21 April 2011

Tanks at Waco.

This comes up every year when someone mentions the incineration of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco.

The initial raid by the ATF certainly did not use tanks.

This picture is often shown.

There are four armored vehicles in this shot, but only a single TANK.

Nearest to farthest we have:

M88 Armored Recovery Vehicle.  This is like a tow truck for tanks.

M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank.  One or two were there.  I can't readily find a picture showing two together so it could be "tank at waco" instead of "tanks".

The last two are M2 or M3 Bradley Fighting Vehicles.  Neither has the 25mm gun mounted.  If they are M2 they are infantry transports, if they are M3 they are cavalry scout vehicles.

Also used, but not shown in this pic is the M728 Combat Engineer's Vehicle.  This is almost a tank.  It is an M60A1 Main Battle Tank with the 105mm main gun swapped for a snub-nosed 165mm gun.  A crane A-frame is mounted to the turret.  This at least started life off as a tank, but it's not really one anymore.  This is the vehicle shown in several videos spraying something from the top of that A-frame into the building and ramming the walls.  Wikipedia says that five were used during the siege.

1 comment:

  1. Still seems rather overkill-ish to me...and if peasants such as you or I had "taken full responsibility" for a fustercluck where over eighty people had burned to death, our chances of remaining free citizens would be about like my chances of heavenly salvation...IOW, nonexistent.

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