War Thunder Player Leaked Challenger 2 Tank's Classified Specs

One of the players of War Thunder expressed his dissatisfaction with the way the Challenger 2 tank was depicted in the project. He did this on a gaming forum.

According to the UK Defense Journal, the player posted excerpts from the Army Equipment Support Publication (AESP) to prove that the game developers had modeled the Challenger 2 tank improperly. In his message, the player explained in detail which armored vehicle components were placed incorrectly, comparing their location with what was indicated in the AESP. However, the published documents turned out to be classified.

The player identified himself as the commander of the Challenger 2 tank from Tidworth, the garrison town where the Royal Tank Regiment is based, which has this tank.

The player has published scans of the tank's manual pages with the "UK RESTRICTED" label crossed out and an added "UNCLASSIFIED" stamp. At the same time, part of the text not related to the tank's characteristics was fully blank, and everything on the cover was blacked out except for the "Challenger 2" name. The player said the developers should pay attention to the actual performance characteristics of the vehicle to increase the realism of the game.

The user accompanied the published documents with the following message:

"Linking those screenshots with the following edited image from the AESP’s which is meant to show the relationship of the various components. The image isn’t exactly to scale as its only meant to show the position of components relative to each other but it works for the point I’m trying to make here. The trunnion’s sit centrally of the rotor. The trunnions support the rotor in the turret structure and the GCE sub components as previously stated are all mounted to the rotor."

However, War Thunder developer Gaijin Entertainment refused to deal with the documents, claiming that it had received written confirmation from the UK Ministry of Defence that the Challenger 2's AESP was still classified. The ministry emphasized that one could face up to 14 years in prison for the distribution of classified documents. According to Gaijin Entertainment, it is not the first time that the allegedly declassified documents are being published.