page_title: 3rd Armored Division (United States)
section_title: Cold War
hierarchical_section_title: 3rd Armored Division (United States) / Cold War
caption_attribution_description: English: Ayers Kaserne, Kirch-Göns, Germany in mid-1985.
context_page_description: The 3rd Armored Division was an armored division of the United States Army. Unofficially nicknamed the "Third Herd," the division was first activated in 1941, and was active in the European Theater of World War II. The division was stationed in West Germany for much of the Cold War, and participated in the Persian Gulf War. On 17 January 1992, in Germany, the division ceased operations. In October 1992 it was formally inactivated as part of a general drawing down of forces at the end of the Cold War.
context_section_description: The division was reactivated on 15 July 1947 at Fort Knox, Kentucky to act as training formation. In 1955 the 3rd Armored Division was reorganized for combat and shipped to Germany the next year. It replaced the 4th Infantry Division under a program called Operation Gyroscope. It was the first U.S. armored division to be stationed east of the Rhine River in the Cold War. The 3rd Armored Division, headquartered at Frankfurt am Main, served in Cold War Germany for approximately 36 years, from May 1956 to July 1992, with the exception of the time spent in Saudi Arabia and Iraq during the leadup to and Gulf War. The three main combat forces headquarters for the 3rd AD were, (1) Ayers Kaserne at Kirch-Goens and Schloss Kaserne at Butzbach (The forces at those kasernes initially formed Combat Command "A" [CCA] of the 3rd Armored Division), (2) Coleman Kaserne at Gelnhausen (CCB/2d Brigade); and (3) Ray Barracks at Friedberg (CCC/3rd Brigade).
  The 3rd Armored's primary mission during the May 1956 to July 1992 period was, in the event of war, to defend the Fulda Gap, alongside other NATO elements, against numerically superior Warsaw Pact forces. In June 1962 USAREUR maxed out its Cold War troop strength; that number was never achieved again. Also in June 1962 the nuclear warheads for the Davy Crocketts arrived in USAREUR (3rd AD combat maneuver battalions were issued Davy Crocketts). In late October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis there was no hotline between Washington and Moscow; Soviet Forces, including those in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG), were placed on the highest alert level. Two of the five armies in the GSFG were positioned to advance through the Fulda Gap. These were the 8th Guards Army (three motor rifle divisions and one tank division) and 1st Guards Tank Army (four tank divisions and one motor rifle division). From 1963 the Reorganization Objective Army Division (ROAD) changes meant organizational changes within the 3rd AD's three combat commands, plus a name changeover to "brigades" e.g. Combat Command A became 1st Brigade.
  To prepare their soldiers for an invasion, the 3rd Armored Division's units frequently conducted field training in Bavaria at Hohenfels Training Center, Hohenfels, Bavaria; Wildflecken Training Center; and Grafenwöhr Training Center, conducting exercises of live fire, movement and communications. Throughout its time in Cold War Germany, beginning in mid-1956, the division would also frequently take to the German countryside for training maneuvers, including, beginning in January 1969, what became an annually staged war game Reforger, which simulated invasion of Western Europe by Warsaw Pact forces. Note: As indicated in the yearly issues during the Vietnam War of Annual Historical Summary – Headquarters United States Army, Europe and Seventh Army, the USAREUR training maneuver budgets dramatically dried up during the Vietnam War years. Significantly reduced training funds were first mentioned in the 1 January to 31 December 1966 edition of the USAREUR Annual Historical Summary.
  According to Karl Lowe in his www.usarmygermany.com article, in 1976 the army wanted to move the 2d Brigade's home station from Gelnhausen to Alsfeld, which lay in the Northern Advance Route for Soviet Forces out of the Fulda Gap; however the Germans wouldn't agree to a major share in building brigade facilities at Alsfeld, so the plan was dropped.
  At the peak of 1980s East/West tensions, as many as nineteen Soviet and East German divisions faced off against NATO forces in the area.
  Throughout the Cold War, the division headquarters company, the 503rd Administrative Company, 503rd Adjutant General Company, and 503rd MP Company were based at Drake Kaserne, with 143rd Signal Battalion and other support units stationed across the street at Edwards Kaserne in Frankfurt, West Germany. A number of its subunits were based in other Kasernes throughout the German state of Hessen, notably Ayers Kaserne (50° 28' 32.44" N 8° 38' 29.24" E) at Kirch-Goens and Schloss Kaserne at Butzbach (CCA/1st Brigade), Gelnhaus
caption: Ayers Kaserne, 1985. Note Motorpools with Tanks, APCs & Artillery
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