There are few moments in the gaming world as iconic as War Thunder players leaking military documents online to prove a point. Despite all the efforts made by its developers, the community continues to delve into secret information and has once again posted classified manuals, this time for Russian tanks.
The leak happened earlier this week during a forum discussion regarding the T-90M, T-80BVM, and T-90S Russian main battle tanks, all of which are currently in service and appear in War Thunder itself. The documents shared are user manuals meant for those operating said vehicles and have, like most other military documents, been declared classified or sensitive even though they contain relatively surface-level information. Community managers at the War Thunder forum have struck down all posts containing the documents, though the files continue to circulate online.
This marks one of three leaks that have happened in the past week, though not all of them are directly tied to War Thunder. The first related to the release of documents on the Challenger British main battle tanks on the game’s forum, though that information was confirmed to be publically available from Britain’s National Archive.
A few days before that, Chinese Telegram users leaked sensitive files on the F-15 and F-35 fighter planes, as uncovered in a report by Forbes. War Thunder players shared parts of them on the official forums during a discussion on the state of the F-15 in the game.
The War Thunder community has become an icon in the gaming world due to the game’s focus on realism and accurate depictions of real-life weapons, tanks, ships, and planes. Classified military documents have been leaked on the game’s forums over a dozen times, forcing developer Gaijin Entertainment to step up its moderation of the community in-game and on the attached forums.
Such events have since dwindled with infringements quickly shut down, but as we can see from this week’s incident, some still manage to slip through the cracks.
