Another War Thunder leak: player posts restricted F-16 documents

(Link / Archive)

Restricted documents pertaining to the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet have been published on an online forum dedicated to the popular video game, War Thunder.

The game, in which players battle each other with an array of historical and modern military vehicles, has been a source of numerous controversies. Disgruntled gamers have posted classified documents on multiple occasions to convince developers to change the portrayal of a vehicle found in the game.

The latest controversy was sparked by a post published on the game’s forum, created by user spacenavy90 on January 16, 2023.

“Interesting thing I found during my research. During early AMRAAM testing you can see how F-16A would equip the AIM-120 and use TWS on the non-MFD stores control panel “SCP”,” the user said.

A document, which has since been deleted by the moderators of the forum, was attached to the post. A moderator then replied to the post saying that the document contained export-restricted data and, as per US laws, publishing it is banned.

A discussion ensued, according to which the document posted by the user was either a F-16 flight manual or a part of it. While the ‘classified’ status of the manual has expired, the forum’s users argued, its distribution is still restricted and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Without knowing the nature of the document posted, AeroTime could not confirm its status.

A persistent problem
This is not the first reported incident where potentially classified or restricted documents regarding military vehicles have been posted by fans of the game.

The first such instance appears to have taken place in 2021, when excerpts from a British Challenger 2 tank user manual were posted on one of the game’s forums, an attempt made by one user to convince the game’s developers to revamp the in-game model of the tank.

In the coming years, various restricted documents pertaining to French-made Leclerc tanks and Chinese DTC10-125 anti-armor shells were also posted by users, followed up by a host of classified documents regarding China’s latest Type 99 tank.

In addition to tanks, the game’s players also posted restricted documents detailing armor layout on the Eurocopter Tiger attack helicopter.

Forum moderators promptly removed the documents in all these cases.

Forum rules have reportedly been modified to ban the behavior. Furthermore, in 2021 Gaijin Entertainment actively reached out to the users of the game, asking them to stop publishing classified documents. However, these efforts appear to have had limited success.

As noted by some reports, at least some of the restricted documents posted by the game’s fans had already been leaked and can be found elsewhere on the internet – a caveat that likely extends to the F-16 flight manuals in question.

However, publication of such documents may still be restricted by national law in some countries, as was the case with the manuals of Leclerc and Challenger tanks.

UPDATE 01-17-2023, 16:20(UTC +3): According to Konstantin Govorun, the Head of PR at Gaijin Entertainment, the documents contained in the post were considered export restricted and contained information the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) and its use on the F-16.

“We always delete posts containing classified or restricted information from our forum as soon as possible. We forbid our users to share documents like this on our platforms. We remind our users again and again that it’s both illegal and pointless, so they should never do that,” Govorun explained in an email to AeroTime.

“We never use them in our work and that policy will never change. Development team does not even look at the contents of the documents, moderators just check if the information on the military vehicle or armament in question is still classified or not. If the answer is a yes, we delete everything ASAP. Our game developers are never exposed to this information or the user posts that accompany the documents, so they are not influenced in any way by these situations,” Govorun added.

 

[AnonymousKot]

They get a ton of free advertising every time this happens.

If not for the pay 2 win predatory shit, I'd have join war thunder years ago

 

[East_Clintwood]

This is like some autistic retarded cousin to Cunningham's law.

 

[Mista House]

Oh come on, how is it this hard for the feds to keep thier classified documents about thier tanks away from these autists?, they might as well just give the blueprints for thier newest tank to some random faggot in Kansas and hope nobody tries to steal it from them.

Im going to guess autists on warthunder like this work inside these organisations. I remember the guy who leaked Challenger 2 documents worked for the MoD. Maybe they should scan prospective applicants hard drives for WarThunder as a protective measure.

 

[Gottahavemysips]

Not anymore. A new challenger has appeared.

You don't need World of Tanks War or War Thunder anymore. Break the cycle of abuse. Yeah GHPC might not have WW2 tanks or the huge list of vehicles that WoT and WT have but it's a better game even in Early Access.

