory with production capacity of 50,000 assault rifles a year. Vietnam buys the technology and complete assembly line for $170m from Israel last year (cheaper than Russia that demands $250m for AK-100). the factory currently speeds up the process producing additional 3,000 rifles for the September revolution parade.

besides, the Politburo approves many key projects, including short-range air defense system, missile gunship, naval cannon etc. with future outlook of the army in 10-15 years.

Galil rifle ACE 31

Galil rifle ACE 32

 

[Echo_419]

Việt Nam sản xuất súng Galil ACE và hơn thế nữa | soha.vn

translate

z111 factory with production capacity of 50,000 assault rifles a year. Vietnam buys the technology and complete assembly line for $170m from Israel last year (cheaper than Russia that demands $250m for AK-100). the factory currently speeds up the process producing additional 3,000 rifles for the September revolution parade.

besides, the Politburo approves many key projects, including short-range air defense system, missile gunship, naval cannon etc. with future outlook of the army in 10-15 years.

Galil rifle ACE 31

Galil rifle ACE 32

Great Choice by vietnam

 

[Carlosa]

We may print more money but that will cause our inflation rate go sky rocket :v
About the air-defence for our fleet , we may have to depend on inland fighter for a while , atleast until the third pair of Gepard equip with new level air-defence systems (this will take a while :v ) and about the aircraft carrier..........even Thailand with a considerable strong economic found it hard to maintaince 1 aircraft carrier which is only able to send out helicopters ,............think about the jets-capable carrier and the cost to operate 1 ,..........make me want to cry :v
For now this is all we get

The carrier its just Viet's dream (together with AEGIS destroyers).

 

[Viet]

actually it is not necessarily bad when the army has sources of income outside of the state budget. BUT...


AP
Asia Pacific
On the green, Vietnam army’s capitalist streak
Golf course reflects rare conflict between powerful military and public's interest

May 3, 2015 by Mike Ives
AP

Visitors have their photos taken near a tank used by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday, ahead of 40th anniversary celebrations Thursday of the end of the conflict. | AP

HO, CHI MINH CITY – Vietnam’s busiest airport, once a major gateway for thousands of U.S. troops headed for battle, is now the scene of a slow-burning controversy linked to the commercial clout of the country’s powerful military.

To alleviate congestion at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport, top officials in the ruling Communist Party have proposed building an airport costing a whopping $15.8 billion about 40 km (25 miles) away. But some city residents and aviation experts say it makes more sense for the airport to simply expand onto some adjacent land managed by the army. They wonder why the property is being used for a new golf course.

Using the adjacent land for golf is “irrational,” said Le Trong Sanh, former head of the airport’s flight management department. “We should take back the course.”

The debate sheds light on a rarity in Vietnam: The appearance of conflict between the army’s considerable financial interests and the public’s interests.

The Vietnam People’s Army — which on Thursday celebrated its 40th anniversary of defeating the Americans — was for decades a ragtag but tenacious military that also fended off France and China in the last century. Since the Vietnam War, it has added to its portfolio a dizzying array of enterprises and subsidiaries that span construction, airport services, shipbuilding, garment manufacturing and other sectors. Two of the best-known are cellphone operator Viettel and Military Bank.

According to government estimates, military enterprises had a before-tax profit of 46 trillion dong ($2.14 billion) in 2014. But analysts say the enterprises operate to some degree outside the Communist Party’s control, and that the exact scope of their commercial dealings is unknown.

The army declined a request for an interview and did not respond to emailed questions about its commercial activities sent by reporters.

Many armies around the world have corporate portfolios, and Southeast Asia’s are no exception. Andrew Wood, the head of Asia country risk analysis for BMI Research, an international consultancy, said army enterprises play a smaller role in Vietnam’s domestic economy than they do in military-dominated Myanmar, but a larger one than such enterprises play in China and Indonesia.

Viettel earned nearly $2 billion in pre-tax profits last year, or 85 percent of all profits reported by military enterprises, the state-run Zing News quoted the company’s general director, Nguyen Manh Hung, as saying in January. Viettel has also expanded to nine markets across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Many Vietnamese see military-linked companies as having more integrity than other government institutions, particularly state-owned enterprises. Financial scandals are common in Vietnam, but they rarely involve military personnel.

“This bank belongs to the military, so people trust it more” than other Vietnamese banks, said Vo Van Tam, a Ho Chi Minh City real estate developer, one recent afternoon at a branch of the bank. Tam said he had a Viettel mobile phone subscription for the same reason.

