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Vietnam Organization
PAVN (People's Army of Vietnam) is the formal name given to
all elements of the Vietnamese armed forces; hence the
designation PAVN (or People's) Navy and PAVN (or People's) Air
Force. This usage is traceable to the 1954 Geneva Agreements
under which the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) was
permitted to keep such armed forces as it already possessed. To
adhere to the letter of the agreements, DRV leaders immediately
created a navy and air force, but listed these new services as
part of PAVN. Separate naval and air forces with distinct
military identities evolved over the years, however, and
traditional interservice rivalries quickly began to assert
themselves
(see
fig. 18).
From their earliest days, the Vietnamese communists organized
their armed forces into three basic categories described
informally as "types of troops." Within the first category, the
PAVN Regular Force ("main force troops"), are the army, the navy,
and the air force. In 1987 the army consisted of about 1.2
million officers and enlisted personnel; the navy, about 15,000;
and the air force, about 20,000. The second grouping, the
Regional Force (or "territorial troops"), is organized
geographically and consists chiefly of infantry units with
limited mobility. In 1987 it totaled about 500,000. The third
category, the PAVN Militia Self-Defense Force (or "local
troops"), is a semi-mobilized element organized by community
(village, urban precinct) or economic enterprise (commune,
factory, worksite). In 1987 it numbered about 1.2 million.
Military writers in Hanoi have tended to refer to the
Regional and Militia Self-Defense forces collectively as the
Strategic Rear Force. The Regional Force is deployed at the
provincial level and has units headquartered in each provincial
capital, at the very least. The Militia Self-Defense Force
fulfills combat, combat support, and police functions from the
district to the village level. The Regional and Militia Self-
Defense forces are two of about a dozen separate military
organizations that constitute the Paramilitary Force, which is an
integral part of PAVN.
Taken together, these groups--excluding PAVN--have a total of
about 1.6 million personnel under arms. The Paramilitary Force
has four functions: to defend its local area in time of war and
to delay, not to halt, the enemy; to support PAVN regular units
in combat; to maintain local security in peace and in wartime;
and to engage in economic activity, chiefly food production and
road-building. In the deployment of troops during wartime for the
purpose of repelling a full-scale invasion, PAVN strategists make
a doctrinal distinction between the Regular Force, which would
use conventional tactics, and the Paramilitary Force, which would
employ guerrilla tactics in "local people's warfare."
Backing up the Regular and Paramilitary Forces is a reserve
of about 500,000 personnel designated the Tactical Rear Force.
This semi-mobilized body is composed mainly of veterans and
overage males, who in time of emergency would replace personnel
in the Militia Self-Defense Force. The latter would move up to
the Regional Force, whose units might in turn be upgraded into
the Regular Force.
Augmenting the Regular and Paramilitary Forces are two other
military bodies whose status or functions appear anomalous. In
the North, a "super" paramilitary force called the People's
Guerrilla Forces was created in 1979. It was described as a
special combat organization with units deployed in villages along
the China border and seacoast. However, in late 1987, little more
was known about it. In the South, a somewhat better-known
organization, designated the Armed Youth Assault Force (AYAF) or
Youth Assault Force (YAF), is reported to perform paramilitary
functions. The AYAF is organized along military lines (from
platoon to brigade) and usually is commanded by retired PAVN
officers. However, it appears to be more a party organization
than a military body reporting through defense channels. Units at
various echelons are under the supervision of local district
party committees, and the chain of command apparently leads to
Hanoi. AYAF strength in 1986 was estimated at 1.5 million.
In 1986 the PAVN chain of command was headed by the
party-government military policy-making apparatus: the National
Assembly, the Ministry of Defense, and the National Defense
Council on the government side; and the Political Bureau of the
VCP Central Committee and the Central Military Party Committee on
the party side. Because of overlapping Political Bureau and
Central Military Party Committee membership, the Central Military
Party Committee could be regarded as the ultimate power for all
military matters. It was reorganized in 1982 and consisted of a
secretary, a first deputy secretary, two deputy secretaries, and
six members. Under guidance from the Political Bureau or the
Central Committee, the Central Military Party Committee
translated the will of the party--expressed in broad political
terms--into specific instructions for the military.
The Ministry of Defense Party Committee, at the very top of
the Ministry of Defense, had an entirely military membership. It
was the highest operational party arm that dealt directly with
PAVN, and consisted of a secretary, the PAVN commander in chief,
the chiefs of the five military general-directorates (Military
General Staff Directorate, General Political Directorate, General
Rear Services Directorate, General Technical Directorate, and
General Economic Construction Directorate), and the senior
political commissars of the major subordinate commands, that is,
the air force, the navy, and the four theaters of operation (the
China border, the coast from the China border to below Da Nang,
Northern Vietnam and Northern Laos, and Cambodia). Its
secretariat was composed of a secretary general, two deputies,
and ten members. The committee administered other party
committees from the military-theater level to the basic party-
unit level. At the division level and above, party committees
were sizable permanent institutions whose function was to
interpret Political Bureau and Central Committee directives for
their respective organizations.
