UK: Tanks at Heathrow

Elias Castillo says: "George Sassoon is wrong in describing the vehicles around Heathrow as tanks. From what I saw on network and CNN news, they are lightly armored vehicles, designed for high and fast mobility and armed with machine guns and a small automatic cannon designed mainly for anti-personnel purposes. In contrast, a tank has a very large cannon, designed to blast away buildings, enemy and other tanks. Tanks are very large, have large turrets and are also equipped with machine guns.

Too many people identify, for example, the Bradley fighting vehicle (similar to those at Heathrow), a mainstay in the U.S. armed ground forces, as a tank. In actuality, it is a light armored reconnaissance vehicle that can also be used as an armored personnel carrier to quickly get troops to very specific sites. If hit by a tank shell it would be blown to smithereens, and to avoid that it is designed to move rapidly and to take advantage of terrain, i.e. move hidden along gullies, behind hills, out of sight of the enemy. The use of the armored vehicles at Heathrow is obviously to quickly move against a terrorist or group of terrorists who may be spotted and then taken cover where small arms fire cannot dislodge them. The vehicle can safely move in close and use its small cannon to rip through any counter or thin wall that may be used as cover".

Ronald Hilton - 2/13/03