The 3rd Armored Division (3AD), known as the "Spearhead" division, had a unique tenure at Fort Knox following World War II. It transitioned from a replacement training center to a combat-ready force for Operation Gyroscope, a massive logistical undertaking to rotate entire divisions to West Germany.

After victory in Europe, 3 AD had a brief period of occupation duty before its deactivation on November 9, 1945 in Aalen, Germany.  The division was reactivated on July 15, 1947, at Fort Knox, Kentucky.  The reactivation stemmed form a Department of the Army’s decision to give Replacement Training Centers, as they were then called, the names of war-time divisions noted for outstanding combat records. Military officials saw this as a means of encouraging enlistment's and building up morale and "esprit de corps" for both trainees and permanent parties.  

The division's primary mission was to operate the Armored Replacement Training Center (ARTC). It provided:  

• Basic Combat Training (BCT): General soldiering skills.

• Advanced Individual Training (AIT): Specific skills in tank gunnery, armor tactics, maintenance, and communications.  

• Leadership Development: Running the "Leaders' Course" to train non-commissioned officers. 

In two unusual examples of its mission at Ft. Knox, in the summer of 1953, the Division trained the Army's first light infantry "carrier company" composed of four-man "buddy teams," and in January, 1954, it graduated the Army's first Armor "packet platoon."  As a training division it oversaw the Armored Replacement Training Center (ARTC), training an estimated 300,000 individuals as tankers and armored infantrymen .  The division trained approximately one fourth, of the soldiers for the Korean War and the Cold War from 1947 through 1955.

On March 15, 1955, the mission of the division changed. The 3rd Armored Division was reorganized as a combat division capable of fulfilling its assigned role in NATO, assigned to Europe in defense of the Western World. Its mission as primarily a training unit had ended.  The division would also pilot a new program known as "Operation Gyroscope", a policy of sending entire units, rather than replacements, abroad.

  
In April, 1955, Major General John Willems assumed command and prepares the division to begin training its troops rather than replacements for other units.  From April through September the cadre train up the soldiers to become "combat ready" prior to overseas movement.  

Their training culminates in a week-long mock war named "Operation Hercules", which pronounces the 3rd Armored Division ready to meet its mission in Germany.  The first troops begin rotating to Germany in March 1956, and by the summer of 1956 the division has ended its Kentucky mission.