Throughout the Cold War the battalion was the army's only NBC defense unit.

[1] During the 1935-36 Second Italo-Ethiopian War Italy repeatedly used chemical weapons against Ethiopian troops and civilians, which were exclusively deployed by the Royal Italian Air Force.

[2] In 1952 the Italian Army's Artillery Inspectorate formed a Chemical Defense Office tasked with providing the Italian military with nuclear, biological, and chemical defense.

The inspectorate contained an NBC Office that controlled the Etruria, which acted as the army's central training institution for all NBC defense personnel, which after training was assigned to operational units.

[1][2] On 1 May 1994 the Italian military's Joint Forces Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence School moved to Rieti and merged with the 1st NBC Battalion "Etruria".

[1] In 1995 the Italian Army decided to unite its operational NBC Defense personnel in one unit and on 25 July 1996 7th Self-propelled Field Artillery Regiment "Cremona" in Civitavecchia was transferred from the Mechanized Brigade "Granatieri di Sardegna" to the NBC-defense and Artillery Command of the Central Military Region and began to conversion to a CBRN defense unit.