This incident will be reviewed and if appropriate, an investigation will be launched, and mitigations put in place to prevent recurrences. She added: “We take all unauthorised disclosures of information extremely seriously. The Challenger remains a key part of UK defence plans and the British army recently announced it is embarking on a massive £800m upgrade of the Challenger tanks as part of its restructuring plansĪ Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said they did not comment on leaked documents. “Every time you post this you place us (International representatives of Gaijin), especially any UK citizens, in hot water as the warning states that unauthorised retention of a protected document is an offence.” By continuing to disseminate it you are in violation of the Official Secrets Act as stated by the warning on the cover of the document, an offence which can carry up to a 14-year prison sentence if prosecuted. Since 2019, players of the multiplayer military sim have shared restricted and classified military documents. It said: “We have written confirmation from MoD that this document remains classified. In games journalism, our repeat is: ‘War Thunder players leak military documents’. The gaming website later posted a message saying the document remained classified. The game operators have removed many of the posts containing the classified material after the sensitivity of the documents became clear.Ī site spokesman said: “We make it very clear we will not handle any source material unless it is publicly available and fully declassified with the rights to prove that.” Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images The event was partnered with the Information Systems Department of the Russian Ministry of Defence.Ī Challenger tank on Nato exercises in Estonia. Last year the game had a tank event featuring Russian and Chinese tanks performing tasks. It was created and published by a company called Gaijin Entertainment which is listed as Cyprus-based but was originally founded in Moscow, Russia, where it still has offices. War Thunder is a popular video game in which thousands of players around the world can simultaneously control aircraft, ground vehicles, and warships from the United States, Germany, Russia, Britain, China and other nations. The player identified the documents as belonging to a tank in Tidworth garrison in Wiltshire, home barracks of the Royal Tank Regiment which operates Challenger 2 tanks. “It certainly has not been released under FOI (Freedom of Information) previously or considered for redacting.” It said the MoD’s Defence Equipment and Support division had seen the documents and said they appeared “to be a genuine extract”. “Keep in mind that those documents will be deleted immediately alongside sanctions.To support his argument the player posted pages from the official Challenger 2 Army Equipment Support Publication – a manual and maintenance guide.Įxcerpts from the documents, some of which were heavily redacted, appeared to show some documents had “UK RESTRICTED” label crossed out and a stamp of “UNCLASSIFIED” added, the website UK Defence Journal reported. “Guys it’s not funny to leak classified documents of modern equipment you put the lives of many on stake who work daily with the vehicles,” a moderator previously said. Schematics for the Challenger 2 tank extracted from its Army Equipment Support. War Thunder is a game about war machines blowing each other. OSINTtechnical (Osinttechnical) JThis is a familiar phenomenon for the War Thunder forums. In all cases, Gaijin Entertainment firmly maintained that sensitive military information will not be used as source material and that no changes will be made to their in-game counterparts. For the second time, a player leaks classified military documents during an argument over the power of a specific tank in War Thunder. Kotaku notes that this is the third time that War Thunder players have leaked classified information to get a tank’s stats buffed and in one case to win an argument on the forums. List of Classified Document Leaks By VoidVexy and 1 collaborators A list of all vehicles that have had classified/export restricted documents leaked about them to make the funny vehicle game more accurate. At some point, it was even translated from Chinese to English. But as we all know with the internet, once it’s out there, it’s out there. The leak, which included tank round specifications and schematics of an actual part of the tank, was promptly taken down by the forum moderators but not before it was circulated online. A War Thunder player recently leaked the specs of the Chinese Type 99 Main Battle Tank on the game’s official forums in an attempt to get the in-game version of the tank buffed. How far would you go to get your game feedback heard? Apparently, some gamers are prepared to divulge classified information just to get their way.
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