Vietnam Defence Forum

[Fsjal]

Test firing of a newly built missile boat

Is it a Vietnamese version of Osa class?

 

[ViXuyen]

Is it a Vietnamese version of Osa class?

It's the Molniya

 

[Viet]

the Kilos will be equipped with 3M-54 Klub missiles and TEST-71 torpedos, Russia´s ones of most advanced weapons.

Research Institute Stockholm International Peace SIPRI's report showed that Vietnam has ordered a total of 50 antiship cruise missiles 3M-54 Klub (range 200km), 80 antiship torpedo 53-65 and 80 anti-ship/anti-submarine TEST-71 torpedo (range 20km).

by 2016, we will have the most modern fleet submarine in the region.

DEFENSE STUDIES: Arrival of 3 Killers Which Equips Kilo Submarine of Vietnamese Navy

3M-54 Klub

TEST-71 torpedo

 

[ViXuyen]

 

[ViXuyen]

DN-2000 #8002

 

[Viet]

I like the pics

Dien Bien Phu´s victory parade

 

[Viet]

 

[Viet]

credit to International- german.china.org.cn - Vietnam: großangelegte Parade abgenommen

 

[Viet]

a guided missile frigate "Gepard" seen in Da Nang city

 

[Viet]

as the tension with China has escalated, the WSJ reports Vietnam looks to purchase Eurofighter Typhoon or the Gripen, built by Sweden's Saab.

Typhoon

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304431104579551503192742852?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304431104579551503192742852.html


Interesting now to see how Russia responds to this escalation.
a media assumes the tension will damage China relationship to Russia.

Comment: The world's most dangerous water fight | SBS News

 

[ViXuyen]

as the tension with China has escalated, the WSJ reports Vietnam looks to purchase Eurofighter Typhoon or the Gripen, built by Sweden's Saab.

Typhoon

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304431104579551503192742852?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304431104579551503192742852.html


Interesting now to see how Russia responds to this escalation.
a media assumes the tension will damage China relationship to Russia.

Comment: The world's most dangerous water fight | SBS News

Do you have the full paid subscription article? Can you paste the entire article here? The WSJ tend to have very accurate news as I remember it was the first to break the news about Vietnam and U.S were negotiating on nuclear cooperation

 

[Viet]

@ViXueng, here is the full article. I enlarge the font of the parts with fighter jets Typhoon and Gripen.


ASIA NEWS

Vietnam Seeks to Be a Tough Adversary to China
Ahead of Tensions Over Oil Rig, Hanoi Had Taken Steps to Beef Up Military

By
TREFOR MOSS
The Wallstreet Journal
May 9, 2014 8:11 a.m. ET

A Chinese ship using a water cannon on a Vietnamese ship in disputed waters in the South China Sea. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Long before China towed a huge oil platform into disputed waters east of Vietnam this week, the Vietnamese government started making preparations for just this situation.

Its response to the increased assertiveness of its powerful neighbor to the north, leaders decided, should be to invest heavily in advanced military capabilities—especially naval systems—that would make Beijing think twice before threatening Vietnamese interests.

Not all of Hanoi's new military hardware had had time to arrive when over the past week tensions escalated over China's plans to start drilling for oil in disputed waters off Vietnam. It isn't clear whether more military might would have given China pause. Nor is it clear what the implications of a Chinese neighbor more aggressively arming itself may be for an already fragile regional-security landscape.

Like several of its neighbors, Vietnam has overlapping claims with China to large swaths of the South China Sea, including areas believed to be rich in energy reserves.

Their rivalry has ended in bloodshed in the past, with scores of Vietnamese troops dying in two separate clashes over disputed islets in the 1970s and 1980s. China remains in control of the territory it seized during those battles —a fact which irks Vietnamese nationalists to this day. But clashes haven't always been one-sided victories for China. A 1979 border war, which was supposed to be a punitive incursion after Vietnam invaded Chinese ally Cambodia, ended inconclusively, with China bloodied.

Now, Vietnam is beefing up its firepower hoping to improve its odds in these exchanges.

"Vietnam has ordered these [new capabilities] as a deterrent to China and to show, if push comes to shove, that they'd be able to give China a bloody nose," said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, a Singapore-based think tank.

A new submarine fleet, comprising six Russian Kilo-class submarines, will be the jewel in the crown of Vietnamese defense—once it is up and running. But only two of the six boats have been delivered so far, and they won't be fully operational for a while.

