Roled as an Airborne light infantry unit, the battalion is capable of a wide range of operational taskings.

The Guards Parachute Platoon is made up of volunteers who have passed P Company from the five Regiments of Foot Guards and Infantry qualified members of the Household Cavalry; they can be distinguished from other paratroopers by a "blue red blue" patch sewn to their beret beneath the Parachute Regiment cap badge.

Impressed by the success of German airborne operations during the Battle of France, the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, directed the War Office to investigate the possibility of creating a corps of 5,000 parachute troops.

[8][10] Airborne soldiers were expected to fight against superior numbers of the enemy armed with heavy weapons, including artillery and tanks.

[11] A large part of the training regime consisted of assault courses and route marching while military exercises included capturing and holding airborne bridgeheads, road or rail bridges and coastal fortifications.

[13] Withdrawn to Britain with the rest of the 1st Airborne Division, the next mission was during Operation Market Garden and the Battle of Arnhem, during which the battalion was virtually wiped out.

As the first NATO troops to enter Helmand they were soon engaged in some of the heaviest fighting the British Army had seen since the Korean War.

On 4 September 2006, four Soviet anti-personnel mines, undetonated since the 1979-1989 Soviet–Afghan War, were set off by members of 3PARA in what became known as the Kajaki Dam Incident.

[18] In September 2014, a comprehensive history of the battalion, with numerous links to photos, obituaries and more was founded – the creation of Paradata, a 'living history' of the Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces[19] 3 PARA trained with its anti-tank platoon to take on the Air Assault Task Force (AATF) role from May 2014, with the unit's airborne infantry bolstered by artillery, engineers, medics and logisticians from 16 Air Assault Brigade.