94th Air Defense Artillery Brigade
94th Air Defense Artillery Brigade (Theatre), headquartered at Darmstadt, Germany, was deactivated in 1998.
On 21 December 1998 Headquarters U.S. Army Europe announced plans to realign its air defense artillery units to comply with the Army's Patriot Standardization Plan. As a result of the plan, USAREUR realigned its three Patriot missile battalions with their twelve missile batteries, two maintenance companies and one maintenance team into two battalions with five batteries and one maintenance company each. The 1-7 ADA Battalion, with its Headquarters and Headquarters Battery and B and C Batteries moved from Rhine Ordnance Barracks, Kaiserslautern, Germany, to Ft. Bliss, TX. A Battery, 1-7 ADA Bn, was assigned to 5-7 ADA Bn in Hanau and moved from Rhine Ordnance Barracks to Babenhausen, Germany. F Battery, 6-52 ADA Bn, located at Ansbach, was also assigned to 5-7 ADA Bn and moved to Babenhausen. These units were reflagged as D Battery and E Battery, 5-7 ADA Bn. The Patriot LX maintenance team from 3d COSCOM's 147th Maintenance Co. stationed with 6-52 ADA in Shipton Kaserne, Ansbach, moved to Ft. Bliss. The 549th Maintenance Co. assigned to 1-7 ADA Bn at Rhine Ordnance Barracks was re-assigned to 6-52 ADA Bn and moved to Ansbach. All moves were completed by mid-July 1999. The Patriot Standardization Plan enables all ADA battalions to perform the Southwest Asia mission, simplify wartime alignment plans, simplify strategic lift planning and equitably distribute Patriot battalions among ADA units.
With nearly six months to deploy, train, and generally prepare, the Patriot systems and their crews in Saudi Arabia achieved a finely tuned state of readiness by the time Operation DESERT STORM'S air campaign started. Though the four American and Israeli Patriot batteries did well, some Scuds got through. The diplomatically explosive situation called for extra measures, because four batteries alone were not enough to defend the sprawling urban areas of Tel Aviv and Haifa. Two additional batteries from the 32d Army Air Defense Command's 94th Air Defense Artillery Brigade flew to Israel to enhance the defense, and in time the Dutch contributed a battery of their own to the effort. The Dutch battery defended Jerusalem and communicated with the American and Israeli Patriot crews by secure telephone.
America's Army was busy in January 1997. Headquarters, U.S. Army Europe alerted the 94th Air Defense Artillery Bde. in Germany to begin planning for the next rotation to replace the Fort Bliss unit in Saudi Arabia.
The shoulder sleeve insignia was authorized on 29 June 1984, consisting of the battlements of a gold tower domed scarlet; surmounting and extending slightly below the battlements a scarlet sea-lion grasping in his right paw a scarlet sword; on and over the dome two gold broad arrows in diagonal, parallel flight from lower right to upper left; behind the dome a blue disc within an encircling gold scroll lined with blue the ends terminating on the battlements, bearing the inscription "FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE" in black letters, the apex between the words "LINE" and "OF". Scarlet and yellow are the colors of Artillery. The tower symbolizes a strong defensive position. The two arrows represent ground-to-air missiles referring to the unit's mission. The sea lion, commemorative of the unit's proud heritage, alludes to World War II service in the Philippines and the South Pacific.
The 94th ADA Group was the home of the Nike Hercules missile battalions in West Germany during the Cold War. All 94th Group Nike missle sites have been dismantled and abandoned. The 94th Coast Artillery Group was constituted 16 December 1940. It participated in the East Indies, New Guinea and Luzon Campaigns during World War II. The 94th was decorated with the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation streamer. It was reactivated 1 April 1960 as the 94th Air Defense Group in Kaiserslautern, West Germany under the 32nd Air Defense Command. The 94th Air Defense Artillery Group was renamed to the 94th Air Defense Brigade in 1982.
