I think the bigger issue is that this rando user had the document, and I think that means it was already out / online?
Amusing context, but I suspect whatever important thing happened with this document, it already happened. And that's assuming it was actually real / classified.
Lots of people rightly have access to classified information. This user is likely to be a soldier and tank operator. Many of these people also play videogames. And apparently some fraction of those are dumb enough to leak classified info.
It's just PR as it's not like other nations that didn't like it didn't already know. But Russia did pass some laws forbidding soldiers from doing that thing ... so it seems politically they didn't like it contradicting their stated claims.
I did find the passing of the law amusing tho. It's not like the military can't just give a 'don't do that' order much faster...
No, for M1 series the crew manual (back in the day) just says it is secret stuff and to cover it with a tarp it with a tarp if the outer armor exposes it. That goes for the front of the turret, hull and the first track cover.
True, maybe it’s radically different for Challenger crew members and they get detailed metallurgical info because the UK likes self-sufficient crews. Or maybe it is similar.
I've held clearances before and that was very much not the attitude of the security folks I met. But they were big fans of reminding you what happens if they catch you doing an unauthorized disclosure.
I was very low on the totem pole, so I can't know for certain what leadership actually expects. But it doesn't jibe with my experience that there would be some kind of "leak budget" similar to Google SRE "error budget".
This feels like you guys are talking by each other.
You are right. Security folks don't treat leaks lightly. Ever. This is part of how they maintain compliance with the rules.
But I don't think this is what the GP commenter talked about.
You definitely design weapons, and doctrine and systems by assuming that it can leak to the enemy eventually. If your whole battle plan folds like wet tissue-paper just because the enemy got their hands on a single CAD file or manual then it wasn't a really good plan to begin with. Exhaust ports of doom are nice plot devices for movies, but in reality you try to avoid designed-in Achilles heels. And you do this because leaks happen.
Some information get leaked by carelessness, some by disgruntled employees, some are stolen by spies, some are picked up from a wreckage, some are stolen in transit, some are deduced from signal intelligence.
You can design mitigations against all of these. The scary security folks you mentioned are mitigation against the first two really. Their existence and behaviour doesn't have any bearing on what the leadership will expect.
Exactly. The USAF has been flying Soviet era fighters and helicopters for ages. And I bet the Russians have samples of M1s, M2s, etc. We know the Chinese got stealth technology from the crash of the Stealth Blackhawk that crashed during the Bin Laden mission in Pakistan.
While it's interesting from a opsec standpoint, there was no material loss of valuable information with the posting of this Challenger 2 data. The design and performance specs of a tank that has less than 300 units in use is a gnat on an elephant.
In my experience, the US Army cared more about securing their stats on what a T-72 or T-90 could do than what a M1 could do. Which is frankly amusing given that the Russians know exactly- even better than the US- what those numbers are. Of course, the key is that they don't want the Russians to know how they know this, and are afraid that discussing it openly will reveal some of that.
In a similar vein, about 20 years ago the NSA declassified the existence of their program, during the Korean War, to intercept and decrypt Communist Ground Control Intercept messages in real time and then pass the information to American fighter sweeps (the fighter pilots were told it was radar guiding them). While the NSA was happy to talk about the results of this decrypting, they haven't (at least as of the last time I checked a few years ago) released any details on what kind of codes the North Koreans/Chinese/Russians used even though obviously all three countries know exactly what they used and how it works. The reason given to me was that revealing even just how the NSA described these codes from half a century ago would reveal too much of how the NSA thinks about cryptography.
I hold a security clearance. That's not what you assume. The clearance exists for the purpose of preventing disclosure and they take breaches very seriously. I know a guy who had the book thrown at him for causing a (fairly minor) breach.
Some stuff is "over classified" but the definition of classified data is that which if disclosed is harmful to the national interest, and they actively seek to prevent leaks.
That's not what you assume as an individual because it's your job. Day to day you do the right thing.
Tell me how long you think a given tank manual that goes into the hands of all sorts of people stays secret? That's where you assume ... yeah probably not long.
>Tell me how long you think a given tank manual that goes into the hands of all sorts of people stays secret? That's where you assume ... yeah probably not long.
I understood your point, I just don't agree with your baseless assumption.
> Some stuff is "over classified" but the definition of classified data is that which if disclosed is harmful to the national interest
Once a colleague was having some problem calling a product API. He wanted coding help. I asked to see his code. He said "Sorry, I can't show you the code, it is classified". I asked, "Can you boil the code down into a Short, Self Contained, Correct Example (SSCCE)?" "I can, but that will be classified too." "How can an SSCCE be classified?" "The customer is an intelligence agency, every line of code we write while on-site is classified automatically, trying to get anything declassified is a bureaucratic nightmare". Eventually he agreed that he could go home, and try to write an SSCCE from memory at home, and that wouldn't be classified. In the process of doing that he worked out the problem himself, told me he didn't need my help any more.
How does someone that cannot show their code to anyone expect any help?
That’s just weird.
I guess there’s a reason I’m not writing classified code, because I don’t think I could deal with such nonsense unless I happened to be writing a nuclear launch system.
I served on a submarine 20 years ago. Fire Control Technician... so fairly high clearance given what I had to operate, and against potentially whom.
There are a wealth of things I don't know anymore... and no one else will ever hear them from me unless I am absolutely certain that it's been declassified and is in public access.
While a system that can be abused to protect people from consequences will never be perfect, in general those of us who have to work with classified information understand that adversaries getting hold of it means more danger for our own people.
I do not assume this, and if I had met anyone who expressed that kind of expectation, I would have mentioned it up the chain - they have self identified as a weak link.
There are orders of magnitude less submarine fire control techs than there are tank crew-members. I assure you, nobody "up the chain" who's deciding what does or doesn't go in a tank manual expects the material in it to remain secret more than temporarily. It's just not the kind of thing you can rely on when you're disseminating the document to thousands of people across hundreds of facilities.
Basically they tell you boots to STFU. And then then they base the rest of their decisions on the reasonable assumption that given time some of you will fail at that. Classic "defense in depth".
I wonder how many folks have access to a submarine fire control tech manual compared to a manual for a tank?
I'm guessing simply based on the numbers the likelihood of a tank manual leaking in some fashion (even accidentally), for any reason, is much higher than a fire control technician manual.
I would expect individual folks to do their job and not say 'well this will leak anyway'. But more generally I think expecting that 'this manual that we gave to thousands of people won't leak' would be absurd.
The only ones who can answer that with any knowledge are in counterintelligence. And while the major powers may have copies now, the minor powers probably don't.
It also doesn't help that this game has been used in the past to spread trojans to user's machines.
As a War Thunder player thru Steam, I quit playing when my system monitors flagged an update from War Thunder as a malicious trojan. That was a couple or three years ago.
There may have been some "normal" component added to the update that I downloaded that was designed to verify that the machine could run the software after the update. I don't know how common anti-cheat functionality is in Steam distributions so if that is a thing and if it behaved in a manner that would trigger a trojan downloader warning from Malwarebytes then that could explain it.
I enjoy(ed) the game a lot. Great graphics, reasonable sounds, good tools for choosing and maintaining your tanks, planes, etc. I thought it was one of the best tank battle simulators online. I have to keep a low threshold though for potential spyware, etc since I use my machine for work. It is a one strike and you're out thing with me to use a baseball analogy.
The user identifies as a make (sic) in Tidworth with a history of “Tanks & AFV’s, CR2 Tank Commander, AFV Instr, D&M Instr, Gunnery Instr, Former ATDU”.
There are less than 250 Challenger 2 tanks. Combined with the rest of their professional experience, digital footprint, and copious words written, I imagine this person has sacrificed many bits of anonymity indeed.
There's a line in the TV show "The Newsroom," after a 4-star General speaks anonymously on air about alleged chemical weapons usage, that "Generals don't have dumb friends." Two minutes of cross-checking military records will be enough to figure out who this guy is.
I'm serious. Or someone from another country's intelligence group went rogue and leaked it. I doubt Russia would be looking that hard for the leak, and there's no reason to assume the leak was from someone British.
My understanding was the main secret on modern MBTs is the composition of the “sabot catching” armor. Doesn’t sound like that’s what was disclosed here?
It doesn't seem like anything dangerous was posted, but the individual who posted it shouldn't be making judgement calls about what they think shouldn't need to be classified.
Back in the 90s my buddies in the military would say that Tom Clancy basically got it right.
Also private intelligence sources like Janes probably will sell you this info too, although I can’t be sure because I’m not willing to pay to find out.
Just because it's classified doesn't mean it's valuable. Lots of stuff is classified for bureaucratic reasons. Also, there's little about the Challenger 2 that opposing forces couldn't have researched. The tank itself has been around for more than 2 decades, and the Soviets/Russians have been consistently able to penetrate British security for the last 70 years.
The gun is nothing special, and it's performance is well known. Chobbham/Dorcester armor has been around for quite awhile, and isn't unique. The US has sold M1s to Egypt, Iraq etc with Chobbham armor.
Yes, but all M1s have Chobbham/Dorcester armor. Some additionally have DU (Depleted Uranium) inserts. The DU inserts are generally limited to US Army M1s.
Up to a point I recall some one who worked for RAE and was on Salisbury plain and their land rover was over taken at speed by a MBT (well over the listed spec BTW)
I was a huge fan of these sorts of shows as well! Having talked with folks who had full access to the specs however, my understanding is that there are specs and there are specs. Basically the specs that give advantage or could be exploited as weaknesses on the battlefield were classified whereas the kind of stuff you could deduce just by watching one operate in the field was not. So for example, seeing how far a tank could shoot by watching one compete, not classified. But 'how many' shootable things and 'what kind' it carries might be classified.
More likely, that operating it at the official full speed causes irreparable damage within an hour, and it's traditional for everyone to piss on the radiator to help cool it down.
How maintainable they are in the field and whether the Army has enough trained mechanics are more important than sexy specs like muzzle velocity and max speed.
Chobham armour is the informal name of a composite armour developed in the 1960s at the British tank research centre on Chobham Common, Surrey. The name has since become the common generic term for composite ceramic vehicle armour. Other names informally given to Chobham armour include "Burlington" and "Dorchester." "Special armour" is a broader informal term referring to any armour arrangement comprising "sandwich" reactive plates, including Chobham armour.
Although the construction details of the Chobham armour remain a secret, it has been described as being composed of ceramic tiles encased within a metal framework and bonded to a backing plate and several elastic layers. Owing to the extreme hardness of the ceramics used, they offer superior resistance against shaped charges such as high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds and they shatter kinetic energy penetrators.
While an interesting read: it's fairly clearly stated that they believe there were no ceramics in early Chobham armors. And some newer ones might, though probably not most, and that it's not particularly relevant to the effectiveness (i.e. it's an armor structural pattern, ceramic is orthogonal).
So it mostly supports your claim, since Wikipedia is rather focused on the ceramic aspect, but it's in a somewhat different context.
Ceramics and metals can "cross over" so to speak. Structurally distinct, but in the margins can share properties. They have a relationship. So it might pay not to fixate on the words implications. Chobham armour is a composite, and exploits the properties of different materials.
If the Germans had some well-fortified position only to see a T-72B3 fitted with explosive reactive armor and an active protection system roll in? Yes, in that case, the Germans are toast. In practical terms they would not be able to damage the tank.
It isn't invincible, though. The tracks on any tank are vulnerable and the engine is (relatively) fragile. A lucky HEAT shot or a well-placed anti-tank mine could disable it, though I don't they could score an outright kill.
I suspect they would be invincible for sure. Keep in mind that modern main battle tanks are typically heavier than WW2 tanks, carry guns that are almost twice in diameter (76mm for the late war Sherman's vs 120mm for M1A1/2/3 Abrams) are much faster, have vastly improved electronics and night vision, counter measures, etc.
> 76mm for the late war Sherman's vs 120mm for M1A1/2/3 Abrams
And the Shermans were notoriously undergunned. The Germans had 88mm guns on tanks since 1942 with the Tiger I, and had anti-tank guns up to 126mm (which was even mounted on the Jagdtiger tank destroyers ( of course as everything late war German, in pitiful numbers)).
The Soviet KV-2 had a 152mm howitzer in 1939, and anti-tank guns up to 100mm. The IS-2 had a 122mm gun, and was used since 1944.
Today's main battle tanks are closer to heavy WW2 tanks ( in terms of size, armament, protection, etc.), so compare apples with apples, shall we :p
I am guessing you already know this, given all the information that you have posted, but "caliber parity" alone would not be sufficient to penetrate an Abrams/T-90/Chally/whatever.
Today's 120mm rounds are kinetic-penetrator sabot rounds* (link below if someone really wants the details and naming conventions). The point is that this round is way longer than WWII tank rounds and functions completely differently. None of the tanks you listed would penetrate a modern tank from the front (100%), I would guess they are unlikely to penetrate from any aspect, but I am not ready to provide data proving that. Note that even T-72s are currently being updated specifically to be able to use LONGER rounds, and every developed country has chosen to BYPASS 150+mm cannons in favor of using longer 12x rounds.
We can also get fancy and talk about active protection systems (APS), which would defend against slow WWII rounds as well as they protect against RPGs since the 90s. Though, no one but Israel has really fielded APS in serious numbers since the USSR pioneered the concept.
The only thing a WW2 era tank could do to an M1 would be a mobility kill. Treads, optics or engine. Eventually the M1 would run out of 120mm rounds, then there becomes a more realistic chance of disabling it.
You show me an MBT, and I'll design a ditch it can't cross.