It's not that the Russian equipment is bad. Sure, it doesn't compare to modern Western equipment. But it's not total garbage. The problem for the Russians is that their army is incompetent. That and mixture of being pushed into a war no one really wants to fight. Their army is mostly conscripts anyway. Corruption hasn't helped either. Just look at what's going on in Ukraine. The Ukrainians are using the same stuff as the Russians, and they are getting better results. The reports of the poor condition of the stuff that Russia has been sending into Ukraine is also part of the issue. The stuff in War Thunder is definitely in better condition that the what the Russians are pulling out of their deep long-term storage.

The airframe would be the same but everything else is most likely new. I don't know exactly how new. Old hull new electronics.

I usually play Air RB actually. I know that none of those games have anything like that. I occasionally like to play ground though, but you can also do CAS runs in there. That was my point about there being no game quite like War Thunder, there's this combined arms gameplay that really doesn't exist in any other game. I don't always want to break out my flight stick for a full on sim experience, while Ace Combat doesn't always scratch the itch, especially when I've gotten full S rank Ace difficulty runs on several games.

 

[Fareal]

This level of autism really needs to be celebrated rather than punished

 

[12345678901]

We never use them in our work and that policy will never change.

People risk jailtime to give these russian dogs some feedback but they will say anything to keep their soviet shit op.

 

[White Devil]

I usually play Air RB actually. I know that none of those games have anything like that. I occasionally like to play ground though, but you can also do CAS runs in there. That was my point about there being no game quite like War Thunder, there's this combined arms gameplay that really doesn't exist in any other game. I don't always want to break out my flight stick for a full on sim experience, while Ace Combat doesn't always scratch the itch, especially when I've gotten full S rank Ace difficulty runs on several games.

So you've never played WWII Online, Battlefront, Battlefield, Planetside, and a ton of other games since the late 90s that allow online combined arms gameplay?

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

Forum rules have reportedly been modified to ban the behavior. Furthermore, in 2021 Gaijin Entertainment actively reached out to the users of the game, asking them to stop publishing classified documents. However, these efforts appear to have had limited success.

This made me laugh really hard for some reason. There's no sperg like a War Thunder sperg.

 

[BikeLock]

It's for the F-16A, who the fuck cares?
Literally a 50 year old aircraft with the only ones left updated to Block 50 or in mothballs getting ready to be converted into target drones.

 

[Falcos_Commisar]

Not anymore. A new challenger has appeared.

You don't need World of Tanks War or War Thunder anymore. Break the cycle of abuse. Yeah GHPC might not have WW2 tanks or the huge list of vehicles that WoT and WT have but it's a better game even in Early Access.

It's not that the Russian equipment is bad. Sure, it doesn't compare to modern Western equipment. But it's not total garbage. The problem for the Russians is that their army is incompetent. That and mixture of being pushed into a war no one really wants to fight. Their army is mostly conscripts anyway. Corruption hasn't helped either. Just look at what's going on in Ukraine. The Ukrainians are using the same stuff as the Russians, and they are getting better results. The reports of the poor condition of the stuff that Russia has been sending into Ukraine is also part of the issue. The stuff in War Thunder is definitely in better condition that the what the Russians are pulling out of their deep long-term storage.

The airframe would be the same but everything else is most likely new. I don't know exactly how new. Old hull new electronics.

GPHC is a bit more hardcore than WT

Another option is Armored Warframe but it's a healthbar game like WoT but thankfully with modern vehicles.

WT also has tanks, aircraft and naval vehicles all in the same game and it LOOKS great.

It's not a sim like DCS so it's so much more accessible.

 

[NOT Andy Kaufman]

Whatever this clickbait is referring to I guaran-goddamn-tee you the chinks and ruskies have copies of every T.O. ever printed.

 

[Stalphos Johnson]

Meanwhile somebody dumped some F-15E docs on the forums in the last day or so:
Archive

 

[Snekposter]

Unfortunately about 80% of it is just retards whining about the other nations over and over again. The nationalists begging for their particular tiny country to be added are usually pretty entertaining though. Especially when it's a middle eastern nation and people troll them with suggestions of making it an Isreali sub tree.

Yeah, but the worst nation in all of WT is Germany. The Panther D is far too over-tiered at 5.3 facing off against vehicles like the M4A2 with a 76mm gun and the A30 Challenger. Germany suffers.

Another option is Armored Warframe but it's a healthbar game like WoT but thankfully with modern vehicles.

