A Chinese blogger leaked portions of classified military secrets on a video game forum, revealing the specifications of “top secret” ammunition.
This is not the first time that the popular video game “War Thunder” has been associated with the leaking of military secrets. In May 2021, a forum user posted an image of a Chinese military manual in an apparent effort to ensure that the game’s portrayal of certain Chinese weapon system, the Chinese anti-tank missile DTC-125, was realistic.
“War Thunder” is a multiplayer vehicular combat video game, in which users fight each other in vehicles including planes, tanks, and ships.
The image posted on the “War Thunder” forums on May 31 showed the weapon system in question, a tungsten penetrator, on top of a classified military document detailing the specifications of the weapon.
Image was removed immediately, but can still be found on various social media sites. Instead, the moderators of “War Thunder” posted a message that read, “Materials related to the DTC10-125 are classified in China” and warned other game users not to share said materials.
However, the latest incident is one of several similar incidents in the game. The “War Thunder” forums have hosted several similar materials before. In fact, the most recent example is, according to some, the fifth leak associated with a tank to appear in the game, most of which have occurred in the last six months.
Related classified information featuring the French Leclerc main battle tank and a different Chinese tank, the APFSDS, appeared on the site, along with two leaks associated with the Challenger, the British Army’s main battle tank.
The controversy may have helped the game’s popularity, which averages over 40,000 players per day in June, vs. the 29,000 in February, according to data provided by Steam.
“War Thunder” was released on 2013, and the developers announce the massively multiplayer game on the Steam video game platform as “the most complete free cross-platform military game dedicated to aviation, armored vehicles and naval vessels.”
And while weapon systems and vehicles are intended to loosely follow real-world capabilities, users on their forums have long debated the accuracy of such systems.
Although these manuals themselves are classified, it is not clear if the particular information they contain was previously leaked. That has left some “War Thunder” users wondering if the leaks were intentional or part of a larger disinformation campaign, especially given the game’s sudden resurgence during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Gaijin Entertainment, the developer of “War Thunder”, was originally based in Russia and has been accused of sponsoring an anti-Ukrainian YouTube channel. However, advocates for the company have pointed out that the company is now based in Budapest, Hungary.
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