US Governor Shares “War Footage” That’s Actually a WWII-Era War Thunder Clip
A video showing a US battleship shooting down an Iranian fighter jet recently went viral online—but there’s a major catch: it’s not real. The clip, widely circulated on social media and viewed millions of times, appears to be a gameplay sequence from the popular simulator War Thunder, featuring World War II-era weaponry rather than modern military equipment.
The footage gained extra attention when Texas Governor Greg Abbott shared it with the simple caption “Bye bye.” The post has since been removed. The video prompted the Agence France-Presse (AFP) to investigate, later confirming that the clip originates from a Reddit thread and likely comes from War Thunder. Konstantin Govorun, head of public relations at Gaijin Entertainment, War Thunder’s publisher, commented in an email dated March 3rd: “Yes, this looks like ‘War Thunder’ footage.” Observers noted that the battleship in the video closely resembles the USS Tennessee, decommissioned in 1947, and the “Iranian fighter” looks strikingly similar to a Nazi Messerschmitt Me 163B-1a Komet.
No credible reports confirm that a US warship has shot down an Iranian plane. In fact, the Pentagon denied Iran’s claim of striking the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln with ballistic missiles on March 2nd.
This incident highlights a common issue in today’s digital age: military simulation videos, or “milsims,” are frequently mistaken for actual combat footage. Games like ARMA 3 have historically caused similar confusion, prompting Bohemia Interactive to release guides for spotting fake military videos after a series of misleading clips during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2023. War Thunder, while a simulator, has occasionally been used to leak real military documents—demonstrating the fine line between virtual and real-world warfare in the eyes of some users.
The rise of AI-generated deepfakes has made the problem even more severe. Social media platforms are now struggling to manage a flood of synthetic war videos, some of which are created for propaganda purposes. Governments have previously used video games to stage faux military operations—for example, North Korea incorporated scenes from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 into a film portraying an attack on the US in 2013. More recently, footage combining actual US-Israeli strikes on Iran with game-like animations and HUD elements was circulated online, effectively gamifying real conflict.
While such videos may appear entertaining to some, they can dangerously blur the line between fiction and reality. In a conflict that has reportedly claimed the lives of 165 schoolchildren in Iran, turning airstrikes into a spectacle risks trivializing real-world suffering. Yet, as the viral War Thunder clip shows, both social media users and public figures remain susceptible to mistaking gaming content for reality—emphasizing the urgent need for media literacy in the era of hyper-realistic simulations.