Classified Challenger tank specs leaked online for videogame

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/classified-challenger-tank-specs-leaked-online-for-videogame/

by notmine1337 • 5 years ago

198 107 5 years ago

ukdefencejournal.org.uk

duxup9• 5 years ago

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.

munificent• 5 years ago

this rando user

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.

duxup9• 5 years ago

I wouldn't doubt it. Russia had problems with soldiers posting photos online... while working in / around Ukraine.

chrisseaton2• 5 years ago

this rando user had the document

They’re a Challenger instructor. Who else do you think the document is for?

duxup9• 5 years ago

Wouldn't the crews have this manual to?

Or rando IT guy?

some_random• 5 years ago

It's not a rando user, it's a TC of a Challenger 2.

edrxty• 5 years ago

This happens more than you'd imagine. DCS World gets in hot water for this periodically. It doesn't help that these developers are all from Russia

duxup9• 5 years ago

I would think that classified or not ... you kinda assume almost all manuals eventually leak just based on the number of people with regular access.

content_sesh• 5 years ago

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".

na852• 5 years ago

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.

zentiggr• 5 years ago

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.

lallysingh• 5 years ago

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.

doodlebugging3• 5 years ago

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.

Cool game though.

baud147258• 5 years ago

Couldn't the identified trojan be some kind of anti-cheat software? Those sometime require elevated access to check what's running on the computer

doodlebugging3• 5 years ago

Replying to my own comment to chuckle at the fact that I got downvoted for stating a fact. A sad kind of chuckle, but still a chuckle.

Aeolun2• 5 years ago

Almost as if it’s deliberate.

zzt1232• 5 years ago

  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.

space_ghost• 5 years ago

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.

worker7674242• 5 years ago

What if it was leaked by Russian intelligence?

worker7674242• 5 years ago

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.

lostlogin• 5 years ago

Making 250 tanks is going to involve a hell of a lot of people. That said, I’m sure they’ll be found pretty quick.

zzt1232• 5 years ago

He apparently claims to be a current Challenger 2 commander.

fnord77• 5 years ago

yup - he/she will be in custody by monday

le-mark• 5 years ago

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?

ummonk2• 5 years ago

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.

User23• 5 years ago

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.

greedo9• 5 years ago

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.

jandrewrogers• 5 years ago

FWIW, the armor on the export M1 is different than the US version.

greedo9• 5 years ago

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.

duxup9• 5 years ago

I remember growing up watching the "military vehicle shows" on the Discovery channel when they just output all the various specs of every vehicle.

I think a lot of the general operating specs and such are pretty well known.

walshemj2• 5 years ago

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)

ChuckMcM• 5 years ago

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.

adolph4• 5 years ago

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobham_armour

josh2600• 5 years ago

It sounds like it's basically chainmail for tanks.

greedo9• 5 years ago

Actually, there are no ceramics in Chobham armor.

https://below-the-turret-ring.blogspot.com/2016/03/chobham-a...

npsomaratna• 5 years ago

Out of curiosity: suppose a modern tank was (magically) transported to WWII. Would it be essentially invincible against the weapons of that era?

(Addendum: I do appreciate that repeated weapons impacts will degrade any type of armor over time.)

beowulfey• 5 years ago

Just because it isn’t valuable doesn’t mean it is legally allowed to be released.

pyronik19• 5 years ago

I think this is understood. The issue is that these bureaucratic legalese nonsense needs to go.

mywittyname• 5 years ago

Just because its illegal doesn't mean that there was any harm done.

analognoise• 5 years ago

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.

ManBlanket• 5 years ago

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.

walshemj2• 5 years ago

"Customer" Tanks don't get all the sweet latest tech that the host country has.

an Iraqi T72 wasn't the same as the WP ones for example.

weare138• 5 years ago

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'.

hugh-avherald• 5 years ago

N.B. The document appears to be marked Restricted which is technically lower than 'classified'.

KineticLensman• 5 years ago

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’

OJFord• 5 years ago

How could it be otherwise, that wouldn't make sense - 'classified' as what?

renewiltord• 5 years ago

Okay, but the interesting thing is what you can do now that the data is out there. Can you adjust your in-game specs to align? Or is that a problem?

GekkePrutser• 5 years ago

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.

ummonk2• 5 years ago

A few years back some people got charged for trying to export F-16 manuals to a Russian flight sim company: https://www.standard.net/police-fire/russian-deported-after-...

inopinatus• 5 years ago

"The Official Secrets Act is not there to protect Secrets, it is there to protect Officials."

— Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes, Minister

gerdesj• 5 years ago

A long running documentary, masquerading as an humorous sitcom.

secfirstmd• 5 years ago

Can confirm.

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.

acomjean• 5 years ago

When I worked in defense they made us watch “ethics” videos.

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.

angry_octet2• 5 years ago

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.

redis_mlc• 5 years ago

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!)

Balticabeer Military Aeronautics Youtube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgUYW-I81BUzQFIe3UtAE-w

Source: I study war.

Classified Challenger tank specs leaked online for videogame

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