Vietnam’s first domestically designed anti-submarine frigate marks an ambitious attempt to leverage limited naval resources to achieve asymmetric deterrence while accelerating the country’s shift toward a more self-reliant and diversified defense-industrial base.
This month, multiple media outlets reported that Vietnam has begun constructing its largest and most advanced domestically designed surface warship, launching the steel-cutting ceremony for a multi-purpose anti-submarine frigate at the defense ministry’s Song Thu Shipyard in Da Nang.
Built by Song Thu Corporation under the supervision of the Vietnam People’s Navy (VPN), the unnamed vessel is slated for completion within 36 months to bolster maritime sovereignty and counter sub-surface threats in the South China Sea.
Developed alongside state-run telecom giant Viettel and domestic defense units, the frigate integrates indigenous active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar systems, air-defense missiles, and VCM-01 anti-ship missiles.
Designed to embark a Kamov Ka-28 anti-submarine helicopter, the ship retains Russian-derived armament, including a 76.2-millimeter main gun, RBU-6000 anti-submarine rocket launchers, vertical launch systems (VLS), and torpedo tubes.
During the frigate’s groundbreaking ceremony, Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Defense Lieutenant General Pham Hoai Nam framed the project as part of a broader effort to strengthen maritime sovereignty, modernize the navy and gain greater strategic autonomy in weapons and shipbuilding, with domestic production also aimed at reducing dependence on foreign military technology.
Vietnamese officials have not publicly identified a specific adversary the frigate is intended to counter. Still, Vietnam is engaged in long-running territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea and has fought naval clashes over disputed features.
While the frigate itself does little to address the significant naval power gap between Vietnam and China, it should be viewed in the context of Vietnam’s broader asymmetric naval strategy.
As of March 2026, China has about 60 submarines, including six nuclear attack submarines (SSNs), two nuclear guided-missile submarines (SSGNs), six nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), and more than 50 conventional submarines (SSKs); by contrast, Vietnam has six Kilo-class SSKs.
In response to that imbalance, Vietnam could adopt a two-tier asymmetric naval posture: its Kilo-class SSKs could hold China’s major surface combatants at risk, while its anti-submarine frigates could threaten Chinese submarines.
Vietnam could also employ these assets under a fleet-in-being strategy, avoiding the need to destroy Chinese ships and submarines outright while making contested waters sufficiently dangerous to constrain China’s freedom of action. The presence of anti-submarine frigates in critical waters such as the Gulf of Tonkin could complicate China’s operational calculus.
Turning that concept into a credible wartime capability, however, could prove difficult. As noted by Evan Laksmana in a February 2026 report for the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), Vietnam conducts only one blue-water exercise a year, with its four Gepard-class frigates and other ships going out to sea only two or three times a month, and rarely beyond the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
Laksmana points out that the maintenance costs for Vietnam’s Kilo-class SSKs may be three times their acquisition costs, which keeps them mostly at port or on display for ceremonial purposes.
Beyond potentially unsustainable costs, Vietnam’s shipbuilding industry may face significant bottlenecks, including a lack of metallurgical expertise and machinery manufacturing capacity, reliance on imported materials, aging shipyards, outdated technology, and insufficient capital.
Moreover, Nory Ly points out in a June 2026 Modern Diplomacy article that Vietnam’s state-owned Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (SBIC) has entered bankruptcy proceedings, while secondary sanctions risks on Russian arms purchases add complexity to planning.
Achieving that strategic autonomy, however, may prove difficult given Vietnam’s continuing dependence on Russian technical know-how.
In a 2025 article in the peer-reviewed Russian Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Nghiem Tuan Hung notes that 70% of Vietnam’s heavy military equipment still comes from Russia, making a sudden transition to systems from other manufacturers impractical. Hung highlights that maintenance, spare parts, training, and systems integration keep Russia central to Vietnam’s defense architecture.
That dependence also gives Vietnam strong incentives to diversify its defense suppliers. Le Thi Phuong Loan and Bach Thai Hien note in an April 2026 article in the peer-reviewed Journal of Science and Technology of the University of Da Nang (UD-JST) that Russia’s increasingly close ties with China raise questions about Russia’s reliability as a strategic partner.
They also point out that the Russia-Vietnam defense partnership framework itself prioritizes stability over military integration, deliberately avoiding joint defense commitments.
Rather than abruptly replacing Russia, Vietnam has increasingly diversified its defense partnerships to plug capability gaps, reduce dependence on a single supplier, and preserve strategic autonomy.
For instance, in May 2026, Vietnam signed a deal with India for BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, making Vietnam the second customer of the type after the Philippines. The BrahMos would complement Russian-origin missiles already in service alongside domestically developed systems such as the VCM-01.
Beyond India, Israel has emerged as a major supplier, providing small arms, spy satellites, SPYDER air defense systems, Heron drones, and EXTRA rocket artillery systems, the latter reportedly deployed on Vietnam-held features in the South China Sea.
South Korea has also supplied K9 155-millimeter howitzers to Vietnam, with that purchase marking a small but significant departure from Russian artillery calibers.
In 2016, the US also lifted a decades-long arms embargo on Vietnam, enabling the transfer of Hamilton-class Coast Guard cutters and T-6C trainer aircraft, though political sensitivities may still constrain purchases of higher-end systems such as F-16 fighters that could unsettle both Russia and China.
Underlying both domestic defense production and supplier diversification is Vietnam’s ambition to become a more self-reliant middle power without being forced to choose sides, writes Phan Xuan Dung in an October 2022 Asia Policy article.
Dung notes that Vietnam’s historical experiences, along with its concerns for maintaining the Vietnamese Communist Party’s hold on power, ensure that the country pursues a non-aligned foreign policy.
He stresses that while Vietnam is increasingly wary of China’s behavior, it is unlikely to enter into a formal alliance with the US but will continue to leverage multilateral avenues to counterbalance China’s influence.
Ultimately, the strategic significance of Vietnam’s new anti-submarine frigate will depend not on whether it can narrow the naval balance with China, but on whether the country can turn a one-off indigenous warship into a sustainable, diversified defense-industrial ecosystem capable of imposing credible undersea-denial costs on China without trading dependence on Russia for dependence on yet another external power.
