By: Allan Wang

Last year, in an online forum dedicated to War Thunder, a war game based around tanks, classified documents were released in the form of three posts. One of these posters, which uploaded the manual to a British Challenger 2 tank, released them in an effort to get game developers to make the in-game version of it more realistic and accurate to the actual model.

Another poster, who was part of a French tank unit posted a Leclerc S2 manual while in a debate about the tank’s rotation speed.

The third poster posted info on China’s DTC10-125 tank, but in the end their motivations for this were unclear.

All three posts were removed by the forum and game creator. Tank experts say the documents posted likely would not be of harm to the countries involved. While they were classified, they were not classified at too high of a degree. They consisted mostly of manuals given out to people who would have been assigned to one of these tanks, been around one, or even cleaned one so it was not too sensitive information.

In the case of the Chinese tank, the data had been circulating the internet since 2018. The US army’s TRADOC also has posted info on these tanks publicly as well as a documentation of tactics used by them. Data such as these are often released publicly by countries in the forms of demonstrations or arms showcases to entice buyers. Many avenues of researching on your own exist as well, as one could calculate a rotation speed by watching a YouTube video.

The only data that could be of harm, would be information on the specific armor and weapon materials or configurations. None of the leaked documents included those. So far, none of the British, French, or Chinese governments have commented on the situation.