A War Thunder user has shared sensitive military documents on the official forums again.
War Thunder is a free-to-play vehicular combat multiplayer game, developed by Gaijin Entertainment. It was released back in 2013 but still has a hugely loyal and dedicated following.
However, sometimes users will criticise how certain real-world vehicles or weapons are portrayed in the game, using official documents to back up their arguments. This has happened numerous times on the official War Thunder forums, with moderators banning the offending individual and removing the information as quickly as possible. According to military news site Task & Purpose, it has happened 14 times in recent years.
The most recent example happened earlier this month when a user uploaded two pages from the technical manual for the M2A2 Bradley Armoured Infantry Fighting Vehicle. The document allegedly had details of both the commander’s hatch and turret assembly, including information on the types of nuts and bolts used.
While the documents aren’t classified, they are only meant to be available to the United State Department Of Defense and its contractors in the interest of national security.
“As far as we know, this particular leak did not appear on War Thunder forums first. It was published online on December 8th or even earlier and has been spreading on various platforms for days until it landed on War Thunder forums,” Gaijin Entertainment founder Anton Yudintsev told Task & Purpose. “While we did our part in helping to limit the leak spreading further by deleting that post, we can do nothing with what’s happening on other platforms.”
Back in 2021, the Official Secrets Act was broken when a War Thunder user shared classified information about the Challenger 2 tank and a few months later, a user claiming to be a French army tank crewman leaked part of the Leclerc Main Battle Tank’s classified user manual. Similar events happened over the following months and in June, a new update to the rules was shared on the official War Thunder forum.
“IN BRIEF: you are not allowed to publish any Classified information and Export-restricted military-technical data,” wrote a community manager.
In other news, controversial Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is set to leave his role next week after 32 years in charge of the company.