new unit. Cold War The 2nd Chemical Mortar Battalion was transferred at zero strength to the U.S. and re-designated the 2nd Chemical Weapons Battalion. Personnel were transferred from the 3rd Chemical Weapons Battalion which was deactivated. The battalion trained with 5.5-inch chemical rockets at Dugway Proving grounds until 16 January 1955 when it was deactivated. On 7 January 1958 Headquarters and Headquarters Company was reactivated at Fort McClellan, Alabama as the 2nd Chemical Battalion (Smoke Generator.) Companies A, B, and C, still at Dugway were inactivated at the same time. For the first time in its 40-year history, the Red Dragons became a service unit rather than a combat unit. Smoke operations continued until the unit was deactivated 19 December 1973 at Fort McClellan Alabama. It was reactivated on 1 September 1981 as the 2d Chemical Battalion, stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. At this point the companies were no longer lettered, but had their own numbers and could be moved from battalion to battalion in the Chemical Corps. Initially the battalion consisted only of Headquarters and the 181st Chemical Detachment. The 181st was later expanded to a company and has remained part of the Red Dragons to the present day. There is not a record of which companies were in the battalion at any point in time, until Desert Storm. With various numbered companies, the battalion continued to function through the next twenty years with at least one smoke company, a decontamination company, a chemical reconnaissance company, and at times a BIDS (Biological Integrated Detection System.) The 13th Chemical Company was activated with 2nd Chemical in 2001 as the Army's first BIDS unit. It operated at first using a Humvee platform and later a specialized vehicle based on the M-113 personnel carrier. The deactivation of the 13th in 2011 ended the battalion's BIDS mission. Decontamination in the 1970s was carried out with the M12 skid-mounted decontamination system that was standardized in 1961. This was replaced beginning in 1987 by the M17, lighter but with higher capacity. During the 1980s the battalion discontinued the M3 stationary smoke generators that had been in use since 1952. M3 generators were mounted on Humvee platforms under the name M56 Coyote, and on M-1059 vehicles based on M-113 personnel carriers and known as Lynx. The Red Dragons tested and deployed the Army's first M-1059s in the mid-1980s. The M58 Wolf, also based on the M113,