The major services, such as the air force and navy, had at
headquarters level a Command Party Committee with a secretariat
headed by the top political officer for the service and including
the heads of all departments. At the company level was the party
chapter, or
chi bo (see Glossary), run by an executive
committee of two or three full-time officials and made up of a
collection of party cells
(
to dang, see Glossary), each
run by a cell leader. The leaders of party chapters communicated
the party line, indoctrinated both party and nonparty members
within PAVN, directed "emulation movement" drives and other
motivational programs, recruited and purged the membership, and
generally ensured the party's participation in all military
matters.
The Ministry of Defense, organizationally, consisted of the
Office of the Minister of Defense and offices of seven vice
ministers of defense. These vice ministries were fairly small and
for the most part coordinated the activities of the Ministry of
Defense with other ministries and state organs whose activities
concerned the armed forces
(see
fig. 17).
The highest level of authority for military operations in
PAVN was the PAVN High Command, an institution encompassing the
Office of the Commander in Chief, the five military directorates,
and the offices of seven deputy chiefs of staff. The most
important element of the High Command, under the chief of staff,
was the Military General Staff Directorate, which can be likened
to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the United States Department of
Defense. At the next lower echelon were four other Military
General Directorates that functioned roughly as staff sections of
the high command. Also under the chief of staff were seven deputy
chiefs of staff, whose purpose was liaison rather than command,
and a number of specialized military commands. The PAVN Military
Intelligence Department reported directly to the commander in
chief
(see
fig. 18). It had personnel at lower levels of PAVN,
and its chief responsibility appeared to be military intelligence
activities within Vietnam and in Cambodia, where it reportedly
had a large staff. It is not known whether this department
operated outside Indochina.
The PAVN command structure was divided geographically into
four military theaters and nine military regions or zones,
including a Capital Military Region around Hanoi and Quang Ninh
Province Special Region
(see
fig. 19). It was also divided
tactically into military units ranging in descending order from
corps to divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, companies,
platoons and squads. The military-theater designation was
introduced in the midst of a postwar buildup when PAVN increased
its regular force from 400,000 to about 1.2 million members and
its divisions from 25 to 51 (38 infantry divisions and 13 support
or economic construction divisions). The number of PAVN corps was
also increased from six to eight. Creation of the military
theater and the military corps was designed to facilitate what
was called the combined arms strategy, meaning larger and more
complex military operations that might include use of indigenous
military forces from Cambodia and Laos.
A corps ranged in size from 30,000 to 50,000 troops and
normally consisted of 4 infantry divisions plus service and
support elements. A PAVN infantry division normally was composed
of 3 infantry regiments (2,500 men each), 1 artillery regiment, 1
tank battalion, and the usual support elements. A regiment in
turn was divided into battalions (600 men each) and the battalion
into companies (200 men each).
As of mid-1986, the thirty-eight PAVN regular infantry
divisions were assigned thus: nineteen in Cambodia, sixteen in
Vietnam (ten in northern Vietnam, six in central and southern
Vietnam), and three in Laos. Most of the thirteen economic
construction divisions were in the China border region. A
construction division was made up of older soldiers, including
many who had fought in the South during the Second Indochina War.
Each construction division was fully armed, had a specific
tactical purpose, and continued to carry out its military
training in addition to economic tasks, usually road building
(see The Military's Place in Society
, this ch.). These units
carried the burden of the brief 1979 war with China and generally
acquitted themselves well.
In 1987 PAVN's major combat services--artillery, armor, air
defense, and special operations--were organized along standard
lines, similar to armies elsewhere. Each consisted of a force
whose commanding officer reported to the Military General Staff
Directorate. A mystique surrounded the PAVN Special Operations
Force, successor to the legendary Sapper Combat Arm of the First
and Second Indochina Wars that specialized in sabotage and
clandestine military operations. In 1987, the Special Operations
Force consisted of two elements, the Sapper Command and the
Airborne Command (the 305th Airborne Brigade). Reportedly there
was a third element, an amphibious commando unit, about which
little was known.
The Army in 1986 was estimated to maintain 1,600 Soviet-made
T-34 -54 -55 -62, Type-59 tanks and 450 PT-76 and type 60 63
light tanks. It was also equipped with an estimated 2,700
reconnaissance vehicles; approximately 600 artillery guns and
howitzers; an unknown number of rocket launchers, mortars, and
antitank weapons; and 3,000 air defense weapons.
