Call of Duty/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

** Probably because Soap and Co. took out the only anti-air missiles in the area when they captured the Stinger base in the barn.

** The helicopter got shot down by a MANPADS stinger missile (probably), the AC-130 would probably be flying too high for stingers. It could probably be brought down by vehicular AA, but they probably didn't have those in the area.

 

 

== Troops Guarding the TV Station ==

* What were all those soldiers doing defending a TV station that was broadcasting a ''tape'' of Al-Asad? I can understand having a handful there on to keep an eye on things, but there seemed to a freaking battalion hiding in various edit suites, just waiting for the Americans to attack. Some of them had ''rocket propelled grenades'', for crying out loud. Did they really go to all that trouble just to distract half a dozen marines for a few minutes?

** Also, the battle in the TV station is completely consistent with the tactics of jihadist insurgents and Iraqi feyadeen, who have been known to hurl company-sized elements in ambushing platoon-sized American forces with the intent of simply trying to inflict as many casualties as possible. Al-Asad's troops know the Marines' entire purpose in attacking that itty-bitty piece of crap town was that they were trying to get Al-Asad, so they know the TV station is going to be a target. Also, luring the Americans inside the TV station negates several critical advantages American troops have, including their firepower and fire support, again enabling them to kill more Americans. This was a common tactic used by Al-Queda-affiliated insurgents in Fallujah.

*** Come to think of it, the Al-Asad's entire strategy for this battle is reminiscent of Fallujah - suck US forces into urban warfare and hit them with [[We Have Reserves|greater numbers]] of his own infantry to offset their quality advantage, meanwhile, pulling out the valuable targets (himself), so that the Marines wind up taking all those casualties for nothing. The main difference is that Al-Asad does a better job of it than at Fallujah, largely because of the {{spoiler|massive [[Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb]] at the end of the battle}}.

*** You can't Broad Stroke your way around it. Either Price rejoined the team or he didn't. If he did, then Soap had no reason to hold onto his 1911 and the whole Prisoner #627 subplot makes no sense.

*** ....yes, you can. That's the whole point behind [[Broad Strokes]] in the first place. [[Broad Strokes]] means that the details aren't really important, it means that what generally happened was important: Mission to take out Makarov, Price got left behind. Somewhere in there, Soap ended up in possession of Price's 1911. Bam, all plot holes reconciled.

*** Which is, ''again'', why I said it only works as a [[Broad Strokes]] part of the canon. Assume that the general events of Kingfish happen, but that the details are different, and it is much easier to reconcile. As for the issue with #627, why would they have any reason to believe he's Price? Why would they even believe Price is alive after they retreated during Kingfish, as opposed to simply killed in the field? They have no other information on 627 beyond the number, so surprise at him being Price would be understandable; I would consider it stranger if they ''did'' think it was Price as opposed to some nameless Russian who Makarov has a hate-on for. More importantly, Kingfish explains the much larger plot question of how Price ended up in the gulag in the first place. If Kingfish is accepted as the general explanation for what happened, with relatively minor details like Price's 1911 glossed over, it can work within canon.

*** Again, there is absolutely no mention of Price in Soap's Journal between the finale of CoD4 and breaking him out of the gulag in MW2. You'd think such an important operation would have garnered ''some'' mention, but, hell, the journal indicates Soap doesn't see any real action at all between the two games. If Kingfish really happened, it's looking like Soap wouldn't have been involved.<br />Unrelatedly, the sidearm Price has in the linked image above looks more like a SIG Sauer pistol to me. So, again assuming Kingfish happened, that's the explanation for why Soap still had Price's 1911 - he never gave it back. For whatever reason.

***** To be fair, the above troper said they were a real soldier. That said, Foley had to make a judgment call in a chaotic situation.

***** A real soldier who's never had to deal with that situation, which is my point.

*** Which you obviously did and therefore know that such behaviour makes sense. Your point makes no sense, the other comments do. You don´t just give some random passerby in an American uniform speaking English YOUR FUCKING CODE and then GO WHERE HE TELLS YOU TO! You first MAKE SURE he is one of yours, I dunno, let him show his ID or something. Especially in the middle of an invasion! That is standard procedure that is hammered into your brain during basic training. Sure, you could argue he might have forgotten it because of the circumstances, but he shows clear professionalism everywhere else. Exept for the part where he keeps the crew of a BMP alive and when someone asks "What´s with the crew inside?", his response is just "What about them?" and then it is dropped..."What if they manage to get out and fuck us up from behind, sarge?". I dunno, Foley makes alot of dumb decisions for a Ranger Sgt. and squadleader. The fact that his men stayed alive is more proof of their skill then his.

****** No, my point makes perfect sense - you've never been in that situation, nobody has, there's no historical, military or civilian precedent for it. Stop pretending you're some major OORAH military expert. You're a grunt trying to impress people by dealing with fictional hypotheticals in ways that, as shown below, are easily broken.

