Trivia / Combat Mission

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: Has happened to both of the "hypothetical" modern titles, especially Black Sea.
  • Black Sea predicted the Russo-Ukrainian War in almost every detail, except for the (still fictional) direct US participation in combat.
    • When development on Black Sea began in 2009, the writers imagined Ukraine taking a hard pro-Western turn, prompting Russia to invade. When development was near-complete, the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution brought a pro-Western government to power, to which Russia responded by annexing Crimea, inciting pro-Russian riots, and finally supporting separatists in the country's east.
    • The developers then changed the story to one about an all-out Russian invasion aimed at seizing Kyiv and forcing Ukraine out of the Western bloc. Then in 2022 ...
    • Fans were surprised at how weak the Russian Army seemed. US equipment utterly outclassed it. Even Ukrainian forces could give it a hard time. Its doctrine forced officers to get dangerously close to the front to coordinate fire support. Its most advanced tanks were helpless against infantrymen with Javelins. This seemed unrealistic until 2022.
  • Shock Force was meant to be a reimagining of the Iraq War, set in Syria to avoid controversy. The causus belli is that Syria was sheltering terrorists who used chemical weapons on cities in Europe, and one scenario pits the Syrian Army against mutinying soldiers, suggesting that this happened in the midst of a Syrian civil war.
  • Then in 2011, the Syrian Civil War broke out. By 2014 ISIS held vast swathes of Syria, launched massive terrorist attacks in Europe, and NATO intervened against ISIS. Later, when the Syrian regime used chemical weapons (albeit in Syria), NATO responded by bombing Syrian military bases. The pieces are there, just arranged differently.