And even when all the orders have been delivered, Vietnam will still be far behind China in terms of military might. China is also rapidly modernizing its armed forces, and outguns Vietnam in every department—especially when it comes to naval forces. The Chinese navy possesses a fleet of 60 frigates and destroyers, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, as well as 35 attack submarines—although not all of these are tasked in the South China Sea.

Vietnam has various types of advanced military equipment in the pipeline besides its much-prized submarines. These include six new Gepard 3.9 frigates and 10 Molniya fast-attack craft from Russia, as well as two state-of-the-art Sigma corvettes from the Netherlands. These are all fast, and in some cases stealthy, types of ship armed with antiship missiles capable of denying Chinese vessels access to waters claimed by Hanoi.

The Russians are also helping Vietnam set up an antiship-missile production facility in the country, while providing the Vietnamese air force with a third squadron of modern Sukhoi Su-30MK2 fighter aircraft—an advanced jet which China itself operates.

Hanoi is meanwhile evaluating several European fighter jets, Mr. Huxley said, including the Eurofighter Typhoon, and the Gripen, built by Sweden's Saab,SAAB-B.SK +1.42% with a view to further augmenting its air power. The addition of advanced European fighters could give Hanoi an important edge over Beijing, which is prevented from buying Western materiel by long-standing arms embargoes. China is, however, developing its own next-generation fighter aircraft.

Gripen

Vietnam won't assemble an arsenal to rival China's, but its determined efforts to modernize its military could be sufficient to help shape future Chinese behavior, said Tim Huxley, the executive director of IISS-Asia, a security think tank.

He said, "The Vietnamese are serious customers," whose history of resistance against both the U.S. and China in the 1960s and 1970s still looms large in the national consciousness. "Vietnam can never defeat China," Mr. Huxley continued, "but they can offer bloody resistance to China."

As a fellow Communist regime which must be responsive to nationalist pressures, Beijing understands that Hanoi cannot allow itself to be humiliated when it comes to the protection of national sovereignty, he said, "and so China cannot be sure at what point Vietnam would respond militarily." That uncertainty would serve as a brake on Chinese actions that could potentially invite Vietnamese reprisals, he said.

In addition, the bond between the two neighbors, though strained at times, is also deep, both culturally and economically. Communications are frequent: A deputy Vietnamese prime minister attended last month's Boao forum, a Chinese-government sponsored talk shop on Hainan island. Their militaries, too, have periodic visits, and in 2013 the two sides agreed to set up a hotline between their two navies to help reduce the risk of conflict.

Meanwhile, Vietnam's military buildup to counter China stands in stark contrast to some of China's other neighbors also involved in territorial spats, such as the Philippines, which is taking China to court in The Hague, accusing it of breaching the United Nations Law of the Sea through its territorial claims.

Some in Vietnam ask whether a military buildup alone will be enough to temper Chinese behavior.

"Vietnam should take stronger diplomatic steps," argued Tran Cong Truc, a former head of Vietnam's National Border Committee. "Maybe it's time for Vietnam to quickly sue China" at the U.N.," he suggested, following the lead of the Philippines.

However, Mr. Storey said that China's outright rejection of the U.N. tribunal launched at the Philippines' request would be more likely to convince Hanoi that it needed to double down on its military approach, and order still more new weaponry.

"Events like [the deployment of the Chinese oil rig] will simply accelerate Vietnam's military modernization," he said.

—Vu Trong Khanh in Hanoi contributed to this article.

 

[Viet]

but neither Typhoon nor Gripen are designed to carry nuclear weapons.

if Vietnam wants nuclear deterrence, we will need a fleet of F-35s, and of course the permission and supports of Uncle Sam. What about the costs?

well, Israel signed a deal in 2013 to acquire 19 Stealth bombers for $2.7b. So similar about the amount of our fleet of 6 Kilo subs.

Report: New F-35 Fighter Plane that Israel Purchased from U.S. Can Carry a Nuclear Bomb | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com

 

[BoQ77]

It better to see ASEAN countries could joint operate in regional security group for defending ourselves. there would be a force with about 30 submarines, hundreds of surface combatants, 500+ modern aircrafts, dozen of military bases for common usage.

 

[Soryu]

Very nice clip about Vietnam People Navy: