Someone Leaked Classified Chinese Tank Schematics To Win an Online Argument (taskandpurpose.com) 85
schwit1 shares a report from Task & Purpose: A fan of the popular mechanized combat simulator 'War Thunder' shared the specs of China's Type 99 Main Battle Tank online in order to win an argument over the game. [...] The latest incident, first reported by the OSINTtechnical Twitter account, involves information in Mandarin on the penetrator section of a Chinese tank round along with a technical diagram. While many of the original images have been taken down, they were essentially the schematics for a Chinese tank munition, presumably revealed to the world so a video game could more accurately depict what would happen if a Chinese tank and an American tank -- or British, French, Russian, German or Israeli tank -- met in combat. And this isn't the first time these forums have become an outlet for technical leaks. [...]
The most recent leak, the latest leak, from someone with access to the latest technical manuals from China's People's Liberation Army, occurred because a user wanted the game's Chinese battle tanks to have better in-game stats. While most of the information about the Chinese tank round was already known, it was still apparently more important for one gamer to prove another gamer wrong on a message board than it was to consider the implications of publishing the technical details of military munitions online.
The video game developer, Gaijin Entertainment, banned the user, telling Kotaku that, "Our community managers immediately banned the user and deleted his post, as the information on this particular shell is still classified in China. Publishing classified information on any vehicle of any nation at War Thunder forums is clearly prohibited, and the game developers never use it in their work."
The most recent leak, the latest leak, from someone with access to the latest technical manuals from China's People's Liberation Army, occurred because a user wanted the game's Chinese battle tanks to have better in-game stats. While most of the information about the Chinese tank round was already known, it was still apparently more important for one gamer to prove another gamer wrong on a message board than it was to consider the implications of publishing the technical details of military munitions online.
The video game developer, Gaijin Entertainment, banned the user, telling Kotaku that, "Our community managers immediately banned the user and deleted his post, as the information on this particular shell is still classified in China. Publishing classified information on any vehicle of any nation at War Thunder forums is clearly prohibited, and the game developers never use it in their work."
Who needs spies. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Will that be followed up by a copy of Jane's?
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The Chinese APDS penetrator is made of tungsten rather than depleted uranium.
That is an interesting design choice since China has many reactors and enriches its own uranium. So China should have plenty of DU.
Re: Who needs spies. (Score:3)
It's probably because they plan to conquer the enemy permanently and don't want some low active or poisonous waste in the area after the invasion. Even depleted uranium isn't the best stuff when you ingest it.
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plan to conquer the enemy
Or... you know... They don't.
Chinese military doctrine is defensive.
They want to be another USA in a sense that they are strong and rich enough that no one will want to start any shit with them and everyone will want to trade with them.
https://armypubs.army.mil/epub... [army.mil]
1-18. China today seeks what it views as a restoration of its position as a global power through what are described by the CPC as peaceful and relatively unprovocative means.
Bilateral and multilateral relationships are viewed as optimal, where all parties to a matter see benefit from an arrangement.
China seeks a positive relationship with the West - especially the United States - underpinned by a massive exchange of trade and economic interdependence.
China also seeks to modernize its military not through aggressive, short-term arms buildup, but through long-term investment and development. It also seeks courteous - if not cordial - relations with its neighbors in East Asia.
In short, China wishes to be a good neighbor and a good global citizen.
1-19. This approach has thus far yielded mixed results.
Territorial disputes across the Western Pacific and East Asia, aggressive cyber activities, uncooperative diplomacy, questionable trade practices, and a horrendous human rights record all undermine the Chinese goal of being seen as a benevolent superpower.
Activities that China views as fundamentally defensive - such as the establishment of artificial island airbases in the South China Sea - are seen as aggressive and provocative by virtually every other party in the region.
Chinese cyber activities, seen by the nation as simple surveillance and deterrence activities, have caused several high-profile international incidents.
1-20. China's strategic objectives are informed by its political objectives and generally support the broad political goals of Western Pacific dominance by 2035 and becoming a leading world power by 2049.
They are also informed by certain elements of Chinese culture and history: the importance of status and honor, the desire for peace through power, and the belief in Chinese Communism, among other aspects. Chinese strategic objectives are to:
- Maintain internal security and stability.
- Secure and protect land borders and coastlines.
- Maintain regional stability.
- Maintain freedom of navigation.
- Resolve maritime territorial disputes.
- Establish positive conditions for potential hostilities.
I.e. They don't want a costly war of conquest, followed by an even costlier occupation and international sanctions. Why bother when you can make your neighbors your partners who'll work for you?
Hint: It's what Putin was (kinda) doing with Ukr
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Or, you know, pay attention to what they do and say; which is expansionist. They are building infrastructure for countries around the globe.
Problem caused by by urban migration (Score:2)
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Cheers, thanks I needed a laugh. Happy Friday.
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He's not missing; he just voluntarily moved to a reeducation camp.
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He won an all expenses paid trip to an advanced social training facility.
Jeesh, word choice matters, comrade!
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Indeed, the poor guy.
Can we pause for a moment to acknowledge true greatness and pay our respects?
Not for him, the low lure of ideology, nor the lure of sex, money or an escape from debt. No, he did it for the ultimate glory of winning an internet argument.
Truly he is one of us. Can we award him with an honorary 3 digit uid?
Re:Slashdot loves china (Score:5, Insightful)
Already posting at an automatic -1? Bummer. I suppose it's time to make a new sock puppet based on another username. GL!
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Because assume a certain percent of tank commander or tank engineers are gamers. If they are gamers they would likely gravitate to a tank game. Of those, a percent of them can't keep their emotions and logic in check when annoyed on the internet.
Re:Wasn't the first time either. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Wasn't the first time either. (Score:2)
Russians use Krokodil.
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Re:Wasn't the first time either. (Score:5, Interesting)
All players from world of tanks that try war thunder complain about how easy one die in war thunder... but that is because world of tanks train people that they can take risks due to the HP bar
In war thunder, being risk is very dangerous, tanks aren't "tanks" that can sustain damage... a tank can sustain gun fire, but other tank fire is a different story, specially when the battles are mostly well balanced (is is very rare one tank can't be killed by other if the player knows the weak spots or weak stats to exploit, unlike world of tanks, were some tanks can't be killed in any way by some other lower rank tanks, no matter what you do)
war thunder also have 3 game modes, arcade, realistic and simulation
- arcade, you can see other people tank position and the aim tells you where are the weak spots. this is good for learning, but can turn some tanks to almost trash, things like light and fast tanks like puma, where flank and surprise is the key... if people always know where you are, you can't surprise anybody. So in arcade you die quickly in some tanks, unless you really play as a team. Tanks also have much higher acceleration, to make the game quicker. there are planes in tank battles, but just for 1 or 2 minutes on both sides. This is recommended to learn and do to quick battles, but isn't the fun way to play in the long run, IMHO
- realistic, you can only see in the map your own team and any flagged enemy tank by scouts, so most enemy position are hidden and you play in a totally different way, much more careful and alert. you also do not aim assist, so you have to learn you to use range estimation key and with time you also start do do it by your self. this also make hitting the weak spots harder, as fights are now more long range and the exact distance is harder to guess, so easier to miss the weak spots. sometimes we have to fire lot of ammo and slowly finetune the aim until you hit the weak spot. tank speed is also much closer to reality, so the game pace is slower (MUCH slower compared to world of tanks, that is already much faster than war thunder in arcade mode). This also scare world of tank players, as everything is slower and strategic position of the team in the map is the key to win in war thunder, as few tanks can from one side of the map to the other, it takes too long. Ambush, flank are much easier and a fast and weak tank can kill many high rank tanks if the team didn't cover the flanks correctly. When you die, you can use a plane and good plane players can kill many tanks... but realistic planes are much harder to pilot and you have gun and ammo count, waste then and you have to go back to the airport to reload. AA guns are more important here, to clear or scare the planes. The game still allow third person view. This is game mode is the recommended way to play, it is balanced between realism and fun
- simulation, you get real tank speed, no help in the map about your or enemy team (unless flagged by a scout in comm range), you only have the commander and gunner view (well, there is also the driver view, but usually is way more limited view and no one use it), battles are alliance base, so axis vs allies or nato vs ussr and you can kill friendly, so you do HAVE to learn how to identify the enemy tanks, specially when flanking or ambush. battles are even more strategic, team communication is very important and battles even more long range. Some tanks that die quickly in the other modes can be hard to kill and HEAT or even HE can be more important than AP ammo. Seeing where the fire flash is will tell you where is a tank and binocular use is most important. there are planes, like in realistic mode, but planes in simulation are MUCH harder to pilot, you are in the pilot view and even small damage can make a plane almost impossible to fly. While this mode is the best, battles are slow, do take some time and team play is critical. This is best played with clan
So there, if you played world of tanks, playing any of this 3 mores is totally different and most players can't ada
Re: Wasn't the first time either. (Score:2)
thanks for the rundown!
