We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

War Thunder devs’ Apache: Air Assault mistaken by news anchor for Russian airstrikes in Syria

War Thunder

Opinionated Egyptian news anchor Ahmed Moussa spent his most recent telly slot this week praising Russian military airstrikes against ISIS forces in Syria. As supposed footage of Putin’s military might rolled, he noted the effectiveness and precision of the Russians. And he was right about that – just not in the way he expected.

The clip was in fact taken from Moscow studio Gaijin Entertainment’s Apache: Air Assault – a combat flight sim released five years ago on the Dagor engine that now powers War Thunder.

Want to make a hash of steering a really complicated machine? Try one of the best PC simulation games.

“Yes, this is the Russian army, this is Russian weaponry, this is Putin,” said the anchor, as translated by the Washington Post. “Yes, they are countering terrorism, truly countering it. Now you will see a terrifying video, terrifying.”

The footage kicks in at around 2:45.

Now here’s the same sequence in Air Assault – replete with British accents.

For their part, Gaijin are iterating on Air Assault’s confusing realism with Dagor 4.0 in War Thunder. You divebombed anyone in that lately?