Classified Challenger tank specs leaked online for videogame

Your question reminds me of Rome Sweet Rome: https://www.reddit.com/r/RomeSweetRome/

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.

No---an effective anti-tank weapon is a ditch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_trench

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.

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.

Yes and no.

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.

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.

it sounds like it's basically unlike chainmail in all possible ways!

I believe you were thinking of brigandine.

Export M1's do not have Chobham armor.

There's also things like published max speeds, and then full military power speeds that are more closely held.

Tbf, anything can overtake those garage decorations.

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.

That second part is what I was getting at.

> 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.

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.

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.

I'm sure everyone involved certainly had the attitude that you don't dork up / release it.

I think just from a super high level intelligence standpoint ... you know it is going to happen.

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.

You mean while vacationing with their service weapons in So^H^HRussian Crimea? /s

That happened a ton, but I never got the impression it was a problem for them. Was it?

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.

And the mechanics

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.