A War Thunder player leaked the flight manual of the Eurofighter Typhoon DA7 on the game’s official forums because they would like the aircraft to be a playable plane.
“This is a 730-page manual for the DA7 that contains EVERYTHING on all the systems, weaponry, flight data, etc,” explained the player in the deleted post (via PC Gamer). “I hope this data will help the devs to add this magnificent jet faster and make it as accurate as possible! Can’t wait to fly it in the game.”
A moderator then responded to the player and said “Do not post the DA7 manuals”, adding that there is a specific policy that no classified documents should be shared on the War Thunder forums.
This policy is in fact described in a sticky thread at the top of the forum’s landing page, meaning that the player would have ignored the evident warning not to do what they did.
As a clarification, this person stumbled upon the manual themselves, added it to the game out of perceived helpfulness, and did not leak it from their place of work. That sets it apart from multiple War Thunder leaks in the past where players have argued amongst themselves over the accuracy of various military vehicles.
In 2021, a commander of a Challenger 2 tank from Tidworth, United Kingdom, shared screenshots of classified documents that were apparently from the official Army Equipment Support Publication (AESP) to prove that developer Gaijin Entertainment did not recreate it correctly.
Resultantly, the commander was in violation of the Official Secrets Act which is an offence that can carry up to a 14 year prison sentence if they were to be prosecuted.
Since then, leaks have occurred from the official manuals for the French Leclerc tank, an unnamed Chinese tank and the F-16 fighter plane.
In other gaming news, today’s patch for Total War: Warhammer 3 (August 31) changes the game’s artificial intelligence significantly, allowing it to truly challenge players on higher difficulties.