“That’s it. I’m sick of all this “Masterwork Tiger H1″ bullshit that’s going on in War Thunder right now. The Challenger 2 deserves much better than that. Much, much better than that.”
For those not in the know, The Challenger 2 is Britain’s primary battle tank, and has been since 1994. And as the backbone of their tank corps, it’s really no surprise that it’s in the game War Thunder, a game made by Gaijin Entertainment.
However, not everyone has been happy with its representation in the game since it was added in 2019. It sparked a thread on the War Thunder‘s official forums that ran until… well a little over a day ago. And it’s been closed to replies due to this fiasco. See, one member of the forum, who claims to be a real-life Challenger 2 tank commander and former member of the British Army’s Armored Trials and Development Unit, was not pleased with the tank’s model in-game. The supposed commander felt that it was fairly far off the mar in regards to aspects of its armor. And to drive the point home, posted several images from the Challenger 2 Army Equipment Support Publication; in other words, its user manual.
The images were heavily redacted and carried “UK Restricted” labels, thought the latter were crossed out with “Unclassified” stamps added. Needless to say, Gaijin Entertainment was less than thrilled about it, with one of their community managers stating:
Before any discussion, handling or bug reports are even made, proof of this documents declassification will be required as well as where it was sourced form. If it is declassified, it should be available to the public.
Last time such a document was shared that was claimed to be “unclassified” it was in fact still classified and was confirmed that it should never have been shared.
We make it very clear that we will not handle any source material unless it is publically available and fully declassified with the rights to prove that.
Later, a moderator came in, letting members of the forum know that they’d been in contact with the Ministry of Defense– and that the document had not, in fact, been declassified.
I can confirm that it does appear to be a genuine extract… It certainly has not been released under FOI previously by DE&S or considered for redacting. We also do not recognise the “Unclassified” stamp as something that has been used in DE&S.
DE&S (Defence Equipment and Support), MoD Abbey Wood
The mod’s post:
We have written confirmation from MoD 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. Of this you are already aware, as a service person you have signed a declaration that you understand the act and what actions it compels you to take. Every time you post this you place us (International representatives of Gaijin), especially any UK citizens, in hot water as the warning so helpfully states that unauthorised retention of a protected document is an offence.
Notably, the user in question wasn’t banned for this (perhaps because, if he is in the military, he’s about to get a massive ration of shit anyway from his superiors); his account also lists his location as “Tidworth, Wiltshire, England”, which is the home of the Royal Tank Regiment, which does operate Challenger 2’s. It’s not exactly clear what the cause of the SNAFU here was, though; it could very well be that the “declassification” was a mistake, or some other clerical mix-up that only came to light due to the man’s love of this particular model of tank. He’s in hot water, regardless, I’d wager.
As to whether he was successful in pleading the case of the Challenger 2’s standing in the game, that would be a no. While the documents may well have been accurate, as they were not officially declassified, they’re not acceptable by the developer due to not being a “valid source material”.
Source: PC Gamer
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