By: Benjamin Wang
Last year, fans of the game “War Thunder” posted government documents regarding British, French, and Chinese tanks after requesting that the developer make the tanks more accurate in the game. Another user posted a manual for a Leclerc S2 tank after debating another user about the turret’s rotation speed.
Experts say the information released was not vital, and did not compromise the tanks.
Steven Zaloga, a senior tank analyst at the Teal Group, which has been analyzing tanks for over 50 years, said “I didn’t see anything I’d jump up and down about. Tank manuals will be classified at various levels even though a lot of information in it is not especially sensitive.”
The French and British tanks have been shipped to other countries, making the documents much less important to the nations of origin.
Sonny Butterworth, a senior analyst at Janes, a defense intelligence company, says that the information “was from a user manual, so it’s classified, but it’s distributed fairly widely to anyone who uses the tank, supports it, or maintains it.”
Additionally, information that was shared regarding the Chinese tank had been online since 2018.
According to Butterworth, the only thing that foreign countries may be interested in is the dispersion data from the Chinese tank, which measures how the vehicle may perform in different weather conditions.
The main publisher of “War Thunder” is Gaijin Entertainment. Gaijin’s founder, Anton Yudintsev, says that they are working to remove the classified documents as quickly as possible, but that they have no way to stop people from posting online. “We delete the posts and permanently ban those who break the rules, so our users know that they risk everything essentially for nothing.”
Yudintsev says Gaijin has not yet been contacted by any of the governments involved. Spokespeople for several U.S. and U.K. departments of defense and security declined to comment, as did the Chinese and French embassies in the U.S.
Barbara L. McQuade, a former U.S. Attorney and law professor, says that “If you have [classified information] and communicate it, you are in violation of letter of the law. However, to be prosecuted, there is a requirement that you have an intent to harm the United States or provide an advantage to a foreign country.”
“We’re happy that even military professionals like what we do, Yudintsev says. “But breaking the law in order to win an argument online is too much. I’d like to ask all of them: please, never do that!”
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