The History of RCB
Parachute Training
Australian Rifle Company Butterworth commenced operational tasking in early 1970 when the Australian Infantry Battalion attached to the 28th ANZUK Bde redeployed from Terendak Camp Malacca Malaysia to Singapore. The original task of the Rifle Company Butterworth was to provide security to the air assets of the RAAF squadrons based at Butterworth. Supporting Australian Army presence on the base was the forerunner of Land Command Liaison Section, Ground Liaison Section Butterworth.

In December 1973 the Australian Infantry Battalion was redeployed from Singapore to Australia, leaving the Australian Rifle Company Butterworth to continue its tasking as a independent company organisation. At this time this was the only operational posting for the Australian Infantry Corp within the South East Asian region. The Australian Rifle Company Butterworth (later known as Rifle Company Butterworth) tasking began to change during the middle to late 1980's from an operational deployment to reflect a training orientated deployment. This finally changed to a non-operational deployment at the end of 1989 when the Royal Australian Air Force down sized its presence within the region. From that time all security arrangements for Butterworth became the responsibility of the Malaysia Defence Force.

The Tracker Tribe
Since 1989 the Australian Army has utilised the deployment as a valuable training ground for its junior commanders at the company level in an environment that is challenging both physically and mentally replicates the stress of deployment away from the Australian cultural and physical environment. Today's Rifle Company Butterworth conducts a variety of training activities from Bi Lateral exercises with the Malay, Thai, and Singaporean Armies to live fire activities at Gurun Ranges and PULADA Malaysia.

With the current operational tempo of the Australian Army the Rifle Company Butterworth is no longer maintained as a pure Regular Infantry Company. The Rifle Company Butterworth rotations now incorporate full (regular) and part time (reserve) members (both male and female) from all corps within the Australian Army.

This significant opportunity for realising testing deployment training has and continues to enhance Australian Army participants whilst fostering the maintenance of close ties between Australia and out regional partners.

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