STV rifle
Vietnamese assault rifle family, based on IWI Galil ACE
The STV (abbreviation for Vietnamese: Súng Trường Việt Nam, lit. 'Rifle of Vietnam'; or STL, Vietnamese: Súng Tiểu liên Việt Nam, lit. 'Submachine Guns of Vietnam') is a family of Vietnamese assault rifles and submachine guns made by the Z111 Factory and chambered in 7.62×39mm.
As of 2024, the principle variant STV-380 alongside its carbine derivatives STV-215 and STV-022 have been popularly issued to VPA units alongside other paramilitary and civilian security forces in Vietnam, step-by-step replacing and succeeding the legacy Kalashnikov rifles.
History
Prior to the creation of the STV family, Vietnam considered bids from Abrams Airborne / Vltor (AV12) and the Kalashnikov Concern (AK-103), but both companies lost them with the former's internal problems forcing it to withdraw its bid.
In 2014, the People's Army of Vietnam adopted the IWI Galil ACE 31/32 as the standard-issue rifle. This included a license to manufacture them locally at the Z111 Factory. The factory immediately began modifying the IWI Galil ACE to better suit the local terrain and climate, while also implementing more Kalashnikov parts. This was done to improve familiarity and smoothen the transition from older AK-47 and AKM assault rifles, which were used by Vietnamese soldiers. The modification process was a fusion of the STL-1A and the Galil ACE, this resulted in prototypes rifle designated as the GK1 and the GK3.
In 2019, the Z111 Factory revealed two new rifles. Designated the STV-215 and the STV-380, the number at the end would indicate the length of the barrels.
The public source identifies “STV rifle” as vietnamese assault rifle family, based on IWI Galil ACE. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around rifle, Vietnamese and assault.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q105563361. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2024, 2014 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “STV rifle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.