(Which is the entire point of combat engineers. But as you point out, given the speed of modern MBTs, it's easier to flank static anti-tank defenses like ditches)
The role of combat engineers isn't to stop tanks, but to funnel tanks and AFVs into kill zones. Since WW2 era gear can't really kill a tank, it's pointless. The best a CE could do would hope for a mine to damage a track.
No, a modern main battle tank would still be vulnerable to arty, a leg with a grenade, poor crew decisions, etc. depending on a favorable setup (no adversary air or arty, able keep distance from dismounts) it would dominate for a couple hours and then laws of logistics take over.
It started out as someone on AskReddit asking how modern military would fare against ancient Roman military. The full story is on the right side of that sub-reddit under the section FAQ as a PDF, or here's the first section: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/k067x/could_i_de...
A lot of people are still (after 9 years) waiting for the studio who acquired the rights to actually make a movie or a series based on the story (which Prufrock451 sold, good for him/her!). I for one hope Netflix/HBO/Amazon picks it up and makes a series out of it someday.
If you mean in tank-to-tank combat, then yes. Specifically, when deployed at night (thermals) on flats (firing out of enemy detection range) - it would be able to make its kills and retreat faster than it can be chased.
In direct combat, nothing short of a direct artillery hit (unlikely) could kill it or render it unable to defend itself in the short term. Let's say it got ambushed by 3 AT teams within 50 meters - the AT RPGs / recoil-less rifles of the time could do nothing to the armor, even rear.
In reality, any super-weapon, and its supply chain would be hit with massed artillery, bombing runs, and special forces.
It also has vulnerable optics and tracks as was mentioned earlier.
Furthermore, even if it took out 40 tanks (each round is a kill), it would not be significant in a major WWII engagement.
Btw, this topic has been discussed ad-nauseum elsewhere.
It wouldn’t last long without modern logistics to supply ammunition, spare parts, fuel etc. Very few people in modern armies actually do any fighting. The vast majority is logistics/support.
This community well understands how individually innocuous details can be aggregated to produce very important insights. The governments and intelligence agencies of the world know this too.
Perhaps one could learn of a manufacturing deficiency / lack of understanding by getting enough details about enough vehicles the UK uses. Etc etc.
Well if the guy was a commander he should be smart enough not to share/discuss such things in gamer forums.
While yes technology on its own could be mostly understood by people you still expect commander even if not officer to keep his mouth shut.
Person did harm to himself while maybe not to the army. Just for being silly and not careful while you are being in the army there should be prosecution.
Now compare it with how much work goes into telling people that they should not click links in suspicious emails...
People still click those links, companies get ransomed.
At some point it is not "ALL FUN AND GAMES" but "WE ARE RESPONSIBLE ADULTS" - well no one died but I would not like to work with that guy on serious things.
Commanding a tank is a serious thing not "well no harm done, corporate bs".
It doesn't matter if a technical person looking at it thinks it isn't valuable. If it has any marking other than "Approved for public release", the book will be thrown at someone intentionally releasing it - and rightly so.
If the MOD says it is classified, this person likely just ended their career and might go to jail. For a tank game's accuracy.
I mean sometimes people make bad choices, but Jesus, what a mistake.
Seems like this is only news for two reasons: 1. tanks are interesting. 2. people get excited about cancelling strangers on the internet over whatever loose pretext they can.
How else can you explain this profoundly mundane story ending up on the front page of a tech news site? What's next, we going to start chiming in on soldiers who don't renew their military IDs in time? Y'all are acting like he leaked plans for the Army's top-secret death ray, or a bunch of videos of helicopters killing civilians, not a boring piece of paper work nobody in the military cared about enough to declassify after decades of service.
Many people on this website work with governments. National security topics intersect with technology often: Snowden, Reality Winner, the OPM hack, SolarWinds, really anything involving the NSA. There's hardly a day we don't read about some state-backed threat actor.
Does it not seem reasonable, then, that a violation of fundamental classification policy catches interest?
The impact of the leak shouldn't be measured in the material revelations that might be in those documents, especially should they be so underwhelming as many seem to think. Rather, the impact is that a person of rank chose to execute such a violation for such an overwhelmingly trivial reason. Imagine, if you can, the impact that act might have on morale within that military, and on the capacity for the social pressures within that organization to maintain adherence in the future.
I don’t know what is news and what isn’t. But I know why I find it interesting.
There is a very human element in it. I can totally imagine what goes on in the leakers head: He really knows that tank. He worked with it since forever. And the game developers are wrong. They got some detail wrong. And not just any detail, but an important… no, not just important but a crucial detail! He can tell them, but they wont believe him. Why would they? He could be anybody. So he puts his credentials in his forum profile. But the developers might still be ignoring him. This might happen for a myriad reasons, but he decides it is because they don’t believe him still. Those fools! How could he show them? Ah, he will just upload this manual, that should prove he is right and the developers will be forced to accept defeat!