Yeah, but they use global servers so you're lucky if your ping is under half a second.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Russia likely has all the info it needs on the F-16 though. Far more likely that Gajin underpowers NATO vehicles because if not they would just curbstomp the soviet crap

Yeah, almost piece of American military tech prior to say has already been stolen and sold to foreign countries. The Soviets stole the nuclear bomb tech, they stole vacuum bombs, the Chinese probably have stolen everything, all the shit left behind in Afghanistan has probably been studied, et cetera.

It all comes down to materials cost, which is what puts it out of reach.

 

[CuzinEd]

I usually play Air RB actually. I know that none of those games have anything like that. I occasionally like to play ground though, but you can also do CAS runs in there. That was my point about there being no game quite like War Thunder, there's this combined arms gameplay that really doesn't exist in any other game. I don't always want to break out my flight stick for a full on sim experience, while Ace Combat doesn't always scratch the itch, especially when I've gotten full S rank Ace difficulty runs on several games.

GHPC will eventually have the ability to call in CAS strikes. Right now, it's just artillery. They want to add infantry to the game as well. It will eventually have combined arms gameplay. It kind of does now it's just limited. The devs have a roadmap for the game. They said the sales from Steam will help them complete the roadmap. I played a few sims over the years. But I don't have the kind of time or patience for sims anymore. I don't want to feel like I am actually training for a military career. Which is why I like GHPC and games like Ace Combat. I used my Logitech extreme 3D pro with Project Wingman recently and it was pretty fun. Project Wingman is like Ace Combat. It's an arcade flight game.

GPHC is a bit more hardcore than WT

Another option is Armored Warframe but it's a healthbar game like WoT but thankfully with modern vehicles.

WT also has tanks, aircraft and naval vehicles all in the same game and it LOOKS great.

It's not a sim like DCS so it's so much more accessible.

I played Steel Beasts in the early 2000's. It's a hardcore tank sim. It's kind of hard for me to think of GHPC as hardcore but I guess compared to War Thunder it is. But it's more like simcade. I actually prefer GHPC actually. It's easier to get into than Steel Beasts and has enough of the details and realism of Steel Beasts but without all the sim stuff. It feels less like a job and more like a game.

You mean Armored Warfare? I played that and even bought my way into access in 2015. I spent about $200 on that game trying to support. I played it for a about a year or so. But after Obsidian left and the Russians took over development the game was dead. It was pretty much dead because they allowed PVE and the player base was mostly made up of WoT refugees and they wouldn't play the PVP part of the game. So that pretty much died and all that was left was some boring PVE shit. It probably would have been fun if they had put some work into the AI but they didn't. I haven't played that game in years. I consider it to be free to play garbage like War Thunder and World of Tanks. With GHPC I got what I want and it's a much better experience.

I played War Thunder. I started out with the planes tried the tanks and thought they sucked. The game is too much of a grind. I haven't played that game since 2017 or early 2018.

 

[Fornicario]

Unironically Yes.

Probably be cheaper too since it won't be goldbricked to hell.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Probably be cheaper too since it won't be goldbricked to hell.

Probably, but I would still want one just because it is my second amendment right.

 

[Fornicario]

Probably, but I would still want one just because it is my second amendment right.

I'll be above you in my Stratofortress. Keep those Chair Force bastards off me and we'll get shit done, erasing city blocks bit by bit.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I'll be above you in my Stratofortress. Keep those Chair Force bastards off me and we'll get shit done, erasing city blocks bit by bit.

we need them to Leak the designs for an Air Force Carrier.

Imagine the Kiwi Sea Ship : NiggerFaggot sailing the high seas with a full Compliment of F-16.

 

[Makhno]

the game is "realistic"

Yeah it is about as realistic as laser tag is for simulating actual combat. The only thing it simulates semi decently is ballistics and old tank armor pre 60's. Gajin built a perpetual pay to win hamster wheel for the kind of people who obsess over military hardware because they were medically disqualified from joining the actual military.

Isn't the F16 one of the most exported modern military fighter jets? Even potentially hostile countries like Venezuela and Oman own an operate them. Leaks really shouldn't be surprising. Look at this massive list of operators https://www.f-16.net/f-16_users.html

Saying all F-16's are the same is not correct. The F-16 is produced in different production blocks each with differing electronics, some with different engines, some with entirely different configurations such as a 2 seater version. The production blocks that are cleared for export are built with less advanced systems than the domestic ones we use for our own military.

