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The Ready First Combat Team first organized on January 1, 1942, in the Regular Army at Fort Knox, Kentucky, as Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, Combat Command A, 1st Armored Division. In December 1942, Combat Command A and the Division Headquarters joined Combat Command B in North Africa.

 

The Ready First Combat Team fought throughout the Tunisian Campaign and was involved in the particularly bitter fight around the Kasserine Pass. When the 1st Armored Division moved to Italy, the Ready First Combat Team fought first in the area of Naples and later at the Anzio beachhead, where it remained until the breakout in May 1944.

 

Ready First Combat Team led the breakout from the beachhead and for the rest of the war, fought its way up the Italian Peninsula, sharing all the hardships of mountain combat, which at times forced its tankers to fight as infantry. At the close of World War II, Ready First Combat Team had earned campaign streamers for action in Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes-Alsace, Central Europe and the Rhineland. Headquarters, Combat Command A was converted and re-designated on May 1, 1946, as Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 3rd Constabulary Regiment, and relieved from assignment to the 1st Armored Division. It was inactivated on September 20, 1947, in Germany.

 

The 1st Armored Division was reactivated in 1951 at Fort Hood, Texas. Ready First Combat Team spent the next few years training and testing new Tables of Organization and Equipment. In 1957, the 1st Armored Division was reduced in size to just Combat Command A, which joined the Strategic Army Corps.

 

Ready First Combat Team carried the name of the 1st Armored Division until 1962, when the Division returned to full strength. It was then that the name "Combat Command" was dropped. Combat Command A was reorganized and redesignated on 3 February 1962 as Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division. It initially adopted the nickname the "Forerunners."

On August 16, 1991, 1st Brigade, 3rd Armored Division, having returned from Operation Desert Storm, was reflagged as the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division. This reflagging was part of an initial drawdown of U.S. forces in Europe, which saw the inactivation of the 3rd Armored Division. The reflagged 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division adopted the nickname of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Armored Division, "Ready First."

 

Subsequently, the Ready First Combat Team continued to train for its wartime missions, with an additional focus on Peace Operations. The Ready First Combat Team provided forces for the first ever Partnership for Peace Exercise in Poland. A battalion task force was deployed for six months of peacekeeping operations to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

 

In 1996, the Ready First Combat Team was called upon again, when it was sent to conduct peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and upon returning deployed an additional task force for peacekeeping operations Macedonia.

 

In May 2000, the Ready First Combat Team was called upon to deploy to what was at the time the Serbian province of Kosovo to conduct peacekeeping operations, and returned home in December 2000, after the successful completion of their mission.

 

In 2003, the Ready First Combat Team again deployed, this time in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The brigade focused on rebuilding the areas in and around Baghdad after the initial invasion. Ready First oversaw the building playgrounds, schools, and hospitals and the training of the Iraqi Civilian Defense Corps (ICDC) before redeploying to Ray Barracks in Friedberg, Germany in 2004.

 

Only 18 months later, the Ready First was again in Iraq, this time in the northwest. The brigade saw great success, first in Tal Afar, where it disarmed and arrested hundreds of insurgents without firing a shot. The brigade secured the greater Ramadi area. The brigade adopted a clear, build, and hold strategy and built combat outposts in the city’s most difficult neighborhoods to stem the violence.

The brigade’s efforts to protect the population and the insurgent’s wanton violence against civilians, to include the brazen gunning down of a respected tribal leader, led to the so-called “Anbar Awakening.” This new level of security cooperation with Iraqi and Coalition Forces tipped the scale towards finally gaining control of the lawless city and began a trend that would lead to the handover of responsibility for security of the nation back to the Iraqi government in 2011.

 

After the deployment, the Ready First began the process of moving from Germany, its home since the beginning of the Cold War. It also converted into a Stryker-based brigade. The brigade and the division officially uncased its colors at Fort Bliss in 2011.

 

Soon after the official completion of the conversion, the brigade began its first deployment to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. The brigade occupied 34 locations with approximately 4,400 personnel across Northern Kandahar Province, which included the Districts of Ghorak, Maiwand, Zharay, Arghandab, Khakrez, Nesh, Shah Wali Kot, Mya Neshin and Kandahar City. The Ready First redeployed after successfully establishing security cooperation with the Afghan security forces and giving the Afghan public a reprieve from violence.

 

From January to October 2017, the Ready First Combat Team completed another deployment to Afghanistan in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. The brigade’s mission in eastern Afghanistan was to advise, assist, and train Afghan security forces.

 

In 2019, the Ready First Combat Team began the conversion from a Stryker Brigade, returning the Ready First to its legacy mission; becoming the U.S. Army's 16th armored brigade combat team. The brigade fielded 13 new combat platforms including the M1A2SEPv2 Abrams Main Battle Tank, M2A3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, the new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, and the M109A787+ Paladin.

 

The Ready First's conversion culminated with a rotation to the National Training Center in September 2021 where it proved more lethal, more capable, and better able to confront threats from near-peer adversaries. Following this, Ready First started to write a new chapter in its storied history, and for the first-time deployed personnel and equipment to the Republic of Korea in support of the 2nd Infantry Division and our South Korean allies.

 

The 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team continues to live up to its motto: "Ready First... Always Win!"