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In Vietnam a battalion has 31 tanks: 3 companies of 10 tanks each plus the commanding tank.

Depends from country to country. 35 or 45 or 59.




These tanks are in transit for a transfer, not battle ready for war, so side skirts arent required at this instant.
 
VV is right. In all the wars the Chinese raged against Vietnam they always fielded mass of soldiers that stormed Vietnamese defense lines. Read the war in the 14 century during the Ming dynasty.Chinese soldiers fell in mass but they kept coming.

Viva is a quality guy....and he adds to it by having 20+ chinese trolls here for breakfast whenever he pleases :cool:...they honestly don't know how bad it looks optically for them (to take him on 1 vs 20 and come out worse) lol...it only adds credence to the assertions he makes (and of course the parallels in history like you mention).

In Vietnam a battalion has 31 tanks: 3 companies of 10 tanks each plus the commanding tank.

Wow thats a really small company size to begin with and only 3 of them in a battalion huh. Happy new year my friend.
 
the first T-90S MBT arrives in Vietnam
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Tough South China Sea talks ahead as Vietnam seeks to curb China's actions

Reuters
December 31, 2018

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Tough negotiations lie ahead over a new pact between China and Southeast Asian nations aimed at easing tensions in the South China Sea, as Vietnam pushes for provisions likely to prove unpalatable to Beijing, documents reviewed by Reuters suggest.

Hanoi wants the pact to outlaw many of the actions China has carried out across the hotly disputed waterway in recent years, including artificial island building, blockades and offensive weaponry such as missile deployments, according to a negotiating draft of the ASEAN Code of Conduct (COC) seen by Reuters.

The draft also shows Hanoi is pushing for a ban on any new Air Defence Identification Zone - something Beijing unilaterally announced over the East China Sea in 2013. Chinese officials have not ruled out a similar move, in which all aircraft are supposed to identify themselves to Chinese authorities, over the South China Sea.

Hanoi is also demanding states clarify their maritime claims in the vital trade route according to international law – an apparent attempt to shatter the controversial “nine-dash line” by which China claims and patrols much of the South China Sea, the draft shows.

“Going forward, there will be some very testy exchanges between the Vietnamese and China in particular over the text of this agreement,” said Singapore-based Ian Storey, a veteran South China Sea expert, who has seen the draft.

“Vietnam is including those points or activities that they want forbidden by the Code of Conduct precisely because China has been carrying these out for the last 10 years.”

Le Thi Thu Hang, a spokeswoman at the Vietnam Foreign Ministry, said negotiations on the Code of Conduct had made some progress recently, with Vietnam actively participating and other countries showing “their constructive and cooperative spirit”.

“Vietnam wishes related countries to continue their efforts and make a positive contribution to the negotiation process in order to achieve a substantive and effective COC in accordance with international law, especially the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, contributing to the maintenance of peace, stability and security in the East Sea (South China Sea) in particular and in the region in general,” she said.

Singapore’s Foreign Ministry, the chair of the 10-nation ASEAN bloc for 2018, did not respond to a request for comment.

“We cannot comment right now but Thailand certainly supports discussion on the single negotiating draft,” said Busadee Santipitaks, a spokeswoman for Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which takes over as ASEAN chair in the new year.

CHINA SEEKS BAN ON OUTSIDER DRILLS
The draft also confirms earlier reports that China wants military drills with outside powers in the South China Sea to be blocked unless all signatories agree.

In addition, Beijing wants to exclude foreign oil firms by limiting joint development deals to China and South East Asia. Experts expect both elements to be strongly resisted by some ASEAN countries.

“That is unacceptable,” one Southeast Asian diplomat told Reuters, referring specifically to the suggested ban on military drills with countries outside the region.

In a statement sent to Reuters, China’s Foreign Ministry said negotiations on the code were confidential, and it could not comment on their content.

The next round of working level talks is expected to take place in Myanmar in the first quarter of next year, the Southeast Asian diplomat said.

In August, Chinese and ASEAN officials hailed the initial negotiating text as a milestone and a breakthrough when it was endorsed by the foreign ministers of ASEAN and China.

It will be negotiated over the coming year by senior ASEAN and Chinese officials and has not yet been released publicly.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang last month called for the pact to be sealed by 2021, a timetable some envoys and analysts are skeptical can be reached.