Re:Obligatory xkcd link (Score:4, Funny)
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Interesting. Did he just force a small font by using a pixel-based width constraint?
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Interesting. Did he just force a small font by using a pixel-based width constraint?
way down at the bottom, along with general xkcd info the very small font "best viewed with Netscape Navigator" caught my eye. Reminds me of those days of website that had counters for number of views.
CCP vs USA tankery (Score:1)
LOL. It's such a funny idea for Chinese tank go up against an American one. So funny that someone should make a cartoon [amazon.com] about such unlikely tank scenarios and the friendships formed from working together.
But seriously, how would this even occur. China can't fly their tanks to the US. Unless something fits inside a shipping container it's not going to get very far from China. It would be "more" practical for China to ship the parts for a tank to the US and assemble them at Tesla. The Y-8 and Y-9 clones could
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Simple solution. You just advertise them for sale over here and let every crazy person buy a really big gun, and have have it shipped over here. You just need to make the Feds *think* (if that is possible) that the main gun has been disabled. Once there are enough of them here in the US the Chinese simply instruct the onboard electronics what the mission is.
https://www.drivetanks.com/own... [drivetanks.com]
/s
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The EPA would impound them all in the same warehouse.
That would save the Chinese the effort of collecting the tanks in one consolidated location.
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I read a book a few years ago, about a war between the US and China; unfortunately I can't remember the title. (I do remember that it had a lot of footnotes, which is unusual for a novel.) But one of the events early on--the start of the war, in fact--has a Chinese cargo ship docked at Honolulu, opens the doors in the side (not sure how that works--maybe opened the hatches? or it was a car ferry?), and out drive a bunch of Chinese tanks and other armored vehicles.
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I wonder if the tanks, planes and ships in China are cardboard printouts that they put up to make the west think they'd actually be dumb enough to us
Re: CCP vs USA tankery (Score:2)
No drone has ever taken out an F-35. Nor an M1A1, for that matter.
China's civilization hugs their coast. In total war, China's civilization wouldn't last a month.
They have pretty much zero naval capabilities. The U.S. owns the seas.
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There is tech better then drone for taking out a M1A1
Let me know when we used a M1A1 against a major industrial power.
Re: CCP vs USA tankery (Score:2)
How about instead you let me know when we deployed M1A1 without air support.
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Taiwan. They already have older US tanks, and chances are, they're going to be getting newer ones in the future.
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The PLA can only field about 400 tanks to Taiwan in an amphibious assault. What fraction of those that aren't sunk and make it to the beach would not last long under an concentrated artillery barrage. There would likely not be any remaining to take on American made M60 and M1 tanks.
More likely is China would button up Taiwan's shipping with long lasting blockades. Then covertly assault and take over one or more port, likely multiple ports would be targeted simultaneously. Destroyed or captured ports would
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Attack the US? Are you high, why would China attack its main source of funding?
Yes, they hate the US. Their goal is to cripple them economically, ensure that the US can't build anything worth jack domestic anymore, is fully dependent economically on China and then squeeze the balls of the US 'til they yell uncle.
And we're getting mighty close to the testicle squeezing phase already.
Wikipedia says Gaijin is European... (Score:2)
So why the hell are the kowtowing to china? This should have been a "go pound sand" moment wrt/ nations trying to export their laws outside their own borders.
Re:Wikipedia says Gaijin is European... (Score:4, Insightful)
They are not. They are respecting the law. At the very least this is a violation of international copyright. Do you respect the law? Or do you think that _you_ get to pick and choose and anybody you do not like does not get their legal rights?
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Welcome to slashdot. Let me introduce you to piratebay.
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What law? Chinese law? Being neither a citizen nor resident of China, why the hell should I (or they)_ care about their military classifications or whatnot?
