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The Grand List of World at War's Inaccuracies--NOTE: JUST FOR FUN

Nikita

Grizzled Veteran
May 5, 2011
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First, I'd like to say that I have played CoD:WaW, though since my discovery of RO:O it has been steadily collecting dust on my bookshelf. It's a perfectly fine game with its own style and this thread is not intended to criticize the style of gameplay itself. Instead, all it intends to do is provide a couple good-natured laughs while illustrating that history cannot be learned from CoD.

So I'm surprised this thread does not already exist! I know there are a lot of you out there with extensive historical knowledge far surpassing mine, so let's compile a list of all the historical inaccuracies we can find in World at War's campaign!

(Note: gameplay mechanics, like how it takes x amount of shots to kill an enemy with y weapon, or how there is no weapon sway for weapons other than sniper rifles, are not valid criticism, nor are other WW2 installments of CoD, else a full list will never be compiled ;))

So here we go!


1. The airfield on Peleliu was captured on D-plus-one, the day after, not of, the landings. American troops were pinned down on the beach overnight and did not advance until 0600 the next morning.

2. No mangrove swamp exists between the beach and the airfield.

3. Japanese AA fire was virtually nonexistent after two days of bombardment--only a handful of Navy fighters were lost to small arms fire.

4. The Type 97 tank's cannon can only penetrate 25mm of steel plate, making the Sherman virtually untouchable to the fire of its Japanese rival.

5. An F4U Corsair attempting to drop bombs at the altitude depicted in
 
Seriously, do you have nothing better to spend your time on?


Well it's quite funny actually...

I personally had never heard of RO and generally other realistic games up to that time (when WaW was released) but even then I found they had gone too far. Not just the historic inaccuracies but almost everything in the game felt blown out of proportion and overemphasized in order to increase the "drama" and raise the adrenaline levels.




Which gets tiring after a few levels in a row being like that...
 
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There are many more inaccuracies than you listed but it's a nice list, albeit rather pointless as noone can take any CoD game serious.

One thing to nitpick is that the Japanese 7.7x58mm actually was a pretty damn good round. You seem to confuse it with the 6.5mm Arisaka. Another nitpick is that both the 82mm katyusha and, to a lesser extent, the 132mm Katyusha had a rather small explosive filler, making their structural damage rather small when compared to normal artillery or mortars. For comparison a 82mm BM-8 HE rocket only carries ~0.9kg of explosive filler.
 
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5. An F4U Corsair attempting to drop bombs at the altitude depicted in “Hard Landing” would have destroyed itself with blast concussion its own ordnance.

Actually they wouldn't probably even blow up as bombs do have small built-in safety systems that they must fall for a very brief period of time before they are properly armed, otherwise turbulence or some other could potentially blow up any ordnance while in flight. The altitude specified (if YT video is to be believed) is too small for the bomb to do so.

15. A bazooka, Panzershreck, or Panzerfaust cannot be fired in confined quarters or indoors, as the backblast would concuss or severely burn the operator.

If there's enough room behind the operator it's more than possible. Around 10ft is sufficient, even though the risk of starting a fire exist in some buildings even then.

6. Soviet arms production had reached its peak in 1945, utterly negating the need for infantrymen to rely on Molotov cocktails.

Molotov cocktails were still used by the soviets by 1945 despite such 'peak' despite being quite inconvenient against anything other than soft or open topped targets, or if the crew was completely ****ting bricks.

19. As HEAT rounds, Panzershreck shells should not be so effective against infantry, and were specifically designed not to create giant fireballs of destruction but rather direct the charge’s explosion into a concentrated jet.

Against entrenched positions even HEAT can be quite effective anti-infantry weapon, as silly as it might sound.

23. The Russian artillery and air also seem to have curiously neglected to destroy said obvious bunkers and towers despite overwhelming superiority.

Disabling a proper bunker can be more difficult than it sounds by external means.

Hurr :p
 
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If there's enough room behind the operator it's more than possible. Around 10ft is sufficient, even though the risk of starting a fire exist in some buildings even then.

Hah, conveniently enough I've stumbled across a nice little US army report from 1991 pop up on the BFC forums, investigating the effects of back-blast in confined spaces.

Summary:
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA244127

Direct link to the full report:
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA244127&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
 
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You'd think, since WaW chose to single out the 150th Division, they'd at least slap this onto the flag texture. But after all, the most famous photograph of the Reichstag flag-waving has a plain red banner, and popular history always trumps reality.

600px-Soviet_Znamya_Pobedy.svg.png

Soviet_Znamya_Pobedy.svg
 
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