page_title: Regional Force Surveillance Units
section_title: Role
hierarchical_section_title: Regional Force Surveillance Units / Role
caption_attribution_description: A map of Australia, with the Pilbara Regiment highlighted in red.
context_page_description: The Regional Force Surveillance Units are specialised infantry units of the Australian Army Reserve responsible for patrolling northern Australia. Collectively, the RFSUs form the Regional Force Surveillance Group commanded by a Colonel based at the 2nd Division Headquarters in Sydney. The RFSUs conduct regular operational patrols during peacetime, and are composed primarily of Reservists who live within the area of operations. There are currently three battalion-sized RFSUs:
  North-West Mobile Force
  The Pilbara Regiment
  51st Battalion, Far North Queensland Regiment
context_section_description: 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 through remote surveillance, 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.
  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 receive SASR training support, the small unit tactics of the two units are similar and there are regular personnel exchanges - especially with regard to SASR personnel being posted to RFSU to keep the SASR 'up to speed' with the skills required to train indigenous peoples in guerilla warfare. However, the RFSU also are commanded and staffed by Royal Australian Regiment personnel. The command concepts, training continuum and even the capacity of the RFSU to focus on the generation of sustained and widespread operations in remote Australia differentiates the RFSU distinctly from the SASR.
  Each patrolling task is different, and RFSU patrols tailor their plans to the task they have been assigned. Sometimes a patrol will infiltrate the area of operations by small boat at night, hide their boats, carry out their tasks and then exfiltrate the same way. At other times they may be airlifted in by chopper or small aircraft or perhaps a patrol will choose to drive in, hide their vehicles or just jump out the back of a moving vehicle and disappear into the bush. To be effective, RFSU patrols must remain completely undetected, so bushcraft skills, particularly camouflage and concealment, are very important to the RFSU patrolman.
  In the event of a small or large scale insurgency in the north,  the RFSUs role would be to detect enemy landings, especially near the important economic and defence infrastructure in their areas of operation. In the extremely unlikely event of an invasion of northern Australia the RFSUs would operate in a 'stay-behind' capacity. Patrols remaining in the field deep behind enemy lines would inevitably end up supplementing their diets from the land in order to survive and complete their mission as the first line of defence for continental Australia. Tasks for such a scenario are reporting on enemy movements, calling in airstrikes, killing and capturing the enemy in close quarter combat or sniping roles, demolition by explosive or sniping  to impede enemy advance, and disrupting enemy supply lines for as long as possible.
caption: The Pilbara Regiment's area of operations
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