Super silly, but you can just see how one can walk themselves into this situation.
One can also imagine it from the developers side. They are probably at least a little bit interested in tanks and weaponry. At least some of them. It is possible that they even have aspirations to make a very realistic tank simulator. Some obnoxious loudmouth user drops a leak on them. Publicly! They can’t use this info now or their game might get banned for “national security” reasons. They can’t even let it be ambigous if they have used it or not. If they get banned in the west their business might as well shut down the next day. They have to distance themselves publicly and dramatically. ( Now of course this might not be how it went down. I can imagine many variants. But it is a sticky situation none-the-less.)
The third interesting bit here is the question of what makes a good game. Is a change which makes the tank simulator more realistic also always makes it more fun? Are there also game ballance considerations? Or maybe some detail would barelly change the player experience but would require a complete rewrite of their simulation engine. Is it worth implementing still?
These are the perspectives and questions which made this article interesting to me. I don’t even know what “canceling strangers” would even mean in this situation.
The U.S has many adversaries, not only nation states but terrorist organizations like ISIL. Just because the most advanced adversaries probably have access to something doesn't mean that you shouldn't protect it from the weaker adversaries.
If anything, most of the U.S. engagement nowadays are against inferior enemies, not Russia, and against them, even small things like these can be useful to the enemy, especially an enemy with really shallow intelligence gathering.
Chobham armor is just an informal/generic name for composite armor. The actual designs vary from tank to tank and are highly classified. There's no singular style of 'Chobham armor'.
In the UK, ‘classified’ is a generic term not a formal classification level. Perhaps you meant ‘confidential’? But in any case, the level ‘restricted’ was taken out of use a few years ago in the UK, and its use indicates that the document concerned is not recent. The current equivalent is ‘official sensitive’
I would imagine that if a game developer has access to a classified document, that actual enemies already own that document and the real harm has been done long ago.
I worked in Westminster for a bit. That and "The Thick of It" were actually more realistic than many staged managed and PR airbrushed documentaries I have seen.
It seems like everybody is jumping to assume things that haven't been remotely proved, e.g.:
- That the forum poster is in the British Army.
- That they are British.
- That the manual is current and true.
First, low grade manuals (like UK RESTRICTED) are not very secret. This could even by an FI disinfo op to make people think a current RAC officer would be dumb enough to post a classified document online, a great way to create bad publicity from a low grade document which has nothing further to tell you.
Nothing in this manual will say anything about armour or engine capabilities or weapons that isn't already known to adversaries or easily determined from photos. Chill already.
Most smart missiles in the past 2 decades attack tanks by detonating on top. You don't really need classified tank data for this well-known vulnerability.
A-10 pilots fire into the ground obliquely to ricochet into the bottom of tanks.
Neither the top nor bottom have much armor in tanks.
In WW2, the most successful aerial tank attacks were to drop a 500 or 1,000 pound bomb on or next to a German tank, turning it over. (You can ignore any tank attack claim numbers that were not done by large bombs or specialized anti-tank planes - P-51's just couldn't "shoot up" German tanks.)
The BalticaBeer channel has remarkable videos of the Sidewinder and Wall-eye missiles (the Wall-eye II could destroy anything with its 2,000-pound shaped charge. Most of the Gulf War TV footage you've seen is from Wall-eyes, which used analog edge detection for precise targeting of buildings, bridges and vehicles, and could fly through a single pre-selected window - in a train even!)
what's classified is the fact that tanks will all be totally obsolete , a relic of the past, in 30-40 years. starting with anti-tank drones NOW. and they are super secret classified now.
you build a 200 pound steroid like quadcopter capable of autonomously being deployed out of c130. they have anti-tank stinger missiles on them, 2 per drone.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 166 ms ] threadAmusing context, but I suspect whatever important thing happened with this document, it already happened. And that's assuming it was actually real / classified.
Lots of people rightly have access to classified information. This user is likely to be a soldier and tank operator. Many of these people also play videogames. And apparently some fraction of those are dumb enough to leak classified info.
It's just PR as it's not like other nations that didn't like it didn't already know. But Russia did pass some laws forbidding soldiers from doing that thing ... so it seems politically they didn't like it contradicting their stated claims.
I did find the passing of the law amusing tho. It's not like the military can't just give a 'don't do that' order much faster...
They’re a Challenger instructor. Who else do you think the document is for?
Or rando IT guy?
