Classified documents detailing the specifications of the Challenger 2 Tank in War Thunder have been leaked online and this has broken the Official Secrets Act, which is in effect in over 40 countries.
This breach was not the result of international espionage though, but instead an attempt by War Thunder forum user _Fear_Naught_ to improve the accuracy of the vehicle in the game.
Alongside pages of a Challenger 2 AESP (Army Equipment Support Publication, which is basically a user manual for tanks), _Fear_Naught_ took to the Official War Thunder Forum to explain that they leaked the document to prove that the developers Gaijin hadn’t coded the vehicle properly.
“Basically, Gaijin would have you believe that the rotor that supports the weight of the gun cradle, recoil mechanism, breech, barrel, mantlet assembly, coax mg, and the TISH isn’t even supported by the trunnions at all… It just floats apparently,” they wrote.
The images were quickly removed from the forum, with a Community Manager explaining “We make it very clear that we will not handle any source material unless it is publicly available and fully declassified with the rights to prove that.”
Another Mod later confirmed that they had “written confirmation from the Ministry of Defence that this document remains classified. By continuing to disseminate it you are in violation of the Official Secrets Act as stated by the warning on the cover of the document, an offence which can carry up to a 14 year prison sentence if prosecuted.”
Some users were still hopeful of an in-game improvement though. “I hope that, despite the sources having been removed and rejected for legal purposes, the mantlet will still be fixed,” posted Spanish_Avenger. “After all, we now KNOW for certain that it’s wrong in-game, and we now know, for a better extent, how it should actually be.”
But those dreams have since been squashed via the Community Manager. “There is no valid source material that can be used, therefore no change will take place.”
In other news, punk rock band The Offspring recently teamed up with World of Tanks to celebrate the release of their new album ‘Let The Bad Times Roll‘.
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