Comment by gonzo41
4 years ago
Whilst these are 'classified leaks' they are not exactly strategic leaks. Right now we're seeing a lot of real truth's play out in Ukraine about just how great armored vehicles and tanks are.
Most of the above seem more in the realm of commercial in confidence leaks, and or embarrassing information for a military than anything that's significant.
> Whilst these are 'classified leaks' they are not exactly strategic leaks.
Just to expand on the multiple levels of classification a bit. In the UK we have multiple levels, as per the Govt's own open source description [0]: official, secret and top secret. Official is sometimes give the caveat 'sensitive' which corresponds to the old 'restricted'. The level 'confidential' isn't used officially now.
At the risk of massive over-simplification, the lowest levels of classification might be used to describe 'how' something works (so that it can be easily read by users in training), while higher levels might describe how well it works, vulnerabilities, etc.
[0] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-securi...
I think it is more that the public is becoming a third observer in military matters (as in all government and commercial matters).
The point is not that "omg the US Army knows our internal penetration specs (#)" but more "omg the public knows." But this could be an advantage for militaries - leak enough of this, guide enough games designers in the right way and build a groundswell of support for ... well modelled, arms improvements and upgrades.
You should probably also model the value of having the parts of a weapon manufactured in 49 states in 49 factories rather than say one. And see how you can get public support to chnage that
in general I am saying that this game provides a well informed public. seems like a good thing. except if you like corruption
(#) The CIA already told them. right now there is probably a spy in washington trying to work out how to say "yes, we spent 15 million dollars obtaining the specs on the Chinese shell last month, but how were we supposed to know ..."
I think it won't be too hard.
"We invested 15 million into our network of spies in China, we have another bit of evidence that it works. And anyway it was only 15 million, pocket change for the MIC."
Not to turn this into a military strategy thread but....
There is something to be said for highly mobile anti-armor weapons in possession of the defending force, but there is ample evidence that Russia simply does not have enough manpower to use its tanks properly.
* There are many cases in which a three-crew tank is manned by two people (there is no commander).
* They don't seem to have enough cannon fodder to act as a filtering force - the perimeter around armor to make sure they are not targeted with standoff weapons.
The reports of the tank's death are greatly exaggerated.
Not to mention the ongoing proliferation of active protection systems — the Trophy APS[0] is a truly impressive[1] piece of technology.
- [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure)
- [1]: https://youtu.be/uRJzcM5ETY4
Unfortunately, most classified stuff is like that. It’s a lot of e.g. boring specs of things you wouldn’t care about if you saw it.
The actual interesting stuff is more rare than Mr. Clean with hair.
The challenge of classified info is that you don't know what knowledge a potential attacker has. This is why so many things that seem either obvious or irrelevant can end up on the classified list.
Sure, details on the tungsten penetrator by themselves may be either semi-obvious or worthless (wow, it's a round that penetrates things. Shocking a tank would carry such a weapon!). But the Chinese don't know if their potential opponents in the field know something about, say, the quality of tungsten China industry can access, or if they could extrapolate something about the operation of the main gun itself from the reported penetration numbers on the tungsten round.
This is why classification tends to be a wider net than seems necessary.
> It’s a lot of e.g. boring specs of things you wouldn’t care about if you saw it.
Boring to most, maybe. But understanding the design of a shell or understanding the capabilities of a tank turret can inform armor design and battlefield tactics respectively.
If you understand how Explosively formed projectiles are created then modern armor design doesn't matter that much.
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Whilst these are 'classified leaks' they are not exactly strategic leaks.
> Right now we're seeing a lot of real truth's play out in Ukraine about just how great armored vehicles and tanks are.
We're seeing "a lot of real truth's play out in Ukraine," but a lot of that seems to be about Russian organization and tactics, not necessarily "how great armored vehicles and tanks are."
For instance: early in the war I read some (US Marine Corps?) study that was online about the Russian "Battalion Tactical Group" that noted some deficiencies that may have made them far more vulnerable in Ukraine (IIRC too many tanks, too little infantry and support troops, too centralized command and control). My understanding is that it's been essential for a long time that tanks travel with significant infantry support.