And the archivist
And the printer
And so on and so forth
Even highly sensitive info must be handled by a lot of people in a modern military.
I was very low on the totem pole, so I can't know for certain what leadership actually expects. But it doesn't jibe with my experience that there would be some kind of "leak budget" similar to Google SRE "error budget".
I think just from a super high level intelligence standpoint ... you know it is going to happen.
You are right. Security folks don't treat leaks lightly. Ever. This is part of how they maintain compliance with the rules.
But I don't think this is what the GP commenter talked about. You definitely design weapons, and doctrine and systems by assuming that it can leak to the enemy eventually. If your whole battle plan folds like wet tissue-paper just because the enemy got their hands on a single CAD file or manual then it wasn't a really good plan to begin with. Exhaust ports of doom are nice plot devices for movies, but in reality you try to avoid designed-in Achilles heels. And you do this because leaks happen.
Some information get leaked by carelessness, some by disgruntled employees, some are stolen by spies, some are picked up from a wreckage, some are stolen in transit, some are deduced from signal intelligence.
You can design mitigations against all of these. The scary security folks you mentioned are mitigation against the first two really. Their existence and behaviour doesn't have any bearing on what the leadership will expect.
While it's interesting from a opsec standpoint, there was no material loss of valuable information with the posting of this Challenger 2 data. The design and performance specs of a tank that has less than 300 units in use is a gnat on an elephant.
In a similar vein, about 20 years ago the NSA declassified the existence of their program, during the Korean War, to intercept and decrypt Communist Ground Control Intercept messages in real time and then pass the information to American fighter sweeps (the fighter pilots were told it was radar guiding them). While the NSA was happy to talk about the results of this decrypting, they haven't (at least as of the last time I checked a few years ago) released any details on what kind of codes the North Koreans/Chinese/Russians used even though obviously all three countries know exactly what they used and how it works. The reason given to me was that revealing even just how the NSA described these codes from half a century ago would reveal too much of how the NSA thinks about cryptography.
Some stuff is "over classified" but the definition of classified data is that which if disclosed is harmful to the national interest, and they actively seek to prevent leaks.
Tell me how long you think a given tank manual that goes into the hands of all sorts of people stays secret? That's where you assume ... yeah probably not long.
I understood your point, I just don't agree with your baseless assumption.
Once a colleague was having some problem calling a product API. He wanted coding help. I asked to see his code. He said "Sorry, I can't show you the code, it is classified". I asked, "Can you boil the code down into a Short, Self Contained, Correct Example (SSCCE)?" "I can, but that will be classified too." "How can an SSCCE be classified?" "The customer is an intelligence agency, every line of code we write while on-site is classified automatically, trying to get anything declassified is a bureaucratic nightmare". Eventually he agreed that he could go home, and try to write an SSCCE from memory at home, and that wouldn't be classified. In the process of doing that he worked out the problem himself, told me he didn't need my help any more.
That’s just weird.
I guess there’s a reason I’m not writing classified code, because I don’t think I could deal with such nonsense unless I happened to be writing a nuclear launch system.
There are a wealth of things I don't know anymore... and no one else will ever hear them from me unless I am absolutely certain that it's been declassified and is in public access.
While a system that can be abused to protect people from consequences will never be perfect, in general those of us who have to work with classified information understand that adversaries getting hold of it means more danger for our own people.
I do not assume this, and if I had met anyone who expressed that kind of expectation, I would have mentioned it up the chain - they have self identified as a weak link.
Basically they tell you boots to STFU. And then then they base the rest of their decisions on the reasonable assumption that given time some of you will fail at that. Classic "defense in depth".
I'm guessing simply based on the numbers the likelihood of a tank manual leaking in some fashion (even accidentally), for any reason, is much higher than a fire control technician manual.
I would expect individual folks to do their job and not say 'well this will leak anyway'. But more generally I think expecting that 'this manual that we gave to thousands of people won't leak' would be absurd.
That second part is what I was getting at.
As a War Thunder player thru Steam, I quit playing when my system monitors flagged an update from War Thunder as a malicious trojan. That was a couple or three years ago.
Cool game though.
I enjoy(ed) the game a lot. Great graphics, reasonable sounds, good tools for choosing and maintaining your tanks, planes, etc. I thought it was one of the best tank battle simulators online. I have to keep a low threshold though for potential spyware, etc since I use my machine for work. It is a one strike and you're out thing with me to use a baseball analogy.
Also private intelligence sources like Janes probably will sell you this info too, although I can’t be sure because I’m not willing to pay to find out.
The gun is nothing special, and it's performance is well known. Chobbham/Dorcester armor has been around for quite awhile, and isn't unique. The US has sold M1s to Egypt, Iraq etc with Chobbham armor.
I think a lot of the general operating specs and such are pretty well known.
How maintainable they are in the field and whether the Army has enough trained mechanics are more important than sexy specs like muzzle velocity and max speed.
Although the construction details of the Chobham armour remain a secret, it has been described as being composed of ceramic tiles encased within a metal framework and bonded to a backing plate and several elastic layers. Owing to the extreme hardness of the ceramics used, they offer superior resistance against shaped charges such as high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds and they shatter kinetic energy penetrators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobham_armour
https://below-the-turret-ring.blogspot.com/2016/03/chobham-a...
So it mostly supports your claim, since Wikipedia is rather focused on the ceramic aspect, but it's in a somewhat different context.
(Addendum: I do appreciate that repeated weapons impacts will degrade any type of armor over time.)
If the Germans had some well-fortified position only to see a T-72B3 fitted with explosive reactive armor and an active protection system roll in? Yes, in that case, the Germans are toast. In practical terms they would not be able to damage the tank.
It isn't invincible, though. The tracks on any tank are vulnerable and the engine is (relatively) fragile. A lucky HEAT shot or a well-placed anti-tank mine could disable it, though I don't they could score an outright kill.
And the Shermans were notoriously undergunned. The Germans had 88mm guns on tanks since 1942 with the Tiger I, and had anti-tank guns up to 126mm (which was even mounted on the Jagdtiger tank destroyers ( of course as everything late war German, in pitiful numbers)).
The Soviet KV-2 had a 152mm howitzer in 1939, and anti-tank guns up to 100mm. The IS-2 had a 122mm gun, and was used since 1944.
Today's main battle tanks are closer to heavy WW2 tanks ( in terms of size, armament, protection, etc.), so compare apples with apples, shall we :p
Today's 120mm rounds are kinetic-penetrator sabot rounds* (link below if someone really wants the details and naming conventions). The point is that this round is way longer than WWII tank rounds and functions completely differently. None of the tanks you listed would penetrate a modern tank from the front (100%), I would guess they are unlikely to penetrate from any aspect, but I am not ready to provide data proving that. Note that even T-72s are currently being updated specifically to be able to use LONGER rounds, and every developed country has chosen to BYPASS 150+mm cannons in favor of using longer 12x rounds.
We can also get fancy and talk about active protection systems (APS), which would defend against slow WWII rounds as well as they protect against RPGs since the 90s. Though, no one but Israel has really fielded APS in serious numbers since the USSR pioneered the concept.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armour-piercing_fin-stabilized...
You might need to make a bigger one for a modern tank than a WWII tank, but the tools to make big holes have been around for a while.
Trenches have flexible dimensions.
You show me an MBT, and I'll design a ditch it can't cross.
(Which is the entire point of combat engineers. But as you point out, given the speed of modern MBTs, it's easier to flank static anti-tank defenses like ditches)
The role of modern combat engineers is to get MBTs (and infantry) through obstacles.
A ditch isn't very effective if the far side is dynamited into a slope.
I guess you'd have to dig quite a deep trench for modern tanks.
It started out as someone on AskReddit asking how modern military would fare against ancient Roman military. The full story is on the right side of that sub-reddit under the section FAQ as a PDF, or here's the first section: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/k067x/could_i_de...
A lot of people are still (after 9 years) waiting for the studio who acquired the rights to actually make a movie or a series based on the story (which Prufrock451 sold, good for him/her!). I for one hope Netflix/HBO/Amazon picks it up and makes a series out of it someday.
In direct combat, nothing short of a direct artillery hit (unlikely) could kill it or render it unable to defend itself in the short term. Let's say it got ambushed by 3 AT teams within 50 meters - the AT RPGs / recoil-less rifles of the time could do nothing to the armor, even rear.
In reality, any super-weapon, and its supply chain would be hit with massed artillery, bombing runs, and special forces.
It also has vulnerable optics and tracks as was mentioned earlier.
Furthermore, even if it took out 40 tanks (each round is a kill), it would not be significant in a major WWII engagement.
Btw, this topic has been discussed ad-nauseum elsewhere.
Perhaps one could learn of a manufacturing deficiency / lack of understanding by getting enough details about enough vehicles the UK uses. Etc etc.
Well if the guy was a commander he should be smart enough not to share/discuss such things in gamer forums.
While yes technology on its own could be mostly understood by people you still expect commander even if not officer to keep his mouth shut.
Person did harm to himself while maybe not to the army. Just for being silly and not careful while you are being in the army there should be prosecution.
Now compare it with how much work goes into telling people that they should not click links in suspicious emails...
People still click those links, companies get ransomed.
