Vietnam-France: Strengthening cooperation in defense

The third meeting of the Joint Cooperation Committee in the Vietnam-France defense was held Wednesday in Hanoi, under the aegis of Army Corps General Nguyen Chi Vinh, Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Defence, and the general body of Army Gratien Maire, Deputy Chief of Staff of the International Relations Staff of the armies of France.

Both parties have made much of multisectoral cooperation between the Ministries of Defence of both countries, including staff training, exchange of delegations from all levels of applied science and technology in the defense ...

On this occasion, they proposed measures to strengthen bilateral cooperation in various sectors effectively as maritime safety, maritime patrol, training of cadres of the Navy, Air Force, the Army and military medicine.

Delegates also discussed a number of regional and international issues of common interest which relate to security and peace in the world.

The General Nguyen Chi Vinh and Gratien Maire signed the minutes of the 3rd meeting of the Joint Cooperation Committee in the Vietnam-France defense.

401st Completes M1114 Vehicle Transfer to Afghan National Army

A historic mission for the 401st Army Field Support Brigade came to an end, Nov. 12, when AFSBn-Bagram issued 49 M1114 vehicles to the Afghan National Army, under a Foreign Military Sales case.

The 49 vehicles were the last of more than 950 vehicles that were involved in the program that lasted about two and one-half years. Before the vehicles were turned over to the ANA, they were completely checked and restored to a fully mission capable status at AFSBn-Bagram and Camp Lindsey near Kandahar. In some cases, the vehicle was practically rebuilt from the ground up, while other vehicles required only minor repair and refurbishment.

"Almost every component [of the vehicle] was touched," said Michael A. Fiame, 401st AFSB equipment specialist. "The suspension, tires, whatever was needed."

For approximately one year, AFSBn-BAF conducted a maintenance mentorship program in which Afghan soldiers worked alongside battalion mechanics to learn more about the vehicles and improve their proficiency in maintaining them. They worked on the very vehicles that were turned over to the ANA under the sales case.

Launched of the Second Vietnamese Submarine Project 06361

On December 28, 2012 at JSC "Admiralty Shipyards" in St. Petersburg, was taken out of the factory and launched the second built for the Vietnamese Navy large diesel-electric submarine of Project 06361 - "HQ-183 Hồ Chí Minh" (construction number 01340). The boat was laid down in the workshop № 12 "Admiralty Shipyards" on September 28, 2011.

The contract for the construction of Vietnamese six submarines 06361 to about $ 2 billion dollars was awarded by "Rosoboronexport" in December 2009. Given the construction of infrastructure, supply of arms and other total cost of the agreement reached 4 billion.