Every Historical Inaccuracy in Call of Duty Black Ops 

Get an exclusive @Surfshark deal! Enter promo code FROSTY1 for an extra 3 months free at surfshark.deals/frosty1 *Thank you all for watching!* This video was a huge collaborative effort which took many months of effort and dealing with censorship and all the rest so I am utterly thankful for everyone involved, especially you the viewer for being here! *______** CORRECTIONS_**_____* 1:29: This soldier is holding an AR 18, not an AR 15 as mistakenly stating in the narration 2:43: Here an image of an AR 18 is shown instead of an AR 10 or 15. 7:41: According to the supposed former head of Cuban intelligence, Fabian Escalate, the number of Assassination attempts on Castro was 638, not 368 as stated in the video. 16:55: An M1911 can actually lock back itself automatically and has a slide release. 24:44: The gas masks are actually French A.N.P. M51/53s with Soviet GP5 filters. The m51/53 is a upgraded version of the M51 gas mask. The upgrades being exhale valve and exhale valve cover changes but overall the M51 and M51/53 masks face piece remains identical to each other. 27:16: When mentioning the AKM a picture of a soldier wielding a MPI-K briefly appears on screen. 30:30: they're repelling, not fast roping. Air mobile units did exist in Vietnam and they did repel from helicopters. 30:46 dragons breath can cycle. there is multiple videos, granted using saiga 12s, going full auto with dragons breath. 31:39: According to a few local Vietnamese commentors, this sign actually translates to "fix the baby". 35:36: The weapon that appeared in the image is a XM177E1 instead of XM177E2, noticeable by the slightly shorter 10" barrel instead of 11.5" barrel and other small details. 40:27 this van does have some parts that could be as early as 1971 but still very much so anachronistic for the games setting. 46:01: This picture might be of Finnish soldiers. It is difficult to tell however if the article that claimed they are British is correct. 54:54: The AUG is Austrian, not Australian (certified goofball scripting error moment) 1:01:44 The suits shown here would not show up until the mid to late 1970s. Before that the US had a very complicated CBR protection system for ground troops with TAP gear being used for specialty roles like hazmat and chemical weapon disposal. 1:07:30 This picture shows both Kennedy and the Governor sitting at the same height in the same bolt-upright stance, but in reality they sat in different postures that roughly line up with the bullet’s flight path meaning it didn’t magically zigzag. We apologise for any confusing or misunderstandings caused from these scripting mistakes. *Attached here is a statement from one of our key researchers, FeReinsm containing some important information:* ''Once again, I’m grateful to be a part of this project! Especially when working together with The Frosty 1, two of my friends from FoB crews, Adrian Bari, AlexDVasilkov, and the MAN - Munancho INC. himself! Despite there being some problems at first due to the RU-vid algorithm and its age restricting which forces us to replace and censor some of the contents in order to make this video available for everyone of you guys to see. Interestingly, when Frosty tried to reupload the exact same version of the video for the 2nd time, it didn't get age resreicted or demonotised so it’s likely that a bot was flagging the videos randomly. Nevertheless, we decided to upload the toned down version just in case and we must apologise for the inconvenience. There’s also some extra things we’d like to inform you: 1. The main point in making this video is to point out any historical inaccuracies and other mistakes we can find within this game with our best efforts (simple as that), as for the educational case and a case study for fellow historical enthusiasts or even those who want to become future game developers or modders. 2. Speaking of which, at this point I'm pretty sure there will be some people who wanna respond with something like the inappropriate weapons are supposed to be “prototypes” or “testing weapons”. However, while few of them are quite acceptable in certain circumstances, the rest of the anachronistic weapons in the entire game are never introduced or never designed and even appear in blueprints during the 1960s period. Not to mention that some of these supposedly prototype weapons are: 1) Used in large numbers among the enemies. 2) Appear in multiple levels. 3) The existence of these weapons among certain factions are either questionable or outright inappropriate. 3. Sources for Soviet, Cuba, NVA, and Pathet Laos uniforms are all included in my art: www.deviantart.com/fereise/art/COD-Black-Ops-Revisioned-Soviets-Updated4-962764718rototype weapons are: 1) Used in large numbers among the enemies. 2) Appear in multiple levels. 3) The existence of these weapons among certain factions are either questionable or outright inappropriate. 3. Sources for Soviet, Cuba, NVA, and Pathet Laos uniforms are all included in my art: www.deviantart.com/fereise/art/COD-Black-Ops-Revisioned-Soviets-Updated4-962764718

Even when there are more than 200 historical inaccuracies this remains a fun game that we can all remember

The possibility of Black Ops originally being set in the 80’s makes SO much sense. Like you mentioned, most of the assets are from the 70s and up, but with that said, maybe COD Black Ops was meant to be what Cold War became, story wise.

