Player Publishes a Classified Document So the Devs Buff a Tank in War Thunder
One of the War Thunder players said that the recreation of the Challenger 2 tank is not very realistic. In order to support his words, he posted classified information about the tank's construction on the forum.
- Classified information regarding the Challenger 2 tank has been published on the official War Thunder forum;
- They were posted by a player who wanted the developers to use them to fix the vehicle's stats in the game;
- The materials were removed from the forum after the intervention of UK's Ministry of Defense.
War Thunder is a game that enables you to play with a whole lot of military equipment. The developers are trying to maintain realism and recreate the machines in the game as accurately as possible. One of the British tanks, Challenger 2, had to face accusations that its reproduction was not realistic.
The doubts were expressed by user Fear_Naught, who claimed to be the commander of a crew of said vehicle in real life. In one of the threads on the official game forum he wrote that he only wants to help the developers in making the necessary corrections. To confirm the credibility of his words, he posted in subsequent messages pictures of a document called Challenger 2 Army Equipment Support Publication (in short, it's a manual for the aforementioned tank).
According to UK Defence Journal, the crossed-out words "UK RESTRICTED" and the signature "UNCLASSIFIED" could be seen on the released materials. Apparently, they were not true. Soon all photos of the AESP document posted on the forum were removed. The administration of the website received an interesting message from the Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom, which was reported by one of the moderators. He addressed it directly to user Fear_Naught.
"We have written confirmation from MoD that this document remains classified. 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. Of this you are already aware, as a service person, you have signed a declaration that you understand the act and what actions it compels you to take. Every time you post this you place us (International representatives of Gaijin), especially any UK citizens, in hot water as the warning so helpfully states that unauthorised retention of a protected document is an offence."
It is difficult to determine whether the user forged the AESP so that it resembled declassified documents. It is possible that he received them in that state and made a costly mistake. However, we should certainly appreciate his dedication to realism in War Thunder. Unfortunately, the users efforts ultimately came to nothing. Gaijin has announced that due to the status of the documents, it cannot use the details in them to make improvements to the game.
