In a bizarre turn of events, online gaming enthusiasts leaked several pages from a manual for the US-built M2A2 AIFV to the War Thunder forums as part of a heated discussion about the precise technical details of their favourite military tech, RT news agency reported on Friday. War Thunder is a free-to-play combat multiplayer game that allows players to battle each other using historical and modern military hardware. Many of its fans are obsessed with accuracy and press the game\u2019s designers to get every detail exactly right, often supporting their arguments with restricted materials.<\/p>\n
The leak included two pages of the manual, detailing the commander\u2019s hatch as well as the turret and spall liner assemblies down to every bolt and nut. The gamers leaked the details during discussions about the game developed by Gaijin Entertainment, a Budapest-based company with distinct Russian origins. \u201cThere was a post containing classified or restricted information regarding Bradley on December 12th,\u201d the company\u2019s founder, Anton Yudintsev, confirmed in a statement provided to PC Gamer on Thursday, RT News reported.<\/p>\n
However, according to Yudintsev, \u201cThis particular leak\u201d did not originate on the War Thunder forums but was floating around various platforms like Reddit and Discord since at least December 8. He claimed that the company is doing its best to swiftly crack down on leakers, claiming that \u201cWar Thunder forum is definitely one of the strictest on Earth in that regard.\u201d The moderators deleted the sensitive information \u201cwithin minutes,\u201d but not before several users had downloaded and shared it with the media.<\/p>\n
While not classified as top secret, the technical manual in question contains export-controlled data that should only be accessible by the Pentagon and its contractors. This year alone, War Thunder fans spilled some classified beans on the AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter, the F-117 Nighthawk, the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F-15E Strike Eagle. Previous disclosures involved France\u2019s Leclerc and British Challenger-2 tanks, as well as Chinese DTC10-125 anti-armor shells. In total, over the years, gamers have shared classified and sensitive info on at least 14 separate occasions, according to Task & Purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a bizarre turn of events, online gaming enthusiasts leaked several pages from a manual for the US-built M2A2 AIFV\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":18857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[5956,5960,5762,158,5965,1465,5957,5963,545,5964,5959,5958,290,5961,5962,339,5953,95,5954,5955],"class_list":["post-18854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","tag-accuracy","tag-ah-64d-apache-longbow-helicopter","tag-aircraft","tag-china","tag-chinese-dtc10-125-anti-armor-shells","tag-classified-information","tag-details","tag-f-15e-strike-eagle","tag-france","tag-frances-leclerc-and-british-challenger-2-tanks","tag-military-hardware","tag-military-vehicles","tag-russia","tag-the-f-117-nighthawk","tag-the-f-16-fighting-falcon","tag-uk","tag-us-built-m2a2-aifv","tag-usa","tag-video-games","tag-war-thunder"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}