At some point it is not "ALL FUN AND GAMES" but "WE ARE RESPONSIBLE ADULTS" - well no one died but I would not like to work with that guy on serious things.
Commanding a tank is a serious thing not "well no harm done, corporate bs".
If the MOD says it is classified, this person likely just ended their career and might go to jail. For a tank game's accuracy.
I mean sometimes people make bad choices, but Jesus, what a mistake.
How else can you explain this profoundly mundane story ending up on the front page of a tech news site? What's next, we going to start chiming in on soldiers who don't renew their military IDs in time? Y'all are acting like he leaked plans for the Army's top-secret death ray, or a bunch of videos of helicopters killing civilians, not a boring piece of paper work nobody in the military cared about enough to declassify after decades of service.
Does it not seem reasonable, then, that a violation of fundamental classification policy catches interest?
The impact of the leak shouldn't be measured in the material revelations that might be in those documents, especially should they be so underwhelming as many seem to think. Rather, the impact is that a person of rank chose to execute such a violation for such an overwhelmingly trivial reason. Imagine, if you can, the impact that act might have on morale within that military, and on the capacity for the social pressures within that organization to maintain adherence in the future.
There is a very human element in it. I can totally imagine what goes on in the leakers head: He really knows that tank. He worked with it since forever. And the game developers are wrong. They got some detail wrong. And not just any detail, but an important… no, not just important but a crucial detail! He can tell them, but they wont believe him. Why would they? He could be anybody. So he puts his credentials in his forum profile. But the developers might still be ignoring him. This might happen for a myriad reasons, but he decides it is because they don’t believe him still. Those fools! How could he show them? Ah, he will just upload this manual, that should prove he is right and the developers will be forced to accept defeat!
Super silly, but you can just see how one can walk themselves into this situation.
One can also imagine it from the developers side. They are probably at least a little bit interested in tanks and weaponry. At least some of them. It is possible that they even have aspirations to make a very realistic tank simulator. Some obnoxious loudmouth user drops a leak on them. Publicly! They can’t use this info now or their game might get banned for “national security” reasons. They can’t even let it be ambigous if they have used it or not. If they get banned in the west their business might as well shut down the next day. They have to distance themselves publicly and dramatically. ( Now of course this might not be how it went down. I can imagine many variants. But it is a sticky situation none-the-less.)
The third interesting bit here is the question of what makes a good game. Is a change which makes the tank simulator more realistic also always makes it more fun? Are there also game ballance considerations? Or maybe some detail would barelly change the player experience but would require a complete rewrite of their simulation engine. Is it worth implementing still?
These are the perspectives and questions which made this article interesting to me. I don’t even know what “canceling strangers” would even mean in this situation.
If anything, most of the U.S. engagement nowadays are against inferior enemies, not Russia, and against them, even small things like these can be useful to the enemy, especially an enemy with really shallow intelligence gathering.
an Iraqi T72 wasn't the same as the WP ones for example.
— Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes, Minister
I worked in Westminster for a bit. That and "The Thick of It" were actually more realistic than many staged managed and PR airbrushed documentaries I have seen.
One of the senarios was a software developer was moonlighting as a game dev and was using algorithms and parameters from his day job in the game.
We thought far fetched and crazy…
Apparently not.
First, low grade manuals (like UK RESTRICTED) are not very secret. This could even by an FI disinfo op to make people think a current RAC officer would be dumb enough to post a classified document online, a great way to create bad publicity from a low grade document which has nothing further to tell you.
Nothing in this manual will say anything about armour or engine capabilities or weapons that isn't already known to adversaries or easily determined from photos. Chill already.
A-10 pilots fire into the ground obliquely to ricochet into the bottom of tanks.
Neither the top nor bottom have much armor in tanks.
In WW2, the most successful aerial tank attacks were to drop a 500 or 1,000 pound bomb on or next to a German tank, turning it over. (You can ignore any tank attack claim numbers that were not done by large bombs or specialized anti-tank planes - P-51's just couldn't "shoot up" German tanks.)
The BalticaBeer channel has remarkable videos of the Sidewinder and Wall-eye missiles (the Wall-eye II could destroy anything with its 2,000-pound shaped charge. Most of the Gulf War TV footage you've seen is from Wall-eyes, which used analog edge detection for precise targeting of buildings, bridges and vehicles, and could fly through a single pre-selected window - in a train even!)
Balticabeer Military Aeronautics Youtube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgUYW-I81BUzQFIe3UtAE-w
Source: I study war.
you build a 200 pound steroid like quadcopter capable of autonomously being deployed out of c130. they have anti-tank stinger missiles on them, 2 per drone.