> Most of the above seem more in the realm of commercial in confidence leaks, and or embarrassing information for a military than anything that's significant.
The one about the Chinese projectile seems like it could be pretty bad. Wouldn't that be the exact kind of technical information an opponent would want to design armor or develop the right tactics for it? For instance, if you increase your side's armor to neutralize it, then your tanks can fight more aggressively.
Not quite, because without the exact composition and design of the projectile you can't know for sure what is necessary unless your armor is made purely of rolled homogenous steel.
> Right now we're seeing a lot of real truth's play out in Ukraine about just how great armored vehicles and tanks are.
Was watching a video, of a guy basically explaining that tanks may be becoming less of a focus in modern armies, as new weapons and tactics easily counter them.
I guess it’s kinda like when Calvary first started to fall from its throne in warfare, due to new advancements in infantry tactics.
> a guy basically explaining that tanks may be becoming less of a focus in modern armies, as new weapons and tactics easily counter them.
Tanks will probably reduce in focus given their massive expense vs. the countermeasures but the Russian's tank losses have arisen partly because of their massive tactical incompetence and can't in themselves be taken to mean that tanks are now useless. Tanks work best when used in combined arms ops, with supporting infantry, artillery and air.
Sending columns of tanks in single file down main roads and then getting them blown up is basically the plot of "A Bridge Too Far", a.k.a Operation Market Garden in WW2, when the Allies tried to quickly cross multiple bridges into Germany, and discovered the hard way that only the tanks at the front can actually fight, and that if they get stuck, so do all of the others. Obviously the Russian commanders didn't watch this classic film when it was repeated on Sunday afternoon TV.
[Edit] That said, I wouldn't necessarily choose AFV crew if I was picking a job in an Army.
They could've drawn on more recent history - the highway of death event in Iraq during the gulf war.
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They won't. Armchair generals think that massive losses of tanks would mean that they are going away. In real life it does not mean that. In ww2 Soviet lost 76% of all tanks they produces during the war, 83,500. And they still choose a tank focued strategic doctrine after this fact during the cold war, and they knew better than anyone else how many tank losses they suffered during ww2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipment_losses_in_World_War_...
So this war, the Yom Kippur, the Syria war, they have no news regarding tank losses. Tanks were never designed to be invulnerable, and their losses have never meant that they don't work. The Soviet and the Russians knows this. The west think that tank's will survive battle fields, but from a historical point of view that is a delusion. Tanks are still the least bad choice, they are faster and hit harder than infantry, which if you think AFV have it though against drone corrected artillery, infantry is a sheit site worse.
They utilized other recent events, including the Marine cooler opting to drop all their tanks (I’ll bet my father was thrilled at that)
But you’re probably right that this is an armchair general making guesstimations. He did have military experience, but not in any capacity that would make him an expert in tank warfare.
FWIW cavalry (as in my analogy) didn’t really die off for a very long time and was still useful in armies for some time, but they were not the symbol and main power of armies that they used to.
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Are you going to climb into a tank, after what we've seen?
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There's a ton of minor pundits writing this lazy take. It's not a particularly compelling argument.
We've known tanks in open terrain and without infantry screening are very vulnerable to ATGMs since the Yom Kippur war. We've also seen recent examples of the same in Syria and Yemen.
A tank's utility doesn't rely upon it being somehow uncountable. We know tons of things counter tanks. But the combination of mobility, protection against shrapnel and heavy machine gun fire, and a big gun that can cheaply hit fortifications, while utterly obliterating any other armored vehicle around that's not an MBT, isn't going away any time soon.
What we're seeing is instead an increment in a long standing race between offense and defense. Reactive armor swung things towards the defense for a bit. Tandem charges and top attack munitions swung it back. Now Active Protection Systems are dragging it back the defense direction.
You had such a chance to say "first started to fall from its saddle..."
"I guess it’s kinda like when Calvary first started to fall from its throne ..."
I hope it is useful and interesting for you know:
Calvary is where Christ died.
Cavalry are the guys on horses.
Yep that’s one of those seemingly simple words I always fuck up for some reason.
