• cygnus@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      4 months ago

      Western journalists when any vehicle has the slightest amount of armour: it’s a tank!

      Anyway, this is sad and hilarious. The “second-best military in the world”, everyone!

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      “Panzer” is a general term in German, meaning armoured vehicle, not limited to main battle tanks (Kampfpanzer) mistranslations are thus exceedingly common.

      This in particular is a Raketenjagdpanzer meaning a Jagdpanzer (hunting tank) armed with missiles, not to be confused with the more general category Panzerjäger (tank hunter) which is any vehicle that hunts tanks, not just armoured ones, and not just ground vehicles, and not just vehicles but also units. That is, Jagdpanzer are Panzerjäger which are themselves Panzer.

      Some Anglos also get their standard issue underwear in a twist if you call the Gepard a flak tank – that’s quite literally its official designation in German: Flugabwehrkanonenpanzer Gepard, short FlakPz Gepard, more or less literally “flight offwarding cannon tank”. An “Infantry fighting vehicle”, fuzzy term if I’ve ever seen one (in Ukraine that can mean a Hillux) is a Schützenpanzer, “marksmen tank”.

      IMO those translation errors shouldn’t be corrected, they can only clean up English terminology.