Headscratchers / Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II

• Why wasn't Hassan immediately detained after TF141 and Los Vaqueros captured him? I know the game makes the excuse that it's illegal to hold him indefinitely. But aside from the fact that they killed an entire company of corrupt Mexican Soldiers in broad daylight with a gunship, Hassan is in Mexico illegally. At worst, he's the leader of a major terror group that both the US and Russia want to destroy. At best, he's a foreign military officer that has no official cover while colluding with a crime syndicate. If 141 and the CIA can't hold him, then Alejandro is well within his rights to hold him.
  • Hassan and the cartel killed multiple Texas police officers and ordered a murder (Rodolfo) while there. There was absolutely enough to hold him, releasing him was either plot contrivance or Shepard trying to keep the team from the truth.

• Why is no civilian in notoriously gun-happy Texas armed? The only ones that pull guns on Alejandro and Rudy are cartel members.
  • Only 2 households are encountered, it seems the first didn't even know anyone was armed (or what was causing the noises in general), the second, while not using a gun, attacks Rudy with a Baseball Bat, and anyone attacking the cartel after that would probably get killed either by the cartel forces in the SUV or by the very heavily armed cartel members at the house (who just blew up 2 cop cars and murdered the Sheriff and 4 deputies with an RPG and AK-103's (possibly being mocked up to resemble AKM's, unless Al-Qatala provided Iranian AK-103's) and AK-74UN's.

• Where did Laswell get the 30,000 figure from? Sure the explosion is pretty big in the prologue, the size of a few city blocks, but DC is not nearly dense enough to produce those kinds of casualties.
  • 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 The Other Wiki 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.
  • Caveat: It's at night, and most of the people working there would have gone home.
  • Even still, if the missile veers off course even slightly, it could easily impact in DC proper or around Arlington/Pentagon City, a densely populated suburb right next door to the Pentagon, causing a lot of damage.
  • It's entirely possible the 30,000 number is a reference to how many died in Al-Asad's Nuclear attack in the original MW1 and therefore Shepherd's Motive Rant in the original MW2.
  • If I recall correctly the missiles are nuclear, though then number of dead/casualties depends on how powerful the nukes the missile's carry are.
    • There is no indication that the missiles are nuclear in the game. All we know is that they have a significant blast radius, are transportable by shipping containers, and are American-built.

• How is Iran allied with both AQ and Russia?
  • Iran and Russia are allies in real life, and Iran's Quds Force (Hassan and Ghorbrani are under this branch) support many non-state actors like the Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Hamas - it's not farfetched that in the MW timeline al-Qatala would be supported by the Quds Force as well, with Iran as the middleman for AQ to acquire Russian hardware.
  • And likewise, Russia is willing to tolerate AQ since Quds Force is pointing them in another direction, making them suitable for use as a Russian proxy.
    • Plus, AQ and the Ultranationalist were already friends as confirmed by the last game, so its not like there isn't in universe precedent.

• In the final mission, Task Force 141 are assisted by MARSOC marines. Would it not be more appropriate to be assisted by SWAT teams? If there are terrorists in U.S. territory, the first group you’d call are the local police department’s SWAT units.
  • Considering the stakes involved, Laswell, maybe even the CIA itself, likely asked the Chicago PD not to send in SWAT teams to minimise risk and to prevent the truth from getting out. Remember, they cover up the incident after the mission by saying it was a blackout. Also, MARSOC wasn't a bad choice for the mission: One of their stated missions is counter-terrorism.
    • The problem with using MARSOC is that it would violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of US military units on US soil for law execution purposes (such as going after Hassan). These situations are why the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) was created, to allow elite counter-terrorism to operate domestically on US soil. That said, this course of action is only necessary if they're trying to execute the mission legally, and given the extent the CIA laid out the cover story in Chicago, it appears they understand that any information of this mission leaking is a very bad idea.
    • I'm adding a comment for this above, but if I recall correctly the missiles are nuclear, and the Attorney General can grant an exemption if nuclear materials (such as a nuclear missile launch) are involved. Also the USMC was only added to the Posse Comitatus Act in 2021 (i.e. potentially during the games writing period). Plus we are assuming the USMC were still added to the Act In-Universe.
    • There is no indication that the missiles are nuclear in the game. All we know is that they have a significant blast radius, are transportable by shipping containers, and are American-built.
    • The entire final mission needs to be filed under the MST3K Mantra. While the mission does take place in the middle of the night, there are explosions, gunfights, and a missile launch in the middle of a major city. It would be livestreamed on the internet from multiple directions and the rescued hostages and emergency personnel would be telling everyone with a mic by the next morning.

