The Armor Branch of the United States Army is an active combat arms branch. It was created provisionally in 1940 as Armored Force under the Chief of the Armored Force, Brigadier General Adna R. Chaffee, Jr. and took control of all tank units in infantry and cavalry units.
History
Even though the armor branch traces its lineage back to the original cavalry units, its first beginnings date from the First World War. The Armored Command was headquartered at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, became effective on 2 July 1943, the Armored Center on 20 February 1944, and was discontinued on 30 October 1945. The Armor Center at Fort Knox Kentucky transferred to Fort Benning Georgia in 2010. United States Army Armor School is now located at Fort Benning.
Branch insignia
U.S. Army Service Regulation 42, change 1, dated 29 December 1917 authorized "the first insignia for the new tank service." This new insignia was the image of the "front-end view of a conventionalized tank", but in appearance looked like an unidentifiable upper half circle of sort of storage or transport container. A little over 4 months later on 7 May 1918, change 2 to Regulation 42, eliminated the Army's first Tank Service and replaced it with the new U.S. Army Tank Corps, along with a newly designed collar insignia which consisted of the "side view of the Mark VIII tank above two stylized dragons breathing fire over a wreath." In 1921 U.S. Army Circular 72 deactivated the U.S. Army Tank Corps, returning all armored vehicles to the Cavalry and Infantry units, which also removed the new "Tank Corps" collar insignia from the service. On 10 July 1940 the U.S. Army Armored Force was created and on 25 February 1942 Army Circular 56 created a new collar insignia, consisting of the left side view of a Mark VIII tank. This simple tank design had no decorations or other objects surrounding it, and was the insignia worn by U.S. Army personnel thru-out WWII. Presently, the current U.S. Army "Armor" branch collar insignia, which consists of the front view of a U.S. M-26 Pershing tank superimposed over two crossed swords, replaces the WWII collar insignia with the "Army Regorganization Act of 1950, Section 404, Army Bulletin 9", in which the current Armor insignia became authorized to wear in February 1951.
Publications
ARMOR is the professional journal, originally published as the Cavalry Journal in 1885. The name was changed to Armor in 1940 after the transition from Horse Cavalry to Armor for the U.S. Army's Armor Branch, published by the Chief of Armor at Fort Benning, GA., training center for the Army's tank and cavalry forces. It is also one of the oldest publications in the U.S., founded in 1888 by cavalry officers on the American frontier as a forum for discussing doctrine, tactics, and equipment among soldiers geographically separated by the great distances of the American West.
