Staffordshire Regiment The Staffordshire Regiment ( Prince of Wales ' ) ( or simply " Staffords " for short ) was an infantry regiment of the British Army , part of the Prince of Wales ' Division . The regiment was formed in 1959 by the amalgamation of The South Staffordshire Regiment and The North Staffordshire Regiment ( Prince of Wales ' s ) . The Staffords can trace their history back to 1705 when a regiment known as the 38th Foot was raised at Lichfield by Colonel Luke Lillingstone . History . Africa . After the creation of the regiment , its first overseas posting was a six month exercise in Kenya , followed by a year in Colchester and then a return to Kenya for a further two years . On the tour the regiment had to deal with a mutiny by the Ugandan Army . Returning home the regiment was the last unit of the British Army to serve in East Africa . A home tour in Dover followed , then came a two year posting to Berlin followed by tours in Bahrain and Sharjah in the Persian Gulf where the regiment again recorded a ' last unit ' distinction being the last unit to serve in Sharjah . Northern Ireland . Five tours in Northern Ireland were undertaken between 1972 and 1984 . For the rest of the 1980s the regiment served in the United Kingdom and Germany . Gulf War . In October 1990 The Staffordshire Regiment was deployed to Saudi Arabia as part of 7th Armoured Brigade ( referred to as the ' Desert Rats ' ) . The deployment was in response to the dictator Saddam Hussein ' s invasion of the sovereign territory of Kuwait , claiming it to rightfully belong to Iraq . The Staffords comprised 45 Warrior APC s , with a company from the Grenadier Guards and the 1st Battalion , The Prince of Wales ' s Own Regiment of Yorkshire being attached to the regiment . They were involved in fierce fighting with Iraqi forces from the beginning of land operations to the end . They covered an astonishing 290 km / 180 miles in just 100 hours . Iraq War . Following a first deployment in Iraq in 2005 at the end of October 2006 the Staffordshire Regiment commenced its final overseas deployment with a second deployment in Iraq . Amalgamation . Under Options for Change it was announced that the Regiment would amalgamate with the Cheshire Regiment to form a single battalion regiment called the Cheshire and Staffordshire Regiment . This amalgamation was suspended in 1994 . As part of the reorganisation of the infantry announced in 2004 , it was announced that the Staffordshire Regiment would merge with the Cheshire Regiment and the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment into a new three - battalion regiment to be called the Mercian Regiment . On 1 September 2007 the Staffordshire Regiment became the 3rd Battalion , The Mercian Regiment ( Staffords ) , and will operate permanently in the armoured infantry role . Initially based at Tidworth , the battalion moved to Bad Fallingbostel , Germany in August 2009 , where it is now permanently based as part of 7th Armoured Brigade ( The Desert Rats ) . On 5 July 2012 , the UK Ministry of Defence announced that 3rd Battalion , The Mercian Regiment ( Staffords ) , would be withdrawn from the British Army ' s Order of Battle as part of a large - scale reduction in the size of the UK ' s Armed Forces . The officers and soldiers of 3 MERCIAN will be subsumed into 1 MERCIAN and 2 MERCIAN by 2014 , after 3 MERCIAN completes a final operational deployment to Afghanistan . Regimental museum . The Staffordshire Regiment Museum is located next to Whittington Barracks . The exhibits focus on the history of the regiment and its forebears , and include photographs , uniforms , weapons , medals , artifacts , memorabilia and regimental regalia . Outdoors is a replica trench from World War I , and several armoured fighting vehicle s .