Officers are equipped and trained to respond to serious incidents at Department of Energy facilities by armed adversaries and to reacquire stolen nuclear material.

[5][6][7] The Federal Protective Forces are heavily armed, which is reflective of the anticipated capabilities of an adversary likely to attempt an assault against a Category I material-holding site.

Though the DBT is classified, the hypothetical adversary has been generally described as a "larger" force that would seek to overrun the defenses of a DOE facility in order to capture Category I special material.

[1] The Protective Forces are recruited and employed by private companies, yet are trained, equipped, and under the operational command of Defense Nuclear Security, a program of the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (two Protective Forces, those at the Savannah River Site and the Idaho National Laboratory, are under the control of the DOE's Office of Environmental Management).

These are mounted on the Lenco BearCat armored personnel carriers used by the Protective Forces, as well as static gun emplacements at Department of Energy facilities.

[2][3][11] Protective Forces are equipped with more than 80 Lenco BearCat armored personnel carriers system-wide, and also use the Polaris 500 ATV and a variety of soft-shelled vehicles.

During the 44-day strike, a 210-man replacement force, composed of supervisors and non-unionized personnel assigned to other Department of Energy sites, was assembled to secure Pantex.

For instance, a neighborhood sits within the 1.5-mile (2.4 km) range of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's M134 gun emplacements, creating the potential that "children at play, joggers and families working in their yards" could be struck by stray bullets from Federal Protective Forces if an attack originated from their direction.