People's Army of Vietnam Special Forces

The Special Operation Force Arms (SOFA; Vietnamese: Binh chủng Đặc công^[2]) are an arm and the special forces of the People's Army of Vietnam (VPA).^[1] SOFA attacks targets in enemy rear areas.^[2]

The Viet Minh (VM) used commandos during the First Indochina War. A commando organization developed that stationed units in strategic areas and operated on land, rivers and at sea. Operations included coordinated attacks on 50 French watchtowers in Biên Hòa on March 21 and March 23, 1950; and attacks on Phú Thọ, the Tân An bomb depot, Cát Bi airport and Gia Lam Airport towards the end of the war.^[2]

After the 1954 Geneva Conference, VPA commandos began infiltrating into and attacking targets in South Vietnam; the first unit was the 60th Company. Specialized and mobile commando units were developed. In 1961 and 1962, VPA 5th Military Region in South Vietnam was reinforced with 1,122 men from 10 specialized commando companies and a mobile battalion. VPA commandoes were tasked with conducting guerrilla warfare in South Vietnam.^[2]

Tactics to attack strategic command centers were developed during the period when American forces joined the war. VPA commandos attacked the Brinks Hotel and USNS Card in 1964, and Camp Holloway in 1965.^[2]

On March 19, 1967, VPA Special Operations was created by Ho Chi Minh, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam.^[2] The organization's first commander was Colonel Nguyễn Chí Điềm.^[1]

VPA commandos were involved in combat operations during the 1968 Tet Offensive.^[2] A study for the US Commander, Naval Forces Vietnam reported 88 successful VPA frogman attacks from January 1962 to June 1969, causing 210 killed and 325 wounded for 20 sappers killed or captured. A frogman attack on the tank landing ship USS Westchester County in 1968 killed 25 and wounded 27; it was the United States Navy's single deadliest combat incident during the war.^[3]

On the night of January 21–22, 1971, a hundred or so-strong PAVN "Sapper" Commando force (Đặc Công, equivalent of "spec op" in English) managed to pass undetected through the defensive perimeter of the Special Military Region (Région Militaire Speciale – RMS) set by the Cambodian Army around Phnom Penh and carried out a spectacular raid on Pochentong airbase. Broken into six smaller detachments armed mostly with AK-47 assault rifles and RPG-7 anti-tank rocket launchers, the PAVN raiders succeeded in scaling the barbed-wire fence and quickly overwhelmed the poorly armed airmen of the Security Battalion on duty that night. Once inside the facility, the raiders unleashed a furious barrage of small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades against any aircraft they found on the parking area adjacent to the runway and nearby buildings; one of the commando teams even scaled the adjoining commercial terminal of the civilian airport and after taking position at the international restaurant located on the roof, they fired a rocket into the napalm supply depot near the RVNAF apron.

When the smoke cleared the next morning, the Khmer Air Force had been virtually annihilated. A total of 69 aircraft stationed at Pochentong at the time were either completely destroyed or severely damaged on the ground, including many T-28D Trojans, nearly all the Shenyang, MiG, T-37B and Fouga Magister jets, all the L-19A Bird Dogs and An-2 transports, the UH-1 helicopter gunships, three VNAF O-1 Bird Dogs and even a VIP transport recently presented to President Lon Nol by the South Vietnamese government. Apart from the aircraft losses, 39 AVNK officers and enlisted men had lost their lives and another 170 were injured. The only airframes that escaped destruction were six T-28D Trojans temporarily deployed to Battambang, ten GY-80 Horizon light trainers (also stationed at Battambang), eight Alouette II and Alouette III helicopters, two Sikorsky H-34 helicopters, one T-37B jet trainer, and a single Fouga Magister jet that had been grounded for repairs. Pochentong airbase was closed for almost a week while the damage was assessed, wreckage removed, the runway repaired, and the stocks of fuel and ammunitions replenished.^[4][5][6][7]

Similar raids occurred the following year against U-Tapao Airfield which housed Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers, with three bombers being damaged and a Thai sentry killed.^[8]

Training of foreign commando units in Southeast Asia and Latin America

The effectiveness of the Dac Cong during the Vietnam War saw them instruct various other countries and Marxist rebel groups. From the 1970s to 1990s, they covertly provided training at the PAVN Special Forces School in Vietnam, by Vietnamese advisors assigned to the Cuban Army’s Sapper School in Cuba, and, during the 1980s, by a secret Vietnamese sapper training team stationed in Nicaragua.  In addition to training Cambodian, Laotian, Soviet, and Cuban military personnel, their publications revealed that among the foreign revolutionary forces that received training in sapper tactics, bomb-making, and the use of weapons and explosives, were members of the Marxist El Salvadoran FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front), the Chilean MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left) fighting against the dictatorial regime of Augusto Pinochet, as well as the Colombian FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) movement, a Marxist guerilla group that was also heavily involved in narcotics trafficking.^[9]

• Vietnam People's Ground Force
  • 2 special forces brigades^[10]
• Vietnam People's Navy Naval Infantry
  • 1 commando brigade^[11]

• International Institute for Strategic Studies, ed. (2025). The Military Balance 2025. London: Routledge. p. 245-246. ISBN 978-1-041-04967-8.