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Military documents leak once again on War Thunder forum

Plane stupidity.

War Thunder screenshot of two fighter planes flying parallel to each other
Image credit: Gaijin Entertainment

You know the drill. Classified military documents get posted onto the War Thunder forum, until it's noticed by a moderator who deletes it. In a surprise to nobody, it happened yet again last week.

The document shared this time was a flight manual for the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, Niche Gamer reported. Information such as sensor locations, firing angles, and engine specifications were shown on the pages circulated on the thread.

The entire thread has since been deleted, though developer Gaijin Entertainment confirmed the information had been posted onto its forum.

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Gaijin's head of PR Konstantin Govorun confirmed to Task and Purpose, an American publication which covers the US defense industry, its moderators removed the post and any sensitive information, and banned the user who uploaded it.

A spokesperson for the US Air Force told Task and Purpose the goverment "has urged companies to avoid allowing the distribution of information that is detrimental to public safety and national security"." The F-117 flight manual is not classified but it is export restricted.

"This is probably 12th time this happens [sic]," Govorun said to Task and Purpose. Wikipedia currently lists 10 separate instances of classified or sensitive information being leaked on War Thunder's forum, with six of those occurring just this year.

The first time military documents were posted on the forum was in July 2021, and they were used by a player in an attempt to convince Gaijin to make an in-game tank more realistic. This year's first leak happened in January, when a player shared documents on the F-16 fighter jet in an attempt to win an argument with another player.

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