“There’s a lot of tough work ahead - that figure seems to have just been plucked from the air,” one senior Asian diplomat said.

DEAD LETTER?
The code builds on an earlier declaration on the South China Sea signed between ASEAN and China in 2002.

That document did not prevent the vital international trade route emerging as a regional flashpoint amid China’s military rise and its extensive program of island building on disputed reefs since 2014.

The United States and other regional powers including Japan and India are not part of the negotiations, but take a strong interest in the waterway that links Northeast Asia with the Middle East and Europe.

Several countries, including Japan, India, Britain and Australia, have joined the United States in gradually increasing naval deployments through the South China Sea. They are often shadowed by Chinese naval ships.

Carl Thayer, an expert on Vietnam’s military and diplomacy at Australia’s Defence Force Academy, said Hanoi was expected to prove a tough negotiator but would need support among other ASEAN members to hold a firm line against China.

The Philippines successfully challenged Beijing’s South China Sea claims in an international arbitration case in 2016, but has reversed policy under President Rodrigo Duterte, who has avoided confronting China as he seeks to secure billions of dollars of loans and investments for his infrastructure program.

The 19-page draft remains vague in key areas including its precise geographic scope, whether it will be legally binding and how disputes will be resolved.
 
Viva is a quality guy....and he adds to it by having 20+ chinese trolls here for breakfast whenever he pleases :cool:...they honestly don't know how bad it looks optically for them (to take him on 1 vs 20 and come out worse) lol...it only adds credence to the assertions he makes (and of course the parallels in history like you mention).



Wow thats a really small company size to begin with and only 3 of them in a battalion huh. Happy new year my friend.

That's the traditional Russian/Soviet tank battalion, Vietnam follows that.
Happy New Year my friend!!!
 
That's the traditional Russian/Soviet tank battalion, Vietnam follows that.
Happy New Year my friend!!!
Hey Amigo Carlosa late Merry Christmas and Happy new year. Vietnam following big bro Russia is not a bad thing, I hope bro Putin sends some nice gifts this year though :-)
 
https://m.english.vietnamnet.vn/fms...to-set-up-weapons-manufacturer.html#ui=mobile


Last update: 11:15 | 04/01/2019

Vietnam has outlined a series of plans for strengthening the military in the 2018-2025 period with the establishment of an armament manufacturing and repair corporation, heard at a press conference held by the Ministry of Defense in Hanoi earlier this week.

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A Kilo-class submarine of Vietnam's army.


The facility is part of the country’s efforts to modernize the weapons and the entire armed forces through 2025 and the years to come, the government said on its portal, giving no details.

In the army structure, the corporation will belong to the General Corporation of Defense Industry which has a workforce of 25,000 people.

Vietnam has several weapon manufacturing factories under the Ministry of Defense. The Southeast Asian country also signed different contracts to buy weapons abroad, including one worth US$2 billion to purchase a fleet of six Kilo class submarines from Russia.

In 2012, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin affirmed to tighten cooperation with Vietnam in study, manufacturing, and maintenance of military equipment and weaponry. In return, Vietnam affirmed to allow Russia to set up a vessel maintenance depot in Vietnam’s Cam Ranh military base.

In May 2016, US President Barack Obama announced the full removal of the embargo on sales of lethal weapons to Vietnam.

So far, Vietnam’s military spending remains nonpublished except for several deals inked with big partners like Russia.
 
Fri 1/4/2019, 11:24 (GMT+7)

Vietnam restructures military into ‘focused and lean machine’


military-1546569450-9349-1546569944_r_680x0.jpg

Vietnam's defense ministry is set to merge agencies with similar functions to cut down the number of staff by 10 percent in 2021 compared to 2015. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh


Under instructions from the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission, its 88 companies have been reorganized into just 17, reducing down the number of officers by 16,000.

"The ministry has also reduced the size of some corps and reorganized them into economic units in strategic defense and security areas, and they will not participate in purely economic tasks," Lieutenant General Do Can, deputy head of the ministry's general political department, said at a meeting on Wednesday.

The ministry is set to merge agencies with similar functions to cut down the number of staff by 10 percent in 2021 compared to 2015.