Vietnam’s banking sector has some of Asia’s highest levels of bad debt. But Military Bank is among the sector’s best performers and appears to be a relatively conservative manager of nonperforming loans, said Peter Sorensen, managing director at ABB Merchant Banking, a Hanoi-based consulting firm.

Vietnam is one of 12 countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a U.S.-led free trade group that is currently being negotiated. American officials have said the TPP would likely include provisions designed to force government-owned enterprises to be more transparent.

Sorensen said military enterprises may feel pressure in the long term from that and other trade deals Vietnam is negotiating this year. But he doubted whether any specific effects would be clear in the short term.

In 2007, the Communist Party’s powerful Central Committee ordered the military’s 140 declared companies to divest from sectors that were not directly related to national security. That number declined to 98 within two years, according to an analysis of public records by BMI Research. But otherwise there have been few tangible results, said Carl Thayer, a Vietnam expert in Australia who has studied the army since the 1980s.

“Over time the government tried to push the military out of purely commercial activities,” he said. “It looks like the impetus has died off.”

Le Thi Thanh Hoa, who sells birds on a road beside the new golf course adjacent to the airport, said the army is the landlord for her business and dozens of others in the area.

“Doing business with the army is good because its prices are stable,” she said, adding that she has paid the same rent — 30 million dong ($1,389) per month — for about five years. “The army’s very powerful, and it controls this whole area.”

The Tan Son Nhat Golf Course is about half a kilometer away, on the other side of a security checkpoint. Its focal point is its clubhouse, the Him Lam Palace, a palatial building with marbled floors and an eight-tiered, gold-plated chandelier in its lobby.

On a recent weekday afternoon, workers were installing lighting and hoisting palm trees on the course as a smattering of golfers tried their luck at the tees and putting greens. A plane thundered by every few minutes on the nearby runway.

Him Lam, the private company whose logo is on the course’s clubhouse, has “significant” Ministry of Defense contacts and participates in several large-scale projects on military-owned properties, an American diplomat wrote in 2006, according to a U.S. Embassy cable released by WikiLeaks. The cable said Duong Cong Minh, who is now Him Lam’s board chairman, told the diplomat that land and property rents are among the ministry’s primary sources of “off-budget” revenue.

The airport currently handles 20 million passengers a year and is projected to max out at its design capacity of 25 million by 2017. Vietnam’s transport minister, Dinh La Thang, has said building a new airport is the country’s only feasible option because expanding the airport would increase traffic, pollution and the potential for air accidents while requiring the relocation of 140,000 families that occupy 541 hectares (1,336 acres) of adjacent land.

But Sanh, the airport’s former flight manager, said building another runway and terminal and some parking lots next door could boost the capacity to 45 million passengers a year. He added that the price tag of a new airport — nearly a tenth of Vietnam’s $184 billion gross domestic product — would be too big a financial strain.

Last year he and a retired military pilot, Mai Trong Tuan, sent a letter to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung outlining that position. They are still waiting to hear back.

 

[Carlosa]

Việt Nam sản xuất súng Galil ACE và hơn thế nữa | soha.vn
besides, the Politburo approves many key projects, including short-range air defense system, missile gunship, naval cannon etc. with future outlook of the army in 10-15 years.

What missile gunship and naval cannon?

actually it is not necessarily bad when the army has sources of income outside of the state budget. BUT...


AP
Asia Pacific
On the green, Vietnam army’s capitalist streak
Golf course reflects rare conflict between powerful military and public's interest

May 3, 2015 by Mike Ives
AP

Visitors have their photos taken near a tank used by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday, ahead of 40th anniversary celebrations Thursday of the end of the conflict. | AP

HO, CHI MINH CITY – Vietnam’s busiest airport, once a major gateway for thousands of U.S. troops headed for battle, is now the scene of a slow-burning controversy linked to the commercial clout of the country’s powerful military.

To alleviate congestion at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport, top officials in the ruling Communist Party have proposed building an airport costing a whopping $15.8 billion about 40 km (25 miles) away. But some city residents and aviation experts say it makes more sense for the airport to simply expand onto some adjacent land managed by the army. They wonder why the property is being used for a new golf course.

Using the adjacent land for golf is “irrational,” said Le Trong Sanh, former head of the airport’s flight management department. “We should take back the course.”

The debate sheds light on a rarity in Vietnam: The appearance of conflict between the army’s considerable financial interests and the public’s interests.

