Headscratchers / Battlefield 3

Why exactly did Black have to kill his CO?

Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but why couldn't they just explain the situation to the CO and get him on board?

• Dima, remember? Cole was fully committed to fighting the Russians, and just lost two of his men to them; if he saw Black fraternising with one, he likely would have shot Dima on sight and branded Black a traitor.
  • Yeah, I thought that was the case, I just wasn't sure there was something else to it.
• An equally good question is why did Cole shoot Black if he failed the QTE? What so my superior officer can frag me for talking, but I can't frag him for trying to shoot me.
  • It's implied that he does not initially recognise Black; the bright light from the sun makes it hard to see that it's even Cole who's talking to you, and he addresses you in unfamiliar terms ("I said get down on the ground!")— for all he knew, Black might have been a Russian. It's not an unreasonable assumption, given how the suspicious the devastation around the villa must look to the Marines who just arrived.
    • Makes sense, when a light is bright in this game, it is really bright.
    • Problem with that is that Black's being hit with the sunlight in such a way (from the front) in that the light should've made it entirely obvious that Cole was looking at Black. How could he not recognize one of his own in near-ideal lighting?
    • Because, as has earlier been established, Cole is not exactly a paragon of military leadership or good judgement.

Why did Dima's team wear German camo on the drop?

With a massive high-profile airborne operation nearby, surely there would be little need for pretension?

• If you look carefully, it's actually a Gorka in Sever/Flecktar-d. Being GRU, they could just use whatever they liked, and maybe they thought it would be the most effective pattern for the operating theatre.

Why Solomon have to use the nukes or trying to start a war?

Just wondering. Because that didn't explained in game. Personal reason?

• Going by the conversation at the start of "Comrades", that does seem to be the case.
  • Of course, all you get out of that is it's revenge. Revenge for what, exactly? You're on your own. Even the wiki doesn't shed any light.
  • Does Battlefield 3 Novelia says something about this?
    • Nope. Goes into a bit about his backstory (apparently he's Lebanese) but not why he's doing what he's doing. The wiki even specifically NOTES that they have no idea who or what he's trying to avenge.
    • It's possible that Solomon is avenging what western influence has done to the Middle East. And in his twisted mind, the only way to restore the balance is if the three biggest kids on the block (The Russians, The US/NATO, and The Chinese as of 4) start fighting eachother and pull out of the Middle East... But since Blackburn turned part of his skull to fragments with a brick... we may never know.
  • It might also have to do with his father. What is it he tells Miller? "You will be a hero to your son, just like my father". It might also be a subversion of standard spy movie tropes. He wants revenge, for a personal affront, that just isn't important to the characters involved.

Why does Matkovic wear Multicam?

That's well out of Marine Corps regs.

• If you look at Matkovic's body armor, there's a big ol' EOD patch on the front, attached to a magazine pouch, I believe. He's likely a Navy EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) technician attached to Misfit 1-3; if you'll remember, Matkovic was the one to examine the IED found in Operation Swordbreaker. Since he's technically a member of the Navy and not the Marine Corps, he'll wear the prescribed uniform and kit given to him by the Navy.
  • Except that if Matkovic were Navy, he would be wearing AOR, which is essentially digital multicam on a MARPAT pixellation, or wearing MARPAT himself, as Navy personnel assigned to Marine units wear Marine uniforms.

Why is the US Military trying to prevent a coup in Iran in the first place?

I mean, the old regime of Iran makes no secret it hates America's guts, so why would they even try to intervene on their behalf? And now what I think about it...

• It's likely that in the universe, there was another popular uprising that led to the current regime falling and a more western friendly one taking its place. However, the military hardliners didn't want to give up that easily, and attempted to force things back to where they were... something the US would have an issue with considering that the Iranians are known to be supplying, funding, and even training the very people who have been killing US Forces in the region. Why they'd be equipped 100% with Russian made hardware however is another story as the RL Iranians use mostly indigenous developed equipment, and aging western fighters (like the F-14). Only possibility is that they got a good deal from Russia at some point.
• Even if the previous Iranian regime were unfriendly to the US, the PLR is an outright anti-American terrorist organization. There is no way the US could have them in power and see any improvement to its relations with Iran. If nothing else, the middle of a violent coup would be the US' best opportunity to invade Iran.

What the hell is the actual Iranian Army doing while this is going on?

• You're likely fighting them as I explained above.
  • And in the multiplayer, they're either fighting on the Russian side(who they probably have better relations with due to all the RU hardware), or have just become a non factor after getting spanked by both the PLR and US forces.

Why didn't Dima's team try to warn the French government before their mission?

Seriously, the threat of nuclear terrorism is something most governments do not take lightly at all, so why not warn them so they can at least prepare to deal with the situation if not help Dima and co.? Because I don't think not saying a word and instead murdering innocent Parisian policemen who were just doing their jobs is going to do you or your country ANY favors in the PR department in case anything goes wrong. ...Which is exactly what happens.