The ministry has also equitized, divested from, shut down, or transferred to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs its 22 vocational schools, withdrawing the military from vocational training and employment.

Military academies are already following a roadmap to stop providing training to civilians by 2020.

"Some military schools are still training several times more civilians than military personnel," Can said, adding that the Ministry of Education and Training has agreed with the decision to end civilian training by 2020.

The ministry has also given the military's 25 hospitals financial autonomy, significantly reducing the amount of money spent on them from the government’s coffers.

It has merged the army's five newspapers into a single newspaper under the General Staff of the People's Army of Vietnam.

The military's restructuring is being carried out under a directive issued by the Politburo, the Communist Party's top decision-making body, to "build a focused and lean machine" designed for "effective work," and follows a similar restructuring by the Ministry of Public Security last August.

It also includes the dissolution or revamp of a number of units under the High Command of the Border Defense Force, reducing the number of staff by nearly 3,000, and the dissolution of 14 reserve military engineer brigades under the military's general companies.

https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/v...ry-into-focused-and-lean-machine-3863446.html
 
History

40 years ago, January 7, 1979 with support by artillery, Vietnamese tank army stormed the last bastion at Cambodia capital of Phnom Penh.

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The last Cambodia army unit surrendered.

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Its how a nation is able to act and exist and have resolve and toughness to make and see a tomorrow....when they are at bare bones, all comforts stripped away and staring at the precipice of annihilation...that is how I judge their ultimate fiber. Vietnam has earned my undying respect on it...probably more than any other in recent times.

@Viva_Viet @Carlosa
 
Its how a nation is able to act and exist and have resolve and toughness to make and see a tomorrow....when they are at bare bones, all comforts stripped away and staring at the precipice of annihilation...that is how I judge their ultimate fiber. Vietnam has earned my undying respect on it...probably more than any other in recent times.

@Viva_Viet @Carlosa

They got guts and knacks for it
 
Thu 1/3/2019, 11:39 (GMT+7)

US aircraft carrier in Vietnam among most memorable images

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A satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe to AP shows the USS Carl Vinson docked in the central city of Da Nang on March 5, 2018.

The U.S.-based Associated Press (AP) has included the picture among eight most striking news images captured by satellite imagery company DigitalGlobe in 2018.

The photo, titled "Back to Danang," which captures the USS Carl Vinson docking at Da Nang City on Vietnam’s central coast for a historic five-day visit last March, has made it into the list.

The visit marked a monumental milestone in the diplomatic relationship between the two former enemies. It was also the first time a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier docked in Vietnam, four decades after the end of the Vietnam War.

Professor Carlyle Thayer from the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defense Force Academy told VnExpress International the USS Carl Vinson has sent a message that the U.S. will maintain its naval presence in the South China Sea. Vietnam calls the waterway the East Sea.

"Vietnam has been reassured by the Trump administration that it will enhance their comprehensive partnership," he said. "This visit signals that the United States intends to remain engaged in Southeast Asia."

"From space, the message was clear in the dozens of fighter jets on deck," the AP reported.
 
Ok that makes sense. Should not be a problem to install the skirts before sending tanks into a battle.

At last Vietnam now has modern tanks. Even if we receive hundreds of T90s, I wonder how can we withstand a possible Chinese tank assault with ten of thousands of more modern tanks on the northern front?

Maybe some time in the future asking the Russians for a more powerful tank.

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The VPA has experience in fighting a numerous enemy though. The battle of Quang Tri 1972 when 7 tanks of north Vietnamese army clashed with 130 tanks of Republican Army.

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Less is more. Harder to spot and harder to aim at 1 tank vs 10 tanks. You're more like to kill masses vs a single tank.
 
Less is more. Harder to spot and harder to aim at 1 tank vs 10 tanks. You're more like to kill masses vs a single tank.
No, less is not more, sometimes it’s a certain death. A weak armor tank is an easy prey for enemy infantry. Take the war in Syria. When launching an attack on Al-Bab, a Turkish tank battalion lost 3 Leopards 2A4 in the first major battle.The IS fighters ambushed the tanks and hit from the side where the armor is thin. A good panzer is a good combination of firepower, mobility and armor. The German army phased out all Leopard 2A4. Well... the Germans sold them to Turkey and Indonesia.

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@Marine Rouge
 
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