For the second time in only a week, sensitive military material pertaining to United States fighter jets was posted on the free-to-play gameWar Thunder’s community forums.
This time it was regarding the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle strike jet, versions of which are currently still in service with several nations across the globe, including the US and Japan. The contents of the leak were 13 classified technical manuals detailing operations and specifications of weapon and GPS systems used on board the aircraft. The details were posted earlier this week by user RanchSauce39, who published links to PDFs of the documents.
This follows just hours after a previous user committed a similar security breach regarding another American-made aircraft,the F-16 Falcon. Currently, on the forums, there is a debate as to how legal it was to post these documents, but erring on the safe side, both comments have been removed.
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War Thunder is a military vehicle combat simulator published by developer Gaijin Entertainment. Gaijin strives to realistically recreate the performance of hundreds of planes, ships, and tanks using historical evidence, something which sets it apart from its main competitor,Wargaming’s World of Tanks. Vehicles available for use by players stretch from the earliest tanks and biplanes of WWII all the way up to supersonic jets.
Where this becomes a potential issue is surrounding classified information concerning war machines currently in use with modern militaries. In the past, this has led players of the game with access to such documents to post them, with hopes of correcting mistakes in the implementation of such vehicles.
Recently, Gaijin implemented the “Apex Predators” in-game update, bringing the previously mentioned F-16, as well as the soviet-made MiG-29 Fulcrum. This marks a milestone for the 10-year-old game as it finally introduced4th generationfighter aircraft. As Gaijin introduces ever more modern jets to their game and over-zealous fans attempt to substantiate or disprove performance claims regarding them, these leaks may become as common as they have been for War Thunder’s ground vehicles.
While it is surprising for two leaks to come within such a short timeframe, this occurrenceis becoming quite regular. In the past, the War Thunder forums have seen leaks from active service members from various countries. Details regarding the performance of Chinese anti-tank rounds, the turret traverse speed of the French Leclerc main battle tank, and the internal layout of the British Challenger 2 have all been posted on the forums within the last two years.
Posting such documents without permission is a serious crime, and endangers the lives of service members operating these machines by exposing the limits of their capabilities. To do so is not worth the possible jail time and risk posed to national security. In the case of the F-15, it is especially foolish seeing as how the vehicle is not even available in War Thunder yet. Furthermore, Gaijin Entertainment has a well-known standing policy to not take classified information illegally disclosed into account when designing their game.
As usual in such events, Gaijin has refrained from commenting on the matter directly. Instead, it relies on its community managers who have the unenviable task of cleaning up after such messes and reinforcing the rules.
Irish playwright and satirist Oscar Wilde once wrote “the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about,” but as Gaijin suffers through these scandals with increasing regularity, that remains to be seen.
