[7] A stylised sable head was chosen as the unit symbol, along with the motto Ase Sabi Luto – "We fear nothing" – later adopted as Asesabi Lutho in the Sindebele language.

Major General Evered Poole, the division commander, was free to focus on routine exercises, desert training, and integration of his Southern Rhodesian personnel.

[2] In Egypt, the SRRU received M4 Sherman tanks and the Rhodesian crews carried out exercises with the British III Corps from December 1943 to January 1944.

[16] They were fighting a counterinsurgency war for the most part but also continually trained for classical warfare in order to deal with enemies in neighbouring states who were equipped with T-34, T-55 and T-62 tanks, supported by Soviet, Red Chinese and Eastern European advisers.

In August 1979, at Hippo Creek north west of Victoria Falls, a single vehicle from troop Tango 22, D Squadron engaged a group of ZIPRA guerrillas attempting a night-time crossing of the border into Rhodesia.

Despite the initial contact lasting less than two minutes, the crossing was foiled, and 28 enemy bodies were subsequently recovered in mop-up operations on the Rhodesian side of the river in Hippo Creek.

[18][19][20] To deal with the potential threat of a possible conventional ground invasion from across the border, the Rhodesian Armoured Car Regiment (RhACR) was reorganized in 1978, being expanded to include additional tank and mechanized infantry squadrons.

[21] In October 1979, South African port authorities boarded and seized a French freighter, the Astor, believed to be carrying a shipment of weaponry bound for Angola.

The Astor had initially been chartered by the Libyan government with the delivery of arms, primarily ten T-55LD tanks of Polish origin from Tripoli's surplus stocks, to Uganda.

[6] By October the Astor's crew had already rounded the Cape of Good Hope but received belated news of Uganda's defeat in the Uganda–Tanzania War, and new orders to reroute their cargo to an unknown Angolan port.

[5] Personnel assigned to "E" Squadron were trained by South African tank crews, who also modified each T-55 with an improved communications system adopted from the Eland Mk7 and refinished with anti-infrared paint.

[23] The first intake of T-55 crews were recruited only from Rhodesian Army regulars and assigned to a Bundeswehr veteran, Captain Rolf Kaufeld, who was well versed in tank warfare.

[3] Even American-made T17E1 Staghounds of World War II vintage were saved from pending scrapping, and employed as fixed installations when no longer reliably mobile.

[25] RhACR's stratagems reflected the regiment's experience on Humber and Marmon-Herrington armoured cars during the North Africa Campaign, as well as the training many Rhodesian crews had received from their British instructors during the Aden Emergency.

[3] However, as the Rhodesian Bush War intensified, Salisbury adopted elements of Israeli mechanised doctrine – particularly those which emphasised light cavalry movements behind enemy lines.

Although maligned by age and further deteriorating as a result of hard use and the difficulty in obtaining spares from the United Kingdom, Ferrets continued to be employed for counter-insurgency operations and protective duties.

[5] In 1976 rumours of T-34 and T-54 tanks in neighbouring Mozambique – where the Rhodesian security forces were increasingly being drawn into external operations against Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), caused a stir, prompting the formation of tank-killer teams.

The Unimog crews worked in pairs to counter the likelihood of retaliatory fire, due in part to the M40's backblast which served to highlight the gunner's position.

[28] The Rhodesians favoured wheeled, lightly protected, vehicles like the Ferret, Eland, and MAP series of personnel carriers because of their operational range and simplicity.

[11] These often boasted heavier armour, more lethal main armament, better armour-piercing ammunition, and better fire control than the Eland and other assorted vehicles pressed into anti-tank duty by the regiment.

RhACR recognised this threat by restructuring itself for conventional warfare accordingly and joining with the Rhodesian African Rifles in 1980 to create its first combined arms battalion.

These were introduced by Darryl Winkler in an effort to engender an esprit de corps within his squadron – and echoed the all-black look of the British Royal Tank Regiment.

[citation needed] In the operational area the majority of the soldiers of the regiment wore one-piece tank uniforms and peaked field caps with neck flaps.

The stable belt's colours were, according to former commanding officer Lt Col Rooken-Smith: "Cerise and Old Gold, to mark the affiliation with [the British Army] 11th hussars, hence [also] the brooch below [the beret] badge".