Royal Air Force Regiment

Royal Air Force Regiment
Crest of the RAF Regiment
Active	1 February 1942 – Present
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	Royal Air Force
Type	Air Force Infantry
Role	Force Protection
Size	2,800 Regular and RAuxAF 9 squadrons
Part of	No. 2 Group, Air Command
Garrison/HQ	Depot - RAF Honington
Nickname(s)	The Rock Apes
Motto(s)	Per Ardua (Latin for Through Adversity)
March	Quick - Holyrood
Commanders
Commandant-General	Air Commodore Frank Clifford
Air Commodore-in-Chief	HM The Queen
Insignia
Tactical Recognition Flash
Shoulder Flash

The Royal Air Force Regiment (RAF Regt) is part of the Royal Air Force and functions as a specialist airfield defence corps founded by Royal Warrant in 1942.

The RAF Regiment is trained in CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) defence, and equipped with advanced vehicles and detection measures. RAF Regiment instructors are responsible for training all Royal Air Force personnel in basic force protection such as first aid, weapon handling and CBRN skills.

The regiment and its members are known within the RAF as 'The Regiment', 'Rock Apes' or 'Rocks'. After a 32-week trainee gunner course, its members are trained and equipped to prevent a successful enemy attack in the first instance; minimise the damage caused by a successful attack; and ensure that air operations can continue without delay in the aftermath of an attack. RAF Regiment squadrons use aggressive defence tactics whereby they actively seek out infiltrators in a large area surrounding airfields.

The genesis of the RAF Regiment was with the creation of No. 1 Armoured Car Company RAF in 1921 for operations in Iraq, followed shortly afterwards by No. 2 Armoured Car Company RAF and No. 3 Armoured Car Company RAF. These were equipped with Rolls-Royce armoured cars and were highly successful in ground combat operations throughout the Middle East in the 1920s and 1930s. The RAF Regiment came into existence, in name, on 1 February 1942. From the start it had 66,000 personnel drawn from the former Defence Squadrons No.'s 701-850. The new regiment was made up of both field squadrons and light anti-aircraft squadrons, the latter originally armed with Hispano 20mm cannon and then the Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft gun. Its role was to seize, secure and defend airfields to enable air operations to take place. Several parachute squadrons were formed to assist in the seizing of airfields and No. II Squadron retains this capability. 284 Field Squadron was the first RAF unit to arrive in West Berlin in 1945 to secure RAF Gatow.