The Vietnam People’s Army — which on Thursday celebrated its 40th anniversary of defeating the Americans — was for decades a ragtag but tenacious military that also fended off France and China in the last century. Since the Vietnam War, it has added to its portfolio a dizzying array of enterprises and subsidiaries that span construction, airport services, shipbuilding, garment manufacturing and other sectors. Two of the best-known are cellphone operator Viettel and Military Bank.

According to government estimates, military enterprises had a before-tax profit of 46 trillion dong ($2.14 billion) in 2014. But analysts say the enterprises operate to some degree outside the Communist Party’s control, and that the exact scope of their commercial dealings is unknown.

The army declined a request for an interview and did not respond to emailed questions about its commercial activities sent by reporters.

Many armies around the world have corporate portfolios, and Southeast Asia’s are no exception. Andrew Wood, the head of Asia country risk analysis for BMI Research, an international consultancy, said army enterprises play a smaller role in Vietnam’s domestic economy than they do in military-dominated Myanmar, but a larger one than such enterprises play in China and Indonesia.

Viettel earned nearly $2 billion in pre-tax profits last year, or 85 percent of all profits reported by military enterprises, the state-run Zing News quoted the company’s general director, Nguyen Manh Hung, as saying in January. Viettel has also expanded to nine markets across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Many Vietnamese see military-linked companies as having more integrity than other government institutions, particularly state-owned enterprises. Financial scandals are common in Vietnam, but they rarely involve military personnel.

“This bank belongs to the military, so people trust it more” than other Vietnamese banks, said Vo Van Tam, a Ho Chi Minh City real estate developer, one recent afternoon at a branch of the bank. Tam said he had a Viettel mobile phone subscription for the same reason.

Vietnam’s banking sector has some of Asia’s highest levels of bad debt. But Military Bank is among the sector’s best performers and appears to be a relatively conservative manager of nonperforming loans, said Peter Sorensen, managing director at ABB Merchant Banking, a Hanoi-based consulting firm.

Vietnam is one of 12 countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a U.S.-led free trade group that is currently being negotiated. American officials have said the TPP would likely include provisions designed to force government-owned enterprises to be more transparent.

Sorensen said military enterprises may feel pressure in the long term from that and other trade deals Vietnam is negotiating this year. But he doubted whether any specific effects would be clear in the short term.

In 2007, the Communist Party’s powerful Central Committee ordered the military’s 140 declared companies to divest from sectors that were not directly related to national security. That number declined to 98 within two years, according to an analysis of public records by BMI Research. But otherwise there have been few tangible results, said Carl Thayer, a Vietnam expert in Australia who has studied the army since the 1980s.

“Over time the government tried to push the military out of purely commercial activities,” he said. “It looks like the impetus has died off.”

Le Thi Thanh Hoa, who sells birds on a road beside the new golf course adjacent to the airport, said the army is the landlord for her business and dozens of others in the area.

“Doing business with the army is good because its prices are stable,” she said, adding that she has paid the same rent — 30 million dong ($1,389) per month — for about five years. “The army’s very powerful, and it controls this whole area.”

The Tan Son Nhat Golf Course is about half a kilometer away, on the other side of a security checkpoint. Its focal point is its clubhouse, the Him Lam Palace, a palatial building with marbled floors and an eight-tiered, gold-plated chandelier in its lobby.

On a recent weekday afternoon, workers were installing lighting and hoisting palm trees on the course as a smattering of golfers tried their luck at the tees and putting greens. A plane thundered by every few minutes on the nearby runway.

Him Lam, the private company whose logo is on the course’s clubhouse, has “significant” Ministry of Defense contacts and participates in several large-scale projects on military-owned properties, an American diplomat wrote in 2006, according to a U.S. Embassy cable released by WikiLeaks. The cable said Duong Cong Minh, who is now Him Lam’s board chairman, told the diplomat that land and property rents are among the ministry’s primary sources of “off-budget” revenue.

The airport currently handles 20 million passengers a year and is projected to max out at its design capacity of 25 million by 2017. Vietnam’s transport minister, Dinh La Thang, has said building a new airport is the country’s only feasible option because expanding the airport would increase traffic, pollution and the potential for air accidents while requiring the relocation of 140,000 families that occupy 541 hectares (1,336 acres) of adjacent land.

But Sanh, the airport’s former flight manager, said building another runway and terminal and some parking lots next door could boost the capacity to 45 million passengers a year. He added that the price tag of a new airport — nearly a tenth of Vietnam’s $184 billion gross domestic product — would be too big a financial strain.

