What’s the easiest way to get secret military documents? Argue in the War Thunder forum!
Intelligence services looking for secret documents on other countries’ weapons no longer need spies with a license to kill to get the job done – they just need to be active on the War Thunder forum. Once again, someone has used the forum of this popular game to post classified military information. Twice.
The first incident occurred earlier this week during discussions about the F-16 Fighting Falcon, a single-engine multi-role fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force. It was introduced in 1978, but is still used in active service in many air forces around the world, including Poland (photo below).
Aerotime website reportsthat during a lengthy discussion on the F-16, a user nicknamed “spacenavy90” wrote that he found something “interesting” while researching AMRAAM missiles for the F-16. He proved this by attaching a document that contained proprietary data.
The document appears to be an F-16 flight manual or part of it. Its classified status has expired, but distribution is still restricted. The documents were soon removed, and developer Gaijin Entertainment reminded again that posting sensitive military information on the forum is not allowed.
The incident did not deter others. Eurogamer givesthat after posting documents about the F-16, a dozen system manuals about the American F-15E strike fighter were leaked, which is not even in the game (in the main picture). Also in this case, the moderators quickly removed the post.
This is of course not the first time I’ve been on the forum War Thunder military documents are revealed. The diagram of the Challenger 2 tank (photo above) taken from the Army Equipment Support Publication (AESP) was posted in 2021. A few months later, there was another leak of documents, this time regarding the French Leclerc Main Battle Tank (photo below) and its variants, which prompted Gaijin Entertainment to warn users against this practice, as the team did not want to “end up chained in the hold of a camouflaged ship” of CIA cargo in international waters. The warning was ignored – secret documents about Chinese tanks appeared on the forum last year.
Secret documents are usually posted to win arguments. But even those that have been declassified fall under the jurisdiction of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which restricts the disclosure of information about U.S. weapons. One has to consider carefully whether proving one’s point is worth arguing with the American administration. Especially during the war in Ukraine and considering the fact that Gaijin Entertainment is a company founded in Moscow, although it is currently based in Hungary.
Source:
Own study/TechSpot
