Why Do 'War Thunder' Players Keep Leaking Classified Documents? A Bizarre Recurring Controversy Explained

Over the past few years, you may have felt like you're experiencing deja vu as you've read headline after headline after headline about War Thunder players potentially committing treason by leaking military documents, specifically manuals for military equipment, in the game's forums. The controversy has been reported on four times in the past two years, but some War Thunder vets think that players of the game have leaked military documents up to seven times. Here's why this bizarre recurring phenomenon keeps happening.

Why Do War Thunder Players Keep Leaking Military Documents?

War Thunder is a battle MMO video game in which players fight using facsimiles of real military combat vehicles. Developer Gaijin Entertainment has repeatedly stated that they model the vehicles to be as true to their real-life counterparts as best as they possibly can using publicly available information. Nevertheless, not every War Thunder player has been satisfied with the results.

The first confirmed leak of a military document came in July of 2021, when a user was dissatisfied with the game's representation of Britain's Challenger 2 tank. In an apparent effort to help developers "get it right," they posted the manual for the tank to the game's forums. The UK Ministry of Defence had to step in and alert Gaijin Entertainment that the document was classified, and that posting it publicly constituted a potentially treasonous offense that could carry a 14-year prison sentence.

A second leak occurred just months later. In this instance, the leak came from a classic flame war. While two users argued about the particulars of France's Leclerc Main Battle Tank, one user who claimed to be a member of the tank's crew posted a portion of the tank's manual to win their argument. At the time, forum moderators pleaded with the users to stop posting military documents, writing:

"Guys its not funny to leak classified Documents of modern equipment you put the lives of many on stake who work daily with the Vehicles! Keep in Mind that those documents will be deleted immediately alongside sanctions. Thanks for reading!"

Their pleas fell on deaf ears, as months later, in June of 2022, a user posted specifics of a Chinese armament shell. Then one year later, a user posted the full manual for the Eurofighter Typhoon DA7 plane.

There are also three unconfirmed incidents of documents leaking, as players have suggested they recall leaks of manuals for the Eurocopter Tiger, the Challenger 2's gun and the penetration statistics of a Type 99 cannon.

How Are The Leaks Memed?

While the first leak could have been seen as a wild-but-one-time story, the continued leaking of military manuals drew the attention of memers, who delighted in the unique problem faced by the War Thunder forum moderators. Soon, image macros mocking the continued controversy began spreading through Reddit.

For their part, Gaijin developers have continually pleaded publicly for players to stop leaking military documents. In January, they tweeted that they did not want actual military manuals for the vehicles, saying in no uncertain terms that declassifying those materials is "turbo illegal."

Obviously, not everyone is aware that posting classified documents to win and internet argument or debate with video game devs is "turbo illegal," as War Thunder developers themselves have said, so it's quite possible another unaware player may do this again in the future.

For more information, check out the entry for War Thunder military document leaks on Know Your Meme.