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03/09/93
Experts assess significance of tanks' arrival; They believe sect may have anti-tank weapons, armor-piercing bullets
By Ed Timms / The Dallas Morning News
The arrival of M-1A1 tanks outside the Branch Davidian compound suggests that the sect may be armed with shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons or perhaps a .50-caliber machine gun with armor-piercing bullets, experts say.
Such weapons could damage or even destroy the armored personnel carriers that arrived early last week to support the federal agents who surround the compound near Waco.
Federal agents said Monday that sect leader David Koresh claimed he could blow the armored vehicles, known as Bradley fighting vehicles, "40 or 50 feet into the air' with explosives. The Bradleys apparently were withdrawn Monday morning as the Abrams tanks arrived.
One possible explanation for the change in armor is that federal agents "have intelligence that the equipment the Davidians have is a little heavier than we've known about and includes weapons such as armor-piercing .50-caliber rounds, or rocket-propelled grenades, or shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons that the Bradley would be vulnerable to,' said Dr. Ron Hatchett, a military analyst with Texas A&M University's Mosher Institute for Defense Studies.
"And they don't want another embarassment,' he added. "You can imagine the embarassment . . . if they went forward with a couple of Bradleys and they were knocked out by the Davidians.'
While not common, anti-tank weapons are available on the black market. Law enforcment officials say that some have been smuggled off military bases or stolen from National Guard armories. Experts do not rule out the possibility that some foreign weapons may have entered the United States with U.S. troops returning from the Persian Gulf war.
"If you have the money, you can buy a lot of things,' Dr. Hatchett said.
The Soviet-designed RPG-7G, for example, is a rocket-propelled grenade launcher designed to penetrate more than 300 millimeters of conventional armor. The U.S.-made M-72 light anti-tank weapon (LAW), also was designed to penetrate more than 300 millimeters of conventional armor. Both are shoulder-fired.
"There are LAWs floating around,' said Dr. Austin Bay, a military analyst and co-author of A Quick & Dirty Guide to War.
Dr. Bay, who has served as a tank officer in the U.S. Army, said that Soviet-designed RPGs might "bounce off a Bradley's frontal armor' but could damage it elsewhere.
Even a .50-caliber machine gun with armor-piercing rounds, he said, "might punch through it if you sit there and spray it.'
A Molotov cocktail-basically a bottle filled with gasoline- might disable a Bradley, Dr. Bay said. But this is unlikely, he said, if the vehicles are used with the appropriate covering fire.
Dr. Hatchett said the Abrams tank is better able to withstand such weapons.
"They're not going to do much of anything to the M1 under any kinds of circumstances,' Dr. Bay said.
The M-1A1 Abrams is protected by a top-secret armor. At 67 tons, it is more than double the weight of a Bradley, which is designed to carry infantry and relies on aluminum and steel armor to protect the troops from small-arms fire and shrapnel.
If federal agents decide to "mount an assault and want to collapse portions of the building, then the M-1 would be better for that,' Dr. Hatchett said.
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