War Thunder player once again leaks classified military documents to win an argument
Nerds. Nerds never change
I know War Thunder only as 1) the vehicular combat sim Emily Gera somehow penned erotic poetry about - "O succulent tank porn and its lusty armour"... Emily! What r u doing. STAHP - and 2) an unofficial information arm for the world's militaries, fuelled by the power of pedantry.
Back in July 2021, an actual tank commander posted classified documents for the Challenger 2 tank on the game's forums in order to prove that the game's representation of said tank is inaccurate. Now, somebody's done likewise for the pride of the United States Air Force: the British-made Harrier Jump Jet.
In this latest blowout, a user uploaded a section from a US Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization manual for the AV-8B and TAV-8B Harrier airplanes. Said manual is not approved for public release and restricted to authorised US government bods and their contractors. Gaijin Entertainment's community manager has confirmed that the document breaches the forum's rules on such things, and has handed the user in question a temporary ban.
This and the previous leak of strictly need-to-know ballistic smut were spotted by the UK Defence Journal, an unaffiliated group of hardcore wonks, including former service members. The latter org say that War Thunder has been a source of leakage at least nine times in total, with previous victims including France's Leclerc, China's ZTZ-99, the Eurocopter Tiger, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the US F-16, F-15E and F-117 jets. In each case, they say, the leak happened because some nerd wanted to win an argument. This is how the world ends, isn't it.
The UK Defence Journal also cite an anonymous former RAF engineer who sizes up the latest breach as follows:
"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."
War Thunder isn't just in the military realism business. The developers are partial to the occasional Gatling gun burst of whimsy, such as this weeklong flying saucer takeover. No erotic tank designs for the moment, alas, though I guess there's always the modding scene. I am not going to look up the modding scene. I don't want to upset myself.