• Can someone with better knowledge explain the feasibility of a PMC like Shadow Company having its own AC-130 gunship? I mean the amount of ammo the average player fires in those two levels alone would be an astronomically high cost even for a privately-funded company, not to mention the costs of fuel, maintenance, specialty equipment, and payment for trained personnel. And it's clearly theirs, it's got their logo on it and everything, plus I can't imagine the U.S. military would let a PMC fully staff one of its gunships.
  • PMC organizations owning heavy equipment is not common, but not impossible in the modern age. Blackwater, the PMC that may have inspired Shadow Company back in the 2009 game, owned a large assortment of fixed-wing aircraft, from as large as a Boeing 767 to as small as Super Tucano attack aircraft, alongside their helicopter fleet. The Russian PMC Wagner Group is also well known for using heavy equipment like tanks in their campaigns in foreign countries like Syria. The caveat for Wagner Group however is that it is alleged that Russian MoD is directly assisting the equipment procurement for Wagner, allowing them to obtain equipment they may never have been able to by their own means. This last bit is important as we also know that Shadow Company works under General Shepherd, a general of the US military, who may have been able to help Shadow Company procure some heavy-hitting equipment like an AC-130 or the resources to make one. This is not too unreasonable given he already has the capability to sell American missiles to the Middle East illegally without anyone noticing until the events of the campaign.

• Playing through the campaign again, I can't help but notice some issues with the timeline. Kate first contacts Alejandro to stop Hassan from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, and Hassan clearly makes it into Texas. But then the next three missions (Cartel Protection, Close Air, and Hardpoint) all clearly take place in the Mexican countryside, with the Cartel-funded Mexican Army coming to stop Los Vaqueros and TF141 from taking Hassan. I've watched the cutscenes again and the only mention is from Laswell saying "Hassan was taken back into cartel protection in Las Almas." But why? If he's already over the border, and Las Almas clearly has a presence there, then why not move him deeper into the country or a different safe house? Seems like a lot of effort to put him over the border, pull him back over the border into Mexico, then sneak him into the U.S. again later.
  • They likely thought it would be better to wait for the heat to die down in territory they knew and controlled before trying to move Hassan back into the U.S. Alejandro and Rodolfo almost did capture Hassan until the latter got ambushed and Alejandro rescued him from the burning stash house. With both the cartel and the corrupt army protecting Hassan, they thought he was as secure as possible. Unfortunately, they underestimated the badass credentials one needs to join TF141 and their determination to capture Hassan.

• Al-Qatala transferred Laswell from Spain to Urzikstan...in only a matter of hours? Price also claimed that he could get her back within 12; is the 24-hour travel time plausible?
  • If they all got on a plane immediately after the incident. Is it plausible? Not really. Is it possible? Yes, but it would likely involve everyone having their own private jet.
    • That or AQ had a larger cargo plane like the already in-game C-130 involved.
  • It should be noted that due to the difference in weather some time has passed, it's unclear how much, but its probably not 12 just after her kidnapping.

• In "Deep Waters", the team successfully secured the missile container on the oil rig, but scrambled to the ship in order to secure the missile controls before its launch. This is more complicated than the practical solution, which is to destroy the missile itself with explosives or such before its launch. Why did they not take this into consideration?
  • The consideration is Shadow Company and General Shepherd covering up their illegal arms dealing. While destroying the missile would have saved America, Shadow Company is interested in the missile controls to prevent information leaking out. We also know later in the game that the missile can be detonated mid-air after launch, so in the risk assessment for Shepherd is that taking the extra time to go after the missile controls would ensure both pieces of hardware are back in secured hands. A bonus in taking the missile controls before launch though was that they can divert the missile course to self-destruct right into the oil rig, conveniently cleaning the scene of any potential evidence of their arms dealing.

• In the final level, why does Soap need to find a box cutter or craft a shiv if he still has a combat knife on his vest?
  • Let's chalk it up to a modeling/animation oopsie and pretend the combat knife was ripped from Soap's vest when he got hit by an RPG the moment he stepped on the elevator.

• Would Ghost get served at the bar in the final cutscene if he's wearing his skull balaclava?
  • It's weird but not that weird. Chicago is a crazy town, and in-game its only days after Halloween.
  • Also, he came with the rest of TF-141, its not like he's alone, they could vouch for him.

• How exactly is Shadow Company able to run roughshod in Mexico without any response from either the Mexican or US governments. They seize a Mexican Army base, capture a special forces battalion, commandeer a prison, and then occupy a city where they proceed to straight up execute civilians (albeit cartel-aligned civilians). Las Almas seems to be a fairly size-able as well, how does the rest of the Mexican Army have no response? For that matter, how was Shadow Company able to do all this in a short period of time while also executing a mission with 141?
  • Shadow Company is evidently a very large organization with its own gunships, helicopters, and armored vehicles and demonstrably capable of defeating the Las Almas Cartel and local military. The Mexican SF base was already their base of operations. We also do not see the true size of their rampage. They totally would have been capable of taking over at least a few neighborhoods and bases for a few days before the Mexican government could have organized a response and lodged a diplomatic protest. As for getting into Mexico unnoticed, they could have been formally invited by Mexican Special Forces or bribed a few officials to let their planes in.

• 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)?
  • 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.

• 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.
  • 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?

• 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

• 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.
  • So it looks cool while they assemble the pistols.
  • 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 mags 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.
    • Magazines can absolutely be disassembled, but there are definitely far fewer things a large spring and a big hollow rectangle of plastic and/or metal can be hidden in or masquerade as that don't immediately peg them as "disassembled magazine", especially when you're also trying to bring along live ammo.