On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of its establishment (April 1966 - April 2026), Lieutenant Colonel Hoang Van Vinh - Deputy Brigade Commander, Chief of Staff of Brigade 126 has just written an article about the elite special forces of the Vietnam People's Navy.
According to Senior Lieutenant Colonel Hoang Van Vinh, immediately after its establishment (April 13, 1966), Regiment 126 (now Naval Special Forces Brigade 126) thoroughly grasped the ideology of directing to win with less, to win with more, to secretly attack, secretly destroy, and deeply penetrate and attack the enemy's rear base.
This specific task requirement requires the weapons and equipment of the Navy Special Forces to be compact, easy to carry, transport through complex terrain but ensure large destructive power, suitable for the specific operations on rivers and waters.
Combat training is identified as the central task, the key stage. Soldiers are trained proficiently in all kinds of bombs, mines, explosives, B40, B41 guns, DKZ guns, along with the skill of using punctuation timers to cause explosions... These basic knowledge have trained brave and confident special forces soldiers to perform their duties.
Brigade 126 regularly innovates methods, strengthens the application of science and technology in training, exploitation, and mastering advanced weapons and equipment, achieving many outstanding results.
The unit deploys training closely, synchronously, and uniformly in the direction of " elite, battle-hardened, modern"; implementing the criteria of "good swimming and diving, good shooting, good martial arts, good combat and good physical training".
At the same time, combine training with endurance training in complex combat environments (storms, wind, dangerous terrain); focus on mastering technical equipment, controlling and destroying unmanned vehicles in the air, ground, and water.
The unit also focuses on exploiting new equipment, deep diving systems, specialized equipment for frogman commandos, counter-terrorism, specialized ships. Improving field training combined with combat readiness duty; parachuting, air landing for counter-terrorism forces in strategic areas; coordinating frogman commandos with submarines and surface ships to protect sea and island sovereignty.
From thoroughly grasping and organizing in-depth and practical training on task requirements, Brigade 126 always receives and successfully completes the tasks of disaster prevention and control, search and rescue on rivers and at sea such as: rescuing Su 22 aircraft (in Phu Quy, Binh Thuan), Su 30MK-2 aircraft (in Nghe An), Vietship 01 ship (in Cua Viet, Quang Tri), Bell-505 aircraft, Vinh Xanh 58 tourist ship (on Ha Long Bay, Quang Ninh); rescuing Phong Chau bridge collapse (Phu Tho province); rescuing tourist ship at Thac Ba lake (Lao Cai province in February 2026).
According to Senior Lieutenant Colonel Hoang Van Vinh - Deputy Brigade Commander, Chief of Staff of Brigade 126, in the face of increasingly high requirements for protecting sea and island sovereignty, Brigade 126 determines that good training is the foundation for building elite forces, the basis for soldiers to proficiently use modern weapons, maintaining the unit always in a high combat readiness state, ready to receive tasks.
During the years of resistance war against the US for national salvation, with more than 300 battles, officers and soldiers of Brigade 126 sank and damaged 372 ships and boats of all kinds of the enemy; destroyed tens of thousands of tons of weapons and war means; burned 28 tanks, 3 helicopters, collapsed 7 traffic bridges, prevented the enemy's mobility of support; destroyed thousands of enemy personnel.