The PAVN Navy, begun in 1955 as the PAVN Riverine and
Maritime Force, in 1959 became the Coastal Defense Force. Its
"tradition day" is celebrated annually on August 5 to mark the
1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident in the Second Indochina War. The
PAVN Navy began a buildup in the mid-1960s with the arrival of
twenty-eight gunboats from China and thirty patrol torpedo boats
from the Soviet Union. At the end of the Second Indochina War, it
assumed the normal dual missions of a navy, that is, coastal
defense and sea surveillance.
In 1986 the PAVN Navy continued to receive Soviet assistance
and encouragement and was the largest naval force in Southeast
Asia. Including some 1,300 former United States and South
Vietnamese naval vessels, naval and civilian junks, and coasters,
the PAVN Navy had a total of about 1,500 vessels. Its inventory
contained two principal combat vessels, 192 patrol boats, 51
amphibious warfare ships, 104 landing ships, and 133 auxiliary
craft.
The command structure of the PAVN Navy originated in Hanoi,
where the commander in chief of naval forces was located. His
office, the Naval Directorate, reported to the Military general
Staff Directorate, i.e., the high command. The top operational
Commander was the Commander, Vietnam Naval Forces, headquartered
in Haiphong. The two posts were usually held by the same
individual. Regulations issued in April 1982 established three
flag-rank officers: rear admiral, equivalent to a major general;
vice admiral, equivalent to a lieutenant general; and full
admiral, equivalent to a colonel general.
Five naval regions made up the operational command.
Headquartered at Haiphong, Vinh, Da Nang, Vung Tau, and Rach Gia,
each region had two or more naval installations or facilities for
which it was responsible. Within this structure were the navy
fleets or navy groups, in turn divided into navy brigades. In
1987 the Ham Tu Fleet patrolled the northern Gulf of Tonkin as a
strategic deterrent to China; its Chuong Duong Brigade was
designed to oppose amphibious landings; its Kiet Brigade was
assigned to defend the offshore islands and to perform troop
transport duties. The Bach Dang Fleet served in the South. Its
Ham Tu Naval Brigade (with 80 percent of its personnel South
Vietnamese Navy veterans) operated almost entirely in Cambodian
waters.
The PAVN Air Force fixed April 3, 1965, as its tradition day,
the day when its pilots supposedly first engaged their United
States counterparts in a dogfight over North Vietnam, and
celebrates it annually. The Soviet Union increased the PAVN air
inventory late in the Second Indochina War and again in 1979
after the Chinese attack. As of 1985 it was estimated that the
PAVN Air Force consisted of about 1,600 planes and 20,000
personnel, making it the largest air force in Southeast Asia
(somewhere between China's and India's in size). The operational
element of the PAVN Air Force was the air regiment, of which
there were seventeen in 1987 grouped into air divisions and
headquartered at Noi Bai (Hanoi), Da Nang, Tho Xuan, and Tan Son
Nhut (Ho Chi Minh City). The air regiments included 7 attack
fighter-plane regiments (450 planes); 4 basic and advanced
training regiments (225 trainers); 3 cargo-transport regiments
(350 planes); and 3 helicopter regiments (600 helicopters). One
light bomber force (60 planes) existed separately from the air
regiments. The commander of the Air Force, headquartered at Bac
Mai Air Base outside Hanoi, reported to the General Staff
Directorate of PAVN. Strategic use of the Vietnamese Air Force,
from its inception until 1979, was entirely defensive. During the
Second Indochina War it existed to defend North Vietnam from
United States air attack, but after the war, and especially in
1979, it existed to defend Vietnam from attack by China. Although
defense remained its primary strategic function, the air force
increasingly developed an offensive capability after
1979--chiefly through its attack-helicopter regiments--for use in
Cambodia and presumably, should the need arise, against China.
The PAVN Air Force made a first tentative venture into space
flight in 1981, when Lt. Col. Phan Tuan (son of former defense
minister Vo Nguyen Giap) took part in the Soviet Union's Soyuz 37
mission, a linkup with the orbiting Soviet space laboratory,
Salyut 6.
In 1987, the PAVN Border Defense Command was the newest
military organization. Until 1979, responsibility for border
security was vested in the People's Armed Public Security Force
(PAPSF), under the control of the Ministry of Interior, and
paramilitary units acted collectively as a border patrol. Border
defense became a full-time task only with the rise of the China
threat. As a result, the Border Defense Command was transferred
to the Ministry of Defense in 1979 and divested of such
responsibilities as dealing with smugglers and illegal border
crossings so that it could devote full attention to border
defenses. The command was organized into battalions and included
a mixture of PAVN and paramilitary units. Their duties included
operating border checkpoints, patrolling the border, operating
boats in the coastal waterway network, maintaining security on
nearby islands, and operating roving border-area units (mostly
composed of Montagnards) to guard against incursions by Chinese
patrols.
Data as of December 1987
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