Why Do War Thunder Players Leak Classified Information?

[@moon-channel]

Play War Thunder now with my links, and get a massive, free bonus pack including vehicles, boosters and more on PC and consoles: playwt.link/moonchannel25 | Mobile: mwt.game/moonchannel

[@Chomperling]

cannot believe war thunder sponsored a video about war thunder, truely peak cinema

[@FebruaryWashington]

now THIS is a sponsorship I can get behind. grats Moony!!

[@trainknut]

"This deep dive into the history of the gulf war is brought to you by Raytheon"

[@anotherbacklog]

As someone actually switched to the Russian tree to test the Russian bias, I say it’s more of a psychological issue. You probably remember it more when your Tiger got blown up by T34/85, than your T34/85 got blown up by a Tiger.

[@seasuper3402]

As a war thunder player with 6k hours Here's an honest message for new players: War thunder is a game that doesn't respect your time past rank 3 so I would say if you enjoy using ww2 or early cold War then you'll enjoy it Getting to top tier takes a lot of time and/or money as its a game where each vehicle becomes more expensive and longer to research the higher up you go It'll be a game you'll either play for a week or years

[@monkeeee]

There is no cost too great to win an argument with strangers on the internet

[@MCArt25]

real

[@wynnzeng1235]

The dopamine rush you get from owning a complete stranger online outweighs the consequences of committing high treason

[@godricktheminecrafted3113]

Ok pale king calm down

[@quiaudetvincit3400]

15 years in prison is a small price to pay to score internet points, apparently.

[@Nanook128]

​@@quiaudetvincit3400if you're not being executed for leaking State secrets are you even trying in life?

[@maestromarat6195]

Why do War Thunder Players Leak Classified info? How much historical context could you need? "In order to discuss 'Russian Bias' in War Thunder first we have to discuss some Russian Opera and the Mongols." He can't keep getting away with it!

[@Plaprad]

I swear his personal mantra is something along the lines of "You WILL learn EVERYTHING."

[@edatthegovernance]

You're gonna stop him? I mean, he's a lawyer...

[@Plaprad]

@@edatthegovernance "Did you stop that youtuber you were on about?" "Well... not really. After hours of negotiation I agreed to give more to charity, read two books a week, and write an essay on Russian opera in the 19th century. But, I DID get him to agree to mention Brazil in every video." "So.. you lost?"

[@asnail7346]

He WILL keep getting away with it, and we will love every second of it.

[@Kryg94]

You're right!! How could he deny us even more context!!?!

[@Rowan-gt3ik]

As the great russianbadger once quoted: "Please stop sending us classified documents. It's sort of 'turbo illegal.' "

[@RedCoyote]

Ngl I love that you got a warthunder sponsor for this episode

[@ajbXYZcool]

I was like "it isn't war thunder is it" and lo and behold IT IS

[@buddermonger2000]

he's being paid to solve a problem for them

[@marblemunkey]

Epic

[@ICountFrom0]

I LOVE that he gets to rail on warthunder fans for an hour, and get paid by warthunder to do it.

[@eli-en]

I lost it when the sponsorship came up LOL Their marketing team not only have a sense of humor but also have NO SHAME it seems.

[@garadje2623]

Ngl, I didn't skip the ad because scoring a War Thunder ad on this vid is pretty incredible.

[@pax6833]

Yeah lol when it went into the sponsorship ad I was like "Wait what? This is a SPONSORED video? How the hell did this get SPONSORED?!"

[@yeto30003]

The ad was a wild ride.

[@Tuxfanturnip]

@@pax6833 hey, they got their disclaimer in at the start of the video, that's good value

[@JackSeries44]

Literally willingly watched an ad ? You are either a bit or a brainrot zombie, touch grass.

[@amyr4242]

@@pax6833 Gaijin: "hey our game is so good and realistic that people win arguments over it using classified documents because their army employers pay us to train them"

[@JeevesAnthrozaurUS]

In order for us to make an apple pie from scratch, we must first create the universe...

[@ninjawxyz1260]

average moon channel video

[@SuperCaitball]

This video was a bit less of "why do they leak the documents" and more about what drives the inherent bias in using declassified documentation. Which is ultimately fine, because the former topic is just as easy to explain, but the history behind Russian bias is actually massively more interesting than the basic butthurt explanation.

[@pax6833]

"That was the joke"

[@Zeverinsen]

Yeah, I think what the title of the video describes comes in the last 20 minutes or so lol. Kinda misleading, but I liked the video.

[@superbnns]

The entire channel is bait for history lessons I wouldn't have otherwise paid attention to and I mean that as a compliment.

[@duelme1234]

​@superbnns I curious but why and what makes moons history lessons more interesting than others? I feel like there are tons of edutainment channels do a good job telling the story behind each of videos topic either it's how the blue LED was made, the story of a CIA mole, how Taiwan came to dominate semi conductors, different perspectives on historical events, etc.....

[@superbnns]

@duelme1234 seeing how whatever current event is the result of a long history of a given culture in a tangible way. His videos on Korean gacha gender wars hooked me

[@gabrielrussell5531]

Unless I missed it, Moony didn't mention this, but the reason there's footage of a black and white ballet is that during times of crisis, the Soviets would play Swan Lake on television as a distraction, but the public caught on and it has since become something of a Russian meme. kzbin.info/www/bejne/m6OkapZmoraSf80si=Sa-bIsaW9-BGhzJs

[@erichzannbusoumuzan]

To be a bit more precise, the "Лебединое Озеро" ("Swan Lake") ballet is a symbol of the "Августовский Путч" ("The August Revolution") and "The (Russian) White House Assault" of 1991 that started airing regularly on the 19'th of august as a coverup of Yeltsin's activity.

[@conspiracypanda1200]

It was played again not too long ago by the Russian TV channel "the rain". The hosts and entire staff walked out on a livestream in protest of the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, stating "no war" before they cut to Swan Lake.

[@marocat4749]

Oh thats wher eswann song comes from XD

[@empoleonmaster6709]

Thank you for this explanation, it does clarify things quite a bit.

[@darkcreatureinadarkroom1617]

Thank you for sharing, I would have never known about this legit Easter egg otherwise. So cool!

[@batteredthem]

Getting the game itself to sponsor a video about its playerbase is wild and I’m so here for it

[@Iowa2006]

Next video "Why are competitive games such a breeding ground for toxic behavior and why League of Legends has the most toxic community of all? Sponsored by Riot and the most popular MOBA, League of Legends"

[@batteredthem]

@ it’d honestly be cool if all the sponsors going forward were at least as on point as this reply

[@Toonrick12]

@@batteredthem No doubt this is why Moony keeps delaying his MiHoyo video for this long.

[@AnnoyingNewsletters]

*_Why Micro Transactions are the Worst, Actually,_* brought to you by *_RAID, Shadow Legends!_*

[@moon-channel]

Apologies for the on and off vocal track quality: I contracted norovirus half-way through production of this video, and didn't quite have the time to re-record as much as I'd have liked as a result. Nevertheless, please enjoy. I do hope this one wasn't too ranty, though if you ask me, a little ranty can be fun!

[@sokkyu]

All good moon man, hope you're feeling better.

[@benjaws5263]

Take care of yourself, before uploading any videos. Just take your time, I don't mind waiting for the videos you upload.

[@nefariousyawn]

​@@benjaws5263 I agree, but they were probably under a deadline by War Thunder.

