'War Thunder' Forums Leak Classified Military Documents For The Fourth (Or Seventh) Time

One of the internet's most bizarre recurring phenomena has happened again, as yet another War Thunder player has posted military documents in the game's forums for the confirmed fourth but possibly seventh time since its release in 2013.

War Thunder is a military combat vehicle game that prides itself on letting players handle facsimiles of actual military vehicles. Developer Gaijin Entertainment has always insisted that it created in-game vehicles based on publicly available information, but multiple players with military experience have apparently not been satisfied with the results, and in various efforts to either create more accurate representations of military vehicles or win arguments in the forums, they have posted the manuals for such vehicles numerous times.

This would constitute the leaking of classified military information and is grounds for a treason charge in many countries.

Despite the grave consequences of posting military manuals, users continue to do so, and last night, a user posted a PDF of the full 730-page manual for the Eurofighter Tycoon DA7 plane. Moderators swiftly deleted it, but a screenshot was captured by X user @BurkeKrohn.

This marks the fourth confirmed case of a War Thunder forum user leaking military documents. The first happened in July 2021 when a user leaked documents to prove an argument about Britain's Challenger 2 tank.

At the time, the U.K. Ministry of Defence informed Gaijin Entertainment that the document posted remained classified, and that posting the image was an illegal offense that could carry a 14-year prison sentence.

Months later, a user leaked the manual for France's Leclerc battle tank. In 2022, a Chinese player then posted the manual for a tank's armament shell. Manuals for the Eurocopter Tiger, the Challenger 2's gun and the penetration statistics of a Type 99 cannon are rumored to have leaked, but these are unconfirmed.

In light of the news, social media users began trotting out the old hit memes to celebrate the return of one of the internet's most bewildering controversies.