As science and technology, innovation and digital transformation are profoundly reshaping production methods and creating new sources of defense power, the need for technological self-reliance has become increasingly urgent. In implementing Politburo Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW, dated December 22, 2024, defense industry factories are shifting from mastering individual products to building comprehensive capabilities, from mastering individual stages of production to controlling whole value chains, with highly skilled human resources serving as the foundation. This marks a fundamental shift toward building a defense industry that is self-reliant, self-strengthening, dual-use and modern.
Part 1: From military factories to technological mastery
In the defense industry, a finished product is the visible part of an ecosystem of capabilities encompassing research, design, prototyping, testing, manufacturing, integration and improvement. Ultimately, strategic self-reliance means technological self-reliance. For Viet Nam, this has been a journey from military factories deep in forests and remote mountainous areas, where human hands and minds produced weapons for the resistance wars, to mastering modern, core and foundational technologies.
“Pro-active and self-reliant” through human ingenuity
In the early days of building the revolutionary armed forces, the Viet Nam People's Army faced severe shortages of weapons and equipment. Starting with firearms donated by people and weapons captured from the enemy, the military ordnance sector gradually took shape under extremely difficult conditions, relying on nothing but human hands, determination and ingenuity.
    |
 |
|
Workers at Factory Z111 carry out the final assembly of defense products. |
Against this backdrop, engineer Tran Dai Nghia and his colleagues successfully researched and developed Bazooka launchers and ammunition, SKZ recoilless rifles and flying bombs.
After the Dien Bien Phu victory, Factory Z1 (now Factory Z111), Factory Z2 (now Factory Z113) and numerous other military ordnance facilities were built and expanded. Yet the war continued to impose harsh demands. Many factories had to evacuate deep into forests, moving machinery and production lines into mountain caves to protect them from air strikes. Despite these challenges, Z factories consistently demonstrated initiative and self-reliance, successfully fulfilling their assigned missions.
Factory Z127 is a notable example. From 1966 to 1975, the factory produced more than 9 million mortar shell bodies, tens of thousands of range-extension tubes, more than 11.2 million grenade and mine casings of various types, and cast and forged more than 5,000 tons of steel and copper.
If self-reliance during wartime was measured by the ability to rapidly produce weapons and ammunition, today it is measured by the ability to master science and technology, design, core technologies and foundational technologies, as well as the capacity to absorb, improve and develop new technologies.
Mastery is a capability that must be proven in practice. A technology only becomes a genuinely self-reliant capability when domestic personnel can understand its underlying principles, operate it reliably, respond to changing situations, adapt it to new mission requirements and develop new products. Such technological autonomy creates strategic room for maneuver, helping the defense industry avoid becoming overly dependent on disruptions in global supply chains.
Mastering technology to drive breakthrough
The need has become even more urgent as science and technology advance at an unprecedented pace. Artificial intelligence, big data, robotics, automation, electronics, advanced materials, advanced manufacturing, telecommunications and space technologies are profoundly transforming research and production methods.
Politburo Resolution No. 57 places science and technology, innovation and digital transformation at the heart of the country's development as key drivers of growth. The CMC has also issued Resolution No. 3488-NQ/QUTW on breakthroughs in science and technology, innovation and digital transformation in the military.
At the General Department of Defense Industry and its factories, these requirements are being translated into concrete initiatives, including technological research and upgrades, the development of smart factories, automation, and the digitalization of management and production operations.
According to Colonel Dang Duy Thai, Deputy Director of Factory Z111, the successful design and manufacture of new and modern weapons and technical equipment have demonstrated the factory’s ability to master technology and conduct research, design and manufacture complete systems.
This has also enabled the factory to invest in new equipment and technologies while making use of existing production lines to enhance manufacturing capacity, meet the operational requirements of the armed forces under new conditions, and strengthen the self-reliance and resilience of the defense industry.
Deputy Director of Factory Z113 Senior Colonel Ly Thanh Minh stressed that achieving a breakthrough requires a leap forward. The factory is focusing on researching and upgrading weapons while developing unmanned aerial vehicles, combining scientific and technological research with existing manufacturing capabilities.
Along with high-tech research, Z factories are accelerating the development of smart factories and automation, while deploying enterprise resource planning (ERP) and manufacturing execution systems (MES).
From the military factories hidden in mountains and forests during wartime to today’s digitalized production lines, the spirit of being “pro-active, self-reliant and self-strengthening” remains fundamentally unchanged. What has changed is the increasingly demanding standard by which self-reliance is measured.
In the past, it meant being able to produce weapons despite severe shortages. Today, it means being able to generate knowledge, develop technologies and build new industrial capabilities independently.
This represents a shift from self-reliance in products to self-reliance in capabilities - a strategic transformation on the path toward building a modern, dual-use Vietnamese defense industry capable of mastering the technologies of the future.
(To be continued)
Translated by Quynh Oanh