Video game footage misrepresented as US warship downing Iranian jet
- Published on March 3, 2026 at 22:29
- 3 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
A video spreading across platforms claims to show heavy fire exchanged between a US naval vessel and an Iranian plane after a wave of US-Israeli attacks that killed Iran's supreme leader thrust the Middle East into war. But the clip appears to show footage captured from a video game, according to the simulator's parent company, and the class of American battleship that it depicts has long been decommissioned.
"An Iranian plane VS a US ship," says a March 1, 2026 post on X. "I can watch this all day."
The post, which shows a giant battleship downing a fighter jet over open seas, was briefly amplified by Texas Governor Greg Abbott in a since-deleted post, according to screenshots captured by journalists and local news reports. "Bye bye," the Republican ally of President Donald Trump wrote.
Similar posts spread across X and other platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Threads, including in Spanish.
The United States and Israel launched a wave of strikes against military targets in Iran on February 28, prompting swift retaliatory attacks across the region. The US-Israeli strikes killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's hardline spiritual guide and top political authority since 1989, Iranian state media confirmed.
The Pentagon on March 1 denied Iran's claim that its ballistic missiles struck the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier Trump sent to the Gulf in January.
Misinformation has flooded social media since the escalation, leading X on March 3 to announce it would begin temporarily suspending users from its revenue sharing program if they post AI-generated videos of armed conflicts without any disclosure.
The clip purporting online to show another warship engaging with an Iranian fighter jet, meanwhile, appears to be misrepresented video game footage.
AFP found no credible news reports describing any such event.
'War Thunder'
AFP could not identify the origin of the footage.
But commenters replying to the X post noted similarities between the video and the visual effects seen in "War Thunder," a free-to-play military video game available on computers and PlayStation and Xbox consoles (archived here).
Reverse image searches also surfaced a post on the Reddit forum r/warthundermemes in which one user flagged the video circulating online and others replied that it resembled "War Thunder" gameplay (archived here). Various Reddit users said the camera angles, sky, clouds, muzzle flashes and other elements matched their experiences playing the game.
The game is a product of European developer Gaijin Entertainment, headquartered in Budapest, Hungary.
Konstantin Govorun, Gaijin Entertainment's head of public relations, said in a March 3 email to AFP: "Yes, this looks like 'War Thunder' footage."
The depicted battleship's features -- including its towering cage masts and two triple turrets -- appear to mirror those of the USS Tennessee, a battleship used during World War II that has been simulated for players to deploy in "War Thunder" (archived here, here and here).
The USS Tennessee was one of two vessels in its class, alongside the USS California (archived here). Both were decommissioned in 1947.
X and Reddit users also noted similarities between the supposed Iranian plane in the misrepresented online video and the Messerschmitt Me 163B-1a Komet, a Nazi German aircraft.
Video game footage is commonly mischaracterized on social media during conflicts.
AFP has debunked other misinformation about the Middle East war here.
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