The Artillery Contingent of the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) has successfully completed two individual stages of the “Masters of Artillery Fire” contest. According to Colonel Nguyen Huy Thai, Deputy Head of the Artillery Contingent, the contingent is in the third place, which is likely to help them win a bronze medal in this competition. However, the final results will only be announced after the “Relay Race” stage, which will take place on August 31.
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Members of the Artillery Contingent of the Vietnam People’s Army |
This year is the second consecutive year that the VPA’s Artillery Contingent has participated in the “Masters of Artillery Fire” contest, but it is the first year that the troops compete on a MT-LB (Multipurpose Armored Vehicle) vehicle, in the training ground of Kazakhstan. The vehicle is completely different from the one that they used to compete in Russia last year. In addition, their eight opponents have participated in the competition many times. Many among them are strong such as the host Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, and Azerbaijan.
Although the competition conditions are difficult and the time to get acquainted with weapons and equipment was very limited, the artillery troops have played with their highest determination. After three days of competition, the VPA’s Artillery Contingent has successfully completed two stages of the contest, namely the “Individual Race” and the “Night Sprint,” destroying 15 out of 16 targets. Notably, only the artillery batteries of Vietnam and the host Kazakhstan could destroy all targets in the “Night Sprint” stage.
* The VPA’s Service Dog Training Contingent won a silver medal at the group competition and a bronze medal at the individual competition of the “Marksman” stage of the “True Friend” contest. In the “Dog Biathlon” stage, the Vietnamese troops ranked the forth among participating contingents.
* The VPA’s Gunsmith Master Contingent competed in the “Maintenance of the 122mm multiple launch rocket launcher BM-21 (Grad)” competition on August 28. They completed their mission after 14 minutes 37 seconds, but was only ranked third among participating contingents because of three penalties.
* The VPA’s Field Kitchen Contingent finished the “Competition on cooking and bakery products baking of the Contest-given set of ingredients according to free recipe.” They gained 73.4 points and ranked the third after the host Uzbekistan and Russia.
Translated by Trung Thanh