History Headscratchers / CallOfDutyModernWarfareII

** It's actually Price who gives the 30,000 figure. Also, note the target: The Pentagon. And the Pentagon is huge. A quick glance at TheOtherWiki says that about 23,000 military and civilian personnel work in its offices, not to mention 3,000 non-defence support personnel. That's an easy 26,000 casualties in a relatively concentrated area, with the other 4,000 from other sources, like people being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It'd be tight, but it's feasible.

*** Magazines can absolutely be disassembled, but there are far fewer things a large spring and a big hollow rectangle of plastic and/or metal can masquerade as that don't immediately peg them as "disassembled magazine".

** Telling the truth would've had him fired, arrested, investigated, and court-martialed. The difference between Alex and Shepherd is that Alex's operations are sanctioned by the US government, while Shepherd conspired with Shadow Company (a non-DoD organization) to sell sensitive munitions without authorization.

** It is much simpler to smuggle in disassembled parts of a weapon, such as a pistol, than the pistol as a whole. Similarly, the magazines cannot be disassembled, so they needed an inside man (woman?) to smuggle them in using the "salad" codephrase. It is much easier to explain away having 8 pistol clips in your luggage and no gun if you are an enthusiast buying ammo from out of state for a specific gun, than have 4 loaded pistols in your luggage.

** So it looks cool while they assemble the pistols.

* Why did Makarov's hijackers need to assemble guns from concealed parts if the flight attendants were going to provide them with magazines in their meals? At that point just smuggle in actual pistols.

* Why did Makarov's hijackers need to assemble guns from concealed parts if the flight attendants were going to provide them with magazines in their meals? At that point just provide them with actual pistols.

** Telling the truth would've had him fired, arrested, investigated, and court-martialed. The difference between Alex and Shepherd is that Alex's operations are sanctioned by the US government, while Shepherd conspired with Shadow Company (a non-DoD organization) to sell sensitive munitions without authorization.

** The difference between Alex and Shepherd is that Alex's operations are sanctioned by the US government, while Shepherd conspired with Shadow Company (a non-DoD organization) to sell sensitive munitions without authorization. Telling the truth would've had him fired, arrested, investigated, and court-martialed.

** Telling the truth would be admitting that he lost them, something that would be unacceptable to his ego and opening an opportunity to receive the consequences of his illegal actions should the truth get out.

* Why couldn't General Shepherd have been honest from the start that the missiles he was transporting to American allies had been seized by hostile forces and needed to be recovered? Would the CIA or 141 have been so bothered by this? If you recall from the last game, "Alex" even says that everything they (the CIA) did was illegal anyway.

** The Shadow Company personnel already knows they are transporting something shady (given the use of euphemism like "milk run" and "thirsty customers"), even if they don't know what exactly. However, in the PMC world where they are already tasked to perform unscrupulous and unsanctioned activities, it is beneficial for the grunts in the long run to not acknowledge what they are transporting than poke a bit further into it. Besides, even if they had a good idea, was there really anything that they could do about it aside from delivering it to Shepherd's clients?

* How did the Shadow Company grunts not suspect that they were transporting cruise missiles despite using the things to kill General Ghobrani in the same country a few months earlier? Even if both ops didn't have the same people, the enlisted rumor mill would have spread word about how blue shipping containers are actually concealed missile launchers.

* How did the Shadow Company grunts not suspect that they were transporting cruise missiles despite using the things a few months earlier to kill General Ghobrani in the same country a few months earlier? Even if both ops didn't have the same people, the enlisted rumor mill would have spread word about how blue shipping containers are actually concealed missile launchers.

** Just because Spain is part of NATO does not give the British-American Task Force 141 group the authority to just waltz in and perform counter-terrorism operations. In fact, the legality of Task Force 141 could also be more murky with other allies, given that Laswell had noted back in their founding that she couldn't fund "outlaws". That said, yes, maybe if Laswell set up a coordination with the Spanish authorities, there could be Spanish support behind TF 141 (if Spain doesn't decide to use only their forces and push away TF 141). However, this option may not be available as General Shepherd had explicitly told Laswell that knowledge of the operation to recover American missiles from Hassan and the Cartel was to be hidden.

** Just because Spain is part of NATO does not give the British-American Task Force 141 group the authority to just waltz in and perform counter-terrorism operations. In fact, the legality of Task Force 141 could also be more murky with other allies, given the Laswell had noted back in their founding that she couldn't fund "outlaws". That said, yes, maybe if Laswell set up a coordination with the Spanish authorities, there could be Spanish support behind TF 141 (if Spain doesn't decide to use only their forces and push away TF 141). However, this option may not be available as General Shepherd had explicitly told Laswell that knowledge of the operation to recover American missiles from Hassan and the Cartel was to be hidden.

* Laswell says that TF 141 has no jurisdiction in Spain while they're scouting and raiding the cartel facilities. . . but they actually should given that Spain is a NATO member. Why can't they just coordinate with the Spanish Armed Forces (who would be very interested in rooting out a cartel and an extremist militia)?