[@KoOk-h1d]

Hey, moonie, I have a question about Nintendo. When watching your videos, I wonder if any of us were to start a business in ip, would any of us become overprotective with our ip.

[@KoOk-h1d]

I have an article reading something on the head of Nintendo who came last month to talk about intellectual property and how he'd use his patent against China for Splatoon 1. He also had a stance with emulation and Nintendo's business. As someone interested in ip. And understanding their decision making, almost how much protectiveness must have you with your ip.

[@VetovaI]

Fun fact I actually met the first leaker in the game, his name if I remember correctly was Dreadnaught. He was also unsurprisingly a frequent arguer on the forum.

[@Zeverinsen]

You've got to have high stats in Internet Arguing if you're gonna leak classified documents because of it.

[@crashstudi0s]

Moony: "wanna know about war machines getting leaked?" Everyone: YES! Moony: "history lesson it is" For real though, love how you manage to make history be intresting and make sense.

[@HorizonStrider]

"What is the best tank of World War 2?" The tank that makes tank nerds say "Good choice" and shuts them up.

[@Miss_Trillium]

Congrats, I actually lol'ed. As the political nerd in HS (going on to study policy in college before dropping out), there truly was no one more annoying than the tank nerd

[@Tankthebirb]

As a tank nerd, this is the objectively correct answer.

[@NoMoreCrumbs]

I like the answer "whatever tank does the job you need in the place where you need it done." Any piece of equipment can be good if used properly, if you get lucky, or both

[@coobk]

that would be the matilda 2 then?

[@petermoras6893]

War (Thunder). War (Thunder) never changes (by leaking classified information).

[@nefariousyawn]

(Pan out to reveal a post apocalyptic landscape. FOIA requests and cease and desist orders flutter in the wind)

[@seneca983]

I'm sure it changes due to balance patches (not based on classified info) and someone is always going to hate those changes.

[@gabrielrussell5531]

The story of the Gorbachev Pizza Hut commercial is actually pretty interesting: His pension wasn't matched to inflation, so he needed to do stuff like that to pay his bills. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gqiom3Sqg85sf6Msi=jXwZrhV_eTGhgduY

[@waterdragon2.08]

good.

[@BaalFridge]

He got minimum waged lmao

[@abdimalikelmi729]

@@waterdragon2.08Georgians Armenians Azeris Latvians Lithuanians Estonians poles Germans Hungarians Romanians Ukrainians are happy the USSR is gone lol

[@waterdragon2.08]

@abdimalikelmi729 ok? The fascist half of those are really happy, every normal person laments the fact the ussr was illegally dissolved, whats ur point we could go tit for tat all day about "erm my anecdote says this"

[@davidjames4890]

@@waterdragon2.08 "Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back, has no brain." -Vladimir Putin The lawfulness of the dissolution doesn't matter, it didn't for Yugoslavia or the Confederate States of America. It happened, and we must live for it. Attempting to bring it back will end poorly, so just appreciate it in all the goodness and badness that it was. Also, the female Che Guevara profile picture and calling all of those nations and their people "fascists" when they were once underrepresented minorities in an authoritarian state makes it painfully clear you're a tankie. Please be better.

[@5Del]

4:05 - "A game so good that some gamers are willing to risk jail time just to argue about it" Gaijin Entertainment, this is a quote that needs to be used in one of ad campaigns.

[@volcano.mitchell]

They should

[@Sincald]

25:12 _•Moony, from the benchtop behind me:•_ "and you ARE watching this video, right? You're not just treating my video as a podcast, are you?" ......yes.

[@adamboyd1132]

I will go to the GRAVE saying that the best tank of WWII was the Bob Semple. The tank that kept the coasts of Kiwiland free of invaders, all too afraid to even get into range of its guns!

[@danshakuimo]

If propaganda buffed vehicles, that one would have so much propaganda that it would be OP because of the ardent belief of everyone in its power

[@sokkyu]

Just looked it up for the first time. What a cute little guy of a tank. Reminds me of advanced wars.

[@colossaldonut5190]

It's a good thing that nobody ever had to fight the Big Bob.

[@NerveFlux]

I only know what that is from playing Iron Storm haha. That game will also teach you about war units. A bit dated on Sega Saturn but the sounds and music in it was also motivating.

[@phyllotaxis]

The original Killdozer

[@weirdslime262]

I think that the "it's a pattern that can be broken, it's not an inevitable cycle" disclaimer should have been at the front of the video, not the back, personally. Having said that, history always rhymes in interesting ways.

[@marocat4749]

Yes it doesnt repeat but rhyme.

[@refindoazhar1507]

Why would you put a conclusion at the front?

[@ivmivmivm]

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) is a thing tbf

[@ExtremeWreck]

Ehhh, it IS an inevitable cycle in most cases. Even if it doesn't look or feel like it, the pieces are still there.

[@unnamedx2]

Warthunder has bug report section where players can and are encouraged to submit historical inaccuracies in vehicles, the game markets itself on accuracy in vehicle performance and this is where the problem comes in, gaijin will frequently deny reports citing 5 or so credible sources saying they're not specific enough, the specifics for vehicles are often classified, so essentially they're not telling you to leak classified documents but that only classified documents would suffice as proof "specific enough" to warrant the changes you seek, so that paired with the type of crowd this game attracts is definetly not a good combo.

[@Armageddon_71]

This is something i deeply missed from this video. The history segment was nice and there was some great commentary in there of how the myth of OP tanks can start and dilute arguements. But overall, i felt like there was just not enough said about the topic this video was supposed to be about. Why even talk about the entire history since the start of the rus for like 45 minutes, when you probably could have condenced this into like 15 minutes? A quick lesson about how dictatorships like russia favor lying to save your skin, which the n4zis then also did to save skin and the US kept going for their Red Scare and then dive into the game. This felt more like an excuse to get a history lesson out (which im all in for, but then say so), with the Warthunder bit as an afterthought. The segment actually about the game is a bit lacking for an explanation how we got here. Its not talking about ineffective mechanics like hull break or flaws with overpressure. Theres also nothing about, like you said, Gaijin *purposefully* ignoring evidence. I mean, with a lot of these papers it might be a bit "he said, she said", but it becomes incredibly annoying in some cases. Spookston also has a few videos about the HSTV-L and the other, similar thing i forgot the name of. All the evidence he presented were countered by "it didnt feel right". Even worse in my opinion is the PZH 2000, were you can *go on KZbin and watch a video of that thing shooting with a 4 sec reload, not 13, like Gaijin claims.* No wonder the players get pissed.

[@Rolana_SSR-mj1vm]

I'm hoping for a little historical intro (start with presocratics)

[@moon-channel]

Be careful what you wish for!

[@Rolana_SSR-mj1vm]

@@moon-channel yeah, somewhat disappointed. Series on Korea was a better production, cause of lower scope x longer duration. Still vastly superior compared to midwit slop the algo forces to my right bar :) cheers, i wish you the best in further ventures

[@alexharvey7660]

@@Rolana_SSR-mj1vm you are complaining about the duration when this is an over hour long video lol

[@moon-channel]

That Korean video is some of my best work: it was originally meant not to be a two part, but a single long video. I was afraid it'd be too long for viewers though, which is how it ended up in two.

[@orionbarnes1733]

Why do players leak classified documents? Well, first the cloud of gas that would one day form our solar system slowly collapsed into a single disc, with a star forming at its center...

[@joho4430]

How much of the video did war thunder have control over with the sponsorship? Was it just the sponsor segment or did they have some changes with the script and whatnot?

[@MisterFoxton]

I'd love to know too.

[@moon-channel]

Outside of the disclaimer and the integration segment itself, absolutely none at all. The disclaimer was mandatory, and every sponsor always wants to make sure the ad looks OK, but the entire rest of the video was unchecked by them. I'm still a little baffled that they OK'd the premise, to be honest. But, I respect them for the decision.

[@alexandersrensen5131]

@@moon-channel Great to get clarification. I feel this might be important to state clearly since when I saw the ad I immediately doubt the video a bit

[@Dovoline3]

@@moon-channel Given the frustratingly large scope and scale of the incredibly, incredibly dumb problem, I'd imagine they consider it a net benefit to have someone generally seen as a knowledgeable authority say in no uncertain terms "HEY STOP DOING THIS".

[@aa-id7li]

​@moon-channel im half considering reinstalling the game now so it clearly worked

[@NFTMASSACRE]

2021 is when it was actually paid attention to, and DCS broke most of the ground for Aircraft related leaks prior to war thunder. If i had a nickel for everytime i got into an internet argument with an american tank loader who had to prove to me just how fast the tank can actually be reloaded manually via video of him doing it in the tank only to be refused permission to do so by his commanding officer after asking if he could do so i'd have 10 cents.

[@Zeverinsen]

The funniest part about this is imagining a military employee stomping his feet like a child because he can't show his tank to the Internet stranger >:(

[@alganhar1]

Lots of other reasons to keep the fourth guy on the crew not related to reloading the main gun as well, but that are not really modelled in games. They are a fourth pair of eyes for better situational awareness. A fourth pair of hands for the daily maintenance of the vehicle. Four is better than three when the vehicles are laagered up for the night and the crews have to take turns on watch. Four is better than three when you have to change a damaged track in the field. And so on. These 'soft' reasons for having a fourth man in the turret are probably as, if not more important reasons for those countries who have maintained a human loader in their tanks. Tanks rarely get into situations where sustained maximum rate of fire is ever really used, but the daily maintenance is, well, daily. Hell in British tanks the loader is the second in command of the vehicle, the loader also controls the boiling vessel, thus the supply of tea! Absolutely critical in British tanks as I am sure you can imagine. Personally I am of the opinion that tanks will move to an autoloader with a four man crew anyway. Why? Drones. The driver, gunner and commander are all too busy in an MBT in combat conditions to be messing about with controlling any drones assigned to a tank unit, so it makes more sense to slap in an extra crew member, or autoloader, and make them a specialist drone operator. Especially when you are looking at many of the hybrid manned/unmanned unit composition concepts you are seeing being thrown around with the manned vehicles controlling multiple specialist drones for a variety of taskings....

[@NFTMASSACRE]

@alganhar1 the unending cope of laploader truthers

[@NFTMASSACRE]

@@alganhar1 the unending cope of laploader truthers

[@LoFi_Punk]

I'm honestly surprised that someone asked for permission rather than just rapping his name tags and ranks off while donning a balaclava

[@iosifleibin8340]

I am conflicted. On one hand, the oversimplification of the historical part pushes me to write an "um, akshually" wall of text; on the other hand, this video is already an hour long and I agree with 95% of its main points, so, in conclusion: Thank you for your good work, Mooney! P.S. I personally think that this "Cycle of history" is a pretty, yet contrived and nonsensical thing. A case of "stretching an owl over the globe", if you will

[@JustRandomSymbols]

The "um akshually" wall of text would have to be so big that it's easier to just disregard the historical part of the video altogether. It does more harm than good imo, spreading misconceptions and outright falsehoods among other things. There's less of actual history there and more of using history as props to make a cool narrative work. Reminds me a lot of the 250 years empire cycle myth, if less egregious.

[@shijikori]

Yeah, just with the holdomor, I'm not convinced it's great on the historical value. Scholars have found more arguments for the Holdomor not being a genocide, the famine affected multiple areas of the USSR. It's a terrible event and terrible mismanagement at least but there isn't sufficient evidence to say it was intentional genocide.

[@JFirecracker]

As I've said to hella Americans by now: if you accept Holodomor as an intentional genocide on the Ukraine, you have to accept the Dust Bowl as an intentional genocide on midwestern America. If Stalin somehow committed a genocide _mostly upon his own_ by wielding juche necromancy to summon up a famine, then so did Roosevelt.

[@marocat4749]

@@shijikori I mean its still very fair to hold up as being very much responsible and looking down on really mattered as, yeah takling food from literally starving people is, .. a crime against hiumanity, so a crime against humanity would be fairer. And for real genocide ais one of the hardest thing to define, crimes against humanity might be better for not that but very horrible things om malielent mishandling.

[@Zeverinsen]

​@@shijikori The uncertainty doesn't mean that it did or did not happen in one way or another. The famine happened, many people died or were deeply traumatised because they survived, and the fact that they took food from these starving people cannot be denied, just like the Irish potato famine. They could've chosen not to, yet they did. Whether or not it was an intentional genocide or simply a selfish crime against humanity is hard to be certain of as there isn't much hard evidence to support one or the other, but we can safely say that Stalin was responsible for the Soviet state taking food from starving people. "Fun" fact, one of the biggest traitors to my country (Quisling, one of the last people executed in our country after WW2) went to Ukraine during the famine under the guise of providing humanitarian aid. In a diary that was accidentally found a couple of years ago, he detailed some of what he had seen and done there during that time... I already knew it was a horrible happening, but some of the things he saw and described were more harrowing than what I had ever read about it previously. In that sense, it doesn't really matter if it was intentional or not, but Stalin was responsible. That being said, you can say many things about Stalin, but you can't say he wasn't somewhat meticulous. If there was any evidence that it was his intentional doing, it would've vanished as fast and mysteriously as his opposition.

[@Dovoline3]

