History Headscratchers / CallOfDuty

** For all we're shown, he could have been offered promotions multiple times but turned them down for whatever reason - most likely so he'd still be on the field and able to shoot Soviets rather than being shoved behind a desk.
** From what I understand, since Woods working for/with the CIA the USMC has had little need to promote him. He might not even be an active-duty Marine anymore. Mason and and Hudson are also veterans so I'm guessing they left their original services to work for the CIA, hence why no one receives a promotion.

** If you look closely during the ending where Section and Woods visit Alex's grave, Woods' service uniform shows he has the rank of Master Sergeant, which is a senior enlisted rank in the Marine Corps that usually takes 15+ or more years to attain. So it's likely he retired from active duty with that rank.

*** Which is the British English pronunciation.

*** Really the gas attacks coupled with invasions should have triggered MAD, at least France would have fired as almost the entire country is not in Russian hands, the UK might not as it's managed to repel the Russians but France really should have. The only reason they might not is that the Americans might have convinced them not to fire and convinced them that together they could beat them. Though by this point the series has bowed to the inevitable you're fighting in an action movie nit real life.[[/folder]]

** Maybe they dropped the character because his voice actor wasn't available at the time? Gene Farber was busy voicing Kozak in ''VideoGame/GhostRecon: Future Soldier'' around when this game was in development; it's entirely possible that by the time that was all over, Treyarch had already said "fuck it" and managed to make a plot that worked for the 80's missions and didn't involve Weaver.

*** Bear in mind it's not just Arabs that use the shemagah. A lot of traditional Arab clothing--including turbans and keffiyeh/shemagah's--is worn by NATO units in both Afghanistan and Iraq and were also worn in Desert Storm, WW2 and many other wars taking place in desert environments. The Soviet GRU Spetznaz also wore traditional headgear in Afghanistan. You can even buy "military" shemegah's on the internet and from military surplus magazines. [[RuleOfCool So, for all we know, they bought them online just to look cool.]]

*** In wartime, military production speeds up. Remember the truly massive amount of material the the Nations were able to build during WW2? Additionally, the Russians wouldn't have to come over the Atlantic, they'd come over the Arctic Circle, follow the coast down out of visual range, then turn towards D.C.

*** To be quite blunt the entire German Army currently has fewer than 75,000 men total. Russia probably has quite a few more men than that in the Modern Warfare universe, most of which are concentrated on pounding Europe into rubble. What is so surprising about a nation that doesn't even bother to keep an army at post WW1 treaty levels (100,000) getting pounded into the ground? Its not like the US reenforcements were doing any better.

[[folder: Private Dimitri Petrenko]]
* While playing the campaign for Modern Warface, I happened to notice that one of the random NPCs is Dimitri Petrenko. He looks like a normal soldier, not the old man he should really be at that time. Granted during WaW, he's actually quite young, barely in his 20s, but assuming MW1 takes place in 200X (and not the Tens), what the hell?
[[/folder]]

* ** Dragovich is an overconfident megalomaniac, Kravchenko is a thick-necked thug, and Steiner is an arrogant academic. All of them have at least halfway plausible reasons to be complacent and sloppy in the heart of their power, especially considering that by this point they've been successfully brainwashing people for years as routinely as the Ford assembly line made cars. Add in that Reznov is just ''that good'', and has had nothing to do for decades except study the security arrangements of Vorkuta and plot his revenge, and its not impossible.

** The game exaggerates everyone's capabilities to get special operations units around. Hudson's team was able to smuggle multiple [=BTRs=] onto Rebirth Island. Think of this setting as a grittier version of JamesBond, with all the associated ridiculous espionage and special operations exploits.

** It makes more sense if you consider the setting to be more of a JamesBond secret agent-esque setting instead of an ultra-realistic one. In that case, the oddly high-tech weaponry makes a lot more sense.

* In ''Modern Warfare 2'', after the nuke blows up over Washington, the EMP supposedly disables both Russian and US electronics. However, IIRC, all Soviet and Soviet-derived military machinery were built with minimum electronics and maximum shielding (unlike their American counterparts), designed specifically to withstand (reasonably distant) nuclear blasts, which was a pressing concern in the ColdWar era. Also, don't get me started on [[ExplosionsInSpace shockwaves in space]].

