Oops, War Thunder Gamers Accidentally Leaked Sensitive F-16 Secrets Online
Users of the MMO War Thunder have yet again spilled military secrets on the game’s online forums.
An anonymous user posted information from the manual of an F-16A fighter jet, but the data was not meant for export.
War Thunder users have repeatedly uploaded secret or restricted information on weapon systems from around the world, from tanks to fighters.
Massive multiplayer online (MMO) games are designed to be immersive experiences, but one such game has a unique problem: a player base that keeps posting secret information about military hardware.
The latest case involves a user uploading information on the F-16A Fighting Falcon, information that, although dated, was not meant for export abroad, let alone uploaded to a worldwide messaging forum.
War Thunder is one of the largest MMOs currently in operation. The free game, which allows players to battle against each other on land, at sea, and in the air, made a name for itself by offering realistic models of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, warships, and fighter planes, and letting players spar against one another in massive battles. The realistic modeling, which includes radar ranges, tank armor modeling, and weapons effects, has recruited legions of die-hard fans.
There’s one problem with War Thunder’s success: fans don’t just want to just stop at the game’s level of realism—they want to take it even further by doing their own research and uncovering information they think will help the game. They then upload the data to online forums run by Gaijin Entertainment, the developer of War Thunder.
The catch? Sometimes this information is restricted, and should never be shared outside government or industry circulation.
The latest leak involves the F-16A fighter jet and the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile, or AMRAAM. The F-16A was just introduced into the game, as the video above announced in late December. The user “SpaceNavy90” wrote on the War Thunder forums:
“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 F-16A was the earliest F-16 production model, and the AMRAAM is a radar-guided missile designed to give it the ability to engage targets beyond visual range. SCP, or stores control panel, was a control panel in the F-16A cockpit that gave the pilot control over missiles, bombs, and fuel tanks attached to the fighter. (It was later replaced by the multi-function display, or MFD, a LCD screen that could do the job of the SCP and several other control panels, switching between them with the push of a finger.) TWS, or track while scan, is a radar trick that allows a fighter to both track targets while scanning for new ones.
Gaijin’s forum moderators immediately hid the contents of the post. SpaceNavy90 argued the information was so old that it didn’t violate sharing rules. The mods, however, said that sharing the info violated U.S. regulations on exporting sensitive military information. The International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) regime controls the flow of both military hardware and information outside of the U.S. While the information in the post may have been legal to share in the U.S, posting it on the Internet allows it to be viewed virtually anywhere on the planet, running afoul of ITAR.
This wasn’t the first time restricted or secret information was shared on War Thunder—not by a long shot. Just one day before, in fact, a forum member posted sensitive information on the F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet. In July 2021, a player who claimed to be a Challenger 2 tank commander and former member of the British Army’s Armored Trials and Development Unit felt Gaijin didn’t give the tank its due in armored protection—and shared information from the tank’s Army Equipment Support Publication. Unfortunately for the user, the information had been incorrectly labeled unclassified, when it was very much still classified.
Many of the leaks seem to involve tanks. Other leaks have included a French Army soldier leaking information on the French LeClerc main battle tank, and a Chinese user leaking the capabilities of the Chinese Army’s DTC 10 125 millimeter kinetic energy anti-tank round.
Nobody likes losing a head-to-head encounter in a tank or fighter jet in a video game, and nobody likes losing an Internet argument—especially when they’re sitting on information that could prove them right. To be fair, not all of the unauthorized sharing is to win an argument or prove the game’s developers got something wrong. But War Thunder seems to have an odd knack for compelling people to share information that they shouldn’t.
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