To your point on the Spit 24 seeing jets it absolutely should not see, and to kind of validate your point on how war thunder approaches game balance, let me tell a bit of a story: Sorry, that was me. Well, partly. I want to say it was like 2018 or 2019 after more of the last generation of propeller aircraft got added - aircraft that were arguably better than the Spitfire - but the Spitfire continued to be balanced as the better aircraft. This was partly because the Spitfire as a platform was just better suited to the gameplay of War Thunder... but also because us British players had more time with our plane, while P-51H pilots and their contemporaries had just gotten theirs. And so with experience on our side, we absolutely DOMINATED - If you had a full team of Spitfires, you pretty much couldn't lose. On top of that, Gaijin had kind of settled on BR 6.0 being the "soft barrier" between propeller and jet fighters. So for a long time the Spit 24 sat there and dominated. But after the other "superprops" were introduced and did nothing to balance the situation, Gaijin finally caved and put the Spitfire up to 6.3. This, while hilarious, made the Spitfire incredibly frustrating to play, since jets were so fast you basically could never engage them on your own terms. Most people stopped flying the Spit 24 in favor of the almost identical if ever so slightly less ridiculous Spit 22, with only devotees and people who wanted to fight jets with props sticking around. About a year had passed, and while the BR changes started becoming more frequent, they also started to seem to make a lot less sense - tanks and planes were getting put into brackets they had no business being in, and it didn't take long to connect the dots to these all being vehicles that were either known to be played frequently by below-average players who would blunder them into destruction, or blue moon rare sightings only played by youtubers and no-lifers who could dominate a match on their own regardless of the actual relative strength of their chosen vehicle. By complete coincidence, around the same time, those of us in the Spitfire community had started refining our strategies, and found that not only was it quite possible to use the Spit 24 against jets successfully... it was fun. And it could be done reliably. AND you could even carry a match. When another round of flight model adjustments came that were very favorable to the Meteor and the Vampire, the two British starter jets who would commonly be your wingmen - well, a few of us saw an opportunity. There were like maybe 100 of us total. We had the tactics, we had the (lack of) numbers, and we had the insurance in the form of the less skilled among us being able to get carried by their teammates if it came down to it. And so we decided we were going to game the system and do something VERY funny. We were going to turn the Spit 24 into a true jet. 6.3 had by then become the "new standard" for what makes a prop and what makes a jet, with many late-war props or hybrid prop/jets being on that line. The goal then was simple: win hard enough to get Gaijin's automated systems to uptier the Spit 24 to 6.7 - UNQUESTIONABLY the territory of jets, as even back when the Spit 24 was 6.0, 6.7 was the lowest BR of any true jet. And so we grinded the aircraft. HARD. Some of us in organized groups, the more daring of us solo. And BOY did it go better than any of us expected. As it turned out, our tactics were SUBSTANTIALLY better than any of us thought. Coupled with the improvements to the jet teammates we'd have, and getting multiple kills in a match went from being "Wow, good job!" to "Okay, yeah, so what?" in the space of like a month. It frankly did not matter who we fought, we would win almost every time; and on the few losses we did take, we sure as hell didn't go down easy. It did take a little longer than we'd thought after that first month, we saw our initial success and then underestimated how long it would take to trigger the automatic balancing. But in the third month of our campaign, the balance notes came out, and we saw that beautiful 6.7. Now I have long since stopped playing the game - I quit cold turkey after the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, and the sheer scale of the rapid and positive improvement in my life means I will NEVER go back (don't nolife a video game folks, it is NOT worth it and actively kills you). But I consider that 6.7, which seems to have stuck, to be my own personal little mark, the proof that little old me can have a tangible effect on something far, FAR larger than myself.

[@zacsubach]

This is way funnier than I thought 😂. You probably might have caused some people to think about leaking state secrets even

[@Dovoline3]

@@zacsubach Funny thing is the British government is really bad about declassifying information on equipment that's nearly 100 years out-of-date, so yeah, you could conceivably get in trouble in 2025 for leaking classified information about the fucking SPITFIRE.

[@robertcoldwell4742]

congrats on being nearly two years WT sober! it is truly a terrible curse disguised as a game and I'm so glad your life has improved since you quit

[@Dovoline3]

@@robertcoldwell4742 buddy you don't even know the HALF of it. When I said my life had improved since I quit, what that actually translated to was "I lost nearly 100 pounds, got back into uni, got my engineering degree, and now make almost 80k/yr as an entry-level". Sure some of that was already moving anyway, so a lot of it is just coincidence. But it's still insane how much my life changed for the better in such a short time. At the end of the day, yeah, when I look back at JUST the Spitfire thing, I can say that was fun. Would I ever do it again? HELL THE FUCK NO, those people can keep their hell-game. Really everything in that genre, I played World of Warships too, and while I dropped that years before I dropped WT I'd still call it the exact same kind of poison. Just with even worse balance since SO MANY things in WoWs were just... not thought through.

[@Swingingbells]

This is such a great story. GG Biggles!! 😂

[@ericweisseman]

Great video. "Simulation" is always gonna clash with the PvP model, unless your focus is on specifically asymmetric combat. I like how the Arma series does it by just leaving it to the players to figure out how to even the playing field, but that's definitely not what one would call conventionally balanced. Also, I hate to be the ACHKSHUALLY guy, and I understand why news sites would want to clickbait, but most of these leaks aren't really classified, so to speak. They're just export-restricted, and most of the data involved has always been publicly available on the internet or in circulation. It's only really the first Challenger mantlet leak, along with the Su-57 patent leak, that is actually classified and hence of intelligence value to any "interested parties", and even then that stuff probably would have already been known to them for a long time.

[@tverdyznaqs]

As a russian, I'm not a fan of this whole cyclical nature of russian history narrative. It's especially frustrating to see it propagated among the russian populous as this "things never change in russia anyway" mentality breeds political apathy and complacency, which can only ever benefit the authoritarians in the ruling class. Even if this ever-repeating cycle you keep mentioning was a fair and accurate way to summarize russia's historical trajectory throughout the centuries, I would still want to argue against it because, in a sense, repeating it perpetuates it. Put simply, if the cycle is real we should strive to break it, otherwise there's truly no hope for russian liberation.

[@moon-channel]

The video ends on exactly that note: that the cycle isn't an inevitability, it is merely a pattern. And like any pattern, it can be broken.

[@tverdyznaqs]

@moon-channel Hiiiiiiiiiiiii mr moon man! sorry got impatient and commented mid-way through the vid hehwheheh

[@Rot8erConeX]

Considering his JRPG god-slaying video, I'm starting to notice a trend of countries having cyclical histories that the people want to break free from. And now I'm wondering if this channel itself is Moony's JRPG, his cry for help that our own (American) history is a cycle we need to break free from.

[@whiteflagstoo]

In an attempt to be helpful and show sympathy, I highly, highly doubt that this is a problem unique to Russians. I think so because government is a power structures, and power structures are always tested, wane, and rebuild. For example in America right now, there is a lot of discussion on what Trump will do and how things will change, and it remains to be seen how successful he will be. A lot of people unfortunately live in consequential times right now. This is purely my opinion, but like you, I have to believe in the future for the better. I do not think the American people are behind Trump as much as he thinks. He will be unpopular and hopefully, broadly unsuccessful. Future elections will be a referendum on his poor performance and unresponsiveness to the needs and wants of US citizens. At the same time, I don't think that America's future will appear politically stable until we have a comprehensive consensus on what our future should look like.

[@Miss_Trillium]

​@Rot8erConeX considering how he mentions that we talk about how the Chinese and Russians are both too strong and too weak, you're definitely right

[@BCrossing]

1:38 I love the Nichijou series-esque new Maya illustration(s)

[@louritashine]

Thank you! It's a reference to a specific scene that is special to Moony, so I'm glad others appreciate it as well c:

[@crazydov]

Mooney is so good that i enjoyed all of this vid even tho idgf about war thunder, or I didn't before watching this vid

[@kacidy]

The only thing that would be funnier than this video would be someone popping into the comments to correct some small inconsequential thing Moony said with heretofore unleaked classified documents, thus proving the overarching point of the entire video. Then I would actually, literally die laughing! Love your work Moon Channel!

[@saiv46]

I wish I had unleaked classified documents about current russian equipment, but there isn't any - Ukrainians leaked that already.

[@ai-spacedestructor]

Moon has been blessed by the snail for he got special permissions to talk about the snail without regrets.

[@pax6833]

"This documentary has been blessed by a Bishop of the Moscow Patriarchate Eastern Orthodox Church. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

[@GunnGuardian]

One of these days I want there to be a movie where the heroes have to find a way to get top secret documentation of some super plane/tank that is being made. So they pull some strings to get the super plane/tank to put into "Not-War Thunder" but with the "low end" of the estimations to get the documentation leaked by an angry player who they trolled.

[@marocat4749]

Wargames 3 ?

[@crediblesalamander8056]

in order to to get the proper historical context, we must first understand the entire history of warfare. or something like that i dunno. i like military history so that's cool with me.

[@_mutanterex]

As a brazilian i love how brasil metioned became a recurring meme on the channel 😂😂

[@AroundTheBlockAgain]

I mean this cycle of "mobilization, consolidation, stability, stagnation, whoopsie, overcorrect for the whoopsie, oops it all broke, rinse and repeat" could describe the patterns that many organizations have gone through (not just Russian government/politics), because it is so generic that it's like describing The Water Cycle or The Nitrogen Cycle. And that's both the useful part and the sad part - just because you know the steps to the cycle doesn't mean you understand the ecosystem, or that real life always acts like the pattern describes, but people act like they do.

[@isaacr250]

Hi moony, I just wanted to say that your video about undertale and nihilism really helped me about 3 weeks ago. I was having a really bad night and my anxiety was becoming too much. I found your video and watched it out of pure curiosity and by the end i felt so much better. Your calm and introspective nature in your video really helped calm me down. Anyway after that i started thinking a lot about my life in general and what i am going to do for the rest of my life. I am currently a junior in college about to graduate in the coming year, and am getting anxious about whether or not I will find my life and future career fulfilling. After a lot of introspection I had this realization that I want to be a lawyer. I have had these thoughts about becoming a lawyer for around a couple months now. I am planning on taking summer classes that count towards a law certification that should hopefully help me get into law school. Anyway long story short I rememberd that you were a lawyer. If you don’t mind me asking I have a couple questions for you. How did you know that you wanted to become a lawyer? Was there a specific experience that caused you to want to become an attorney or did you just have an interest in the law? Around what time in your life did you start pursuing the practice of law? I would consider myself an introvert who has high anxiety, as well as dyslexia making college and school in general quite difficult. Despite that though i really enjoy human interaction and connecting with people. I am slowly but surely taking steps to be more confident and communicate better. I genuinely feel the need to want to help people and make a difference even if small. I have an interest in the law as well and am not considering becoming a lawyer solely for money. Don’t get me wrong more money is good but becoming rich, is not the reason I want to become a lawyer. I know law school and the legal profession in general is very rigorous and stressful so I am just looking for some more insight. Even if I don’t end up going to law school and become an attorney I just enjoy hearing people’s stories and opinions. I am sorry that this video has no relevance to war thunder whatsoever, and I am also sorry I typed a whole essay I just wanted to gain more insight. I Don’t want you to feel to pressured to respond, again I just felt like typing to get my thoughts off my chest. Anyway If you somehow made it to end of this comment moony or anyone really thank you for taking the time to hear me out and read this ridiculously long comment, it is appreciated. I hope everyone has a good day/night :)

[@mavisgray7347]

I have over 3000 hours in this game, it is because war thunder is a mass delusion with a game attached.

[@rotmistrzjanm8776]

53:20 acctually that one was a resoult of ruso-sino rivallry. It was Mao Zedong who was treatening Soviets that intervention in Poland would resoult in Soviet-Chinese war so Soviets backed down and local polish comunists understood it as greenlight for slight liberalisation

[@Soulessblur]

That "if you hurt them emotionally enough they might leak documents" joke was absolutely diabolical, genuine mad respect for War Thunder to give you this sponsor.

[@Matt__B]

You should have just mentioned Borodin in the thumbnail. I slept on this video for nearly an hour because I thought it was just about War Thunder.

[@louritashine]

Noted, perhaps some day I will get to draw anime Borodin!

[@Matt__B]

@@louritashine I look forward to that day.

[@pizzapasta4090]

"trust me guys all of this irrelevant information is relevant"

[@Javie3]

Lenin rolling in his grave -> generator -> electricity * cheffs kiss *

[@MajraMangetsu]

That ad kill me of laugter. It's so dumb.

[@Plaprad]

At this point I'm curious how many of these leaks are still "Gotta force them to make it realistic", vs how many are just "I just thought of something I can do to make a name for myself. It can't be THAT bad leaking this document, and I can brag to my friends that I made the news." But one thing I learned over the years is no matter how small the detail, there's a reason it's classified. It may seem like a useless little factoid, but can get people killed in reality. The best thing you can do is just keep your trap shut. If it means taking an L in a useless internet argument, then take the L. Don't put lives at risk just to tell yourself you impressed some rando online. And if it is something you think you can talk about, look it up. My rule for stuff like this is that if I know the system, trained on it, and used it operationally, then I should be able to find it's public release in under a minute online. If I search for under a minute and find a release on it, I look at what was released and will only stick to that. If I can't find it, I keep my mouth shut. Though, to be fair, I usually just keep quiet. It's annoying when you see someone talking about something you actually know the capabilities of and obviously have zero clue. But I still have friends who rely on that system to stay alive. I'm not going to be the one to mention "Oh, it has this weakness that can be exploited with..." Loose lips sink ships isn't a fun little propaganda quote. It's the truth.

[@Hyper_Drud]

Even if “loose lips sink ships” is propaganda, I think it’s still good anecdotal advice.

[@volcano.mitchell]

I play war thunder I am completely uneducated in this I have no clue what anything can do only what the game tells me. I see your comment and I realize how diverse the player base is

[@jademonas]

battle rating being abreviated as BR and summoning brazilians is so funny tho

[@arklanuthoslin]

Back in 2007, I lived in russia, in St. Petersburg, for 6 months (during summer, thankfully...) and did, indeed, eat at an American KFC and Pizza Hut, at like 4 am. After a night of clubbing and drinking. Nothing hits quite like greasy, fast food when your exhausted and drunk. Wonderful video moony, only took my like 5 hours to get through cause I kept getting distracted by video-inspired Wikipedia dives. I think I read about the Cuman connection to the mongols and related pages about the mongol empire's breakup for like an hour...

[@TheShinyFeraligatr]

Since you didn't watch the Laserpig video, a brief summary - the T-34 is an alright tank on paper, albeit one with several notable flaws (Crew comfort being one of them and a commonly noted issue with pure Russian designs), but the problem with the tank for WWII is that most of the tanks made during WWII were of an exceptionally awful build quality. The post-war models tended to be what their specs implied they should be, the during-the-war models were rush jobs made with extremely inferior materials which cut tons of corners.

[@thegenericguy8309]

the laserpig video is trash and you should stop taking a youtube shitposter as a real source

[@TheShinyFeraligatr]

@ ok youtube shitposter.

[@thegenericguy8309]

@ he is indefensibly bad about anything Soviet or Russian and makes habitual mistakes, exaggerations, and misrepresentations, on the subject any time he gets even the slightest chance. his audience takes these at face value and then repeat with confidence it as if it came from a respectable source. even good youtube video essays are not real sources nor something you would be justified in parroting, much less the slop that dipshit posts. please do actual research before speaking authoritatively on a subject to people who in good faith believe what you say

[@panqueque445]

This is such a serious, weird, and hilarious problem to have with your game.

[@GabrielMoura-gt9jb]

" To install this lightbulb, we must first see what led up to it, we start at the beginning, and i say THE beginning, the beginning of the universe."

[@2b839]

Moony I enjoy your content so much. I'll use your link just to support you. Love from turkey.

[@VladiSSius]

NO WAY moon is making videos about Warthunder playerbase lol

[@Blockio1999]

"I know a little bit, " he says after a largely correct summary of the evolution of armored doctrine that I have seen self-declared tank nerds not know the first thing about, and then delivers a (with one slight misstep in the 4 Shermans for 1 Tiger thing, that's another myth with its roots in many of the same effects discussed in the video) brilliant analysis of equipment development and logistics. Never change, Moonie.

[@curtissjamesd]

I literally laughed out loud at work when you did the sponsor read. Love you, Moon Channel

[@MazdaTiger]

this is the only AD break that i WILL NOT skip because how fitting it is lmao based Gaijin Entertainment

[@dogthedog1338]

Omg the MGS1 solid snake scream on Alexander II death was hilarious 😂

[@kutkuknight]

The idea that „stagnation“ causes the downfall of a society is deeply wrong, disturbingly so in fact. Stagnation, staying the same, isn’t anything bad, you can not strive for constant improvement on a national scale, at some point you will have to resort to improving as a society morally. The idea that stagnation of conquest and economics are automatically bad is just wrong

[@Nanook128]

40:55 don't threaten me with a good time

[@colinfrederick2603]

- BABE! Stop everything, a new Moon video dropped! - No honey the moon is full today. There’s a new moon in a few weeks -NO HONEY THATS NOT WHAT I MEAN

[@thirdpierce2]

for the funny

[@FractalShoggoth]

Whaddya mean, "why"? Same reason it's been since the Roman Empire: to win arguments on the internet.

[@312bigbeanburrito]

Yes, I sure remember Roman orators logging into their Firefox accounts in 480 AD

[@FractalShoggoth]

@312bigbeanburrito "How ceaselessly you make mockery of these facts! Consider these clear arguments for proof, though I dare not hope for respite from your madness." "My 'madness', no, but perhaps a shutting of your mouth is quite in order, noob. For I have procured tablets that will lay to rest this ill-advised debate! May their waxen revelations irritate nightly and forever your dreams."

[@seneca983]

@@FractalShoggoth That doesn't answer the question why *War* *Thunder* *players* rather than someone else. I don't see e.g. World of Tanks / World of Warships players doing it to any great extent, whether in Roman times or now.

[@trashgaming3810]

@@seneca983 perhaps because those two games don't tout themselves on being as realistic as possible

[@buddermonger2000]

So the takeaway from this video: post classified documents on the warthunder forums to prove yourself correct in an argument

[@SkyHawk2137]

Ah, don't you love it when you are being taught history and someone mentions "So then the Mongol ambassadors got murdered". Because you just know that's short for 'well, looks like there's going to be a sudden influx of slaves into the Mongol Empire, a whole lot of free land and potentially a few skull pyramids'. Okay, the skull pyramids might be an exaggeration. Though not the availability of the construction material for them...

[@SemicolonExpected]

As a chinese person I died at chinesium scrap metal

[@t3hp0larbear]

Correct title: "The Entire History of the USSR and Russia I Guess"

[@yurisonovab3892]

things like document leaks are why most conspiracies could never be a thing

[@beleata74]

Finished the video and honestly it was a bit disappointing especially when viewed as a sort of love letter of Russian history. If I was Russian history I would certainly be a bit creeped off by the contents. Without going into the walls of text that were foreboded about, I would just like to say that the narrative framing of Russian history as a sort of cyclical thing even in regards to silly stuff ( not actually mentioned in the video, but also plays into this narrative ) of Russian leaders cycling between bald and non bald leaders is just not conductive to good research and plays into a sort of historical mysticism which tends to benefit nationalist positions. Now obviously given the broader tie in topic, such a narrative is extremely conductive and synergistic, because in essence the leaking of military documents is a matter of national pride which indeed ties into mysticism, but in regards to actually educating someone who I'd imagine might not be very interested in broader Russian history, given that the topic appeals to a more casual audience, I just really think it creates a sort of rotten foundation which if it were to be expanded on could result in someone either reinforcing their own already existing opinions that might challenge reality or creating new ones. Of note during the end of the video it is acknowledged that such a narrative can be tackled by reality, if things were to change, which creates the idea that it is not an everlasting thing like some other people who've made videos on Russian history have tried to imply, I think there should've been a greater focus on how all of this takes already existing history and builds around it, which whilst sounding obvious, is often missed, especially when one encounters a topic they're not familiar with. I hope this comment does not read as antagonistic or rude, I absolutely love the rest of your stuff, but the history section if this video just falls entirely short.

[@JustRandomSymbols]

Couldn't have said it better, you just put all my thoughts into words perfectly. If you're somewhat familiar with the topic, you'll just brush the simplifications and narrativisations aside with a sigh and enjoy the rest of the video. But someone unfamiliar and not really interested in the topic will get an incredibly bad foundation for further learning, exemplified by the fact that this channel is somewhat of a reputable source usually.

[@beleata74]

@@JustRandomSymbols Yeah, honestly its kind of annoying, because I understand why he would go for this narrative, it is the narrative to go for when making this video and in all honesty I think it could've worked somewhat decently were it better portrayed as a framing device instead of near fact. It definitely shouldn't have been justified this much as it feels like him trying to put a square in a triangle hole, when talking to the more casual audience, whilst simultaneously nervously nodding at the more history nerdy part of the viewership. The lazerpig mention in that part certainly did not make that vibe better, if anything it made it feel even less educated in a manner of speaking. Even at the extreme end of the video the plea is not so much about refuting the narrative, but breaking it internally ( i.e if Russia changed it would collapse ), which just ends up perpetuating and reinforcing it, as how would you break something that's existed for an entire history? Its a really demotivating message for anyone who might live in Eastern Europe, assuming they just don't end up playing into the ever so common nationalist trope of "we're better because we suffer more, yet we're still here" or basically just the whole "Christ of Europe" idea in Poland. For the Western viewer meanwhile it creates a really strong sense of orientalism which ends up dehumanazing, especially considering that Eastern Europe is already extremely dehumanized on the Internet due to both current events are more recent events like the Yugoslav wars. The right thing if the narrative was to be addressed in the first place would've been to portraying it as something influencing the leaker's personal philosophy, whilst simultaneously demolishing it and poking holes in it, instead of justifying it. Making this video and saying its a love letter to Russian history, just makes it feel like Russian history is the falsehood of the cyclical history narrative which both turns it into an unbreakable monolith and makes it feel like Moony actually believes in it. There is quite a bit more to be said on this, but that verges on just bashing the video from a historical sense, especially in regards to the Soviet Union and how looking at it as a continuation and the Russian state more broadly both diminishes the national identity of non Russians. I do want to mention that I must question the motivation behind this video not having any citations. The description currently says "Additional Reading? Does anyone use it? If so, I'll make it a TBD.", which I actually missed when writing my original content. As it stands it just feels like this is lots of personal conjecture about stuff based on bad history and that comment kind of put a really sour taste in my mouth.

[@beleata74]

Forgot to add, but in regards to the whole lack of citations thing, it just makes it feel as if this is even more of like an admittance of Moony not actually believing in the framing he's presenting as if he were to use citations it'd link to extremely bad history.

[@moon-channel]

No, it's not rude: it's a fair critique. Thank you beleata, for sharing your thoughts with me.

[@SonicRooncoPrime]

Great video as always and I had no idea this rabbithole went so deep. Also getting War Thunder to sponsor this was such a grand power move.

