Regional Force Surveillance Unit

The Regional Force Surveillance Units (RFSUs) are specialised infantry units of the Australian Army Reserve responsible for patrolling northern Australia. The RFSUs conduct regular operational patrols during peacetime, and the Reservists–who make up 90% of the RFSUs personnel–carry out most of their training during these patrols. There are currently three battalion-sized RFSUs:

The RFSUs were incorporated into the 6th Brigade on 1 March 2010 as part of its re-raising. On 1 September 2014, they were transferred to the 2nd Division. As of December 2014, the RFSUs currently have 200 Active and 1,350 Reserve personnel.

The RFSUs are unique unconventional units whose mission is to conduct long range reconnaissance and surveillance patrols in the sparsely populated and remote regions of northern Australia. Unlike most Australian Army units, the RFSUs are on a permanent operational footing, conducting real patrols with real world objectives during peacetime.

The primary reason for the RFSUs existence is national defence, but the nature of their work means patrols can often provide valuable intelligence to civilian agencies such as Australian Customs, State and Federal police forces, and the intelligence community.

Prior to the existence of the RFSUs, surveillance in the remote north was carried out by the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR). The SASR's primary specialty as reconnaissance and surveillance soldiers made them ideally suited to the task. However, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the SASR responded to the changing global security environment and identified counter-terrorism as the second area that they needed to specialise in. This, coupled with the possibility of overseas deployments, meant that the SASR would be hard pressed to maintain an effective domestic reconnaissance force whilst also fulfilling their other (new) roles. So the SASR came up with the concept of the RFSUs.

The basic concept was to raise and train a reconnaissance and surveillance unit that would take over the SASR's tasks in northern Australia. Because the RFSUs' were raised and trained by the SASR the small unit tactics and training of the two remain virtually identical, and there is a constant exchange of personnel and ideas - especially with regard to SASR being posted to RFSUs to keep the RFSUs 'up to speed' with reconnaissance and guerilla warfare techniques, and to keep the SASR 'up to speed' with the skills required to train indigenous peoples in guerilla warfare.

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