4th USAFAD

The 4th United States Army Field Artillery Detachment (4th USAFAD) was a specialized unit of the U.S. Army assigned to support NATO forces during the Cold War. Activated in the late 1960s, the unit was stationed in West Germany and tasked with the custody and control of nuclear warheads for the Belgian Army’s Honest John and later Lance missile systems. The 4th USAFAD worked closely with Belgian artillery units, ensuring the security and readiness of these weapons as part of NATO’s “dual-key” nuclear sharing arrangements. The unit remained active until the end of the Cold War, when changes in NATO strategy and arms reduction treaties led to its inactivation in the early 1990s.