War Thunder: Players reveal secret Russian data on military equipment
It seems that players are publishing top secret Russian military documents
Players previously posted secret instructions for the Eastern Bloc Mig 29 fighter jet on the “War Thunder” forum.
Quill: Jigen Entertainment
War Thunder is one of the most successful war games out there. But for some fans, the game is not realistic enough. Time and time again they publish classified data about military equipment – in order to be right in online discussions. The developer is now warning of the possible consequences.
DrThe SU-57 is the latest stealth fighter aircraft produced by Russia’s Sukhoi Aircraft Works. To date, only five are in service with the Moscow Air Force, and the performance data is top secret.
Users of the online battlefield game forum “War Thunder” were surprised when, in a discussion about the imaginary performance values of the main Russian aircraft, a user quickly published secret Russian documents about the real dimensions and data. in order to prove his argument.
Secret or not, the user with the game cryptic name “ZVO_12_INCH” was most interested in getting the upper hand in the online debate. It wasn’t clear at first how authentic the documents really were, and whether they actually contained new information unknown to Western intelligence services – but the forum moderators were quick to take the documents offline.
In the same debate, another user also posted previously classified instructions for the Eastern Bloc Mig 29 fighter jet – this document didn’t stay online for long either.
The two leaks weren’t the first military secrets on the forum. On the contrary: the “War Thunder” forum is now known for the fact that fans of the game often deal with military equipment in real life and do everything so that their favorite vehicles are represented in the game as realistically as possible, secret or not. Developed by Russian developer Gaijin Entertainment (officially based in the Hungarian capital, Budapest), the game allows players to compete against each other in hundreds of historical and modern military vehicles.
In recent years, classified or classified documents, data, or photos have been published at least a dozen times – most recently almost every week.
Secret information in the War Thunder forums
Just to be right Users posted data from early to mid-January The latest version of the American AIM-120 air-to-air missile and its integration into the American F16 fighter jet. These documents were also removed immediately – the developers feared a conflict with US laws on the release of weapons technology and immediately deleted the data.
In the summer of 2022 A Chinese fan of War Thunder posted a document, where the penetration of the Chinese DTC10-125 anti-tank missile was discussed, as he was dissatisfied with the penetration performance of the ammunition in the game. The validity of the data has been confirmed by independent analysts.
American F16 fighter jet in the war game “War Thunder”
Quill: Jigen Entertainment
A year earlier, a Briton who found the simulated maneuverability of the British main battle tank “Challenger 2” too slow, briefly published the real values of the tank’s turret deflection rate from a secret instruction book. A French user responded immediately with real values matching the French “Leclerc” tank.
At the same time, a German helicopter mechanic complained about the lack of detail in the Eurocopter Tiger attack helicopter simulator, and thus posted his own photos of the real aircraft on the Internet.
Gaijin warns against posts in the War Thunder forums
in one Statement in the specialized publication “PC Gamer” Gaijin Entertainment has categorically warned its fans about the possible consequences of leaking secrets, and emphasized that sharing classified or restricted military information is not allowed.
“One user posted some information about the F16’s AMRAAM missiles,” the studio said. “To the best of our knowledge, these documents are restricted to export and are not intended for public sharing or use. We always remove posts containing confidential information from our forum as quickly as possible.”
Sharing data for the purpose of game development is also pointless: “We never use such documents in our work.” Perhaps not in the work of the Gaijin developers – but the posts on the “War Thunder” forums should now be especially important followed with great professional interest by the military intelligence services of all nations.
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