The Military Thread

There's some interesting potential in trying to sell a COD Korean War game in the US and China. That'd be a neat balancing trick. The Moral Guardians ought to be good for some free advertising.

What about throwing this stuff in as secondary campaigns or DLC? Ought to be a decent way to dip the fandom's toe in the water. You could probably recycle plenty of WWII assets for a Korean War campaign.

Must come with a rust-n-gunge meter...

I can see the message now: "the wooden stock of your firearm has completely degenerated — time to get creative".

edited 30th Apr '17 6:30:57 PM by Euodiachloris

A crafting system within a Co D game could be brilliant, horrible, and/or hilarious (no reason it can't be all three, like the Fallout 4 crafting system).

Kit out your soldier with various custom gear with various perks/penalties (cigarettes which reduce stress and increase alertness, but which also give a penalty to stamina and stealth, for instance). Trade stuff for other stuff (trade the smokes for some CLP to improve your weapon's performance/reliability, maybe in the form of improve accuracy or refire rate). Stuff like that.

Heaven help you if you got your jury rig just a little wrong: the way to find out? It crumbles as you try to use it in anger!

Duct Tape: the most sought after of petty items, beating even ciggies. Never safe unless scrupulously guarded! (Seriously, CoD really should include the option of at least one klepto on any given team. Given to nicking stuff off friend and foe alike.

If British, probably called Nigel. <_<)

edited 30th Apr '17 7:42:04 PM by Euodiachloris

Not it is Chad, it is always Chad who is stealing the stuff to trade for cigarettes.

Man, fuck Chad.

There's the ciggy moocher: as soon as he sees you light one up, suddenly he/she's all "Can I get one?" Bumming a lighter isn't a problem - who hasn't washed their "Bic" by mistake or lost it somewhere? It's when you're in your pack of cloves and some a-hole who doesn't touch them is all of a sudden asking you for your last one....

I didn't smoke most of the time. I smoked cloved, but in the field when smokes are low, suddenly the chubby goth girl was popular with the guys who smoked newports. Of course the coughing fit and the smell had my PL asking if I had some mary jane in my kit. After I quit (twisted my ankle and my NCO and medic told me quitting would help my run-it did), cig moochers stopped messing with me.

The gear moocher is the worst. It's always "Can I borrow your [INSERT_SOME_EXPENSIVE_TA50_HERE]". That bitch who forgot her rain gear. That asshole who needs eyepro or gloves for the range. That fucktard who doesn't have anything for the FTX except snacks and half an MRE and asks for your hand sanitizer, baby wipes and some of your CLP because his M-16 is full of sand....

I hated those who were know for losing shit - they seemed to seek me out. I always said "no". I'm not paying for a gore-tex or another pair of gloves because some numbnuts lost theirs. Most of the time if I did lend shit out, it was to soldiers I trusted or it was gear I could get back. When I had to borrow shit I always gave it back cleaner or in the same shape I found it in.

I still lost gloves, gebers, camleback parts, bits of my personal weapons cleaning kits and almost lost my extra pair of velcro ACU rank. Velco patches seemed to grow legs at times, and I always had extra. I'd give faded ones away because they were good for the field or for those leaving the unit (they needed a patch until they got out or got to their next unit). But there were patch thieves in the laundry room and that bitch/asshole who was always asking for rank or a patch.

Dude, supply has both and if you didn't blow your money or beer clothing and sales has boxes of the stuff.

But no I got every sob story in the book. My answer was always no unless an NCO said something like "my soldier lost a patch" or "My soldier just got here and needs one for first formation tomorrow".

Growing legs or attracting sticky fingers?

Both Battlefield and Cod have dipped into Vietnam. Call of Duty: Secret Russian Nerve Gas Program had a level set during the Khe Sanh offensive, and Battlefield 2 had a 'Nam expansion, as did Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Also, I'd argue that, really, WW 1 is becoming an obscure war in popular culture, not just in gaming. I mean, Wonder Woman (the movie) is ostensibly set during it, but from all I'm hearing they're basically fighting Nazis in pickelhaube, which kind of ignores the entire context of the First World War. The armistice is almost a hundred years old, it's far out of living memory, and all we hear about it in the West is trenches, misery and the French being bad at war (which they weren't, and aren't).

edited 1st May '17 4:17:47 AM by math792d

Well, the archetypal high fantasy conflict tends to be WWII/Napoleonic Wars with magic. The US at least comes up with new shows about WWII every other week on the history/discovery/etc channels. I don't think there's anything easier to shove into a good vs. evil story.
Then WWI is rather monotonous in popular consciousness. It took me years to not imagine it as four years of generals sending draftees over the top to be cut down by machine gun fire while artillery fires randomly around them ^note Or for that matter as being more than the Western and Russian fronts. Then the Germans just sort of gave up. The impression really goes against the video game hero shakes things up fantasy.
WWI is probably doomed to appear in tragedies or tales about human folly, and that role can be easily taken by the more recent Indochina and Algerian Wars.

On the other hand, if we're going to keep depicting WWII, I'd like to see a Battle of Arracourt level, just to harvest those salty wehraboo tears.

It's obviously Allied propaganda, no way 25 tanks could take on 226 precision-engineered German KRUPPSTAHL tanks and win.

What about what is essentially a Cessna armed with Bazookas taking on German tanks and winning?

IMPOSSIBRU!

Victor intensifies

I'll do you one better: A Cessna armed with a broken radio chasing off German submarines.

Speaking of...how DID we track German subs during the First World War without SONAR that was improved well after it ended?

edited 1st May '17 9:52:11 PM by TacticalFox88

Here's something.

edited 1st May '17 9:54:25 PM by TerminusEst

A combination of visual spotting pretty much.

edited 1st May '17 9:55:48 PM by TuefelHundenIV

It helps a bit to remember that early submarines were less "skulking underwater menace" and more "surface ship that can briefly submerge".

From a quick googling, much of it was small boats or planes + luck, then relaying this info to ships that could actually act on it.

World War 1 was weird as fuck tbh from a military standpoint.

It's like that awkward transition phase from Industrial Warfare to Modern Warfare.

It wasn't the first industrial war but it was one of the biggest. It was a very odd transition point though.

It was also the first semi-mechanized war in that reinforcements were moved by rail.

Ah, so I'm guessing Battlefield 1 was pretty much took a lot of artistic creativity then....

So many automatic weapons....

Battlefield 1 is a modern war shooter with World War 1 trappings. Red dots, automatic weapons, light machine guns, the works.

edited 2nd May '17 2:02:05 AM by math792d

From what I recall of my History of US Seapower class at Texas A&M, they'd also lay minefields to limit safe paths that subs could take to get out to sea, forcing them to take longer paths that would limit their range.

Naturally, many of the Allied sub-hunting boats were shallow-draught wooden boats that could safely take the short way through the minefield

IIRC, the first rail-based wars were the American Civil War and the Crimean War in Europe.