The 3rd Battalion, 64th Armor descended from the 78th Tank Battalion; activated on 13 January 1941 at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

    The Battalion was redesignated as the 758th Tank Battalion and was the first tank unit composed entirely of black soldiers.

    One of these soldiers designed the unit crest, which is still worn by soldiers of the battalion – the rampant head of a black African elephant symbolizing the soldiers’ pride in their heritage and their unit’s mission of mobile, spearheading, armored warfare. The two white tusks were reminiscent of the two white officers which commanded the unit.

    The 758th served with distinction in the Italian campaign of World War II, where it earned the first three of the many campaign streamers on the battalion colors.

    The battalion next saw action in Korea, where it fought under the colors of the 64th Heavy Tank Battalion.

    There it participated in a total of eight separate campaigns and fought from the intervention of the Chinese Communist Forces in November 1950 until the Cease-Fire in 1953.

    Following the Korean War, the 64th Heavy Tank Battalion was reorganized as the 64th Armor Regiment, a parent regiment under the Combined Arms Regimental System.

    The 3d Battalion, 64th Armor was born at this time, and with its three sister battalions, helped to preserve freedom’s frontier in the Federal Republic of Germany. Stationed in Schweinfurt, it remained there 30 years until the inactivation ceremony of 17 December 1993. It was the first armored unit to receive the M-1 Abrams tank.

    During its tenure in Germany, companies of the Rampage Battalion performed numerous REFORGERs (Return of Forces to Germany), Winter Warriors, border missions and were selected as the United States' representatives for NATO’s Armor Competition, the Canadian Army Trophy (CAT) in 1983, 1985, and 1987.

The battalion deactivated on 17 December 1993.