Or are _you_ at all times in full compliance with every law of every nation in the world, regardless of whether or not you're in their jurisdiction? Ever watched porn on the internet? Saudi Arabia and Iran would like to have a word about that. Ever talked about the Tiananmen Square massacre online or mentioned that you favor democracy in Hong Kong o
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Are you functionally illiterate? I wrote "international copyright". Do you think military documents do not fall under copyright somehow? A copyright violation is quite enough for the action taken against the user.
Re:Wikipedia says Gaijin is European... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about China, but US government-authored documents are not copyrighted. Section 105 of the US Copyright Law says "Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government...". There are of course other protections of many USG-authored documents, like classification.
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That just means the US relinquishes its copyright here. Anybody can do that or make documents available under a license.
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" relinquishes its copyright here"
LOL, no.
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To be fair, China hasn't cultivated the greatest reputation of respect for copyright.
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I do not dispute that. Still means their stuff has protection. Same principle as you murdering somebody does not give others the right to murder you.
Listen, I am just pointing out that the actions taken against the user do not imply China is forcing its laws on military secrecy on the platform that took down the documents and deleted the user account. This will have gone via copyright, international laws or treaties protecting trade secrets or some other mechanism. If the secrecy laws had been used, the use
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There is no such thing as an “international copyright” like that.
JFC, you people so confident in your ignorance. You need to take internet time out for a few days and think about why you post stuff you are ignorant of.
https://www.copyright.gov/circ... [copyright.gov]
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Because YOUR country has copyright laws, laws that acknowledge the copyright holders of other countries....
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What law? Chinese law? Being neither a citizen nor resident of China, why the hell should I (or they)_ care about their military classifications or whatnot?
Or are _you_ at all times in full compliance with every law of every nation in the world, regardless of whether or not you're in their jurisdiction?
Leaking and hosting classified military information has implications for you even if you're not a citizen or resident of a country. Especially if you ever want to visit one. Yes I do tend to pay attention to compliance in countries where I have an interest visiting at some point.
Ever watched porn on the internet? Saudi Arabia and Iran would like to have a word about that.
Not a proper comparison. Firstly the Saudi's and Iranias are only interested in people not viewing porn *in* the country. And secondly a correct comparison would be running a pornography site, or even staring pornography. Yeah they'
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No, I do not respect the law; especially copyright.
Copyright is used by billionaire to control culture. Let me know when the make copyright law sane again.
Re: Wikipedia says Gaijin is European... (Score:2)
Whenever you think you have seen peak stupid (Score:2)
Somebody comes along and is even more stupid, infantile and in possession of an extreme ego.
Not a big deal IRL (Score:2)
It's just another penetrator, not anything exotic like sensor tech or comms or some new SAM or ATGW or torpedo. By the time a round is fielded in quantity its effects will be no surprise.
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Or, rather, the Chinese Generals would like to keep that info under wraps so they could get the same results Ukraine had with Russia during the first couple weeks of the war where they basically popped T-72s left and right because they thought their reactive armor could actually protect them.
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And industrialized nation can strike a tank from 100 miles. if not more.
Against a industrialized military, tanks are just coffins with treads.
Tanks... (Score:1)
China doesn't put a high value on tanks. (Score:2)
Re: China doesn't put a high value on tanks. (Score:2)
Laws exist there and everything is secret or restricted.
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No, that's Germany.
"In England, everything is permitted except what is forbidden.
In Germany, everything is forbidden except what is permitted.
In France, everything is allowed, even what is prohibited.
In the USSR, everything is prohibited, even what is permitted"
-- Allegedly Winston Churchill
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Yes, the folks in control of China are some slimy motherfuckers. Yes, decrees issued by autocrats have the force of law there.
But on top of that, there are also laws.
Do you think yourself clever or helpful by taking a generally-regarded-as-bad actor, and slandering them? I mean what's the fuck point? Why do you need to slander the fucking bad guys? Isn't it enough that rule-by-decree is a reality there?
I'm so fucking tired of you propagandist pond scum.
