Sensitive elements relating to F-16 Fighting Falcon, an American fighter plane, were published in January by a user of this military simulation game.
by Louis Adam
Sometimes the taste for historical accuracy comes up against the secret of the nation. On January 16, on the forums of the War Thunder military simulation game, a surfer wishing to contribute to a discussion published documents relating to the systems equipping the F-16 Falcon Falcon of General Dynamics, an American military plane from the 1970s but still used. If he affirms that these elements are no longer covered by the restrictions of the Secret-Defense, others believe that they remain under the status of “restricted dissemination”, the level of secrecy the lowest but which applies to everything even to information that is not intended to be disseminated to the public.
In doubt, these documents were removed by the moderation teams. But this incident is not isolated: it is even a strangely recurring phenomenon on the forums of the War Thunder game, which allows to compete on virtual battlefields by taking control of military vehicles , ranging from tanks to planes. In 2021, another user had posted extracts from the shooter of the shooter for Leclerc tanks, with the sole purpose of supporting his arguments in a debate on the speed of rotation of his turret.
Other confidential pieces of the same type, concerning Chinese military equipment or British tanks, have been posted over the years. “It is difficult to give an exact figure, but I would say that there have been at least six type incidents which attracted the attention of the community and who asked our moderation teams during the work during the Ten years of existence of the game “, recognizes Anton Yudintsev, founder of the Hungarian studio Gaijin Entertainment, at the origin of War Thunder.
Cult of precision
If these kinds of publications are not seen on other military simulation games, or in any case not in such a regular way, it is perhaps because, unlike its competitor, World of Tanks, War Thunder seeks above all to attract players keen on authenticity and historical realism: to model game vehicles, developers are largely based on authentic documents in order to offer a simulation as realistic as possible. “In most cases, users who disseminate these documents seek to convince the developers of the game to make changes to the vehicles and military devices concerned,” explains Anton Yudintsev. Kod, French player since 2013, abounds:
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