**** ^ This, so much. Foley made a judgment call on the situation based on what he knew. Guess what? He was right.

**** Funny thing, you'd think operation security would be ''more'' important in a shooting war.

 

== "30,000 Men in the Blink of an Eye" ==

* Why did Clarke help the people that were torturing him literally 5 minutes before the Spetsnaz came? Why not ditch them or shoot them in the back?

** Short-term advantage. The CIA want him alive, the Soviets want him dead. Probably he was hoping that they would fend off the Spetsnaz, after which he could ditch them at his earliest convenience.

** As above, plus the fact that on an immediate level, sticking with the CIA guys during the firefight means that the Russians have two other targets besides him to shoot at. 'One out of three is better odds than one out of one' is what Clarke would be thinking at that moment.

*** This also explains Clarke being so eager to lend you his heavy weapons collection. In addition to the part where the faster you can kill Russians the more likely he is to escape, the larger and more obvious threats you are the more likely the Russians are to shoot at you and not him. Notice that he sticks with a machine pistol or SMG for the entire level, despite walking past at least three racks full of assault rifles, squad automatic weapons, rocket launchers, etc.

* At the end, after the big reveal when Mason stumbles through the Pentagon, Hudson has him listen to the numbers sequence one last time. From that, Mason is able to decipher that the transmitter is aboard the Rusalka, leading to the last mission. Why would they transmit that information in their hidden broadcast? Why would they plant that information in the head of their sleeper agents? Those agents don't need to know it, and, indeed, anyone important enough to need to know it wouldn't need it transmitted all over the airwaves to remind them.

** It could be Drago's idea of a taunt, broadcasting exactly where the station was in a way that his enemies would never be able to understand. The last thing he ever says is a taunt, so it fits with his character. He just got off on putting the US in a situation where they could hear exactly what they needed to know but in a way where they were powerless to understand it.

* During the mission on Rebirth Island where you play as Mason, he mentions to Reznov that the CIA is trying to get Steiner alive. How exactly does he know this? Hudson and Weaver got the intel on Steiner during a period where Mason was a prisoner, and I doubt there was any contact between the two from Mason's escape to his arrival on Rebirth.

** It was a guess. Resnov put the idea in Mason's head that his own goverment might not have noble intentions, and Mason also knew how the CIA worked. Not to mention it wouldn't have been the first time the US goverment tried to cut deals with ex-Nazis.

** At that point, it was Reznov's part of the brainwashing taking hold. Reznov says something to the effect that no government would be willing to sacrifice the power of the Nova 6 gas. Remember, the British show up in Reznov's mission and he interprets their presence as an attempt to seize it for themselves.

** Also, in the interrogation, Hudson specifically states that Mason disobeyed orders regarding Rebirth, and Hudson and Mason appeared to be on the same frequency. It's not a stretch to say that Mason was listening in to their comm chatter before the mission begins or may have been aware of why they were there. He's not at all surprised when the explosions start, and says that it is the CIA.

 

== Nova Six's status as a unique weapon ==

*** Ask Stalin. As was noted above, this is very much [[Truth in Television]].

*** It's likely that they had ''no idea'' any of that would happen if they succeeded. For all they knew, they ''would'' have been welcomed home as heroes.

 

== Nukes as an option rather than Nova 6 ==

** It's also funny how they were touring London at half six in the morning (6:22am).

*** They probably wanted to explore London early before it got too crowded. Maybe if they slept in, they could have lived?

 

== Civilians in the last level ==

** The Russians didn't have any outright allies, but they sure as hell had a lot of enemies. Every single European capital and the mainland United States were hit with WMDs. Even though we don't see them that frequently, the European powers were definitely fighting back, you fight alongside them in Bag and Drag and Goalpost. And aside from the actual slugfest between Russia and NATO, in the hunt for Makarov TF141 has battles in Brazil, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, India, Somalia, the Czech Republic, and Dubai. The civilian casualties from Makarov's chemical attack could easily stretch into the millions. I think it is certainly fair to call it [[WW 3]].

** WWI was fought almost entirely in Europe, with a sideshow in the Middle East. MW3 covers an equivalent geographic scope and almost all of the same players.

 

== Why doesn't [[MI 6]] just arrest all of the suspicious truck drivers straightaway? ==

* When Nikolai's helicopter is downed and they save him and are picked up by men in jeeps, why don't they continue doing this? It seems that air extraction is not on their side as they are always being shot down. Why not just get picked up by jeeps and then get to a safe place AND THEN have Nikolai pick them up?

** You're doing that ''thing'' where you apply meta logic to characters whose thinking is limited to in-universe knowledge. Air extraction is still the fastest way to get out, generally speaking, and most of the time ground extraction is just as, if not more, risky than air extraction.

 

== Lack of Russian bulletproof vests ==