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Herr Direktor Funranium did a rant on this topic.. (Score:2)
For those of you who haven't encountered his site or blog (or Black Blood of the Earth), Phil Brougton [funraniumlabs.com] is currently a health physicist who has had a rather... varied career. Including doing work that required having a Q clearance. In December 2011, he wrote a rant [funraniumlabs.com] about people and their inability to keep their yaps shut on forums, particularly when someone challenged their expertise. A fun read, and it covers the same topic: Someone, somewhere, on the internet is WRONG, and I have the technical data to p
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I once worked on automated radiographic inspection systems for various artillery munitions components. Our team wanted to publish papers on our advances in automated inspections systems, and the Army said, "Sure, go ahead! But let us preview it first."
Our work on these shells were under various security clearances (I was Secret, with Compartmentalized TS). The only edits the Army requested were for a few mechanical elements in X-Ray images of the proximity fuse to be blurred.
That's it. Everything else was
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I can't vouch for the truth of this, but I was told that back in the 1960s (or possibly early 1970s), the US sat down with the Soviet Union and told them what safety precautions we had against accidental launch of nuclear weapons. As I understood it, the goal was to convince the Soviets to put in place similar precautions, ensuring that some Soviet colonel didn't go wacko and launch a nuke--sort of like the incident the Soviets thought they had in the Hunt for Red October.
Re:Herr Direktor Funranium did a rant on this topi (Score:4, Informative)
Nukes are the opposite of conventional weapons in this regard, because nukes are not weapons intended to be used, but weapons intended to be not used. They're a deterrence mechanism. And for maximum effect of deterrence, you need to inform your enemy of your intentions to use them. In great detail.
A good specific example here is nuclear ballistic missile submarines primarily intended for second strike. Aka doomsday weapons. Their conventional capabilities, such as acoustic stealth are highly classified. But their nuclear strike usage scenarios are basically public.
Exact opposite is true for conventional weapons, weapons that are actually intended to be used. Telling enemies where and how you'd use those weapons grants them ability to build up systems and processes to counter your usage of said weapons.
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" Q clearance."
lol.
So what? (Score:2, Interesting)
Tanks have recently been proved nearly useless.
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Just because Russia has tanks with a "pop goes the weasel" design flaw and uses them in a braindead way doesn't mean the concept itself is dead in the water.
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Tanks have recently been proved nearly useless.
Old Russian tanks have been shown to be completely useless. This really has more to do with the poor state of the equipment, poor training of the drivers but most importantly the absolute fuster-cluckery of their commanders.
A large part of the reason Ukraine has been so successful with infantry anti-tank weaponry is simply because the Russian commanders keep ordering their tanks into obvious ambush and kill zones. The Russian tank commanders are trained to follow orders without question where as a Britis
Re: So what? (Score:2)
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Against an industrialized military, I guarantee you tanks are mostly useless.
Russia tank.. well, recent event surprise exactly no one who has been paying attention to Russia of the last 20 years. There military has largely become a façade. It would be publicly ridiculed, but, you know, nukes and the shaky ego of dictators is a bad combination in and of itself. Not a bear to be poked without careful consideration.
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Tanks have recently been proved nearly useless.
I think you mean, "Tanks without ground support have been proved nearly useless."
Tanks are still a fearsome weapon of war, but not if they're spewed onto the battlefield like orphans left in a forest.
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Yeah. One guy [wikimedia.org] stopped four of them.
Does that make him an ace?
Title says thank schematics (Score:2)
But it's just the shell they fire.
Quality reporting, /.
Probably a Western spy got into the "argument" (Score:2)
Ah, the joys of National Pride (Score:2)
The urge to defend one's country led to revealing the country's secrets and (potentially?) hurting the country's actual defence
Oh c'mon! (Score:2)
What good are national secrets if you can't use them to one-up some random dufus on the internet?
Seinfeld's Kramer had been egging him on (Score:2)
"Type 99 Main Battle Tank is Weak!", and just like with that guy on the Subway, his reaction was predictable.
Seinfeld - Kramer - Ukraine is weak
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Gamer or Information Warfare? (Score:1)
Consequences? (Score:2)
From TFA:
A Chinese MBT crew member may have just leaked
Well, that's one less War Thunder player. I can only venture a guess as to how fast this guy will be put up against the wall by the Chinese Army. The example of the UK Challenger 2 tank details leak seems to be a bit more muted. A sternly worded letter from the MoD outlining violations of the Official Secrets Act. Although I suspect that there is some Royal Tank Regiment commander who will be spending the rest of his career peeling potatoes. Even in this country (USA) the consequences of such actio