Last year he and a retired military pilot, Mai Trong Tuan, sent a letter to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung outlining that position. They are still waiting to hear back.

I had read that article, looks like the army wants to keep the golf course and make the country spend billions in a new airport. It seems like they are calling the shots.

 

[Aqsuperman]

What missile gunship and naval cannon?

I quite sure the ship will be the Monilya class with 16 Kh-35UV but the Naval cannon maybe the AK-176 and Ak-630 ? :v

 

[Carlosa]

I quite sure the ship will be the Monilya class with 16 Kh-35UV but the Naval cannon maybe the AK-176 and Ak-630 ? :v

But the AK-176 and Ak-630 are not produced in Vietnam or are they planning to do that?

 

[William Hung]

But the AK-176 and Ak-630 are not produced in Vietnam or are they planning to do that?

That article did not mention any naval gun. It only talks about weapons that VN have previously produced or is currently producing. So the short range SAM = manpads, infantry rifle = Galil, missile boat = Molniya, gunboat = TT400TP.

 

[Soryu]

Việt Nam sản xuất súng Galil ACE và hơn thế nữa | soha.vn

translate

z111 factory with production capacity of 50,000 assault rifles a year. Vietnam buys the technology and complete assembly line for $170m from Israel last year (cheaper than Russia that demands $250m for AK-100). the factory currently speeds up the process producing additional 3,000 rifles for the September revolution parade.

besides, the Politburo approves many key projects, including short-range air defense system, missile gunship, naval cannon etc. with future outlook of the army in 10-15 years.

Galil rifle ACE 31

I'm not expert in this, but I still think Galil will be for export and serve in some unit, but not for full army's standard rifle.
Best things that we got from the deal with Israel are technology and assembly line to produce modern rifle with cheaper price compare to Russian offer.
AK series are still best choice, old version has lacked of ergonomic and flexibility, but new and modified version can fix that flaw.

Since Russian armed forces made their modernized progressing faster, so we can get more old stuff from them with more cheaper prices than now. T-72, T-90, BMP, BTR, Ak-103, 105, even AK-12 ... can come in near future.

I had read that article, looks like the army wants to keep the golf course and make the country spend billions in a new airport. It seems like they are calling the shots.

There's reason for Government and Top Brass go with that decision, those golf course also serves as vertical height clearance of Tan Son Nhat airport, so if we use those space to expland airport size, we will need more space, need spend more much money for compensation
.
And also, TSN airport has some sections for military use, so best choice may that we should build big new modern and great access routes airport.

 

[Carlosa]

There's reason for Government and Top Brass go with that decision, those golf course also serves as vertical height clearance of Tan Son Nhat airport, so if we use those space to expland airport size, we will need more space, need spend more much money for compensation
.
And also, TSN airport has some sections for military use, so best choice may that we should build big new modern and great access routes airport.

Ohh ok, I didn't know about that. Makes sense.

 

[Viet]

What missile gunship and naval cannon?

the article does not reveal details, it can be the stuffs as yoru and others say: molniya corvette and AK ship guns.
I guess once the drafted "military cooperation pact" with russia is signed, we get technology transfer for AK and other toys. the russians are a bit hesitant because they don´t want to anger the chinese too much.

on the other side, russia is keen to keep the balance of powers in the region. she has no interest if china dominates the region, least the south china sea. helping vietnam to counter china is part of the game. if china controls the important sea lanes, the sky, what would happen to the russia pacific fleet? the strategic bombers? their fate would be sealed.

Russia’s Game in Southeast Asia | The Jamestown Foundation

I'm not expert in this, but I still think Galil will be for export and serve in some unit, but not for full army's standard rifle.
Best things that we got from the deal with Israel are technology and assembly line to produce modern rifle with cheaper price compare to Russian offer.
AK series are still best choice, old version has lacked of ergonomic and flexibility, but new and modified version can fix that flaw.

Since Russian armed forces made their modernized progressing faster, so we can get more old stuff from them with more cheaper prices than now. T-72, T-90, BMP, BTR, Ak-103, 105, even AK-12 ... can come in near future.



There's reason for Government and Top Brass go with that decision, those golf course also serves as vertical height clearance of Tan Son Nhat airport, so if we use those space to expland airport size, we will need more space, need spend more much money for compensation
.
And also, TSN airport has some sections for military use, so best choice may that we should build big new modern and great access routes airport.

yes, once our demand is satisfied, it is planned to export Galil assualt rifles to other friendly countries.