I wonder why this never happens with DCS. The Viper it has is Block 52 and it seems most everything on it is public knowledge.

because the barrier to entry in DCS is so much higher in terms of knowledge that the only people who stick around are those with a background in military already or those intelligent enough to actually master certain skills required to operate a mostly functional simulation of a military aircraft. most people buy DCS and rage quit before they ever get to the point of being proficient in any airframe. this results in a much less gimmicky player base subject to the kind of marketing slot machines in casinos use as well as a community with an inbuilt desire to maintain a higher standard.

It's not that the Russian equipment is bad. Sure, it doesn't compare to modern Western equipment. But it's not total garbage. The problem for the Russians is that their army is incompetent. That and mixture of being pushed into a war no one really wants to fight. Their army is mostly conscripts anyway. Corruption hasn't helped either. Just look at what's going on in Ukraine. The Ukrainians are using the same stuff as the Russians, and they are getting better results. The reports of the poor condition of the stuff that Russia has been sending into Ukraine is also part of the issue. The stuff in War Thunder is definitely in better condition that the what the Russians are pulling out of their deep long-term storage.

ROFL your problem is you get your information on what is going on in Ukraine from the media who gets it from the Defense Department. Russian equipment is vastly superior to western equipment in several areas. Russian AA has been superior to its western counterparts since the Soviet days of SA-2 vs Hawk missiles, while we have better planes they have better surface to air missiles; it is even worse today a F-22 even can be targeted and taken down within 40-60 miles of newest Russian systems. Russian tank armor has always been better since the introduction of reactive armor but NATO makes up for this with vastly superior electronics in its armored units though Russians are quickly catching up. Russian nuclear triad is stronger from the standpoint they employ mobile land based missile batteries that cannot be tracked or targeted by a first strike making a retaliation to any nuclear strike a guarantee. Here again their missiles are newer having an edge with hypersonic delivery vehicles. Russia has better helicopters than we do that are much more reliable which in general is all Russian equipment.

The Soviet/Russian state owns their defense industry so every piece of equipment that needs to be repaired or replaced costs them money which is why it looks clunky as fuck and is built with less reliance on complex systems whereas the western defense industry is a bunch of greedy private corporations out to fuck the taxpayer as much as possible for the benefit of their shareholders. Our shit is literally built to break all the fucking time and have parts that need to be constantly replaced and maintained in many cases only by technicians from the company who supplied the weapons system leading to further income for shareholders. So yes we do have more advanced technology that breaks all the time so Larry Fink can get a higher dividend payout.

More advanced technology is not always the best technology for a war though, ask the Nazis how their over reliance on wonder weapons worked. Russia has over 100 million more people than Ukraine does and an arsenal of weaponry that is 2nd only to America. Only idiots and sociopaths seeking to profit promote the idea Ukraine will win or promote the idea of Ukrainian heroics. Russia tried and failed at the quick TKO and now they are simply beating the Ukrainians silly with kill to death ratios of 10:1-3:1 until the Ukrainians use up all their manpower on worthless TikTok offensives. If Ukraine didn't get $100 billion plus it would have already lost. Their army knows what they are doing and the Russian people very much are behind this war and want to push GAYTO feminism and faggotry out of their sphere of influence. Imagine how Americans would feel if Russia invaded Alaska and started throwing trannies and urban black youths off rooftops while banning the English language because the same emotional reaction is what Russians feel when they look at eastern Ukraine since 2014.

Eventually we are going to get a world war because the idiots at the pentagon pushing buttsex and girl bosses got high on their own supply of propaganda and actually think they can start and win a war against Russia/China. This diseased thinking needs to be put to a stop or we will see a nuclear holocaust in our lifetime. The American empire is a fucking joke, it's military is more incompetent and plagued by political commissars than the Soviets were under Stalin in the 30's. All the competent people have been driven out of the military to make way for political correctness and the weak greasy pole climbing pieces of shit willing to submit to it to advance their own careers. The Russians do not have a female general officer but our modern military is fucking full of them and that should tell any sane person on Earth about the general state of each nation's military. Add to the fact the US spends more than the next 20 nations combined on a military that cannot even defend the border and you start to realize the modern American military is a collection of welfare queens (enlisted) and traitors (officers).