Emerson Phillips
We bring you a lot of stories of absurdity here on Rare.Us, and this one particularly raised our eyebrows precisely because of its raw, unadulterated absurdity.
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We’d never heard of the free-to-play online tank game War Thunder, perhaps you haven’t either, but that’s inconsequential.
What is dumbfoundingly consequential is the fact that the game has approximately 50,000 online players worldwide, and at least three of them have now shared classified military information (from three different countries) to the game’s forum, for the shear sake of proving a point, winning an online debate – and above all else – trying to get better in-game stats for the tanks from the country of their choice.
More specifically, the tanks they like to use when they’re playing the game.
This one may well win our “Sign-of-the-Times Story of the Year.” The logic, or lack thereof, of the three players in question can be expressed in only one way: “To hell with national security, I gotta win this tank game.”
The most recent leak came from someone with access to the latest technical manuals from China’s People’s Liberation Army. Because a user wanted the game’s Chinese battle tanks to have better in-game stats. So much so that the user published online the technical details of China’s military munitions.
“Our community managers immediately banned the user and deleted his post, as the information on this particular shell is still classified in China,” the game’s developer, Gaijin Entertainment, said. “Publishing classified information on any vehicle of any nation at War Thunder forums is clearly prohibited, and the game developers never use it in their work.”
But the user who shared the info certainly wants game developers to use it for the next, updated version of the game, no doubt.
Back in July 2021, someone who very possibly could have been a commander in the Royal Tank Regiment of the United Kingdom uploaded some documents to the War Thunder forums detailing the technical specifications of Britain’s Challenger 2 tank. Presumably, to prove that the game had gotten details wrong about the tank.
“We have written confirmation from [the Ministry of Defence] that this document remains classified,” wrote a message board moderator after the incident. “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 offense 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.”
And not long after that, there was another leak. This time because it was extremely important to someone out there that the French LeClerc Main Battle Tank have a more accurate depiction in a video game where people wage simulated war.
Most of the original images have been removed from the game’s forum. The reason they were shared in the first place is so a video game could more accurately depict what would happen if a Chinese tank and an American tank – or British, French, Russian, German or Israeli tank – met in combat.
National security be damned.
