On the War Thunder game forum, a gamer leaked secret information about a US fighter jet

On the War Thunder military simulator forum, the player posted a page from the secret flight manual of the American AV-8B Harrier fighter. This was reported on June 23 by the UK Defense Journal (UK DJ).

"This incident has become the ninth known case where users have posted classified or export-controlled materials in an attempt to influence the accuracy of the game," the article says.

This time, the user downloaded a section from the NATOPS manual for the AV-8B and TAV-8B Harrier used by the US Navy and Marine Corps. Since the publication of secret documents is a violation of the rules of the community, the player was temporarily banned.

The publication clarifies that the simulator developed by Gaijin Entertainment attracts a large community of military enthusiasts, including current and former military personnel. Players often discuss the characteristics of various military vehicles in deep detail, which sometimes leads to leaks of classified information in an attempt to "fix" how the equipment is presented in the game.

In the past, the game's forum has already leaked data on the characteristics of the British Challenger 2 tank, the French Leclerc, the Chinese ZTZ-99, the Eurocopter Tiger and several American aircraft, including the F-16, F-15E, F-117 and most recently the Eurofighter Typhoon.

A similar incident occurred in 2023, when, thanks to an enthusiastic gamer, two pages of the technical manual for the M2A2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle got online. On the pages that were published on the forum of the popular War Thunder game, the commander's hatch, the turret assembly and the anti-fragmentation balaclava assembly, down to bolts, washers and nuts, were described in detail.