** Also, China and Russia have had an on-again-off-again love hate relationship since WorldWarII or earlier. They even fought a proxy war or two with each other in the 70's. It's entirely possible that the Ultranationalists and the current (in the games) Chinese government simply aren't very warm towards each other, and China is warily sitting this round out, waiting to see which of their potential enemies is left weakened and which one is left bleeding on the floor.

** It's also shown in MW3 that the EMP effect was a lot more localized; New York is still up and running, at the very least. The spreading blackout seen from space is more likely the effect of an overload on the electrical grid, like the real-life blackout that affected the Northeast and Canada in 2003; it's more of a domino effect, so once they get things re-routed, they can bring the rest of the grid back online.

*** I don't know about you but if I was in the same position as Overlord (Who seems to be the commander of the European theater in MW3) and I had a chance to trap my opponents entire military force in hostile territory beyond resupply I would go for it. The counter-attack on Hamburg may very well have been the first stage in cutting them off. That way if the attempts to rescue Vorshevsky go south I can send a letter to his successor saying "Either you can surrender right now and you can have your army back sans materiel or we can ship it back to you in a bag." For all we know the American forces pulled out almost immediately after the Ramstein call to make it easier for the Russians to get sucked in

***** True but remember that while during the invasion of the east coast of the United States the US Army rallied and met the Russian army directly on all fronts. They honestly didn't have much of a choice because the Russians were establishing a beachhead rather than plunging deep into territory like in MW3 and there was no real chance to cut them off. Personal bias may have also played a role. It's sad but it is much easier to pull back and wait for the right time to drop the hammer when it's someone else' monuments burning. Combine the greater chance to do this with the fact that the last time the Russian military was pushed back rather than incapacitated completely they merely regrouped and launched another continent-wide invasion a month and a half later. The smart play would be to rip their teeth out of their mouth as fast and as hard as you possibly can. As for underestimating the response of the United States? These were the same guys who thought it would be a good idea to try and invade a super power on the other side of the Atlantic remember? People can be blinded by patriotism and Russian military leadership was blinded worse than Ray Charles at the time.

* Endgame, ''Modern Warfare 2''. How the ''hell'' does Price manage to shoot down [[spoiler: Shepherd's Pave Low]] - a heavily-armored 21-ton giant - with only an assault rifle? I've watched the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt7q4D3cllE&feature=channel Youtube video (see 3:00)]]: he's not using using the attached M203, he's not firing into the hold from the cargo hatch, and he sure as hell isn't duplicating his trick with the Barrett .50cal from ''MW1''. Instead, he [[spoiler:knocks out the helo with three shots into the belly armor]], which somehow causes an engine explosion. ''Huh?''

* Endgame, ''ModernWarfare2''. How the ''hell'' does Price manage to shoot down [[spoiler: Shepherd's Pave Low]] - a heavily-armored 21-ton giant - with only an assault rifle? I've watched the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt7q4D3cllE&feature=channel Youtube video (see 3:00)]]: he's not using using the attached M203, he's not firing into the hold from the cargo hatch, and he sure as hell isn't duplicating his trick with the Barrett .50cal from ''[[ModernWarfare [=MW1=]]]''. Instead, he [[spoiler:knocks out the helo with three shots into the belly armor]], which somehow causes an engine explosion. ''Huh?''

* Endgame, ''ModernWarfare2''. How the ''hell'' does Price manage to shoot down [[spoiler: Shepherd's Pave Low]] - a heavily-armored 21-ton giant - with only an assault rifle? I've watched the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt7q4D3cllE&feature=channel Youtube video (see 3:00)]]: he's not using using the attached M203, he's not firing into the hold from the cargo hatch, and he sure as hell isn't duplicating his trick with the Barrett .50cal from ''[[ModernWarfare MW1]]''. Instead, he [[spoiler:knocks out the helo with three shots into the belly armor]], which somehow causes an engine explosion. ''Huh?''

*** The Brits have an accelerated O.C.S. equivalent for so-called "Late Entry" officers (enlisted soldiers promoted to officer rank), which is only four weeks. Going from 2nd Lieutenant to Captain in five years (if we assume Soap was promoted for his actions in MW1) requires that Soap be on the short-list for promotion as soon as regulations allow it, but given his skill and service record, that is more likely than not. TL:DR: It's possible, even for non-action heroes, but exceptional.

* Shepherd was issued a blank check (in financial terms this means unlimited funds) by the Secretary of Defense, which means that he was slated to be head commander of the upcoming war with Russia and the eventual capture or kill order on Makarov. Who took his place in the command structure? Overlord is the only other General Officer we know of in the series (he has issued orders to all American protagonists throughout MW1-3) and as far as I could tell he was only a unit commander. A war needs a Supreme Commander, there doesn't appear to be one directly involved in the plot.

** That raises further question. Loyalists are ousted by Ultranationalists after MW1. They may still exist, but then they must be short in cash themselves. It's not cheap to maintain an SF like TF141, most especially when you are on the run yourself.

** [[spoiler: Considering that Mason's a OneManArmy, they probably figured he was too useful to throw away that quick, especially since he wasn't acting of his own free willl; even in the first game, they apparently considered him useful enough to help kill Dragovitch. Also, Hudson (and perhaps others) may have used the Kennedy assassination as justification for setting him up to be killed by Woods much later.

** I have a theory about that. Mason did it. Woods ''just'' got done telling David Mason about how much of a dangerous son-of-a-bitch Alex Mason was as a result of the numbers, and one of Mason's biggest [[CrowningMomentofAwesome Crowning Moments of Awesome]] revolved around him taking on an entire military base on his own ''and winning,'' and while he was going OneManArmy on the place he [[{{Hallucinations}} hallucinated]] Reznov's presence and thought he was tag-teaming it with him the entire time. Mason has pulled off the impossible more than once with "[[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness Reznov's help]]", so it could be inferred that in that situation, he found a way out while thinking that Reznov was the one who helped him.

** I have a theory about that. Mason did it. Woods ''just'' got done telling David Mason about how much of a dangerous son-of-a-bitch Alex Mason was as a result of the numbers, and one of Mason's biggest [[CrowningMomentofAwesome Crowning Moments of Awesome]] revolved around him taking on an entire military base on his own ''and winning,'' and while he was soloing the place he thought he was tag-teaming it with Reznov the entire time. Mason has pulled off the impossible more than once with Reznov's help, so it could be inferred that in the situation he was in, he found a way out while thinking that Reznov was the one who helped him.

*** In that sense it seemed to me that Shepherd did succeed. There is no way in hell the previous 5 years of terrorist attacks from a Russian-Arab alliance that escalated to 30,000 casualties from a nuke and an attempted nuclear strike on the East Coast, and a full scale invasion of the mainland United States and a conflict across Europe isn't going to get a reaction from the American people and the Military especially. First off during the peace talks there should be a huge campaign from European countries and America demonizing Russia for their very overt acts of aggression for the past few years, and secondly if you thought the patriotic fever and Militarization abroad after 9-11 was bad, a full-scale war would make the American government and people go ape-shit, this will cause an increased Military presence abroad that will make America expand outward in order to maintain security around the world. Shepherd surely planned for that to happen, though of course with him alive to see it, so it seems to me that he won and at the very least he is remembered as a hero by the American public.[[/folder]]
** The US public probably doesn't know what Shepherd did, but Price would have set the record straight after his pardon. The US would then classify that one of its Generals went rouge and started WW3.

** Not to mention the fact that, at the time of the attacks, the U.S and Russia were negotiating a peace accord. Once one side uses nukes on the other, brokering a peace deal would be impossible. Team Metal's priority for most of their time in Europe is saving VIP's that are not only essential to the continued functioning of their governments, but also ones that are a must for negotiating peace.[[/folder]]
*** Really the gas attacks coupled with invasions should have triggered MAD, at least France would have fired as almost the entire country is not in Russian hands, the UK might not as it's managed to repel the Russians but France really should have. The only reason they might not is that the Americans might have convinced them not to fire and convinced them that together they could beat them. Though by this point the series has bowed to the inevitable you're fighting in an action movie nit real life.