Classified Challenger tank specs leaked online for videogame

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

Export M1's do not have Chobham armor.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.