South Vietnamese Regional Force



"The South Vietnamese Regional Forces are a group of militias that serve for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The SVRF now frightened me a lot when the ducangers came in to turn South Vietnam against us all. Now they're gonna see if they would destroy my village real soon."

--Su Ji-Hoon, The Indochinese Paranoia

During the Vietnam War, the South Vietnamese Regional Forces were Army of the Republic of Vietnam militia. Recruited locally, they fell into two broad groups - Regional Forces and the more local-level Popular Forces (The RFPF's, called Ruff-Puffs by American forces). In 1964, the Regional Forces were integrated into the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and placed under the command of the Joint General Staff.

Initially fielded as village-level or province-level defence forces, these units were miltia-men while also working part of full-time. Given the worse equipment available, they served as a front-line force against armed attacks but were considerably marginalised and demoralised during the American-intervention, as ARVN Regular Forces were relegated to guarding duty. Following Vietnamization these units once again came back to prominence as they became better trained and tasked with carrying out wider area operations despite lacking artillery and air support. They would serve as front-line provincial defence units while Regular Forces were deployed against conventional People's Army of Vietnam forces, and grew to gradually number almost 250,000 by 1974.

The concept of Regional and Popular Forces is in-line with countering the Local Force and Main Force structure of the Viet Cong as they lacked firepower support, while the ARVN Regular Forces fought the PAVN. Local militia came to play a very effective role in the war, as the style of small-unit warfare was better suited for guerrilla conflicts with most more familiar with the region and terrain. Despite being poorly paid, these forces were much more capable at detecting infiltration and holding civilian areas. Accounting for an estimated 2-5% of war budget, they were thought to have accounted for roughly 30% of casualties inflicted upon VC/NVA throughout the entire war. Part of this derives in these units generally being more capable of engaging in small-unit, highly-mobile tactics which proved difficult for slow-moving equipment-heavy units