[@nunyabiznes7446]

"...wait a second. This isn't a video game essay, this is a Russian history lesson!" In all seriousness, I do think there are real flaws to viewing history through a lens of 'cycles.' Namely that it's unfalsifiable and gives people a false sense of understanding. After all, when we label a given period "stability" and then it continues for another year, we don't say "wow I guess my whole cycles thesis is wrong." We don't say anything at all, until eventually there is a major collapse, and then we declare victory for cycle theory. Yeah, I bet this order *_will_* continue up until it doesn't, that's kinda how change and stability work. Do we declare the theory dead when the fall of the soviet union is preceded by a bunch of waffling that skips right over most of the cycle to reverse itself a couple times? Or do we ignore all that, point to the fall and say, "aha, I knew it!" That's not to say there's no point in thinking about all this. We can still find patterns, like how this part of the world really seems to have a tendency to vest power in one dude who then goes off and loses a war due to his own hubris, collapsing the whole system. That sure seems familiar in recent news lol. Then again, what do we then make of the collapse of the soviet union, which seems mostly due to economic, administrative and cultural pressure? I dunno man, history is complex. What's important is that we keep asking questions, any any time we think we've figured something out the first question after is, "ok, where's the evidence that blows a bigass hole in my theory?"

[@PandaKnight-FightingDwagon]

This is easily the most correct sponsorship that any video has ever had ever

[@PMat92]

15:58 Shostakovich’s Waltz No. 2 is such a great piece. Excellent pull.

[@kalinkopchev]

Bulgaria mentioned 💪 hahaha. Great video, thank you for the amazing work yet again

[@thebaccathatchews]

Why do War Thunder players post classified documents? * hour-long detour into a nation's history * I love this channel.

[@aquaintsound]

As a classically trained musician, im loving the use of music to add context to historical events

[@MewtwoStruckBack]

There needs to be a globally accepted law that any leaks of classified information are legal if and only if they are used to further one's position in War Thunder.

[@Aslanyano]

As a Russian, I really enjoyed your analysis of the T-34 myth, but in regards to Russian history: 1. The Crimean war was not an invasion of Crimea, it was a defence of the peninsula, which was Russian from before Napoleonic wars. 2. In my opinion you had Stalin's reign wrong in regards to denial of mistakes. Stalin has a famous essay "Dizziness from successes", in which he openly criticizes overeager management in times of collectivisation 3. Most of the Soviet part is sadly rotted with many historical misconceptions, created by American propaganda or by Russians themselves to justify political action (like Khrushchev's deStalinization). Yet, I don't want to blame the author - there are very few sources of comprehensive information even in Russian language, and it's impossible to demand from Western historiography to adhere to these discoveries, especially in the wake of the current political situation. So what I want to say "Это только начало, начало самой большой работы в мире"

[@StoneCresent]

Sometimes it's not a matter of military secrecy but export control laws the prevent Gaijin from faithfully implementing things. Even if the restricted information is openly accessible online in shady places, Gaijin would risk a lawsuit or even sanctions if they used it as the basis to model game assets.

[@MrDivinePotato]

Hah the callout for listening in the background came exactly as I was glancing over during a break in my video game :D

[@suspicious241]

Honestly when i played war thunder, i really liked the game and would play a while but would always drop the game at tier 3-4 because of the problems discussed in the video. the problem is that i was a British aircraft enjoyer and that meant going up against much more modern aircraft in my late/post war planes. it was so infuriating that i would always drop the game. i did this like 3 separate times because i wanted to like the game. the 3rd time i almost unlocked a tier 5 plane. I always thought it seemed like i was put up against planes that were so much better than mine that it seemed unfair and i guess i now know why. my fellow British aircraft enjoyers are so much better than me at the game that the tier ratings are skewed. I find that hilarious. Queue Rule Britannia.

[@SpaghKing]

58 minutes into the 1h 14m vid and we finally drop the pretense and get to the point and i love it

[@onesimplefool5250]

once again moony tricked me into learning history,,,, and i am never mad about it

[@Denki10]

war thunder players: no way that hit me, time to leak confidential military documents to prove my point! meanwhile, darksouls players: ah yeah, that was my fault

[@mguatimosim]

Love your content, but you need to read some non american/west-european sovietologists, Mr. Moon.

[@moon-channel]

This was definitely a very western-centric take on the whole thing: your critique is very fair. A video on Soviet video games might someday be warranted, to account for other perspectives

[@caffetiel]

​@@moon-channel Warlockracy colab?

[@Scrambles19]

Just found your channel recently. I like to listen to video essays at work sometimes and I've listened to several of your videos. Love your style and the gratuitous historical context. 10/10 never change

[@existentialcrisisactor]

Not only do I love the shout out to Lazerpig, I'm a huge fan of my Mossin Nagant. It's my rifle of choice for iron sited long distance shooting.

[@pax6833]

Lazerpig isn't perfect though. His video on the T-14 Armata was badly sourced and made a lot of unsupported claims that probably aren't true.

[@existentialcrisisactor]

@@pax6833 No one is. Especially KZbin historians. Everyone makes mistakes. It's how they handle being corrected that matters to me, and LP has shown integrity in that regard.

[@ericquiabazza2608]

Bro His admited to being british and working for british inteligencya Aslo the Nafo Brigade got slaped hard by the reality of ukrain People should stop listening to propagandist like him Or only listen to analize how much the BS goes

[@RADkate]

@@pax6833 who even cares in the big picture not like that thing will ever see combat. the whole analyzing military equipment in a vacuum exercise is stupid anyway

[@marocat4749]

@@ericquiabazza2608 The nafo brigade is pretty impressive for literally a meme that was used to make anyone on the internet, giving them a meme to unite under. And donating some money too if they want. So nafo brigade is vvery impressive for a literal meme movement. not looking down, i respect it very much.

[@bigtastyben5119]

The Holodomor is my favorite alternative world fiction next to The Hobbit.

[@CampGareth]

As a half-polish person all I knew about that post WW2 period is that Russians came along with guns and forced my ancestors off their land, I had no context for why and given UK-centric history lessons stop after WW2 with "they all held hands and were friends forever" the timeline didn't make much sense. Thanks for providing context Mooney.

[@Arthur_Netto-Luana_Fox]

i watched the entire video and liked alot, a normal-ish history video essay focused on visuals to make funny and bringing many new details i never heard before, watched it with a smile, and happy until the warthunder part where you just said BR and did the joke and just broke me in laughter thanks for the video

[@johannhawk8471]

Another factor about these vehicle statistics is "soft stats" and "hard stats". The hard stats are all measurable but it's hard to *_perfectly_* measure the soft stats like crew comfort and survivability. But since this is a videogame and you as the player are puppeting a crew that's practically an unfeeling hivemind the soft stats don't matter outside of internal turret space perhaps affecting reload speed. 1:02:15 defects in armor production *_used_* to be modeled for Tiger II tanks with a -5% effective armor penalty. That's no longer the case since 6 years ago i think? 1:04:02 1:04:39 Definitely agree that balancing on "average player performance with [X] vehicle" being an issue if relied on too much. One time a few years back the M48A1(USA) and the M48A2(German) had the A1 be at a higher battle rating despite the A2 being objectively better in engine power and smoke launcher capacity. I was also wondering if this video was going to distinguish "export restricted"(unclassified but you shouldn't share it to non-allies) and "classified classified"(sharing it at all gets you in huge trouble). Like more than 70% of these leak cases are the former or are already publicly available but are presented as restricted. Gaijin has a pretty reasonable, albeit zealous, policy of nuking anything that even vaguely resembles an official document from the forums. But it does lead to a lot of people assuming they're doing it because it's **mega classified**, and not because Gaijin don't want to put in the effort to check if any document has been declassified or not.

[@volcano.mitchell]

I just play Wt for funzees i have no clue about anything. If i die in a tank? My fault should have aimed somewhere else or been more aware, or just avoid the enemy altogether. I realize that the reason bias exists or doc leaking exists is to boost one's ego. Real nice history video you've made.

[@donbionicle]

If only such a healthy attitude were more prevalent!

