A gamer who plays the online game “WarThunder” reportedly leaked classified schematics for a legitimate Chinese tank shell, just to win an online argument.
“WarThunder” has a pretty big community of gamers all over the world, so much so that the developers actually built a forum so fans could talk about the game, according to a report from American Military News (AMN).
A post from the forum published May 31 went viral once users realized it was a real, authentic schematic for the Chinese DTC10-125 armor-piercing, fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS) shell, an item available for players in the game, AMN reported.(RELATED: China Bans Most Popular Video Games)
Leak of Chinese DTC10-125 APFSDS dart on the War Thunder game forum. Round is compatible with Type-96 and Type-99. 680mm RHAe @ 2km. The velocity and the penetration at 2km seems to be the equivalent of the frontline Russian 3BM60. @adgpi @DRDO_India pic.twitter.com/EprWtMQzd2
— Krishna Kalagara (@KrishnaKalagara) June 2, 2022
The post from the “WarThunder” forum also included photographs of the tungsten penetrator from the shell, which was just laying across a drawing of the shell, all written in Chinese, AMN reported.
A post published by the U.K. Defence Journal said that the technical drawing of the Chinese shell describes its effectiveness against what is called composite and rolled homogenous armor (RHA), according to AMN.
It also details the shell’s muzzle velocity at ambient temperature, along with the kind of factors that could potentially affect the trajectory of the shell, AMN reported.
The same piece from the U.K. Defense Journal revealed that some of the information that was published in the post concerning the DTC10-125 was already included in a few brochures or had been described in claims made by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, AMN reported.
If the image is proven to be real, it would mark the first internal documentation released about the shell, according to AMN.
Apparently, the player leaked the documentation because he wanted Chinese tanks to have better stats when he played the game, AMN reported.
Not long after the post start flying all over the Internet, the “WarThunder” forum moderators swiftly removed the image, tossing in a disclaimer saying, “Materials related to the DTC10-125 are classified in China,” AMN reported.
According to the same report, this is not the first time that classified schematics have been posted in the “WarThunder” fan forums.
In July 2021, there were some schematics shared by a user who claimed to be the commander of a British Challenger II tank crew, who posted the documentation in the hope that doing so would improve the in-game design of the tank, according to AMN.
Oh, but that’s not all.
A member of a French tank crew also shared documents pertaining to the LeClerc main battle tank. Any guesses as to why he did it? To see a more accurate depiction of the tank in the game, the AMN reported.