[3][1] One RDR battalion was attached to each brigade headquarters to guard military installations and lines of communication.

[5] The drafts of white reservists and conscripts were usually low quality and were barely trained, and suffered from poor morale due to being attached to notoriously inefficient units.

Due to its poor discipline, the RDR was disparagingly nicknamed the "Rhodesian Dagga Regiment", after the slang term for marijuana.

Paul Moorcraft and Pete McLaughlin have written that the RDF units "would have had little chance" if they were ever attacked by a determined enemy force.

[6] An example of the Regiment's role in defence of Rhodesia's strategic installations during the Bush War was witnessed in the events of 15 November 1978, at Otto Beit Bridge (on the Zambezi River) where the RDR was the most forward army unit during a major bomb, mortar, rocket and machine-gun attack on Rhodesian army positions at the Chirundu border.