It has now been 0 days since somebody leaked military intelligence via the War Thunder forums, that hub of military-minded people posting about their most favorite free-to-play military hardware simulator. It’s yet another leak for a game now synonymous with leaks of classified and restricted material from the modern military community.
The leak has come after the recent addition of the Eurofighter Typhoon, and after a forum argument over the scanning capabilities of its impressive CAPTOR radar system someone posted a restricted document in an effort to prove their point. This has earned them a ban and removal of the material. Which is what has happened to everyone else who has ever posted this kind of stuff and which this game is, to be clear, very famous for at this point.
Per a community manager on the War Thunder forums, you should not do this:
“I will take this opportunity to again remind everyone here, please do not, under any circumstances, try to post, share any sources unless you are 100% certain they are legally declassified and publicly safe for use. We will never handle or use them, and all it does is actively harm any possible future changes being possible by trying to use them. Do not do it. No good will ever come from it for you or the vehicle you are trying to post for,” they said.
The news was quickly picked up by reputable defense establishment sites like the UK Defence Journal, among others.
It’s honestly hysterical because a holiday leak is at this point a tradition. We got one last year too. It’s such a common occurrence at this point that I’m not even sure we report on them all—in fact… we published a whole story to that effect last September. That was when some Eurofighter Typhoon documents first leaked.
Makes me feel bad for the moderators over there, honestly, who just want to build a community about their fun military sim without becoming embroiled in the politics of international espionage.
Anyway, a bit of personal commentary: If you’d like to ever work in the military or defense sector I’d recommend not playing War Thunder—or at least not posting on their forums about it. Prospective employers have got to be looking for it in their background checks as a potential weakness by now.
