During the holidays, gamers spend no shortage of time "gaming," but in recent years, some hardcore video game enthusiasts have also been too quick to spill military secrets. Just before the Christmas holiday, military secrets related to the Eurofighter Typhoon were shared on the forums for the popular free-to-play War Thunder simulation.
As in past incidents, the leaked documents came about after multiple gamers disputed key systems and the accuracy of the digital recreation in the War Thunder game. This time the spilled secrets involved the Eurofighter Typhoon, the 4+ generation multirole aircraft currently in service with the air forces of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
Hungary-based Gaijin Entertainment, the game's publisher, has repeatedly asked fans of the game not to leak military secrets on the forums.
"[We] will take this opportunity to again remind everyone here, please do not, under any circumstances, try to post, share any sources unless you are 100% certain they are legally declassified and publicly safe for use. We will never handle or use them, and all it does is actively harm any possible future changes being possible by trying to use them. Do not do it. No good will ever come from it for you or the vehicle you are trying to post for," the company said in a statement, as first reported by PC Gamer.
The National Interest will not publish what content was posted online but will note that the gamer debate—which turned heated—had resulted over the reported scanning capabilities of the CAPTOR radar system. According to Simple Flying, around 600 aircraft are fitted with the CAPTOR-E, an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, which operates on the X-band.
"Discussions centred on comparisons between its mechanically scanning (CAPTOR-M) and electronically scanning (CAPTOR-E) variants, particularly the latter’s ability to reduce scanning times significantly. Players disagreed over the exact technical capabilities, prompting the ill-advised sharing of restricted data," the UK Defence Journal explained.
War Thunder was first released in 2013 and is widely considered to be the most "realistic" combat simulation currently available to the general public. It simulates more than 1,900 vehicles, and according to the company, has a base of around 60,000 active players from around the world.
The most serious players are known to spend thousands of dollars on advanced controls that better simulate the flying experience, while some gamers have also gone to great lengths to create an immersive experience for tanks and other vehicles. The hardcore following the game has received has in turn resulted in very heated arguments over "classified" details.
In the past few years, gamers have shared secrets related to the McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle and General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. The leak for the F-15E had come from Operational Flight Program (OFP) software manuals, including those for flight controls, navigation, targeting, and even weapons systems. However, the documents had apparently been published between 1998 and 2000 and pertained to OFP suite 3, which has been upgraded numerous times in the past two decades. The other posted information was from the F-16's flight manual, detailing the use of the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM).
Other classified information has been posted to the War Thunder forums involving the British Army's Challenger 2 main battle tank (MBT), and the French military's Leclerc Serie 2 MBT. In June 2022, a gamer from China shared data on the DTC10-125, an anti-tank round fielded by modern Chinese tanks. Though many of the details were already well known, it still marked the first time that any authenticating documentation had been seen outside of China.
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.
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