• Even though the Russians are currently allies, you have to remember that anyone 22 and older at the time of this writing (2013) was born during a time when the Russians where the enemy. Ergo, most politicians (who would be well into their 30s or 40s), aren't going to trust the Russians as far as they can throw them (and Russia is a big country). Also, the French aren't known for taking things too seriously, especially in the last 70yrs. So, assuming that anyone actually believed the Russians and started nuke hunting, it would take a while to get up to steam, and odds are that it would not be done in time. Not only that, the nukes were of a Russian design, and they wanted them back (something that pretty much no western government is going to be keen on doing).
  • Well, actually, considering this takes place during the post-9/11 world AND France is no stranger to terrorist actions (such as the Air France Flight 8969 Hijacking in '94 and subsequently the famous intervention by the GIGN) so it's very unlikely this is something they would just blow off even if they did doubt the authenticity (After all, the US government didn't act immediately when the Jordanian GID tried to warn them of Al Queada's plans to destroy the WTC, and this NOT the kind of mistake most government agencies would want to have repeated twice.) Plus, since the Spetz team had the general area where the exchange was taking place, they could've given coordinates to the Gendarmerie who could have easily scrambled a team to seal off the area or at least evacuate key government officials. Plus nobody seems to question the logic behind the "Russia did it" excuse; for starters, what could they possibly gain from nuking the hell out of a nation that has done nothing to antagonize them or has little to no value trying to destroy and/or occupy? One of the reasons the Cold War stayed cold is because the USSR realized that long-term invasion and occupation of the American mainland was too difficult and costly and just not worth the effort, and the turbulent Russian economic state since the fall of the Berlin Wall had devastating effects on their military spending thus making them even more ill-prepared than at the height of the Cold War. But the plot apparently can't progress the way the developers wanted if everyone didn't think it was still 1986 and that Russia has nothing better to do than pointless evil for pointless evil's sake... And Solomon being an informant doesn't count because the CIA takes accusations of breaches and double agents VERY seriously and would've hauled him in for a lengthy psyche evaluation the very minute he slashed Miller's neck open.
• Because at some point that would entail the Russian government admitting that somehow a number of their suitcase nukes stopped being their property and ended up in Iran.

Okay, what is the deal with that orange glow?

This shouldn't bug me as much as it does, but why is the guy glowing orange on the cover? I thought there might be a flare or a light or — something, but there is simply no light source to explain why his goddamned side is glowing bright orange. He's not smoking, he's not at the right angle for the explosion behind him to just catch that side. Did someone spraypaint part of him orange? Did someone just go "BLARRH! Orange/Blue Contrast! It's a thing that exists! Why we gotta have a reason thing to make it happen!"?

• Might be streetlights reflecting off of him. Or it might must be because the artist thought it looked cool. If the latter, I'll let you be the judge if it worked or not. He's also emitting smoke from his left shoulder if you look close enough. The ghost of a soldier who died in an explosion perhaps?

• It's a marketing choice that actually began with Bad Company 2. Designed to give the Battlefield Franchise and a distinctive cover art style with a colour scheme that stood out compared to the Call Of Duty green colour scheme and the 'realistic brown' of most other modern military shooters. It continued with Bad Company 2 Vietnam, moved into the Battlefield franchise proper with the 3rd game and it's DLC, and has continued into Battlefield 4.
• The soldier has a chemlight attached to his vest that's obscured by the title.
• The explosion ghost theory is the best one so far. I'll go with that one.
• My guess is that it's meant to show the "inner fire" within every soldier.

Is the canon for Battlefield 2 related to Battlefield 3 and Bad Company?

I'm assuming that since the frostbite games are loosely connected (story wise), what does that make of Battlefield 2? I would assume that the PLA are an earlier incarnation of the MEC which name-changed after the 2007 war, where they staged a coup in "Neutral" Iran, which segued into the events of Battlefield 3.

Why do U.S. and Russian troops fight each other in "Rock and a Hard Place"?

That whole mission makes no sense. The Russians deploy several companies just to cover three GRU operatives on a mission to capture Kaffarov, then they engage U.S. troops, who are also after Kaffarov, for literally no reason other than "Die Americans!". Wouldn't there be some sort of negotiation between the US and Russian governments? Seems DICE just needed an excuse to have Russian enemies in BF 3's story.

• Misfit 1-3 ran into, and ended up being attacked by, the Russian paratroopers, and Cole, being the reliable leader that he is, immediately assumed that because there were paratroopers attacking the Marines, and Kaffarov happened to have ties with the PLR, the Russian military was therefore working to kill Kaffarov to cover-up their supposed cooperation with the PLR. Montes, for his part, was just as confused as to why they're fighting the Russians. As for why the Russians attacked the unit in the first place, I have no clue.