[@BaronElBardo]

Notes about the vídeo: - About all the Golden Horde and the mongols and middle age expansions of the actual Russia: We have to say that its a simplification about that time politics and mindset. I know its outside the point of the video. But important to say. - About the ciclical history of Russia: That's a narrative that you can use at any nation-state and/or territory arround the world. Here in Spain we know how that Narrative very well and how can be used politically. - About WW2 technology: We always forget how at the beginning of the WW2 artillery was mainly hypomobile and scouting was made with bikes. Not motorbikes but regular bikes. Of course there was a lot of underdeveloped armament. Specially at a country that had her industrialization during a traumatizing period of 20 years. -About the famines and everything else: We tend to think about those facts as something that wasn't happening around the world. The crack of the 29 affected every country and there was also wild spread famine around the world. Even China. Will make a point about the Holdomor later. - Oh BOI the politics of early soviet Russia. That thing! Despite me being really critical against that period and everything that comes after I have just to say that there are full thesis written about that. That segment was full of propaganda. -The Holdomor: Okey, long story short. Did you know that, after the Spanish Civil War Franco wanted to made cereals cheaper so he imposed a lower price? Did you know what happened? That the landlords burned and stockpiled grain to force the market price go up. The Holdomor was something like that. Stalin government tried to colectivize the land (and give it local governments and worker organisation. That's another simplification have to say.) and the Kulaks, the little landlords make sabotage the same way. Destroying his own crops and killing their animals. There was a saying like that "We (the communist) want to abolish bourgeoisie as a class while the Kulaks want to abolish the horses as a class". There's s lot of things that you can say against that time. But please, we should not fall for cheap propaganda. I mean, the USA news were manipulated against Russia, and there are a lot of documents pointing to a different reality. We should remember. While the Holdomor was happening there was the 29 market crisis and a famine around the world. A lot of photos used to picture the Holdomor were from Texas Farmers!!!

[@anotherbacklog]

With the advancement of unmanned and remote controlled weapons, it’s gonna be a matter of time for military to start recruiting War Thunder players. Literally everyone got thousands of hours of simulated experience, situational awareness, understands military tactics, knows the weakness of every war machine, capable of identifying targets from pixels, operating under the worst internet connection imaginable, and most importantly, the patience to stock grind.

[@volcano.mitchell]

My Internet was so bad once that my plane became a boat. It was no seaplane it was a p39NO someone literally had to kill me. Bad internet leads to some of the funniest clips

[@amberhide04]

it's kind of disappointing to see you using anarchy as a synonym for "chaos", this is actually a huge misunderstanding of anarchist thought and movements (also mostly propagated with that meaning maliciously).

[@moon-channel]

Ah, that's fair. In hindsight, you're right, it's not the most appropriate word. Thanks amber, for pointing it out for me.

[@hazzardalsohazzard2624]

You can say that, but every attempt at Anarchism I can think of was Chaos.

[@FelineJAM]

​@@hazzardalsohazzard2624 when things are working fine, they aren't loud. There are plenty of non-hierarchical communities and societies throughout the world in the present and throughout history that aren't loudly "advertised" because they don't suit the interests of capital owners or those who want political control. Sure, they aren't nation-sized, but anarchy is by nature not "big".

[@seneca983]

The word "anarchy" (with a lower case 'a') is frequently used like that in common speech. I think that's perfectly fine as long as it's clear that you're not talking about the political ideology.

[@EphemeralPseudonym]

​​@@seneca983This does, however, influence the layman's view of what anarchy as an ideology is. (It's also funny that Americans hate it so much when historically it really got its grippers on here. Mutualism is a neat idea.)

[@jimmothypakistan5223]

Im a gunsmith and both the SVT-40 and Mosin Nagant use a "rimmed cartridge" which is a obsolete feature designed to simplify loading in tube magazines and revolvers, but causes jams in box magazines like those found in both rifles. This made both rifles some of the most obsolete rifles in there class when compared to similar rifles of there class as the potential for user error could result in a jam that takes potentially minutes to clear if the operator is not trained. All in all, basically every countries service rifle had at least one quality of life feature that justified the usage of obsolete rimmed ammunition. Not only that, several countries fielded large number of rifles that utilized high quality manufacturing practices that some military small arms lacked in the modern era, AND they made the switch from rimmed to rimless ammunition during the war(more or less). However this innovation did not produce the effects that they may have wished for countries like France and Japan, because as you said logistics wins wars, and the consistent ability to receive battle tested quality equipment(like the Sherman over the T34 or the Mosin over the SVT) is what wins wars.

[@jimmothypakistan5223]

Then obviously the americans had manufacturing prowess and both fielded a semi auto rifles to basically every soldier AND they used a rimless cartridge which gave them a huge advantage, but only because they didnt over extend there manufacturing capacity.

[@natebookout811]

Even if there is no rational reason to leak a State Secret, is there really a rational reason to keep it? I understand that national security is a serious issue for any nation, especially in the 21st century. But I still cannot help but ask the question: is a State rational? Is a military that is dedicated to the destruction of anyone who is not that State rational? Is a world that is divided, hostile, and at war with itself rational?

[@PlatinumAltaria]

That’s a faulty premise because it conflates morality and rationality. It is rational to have systems of national defence when you know others are doing the same.

[@natebookout811]

@@PlatinumAltaria Sure, it is. But is it rational to justify a cycle of violence as inevitable, when in reality it is not?

[@PlatinumAltaria]

@ This is just another example of the prisoner’s dilemma. Given incomplete knowledge, one must prepare for the worst.

[@natebookout811]

@@PlatinumAltaria I think I've just presented the question unfairly. It's not the job of any given nation's military to take charge of diplomacy. That's what politicians are supposed to be there for. Military officers in charge of intelligence should be releasing that intelligence--as declassified info--per the direction of the relevant personnel (for diplomatic purposes, etc.). It shouldn't have to come down to whistle-blowers (or just random guys who are trying to prove a point that isn't very rational...). But that's all assuming we lived in a world where wealthy, powerful nations like the U.S. were interested in diplomacy in the first place...

[@PlatinumAltaria]

@ Diplomacy is the game of managing conflict, and conflict can always evolve into violence. We could all agree not to fight, but we won’t, so we must all defend ourselves.

[@SleepyMatt-zzz]

That Pizza Hut commercial was the icing on the cake. Well done!

[@wasolaso1840]

85% - Lecture on Russian history 15% - Actually answering the question in the title

[@Gdg-k9q]

Thanks for telling us

[@caseygoddard]

Lies are simple (the devs are bias!), the truth is complicated (well...let's start at the beginning).

[@christianvalente3376]

Im sorry, the "Lenin rolling in his grave" bit at the end is hysterical 😂

[@andreystolyarov7608]

Hey, Moon! Love your videos, many bangers, but a bit disappointed in this one. Many already commented about history cycle thing, which I also agree is misleading. But I think what's more important for me, I didn't see in the video any concrete examples of how the game was balanced, how it differs from reality, why some decisions had to be made the way they are. We must know about some tanks better than others. T-34 is a real thing, that can be measured even right now. Some sources more reliable than others. Surely you could find some examples to test bias/reality. Because right now I just have to trust your narrative that the game is as balanced as it can be when all sources are lying and developers just had to balance it that way so it stays playable.

[@SeithonJetter]

So I'm listening/watching this and all I can think is, "If this guy had more time to write, this could have been much shorter" lol :D Still thank you for throwing all of this awesome up onto the internet.