Players of the free-to-play vehicular combat MMO, War Thunder, have garnered a reputation over the past few years for sharing classified military documents via the game's forums, with the aim of settling arguments between players arguing over realistic vehicle performance. 

Initially posted by a user with the handle @BurkeKrohn on Twitter, a 730-page manual for the Eurofighter Typhoon DA7 (a prototype jet reviewed in Italy for its missile carriage) was shared by an unknown user on one of the game's forums, who claimed that the manual details everything to know about the craft including "systems, weaponry, flight data".

Although the aim of leaking these military documents is to settle disputes between players, another reason behind the sharing is an effort to convince the developers of the game to add the aircraft faster.

Ah man, it happened again...

Export Restricted documents got leaked on the War Thunder forums, this time for the Eurofighter Typhoon DA7... pic.twitter.com/pjByRUXrcS

— Kurnass '86 (the plane guy) | he/they (@BurkeKrohn) August 29, 2023

The leaking of the document still poses quite a big problem and has been removed from the forum even though it is still publicly available to read - export remains restricted, however.

Read next: Typo leaks millions of US military emails to Mali web operator

The restriction on export means that those living in non-NATO countries are not permitted access to view it. War Thunder developer, Gaiijin Entertainment, voices a strict policy on removing documents that are restricted in any way. This also indicates that the shared post backfired despite it being perfectly fine and accessible in the US and UK.

This incident is not a first, as this is the second time this year in which restricted documents show up on War Thunder forums, which is in reference to the last incident that happened in January during an argument over the performance of the F-16 fighter jet and AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile.