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Starting in 2021, War Thunder's official forums became notorious for being the center point of multiple leaks of export-restricted or regionally classified military documents from around the world detailing how various weapons and transportation equipment like tanks and fighter jets are built. The leaks are attributed to the fact that the game strives to depict the minutiae of warfare as realistically as possible, leading to players with military connections, or access to resources that are publicly available in other regions, sharing the documents on the forums in order to prove points regarding what would or would not be accurate in-game. Despite the forum moderators quickly removing these posts and issuing multiple warnings about them breaching international law, the issue became so prominent and recurring that laypeople began spreading rumors that the United States military had to start filtering out War Thunder players during the recruitment process, which American weapons contractor RTX Corporation denied.
Full list of leaks from 2021-2023:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2924096000
AeroTime article about the leaks:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230117121047/https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/another-war-thunder-leak-player-reportedly-posts-restricted-f-16-documents
Axios article about the leaks:
https://www.axios.com/2023/04/20/pentagon-leak-war-thunder-discord
Sports Illustrated article with RTX Corporation's comments:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230124193915/https://videogames.si.com/news/war-thunder-national-security-risk
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2924096000
AeroTime article about the leaks:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230117121047/https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/another-war-thunder-leak-player-reportedly-posts-restricted-f-16-documents
Axios article about the leaks:
https://www.axios.com/2023/04/20/pentagon-leak-war-thunder-discord
Sports Illustrated article with RTX Corporation's comments:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230124193915/https://videogames.si.com/news/war-thunder-national-security-risk
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