Gamers keep leaking classified military secrets to win arguments in War Thunder

War Thunder is a free-to-play online military simulator that enables players to engage in simulated combat in air, land, and sea. The game is renowned for its attention to detail and has gained quite an audience, some of whom are former military personnel who seemingly still have access to restricted information.

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Why does this matter? Because one War Thunder forum user was just banned after leaking a page of an AV-8B flight manual, which marks the ninth known case of classified or, at the very least, restricted information being released to the public via the War Thunder forums in an attempt to influence the technical levels of the game. The user uploaded a section from a NATOPS manual for the AV-8B and TAV-8B, Harrier, which are used by the United States Navy and Marine Corps.

The manual is marked with "Distribution Statement C," meaning it's restricted to government personnel only and not suited for public release. Why did this user leak this information? To win an argument, of course. The user wanted to prove they were right in a technical discussion about the vehicles and to hopefully influence the way the game is designed.

"This probably isn't the biggest leak ever, not at all. These kinds of manuals float around online, especially older ones. But that doesn't change the fact that if it's marked as controlled or restricted, platforms like War Thunder have no choice but to take action," said a former RAF engineer to the UK Defence Journal

This isn't the first time either, as War Thunder now has a laundry list of similar incidents, such as previous leaks involving the UK's Challenger 2 main battle tank, France's Leclerc, China's ZTZ-99, the Eurocopter Tiger, and several US aircraft, including the F-16, F-15E, F-117, and the Eurofighter Typhoon. Each of these instances involved a user attempting to prove a technical argument about the vehicle they were discussing.