U.S. Army Using War Thunder To Train Soldiers, Gaijin Hosting Event This Weekend

We've seen NASCAR drivers and Major League Baseball players use video games to simulate their sports over the past few months, rather than play them live. While we'd all rather see the real thing, it's been an interesting diversion brought about by necessity due to the current global pandemic.

One segment of society that we can all be thankful isn't itching to resume real-world competition -- a.k.a. "war" -- is the military. As it turns out, the U.S. Army has been using video games to offer simple training to some of its soldiers, and while it's not mentioned by name, you can see War Thunder on the screen in the image at the top of this article on the Army website.

To commemorate this occurrence, Gaijin Entertainment is running an event this weekend called "Quarantine Maneuvers" that has players picking one of three sides representing Europe, Russia, and the United States. You'll need to have at least one Tier V vehicle unlocked to participate, but upon doing so, all relevant vehicles for each nation will be automatically available.

It's the second time in recent months that we've heard about War Thunder being used as a realistic simulation during the pandemic, following its use in filming scenes from a WW2 movie. At this rate, we'll use War Thunder to simulate everything. Personally, I'm looking forward to the Mall Thunder and Restaurant Thunder updates.