War Thunder players leak restricted military documents – again

It’s about the F-16 Fighting Falcon this time

Marco Wutz | Jan 18, 2023

War Thunder players leak restricted military documents – again /

We swear we’re not just recycling this piece of news again and again – War Thunder players just keep leaking military secrets on the game’s forum to win arguments with each other.

Previously, players had used restricted or classified information to win balancing discussions regarding the British Challenger 2 main battle tank, the French Leclerc main battle tank, the European Tiger attack helicopter, and Chinese DTC10-125 anti-armor shells. Yes, it's a dedicated community.

War Thunder player posts restricted F-16 details

This time, users were talking about the F-16 Fighting Falcon, a versatile multi-role fighter jet. Over 4,500 planes of this type have been built since 1974 with almost 30 nations actively using the jets to this day. A debate about the F-16 had been raging for over half a year on the War Thunder forum, when a user named spacenavy90 posted a document detailing some equipment tests on the F-16A earlier this week.

While the document, which by now has been deleted by the moderators (they must’ve gotten used to it at this point), is no longer classified, it was at one point. Though that is no longer the case, the document’s distribution is still restricted according to US law, since it contains some export-restricted data about the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) and its use on the F-16. Gaijin Entertainment, the developer of War Thunder, has confirmed this to AeroTime.

Gaijin has already asked players to refrain from using military documents in order to prove their points in forum discussions in the past, but this seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Hardcore players of the multiplayer military simulation seem quite prepared to face legal punishment for leaking military secrets in return for influencing the developers’ game balancing decisions.

War Thunder is a free-to-play game available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

Published Jan 18, 2023

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg