A player of War Thunder posted documents, from a manual for the American F-16 fighter jet, on a forum during a technical discussion. “Restricted” info leaks are almost a habit among fans of this war video game.
Game enthusiasts War Thunder have struck again. On January 16, 2023, during a technical discussion on the deployment of missiles on fighter jets, a member of a forum dedicated to gamers revealed documents classified as “restricted”. User named “spacenavy90” posted several screenshots of a manual for the US model F-16. In War Thunderplayers battle it out with a range of historic and modern military vehicles.
He declares : ” Interesting thing I found during my research. During early AMRAAM testing, you can see how the F-16A would equip the AIM-120 and use TWS on the control panel of non-MFD magazines “SCP. These technical terms detail the possible missile ports on the fighter jet and the use to fire those same rockets. Other forum members immediately asked where this file came from.
The file was quickly deleted. A moderator then responded by saying that the document contained data restricted for export and, according to US laws, its publication is prohibited.
The manual’s “classified” status has expired, other users have argued, but public distribution is still restricted.
To better understand status stories, a classified document “ top secret is reserved only for a very restricted circle of entities who could view the content. The category ” restraint is more flexible, but remains strict in terms of sharing, since only the competent administrations or companies can exchange the document. Many state entities are excluded and public dissemination is obviously prohibited.
A recurring problem among War Thunder fans
Fans of this game are specialists in leaking military information. Former members of the army are sometimes implicated. In 2021, excerpts from a manual for the British Challenger 2 tank were posted on one of the forums. The user wanted to convince the developers to rework their model to be more adequate with reality.
Rebelote in June 2022, with new documents restricted on the same model, but also data on the French champion, the Leclerc tank. This time, the forum member wanted to prove the precise degree of rotation of the tank’s turret. The author of the leak claimed to be a crew member of a Leclerc Series 2 tank, knowing that the last model of a tank in service with the French army of this type dates from 1992.