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I really don't think that's a good comparison, cavalry didn't just fall from grace because they became easily slaughtered by infantry, they stopped being used because their role became irrelevant and were replaced. The role tanks play has not become irrelevant and while they aren't as survivable as they used to be they aren't nearly as vulnerable as clips from UA seem to imply.
I'd recommend this video by a former Abrams commander and tank historian who presents this argument far better than I can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI7T650RTT8
I don't think so, you will always need what tanks bring to the battlefield, it is just that the ratios may shift.
simplified to absurdity it is a sort of rock paper scissors situation.
The most economical way to project force is with infantry. the best defense from infantry are machine guns. The best offense against machine guns are armored vehicles(tanks). the most economical defense from tanks are man portable anti-tank weapons. and we have come full circle, the most economical offense to portable anti-tank weapons are infantry.
So the trick is to have your combat mix to the correct ratio.
Nearly all NATO equipment was made to fight against russian armor. Now we see its effectivenes.
I think it is quite clear that all strategy and tactics are done by US/NATO generals who tell the Ukrainian army what to do - since NATO has all its spy satelites/systems that track phones/various classified stuff pointed on the area.
And think that Trump wanted USA to leave NATO. Talk about russian assets..
>And think that Trump wanted USA to leave NATO. Talk about russian assets..
Speaking of Russian assets, there are still people that say that Merkel was always against German dependence on Russian gas but could not do anything about it. For 16 years!
There is more "evidence" that Merkel is a long-term Russian intelligence asset, recruited from her youth in East Germany,[1] than that of Trump being the same. One guess on which claim is incessantly repeated by the bien-pensants of the chattering classes.
Bonus: Trump and Stoltenberg argue on camera (<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpwkdmwui3k>). Who turned out to be right? Who turned out to completely, totally, 100% wrong?
[1] Something else never talked about is how her parents moved from West to East Germany when she was a baby
Not to support Trump here, but taken the other way, look at how much value and effectiveness America is bringing to the NATO table. And the cost of having access to that power was a mere 2% of GDP (something that many EU countries that were incredibly reluctant to meet are now increasing frantically to make up for lost time).
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> Nearly all NATO equipment was made to fight against russian armor. Now we see its effectivenes.
To go along with this, when Americans train, we mainly practice for peer-combatants, against Russian armor. That means a whole bunch of light infantry, mechanized infantry, combat engineers, calvary and armor, as well as all of our air assets, know how to make it really dangerous for armor. Aka a shooting gallery.
> I think it is quite clear that all strategy and tactics are done by US/NATO generals who tell the Ukrainian army what to do - since NATO has all its spy satelites/systems that track phones/various classified stuff pointed on the area.
Perhaps at the macro level there is some advice going on, info about positions and definitely tooling.
However, when I've seen videos of Russian armor getting hit by infantry, in most cases it was merely columns driving on a road with no support, and some anti-armor missiles hitting them on their flanks. Armor emerging from a treeline in an open area perfect for a long range missile shot from a TOW, no support anywhere. Basically, newb mistakes.
In all the videos I have seen, and have watched lots, I have yet to see a full "American style" ambush. I think it may be dangerous for this to happen, because if Russia was regularly losing large amounts of tanks, it would make it that much more likely that they'd go Nuclear. Another reason for this may be Russian responses to various things can include using artillery or missiles against > a grid square.
> And think that Trump wanted USA to leave NATO. Talk about russian assets..
That was a negotiating tactic. The only way the euros have managed to have such rich social spending is in part, not keeping their promises about contribution levels. The US cannot afford to pick up the tab for everyone's defense in Europe.
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Tanks are about safely moving a big gun. Iraq war showed us it's more important to safely move people (up-armored hmmwv). Modern artillery, drones and missiles accomplish the "big gun" role better without having to get close enough to be in danger.
I don't think leaks need to have strategic implications to be significant. I'm no expert but the information on armor and APFSDS could have meaningful impacts on the survivability of a tank. Or maybe all of this is common knowledge that every relevant actor has aquired through HUMINT, who knows.
For all of the things you would find in user manuals (that operators are trained against), then yes, one would imagine such info is commonly known.
As far as I am aware, all of the information "leaked" has been of this kind (the leakers have mostly been operators!).