Rumor has it that Black Ops was originally supposed to take place over a much longer period, from the Bay of Pigs to the Iran Embassy siege. The sheer amount of weapons and equipment from the 70’s and early 80’s was probably designed with that in mind before the story got shifted to only take place in the 60’s.

I just realized that their is another detail about the underwater base that is pretty strange. The fact that our main characters managed to survive at such high pressures without major equipment at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean is pretty insane. That coupled with the thought that the main characters rapidly surfacing to water straight from the bottom of the ocean would give these character's a possible fatal condition called Caisson Disease. (Nitrogen bubbles forming in blood vessels due to rapid changes in pressures.)

I like how you give reasonable alternative choices for anachronistic or inaccurate gear they used in the game.

1911 locks back itself when the last round is fired and has a slide release to release the slide without racking it

To be honest, the plot of Black OPs is basically an action movie.

I always praised Black Ops 1 for its historical setting and use of actual events buuuuut..... damn, i didnt know it was this bad. I mean, i knew theyd cut corners, reuse assests where they didnt belong, but a lot of this just WOW. The double Saws just levitating off the side of the Russian helicopters had me rolling.

It's wild how much you and the other researchers know, from the tiniest of details to the obvious ones Great job to everyone involved on the video!

The M249 used by the Vorkuta prison guards is a commonly-used "mounted machine gun" asset originating from Call of Duty 4.

As a Vietnamese myself, the translation at 31:41 is almost on point. In Vietnamese, "sữa" means milk whereas "sửa" mean fix and lemongrass is "sả", minor mistake there but anyway, love the video ❤ , I admire your dedication

The mountain of anachronisms really makes me agree with your theory that Black Ops was initially meant to be in the 80s.

One more thing, the gp-25 grenade launchers are caseless, whilst the one in game ejects a shell

5:08 "Now back to covering the inaccuracies or as we like to call them Black Oops." That one got a good chuckle outta me, great joke.

Imagine when the team behind Fall of Berlin series of mods for World At War put in hands into fix Black Ops. Dude, that would be awesome

12:07 Oddly enough I recognize that as the COD4 SAW turret that can occasionally pop in in the campaign. They seemingly just copy/pasted that turret rather than develop a new turret with their own gun models

The rifle you called an AR-15 at the beginning is actually an AR-18. Two very different refiles, despite being very similar in name and somewhat in looks.

I love how you suggest replacement weapons for in-game guns that are anachronistic or otherwise inappropriate.

this game was absolutely meant to be in the 80's

This must have taken a REALLY long time to make. Unbelievable effort put into this!

Damn! What a poetic ending with the JFK assassination, and an inaccuracy being taken off at the last second because of it. Bravo Frosty, gave me goosebumps.

I’d love to see one done on BO2, I know half the game is set in 2025, so you can’t really mention any inaccuracies, however you could mention things that are unlikely to happen, over exaggerated, etc…

I appreciate how you not only point out the problems, but also provide solutions. I wish they would consult people like you, and make revamped/corrected games with the changes.

36:16 Reznov was referring to Dragovich specifically, not the Soviet Union. Mason says this after Reznov’s line but there’s a common bug where it doesn’t play

My grandpa was a MACV (not MACV-SOG) advisor in Vietnam and was present during the Tet Offensive (the Vietnamese offensive depicted in game), and his brother in law was a captain in the 101st (both combat veterans). This game is more Cold War than Vietnam, but I wonder what they would think of the Vietnam bits

An hour and ten minutes of pure joy - thank you frosty for this masterpiece.

Something minor: The Soviet grenade launcher uses caseless ammunition. The propellant is inside the grenade itself, it leaves nothing behind in the launcher. Yet, when reloading this launcher, the player character shakes some invisible thing out of it before putting in the new grenade. Yes, this HAS bothered me for the last 13 years.

My take on the inaccuracies is a mixture of "well this is special ops, so they had these things earlier than they actually said" and "Mason was brainwashed, so the things he's seeing weren't really there" Though it's probably just lazy research when in development. Great vid!

Vietnamese here. 31:47 The sign was not badly translated, but more like written with wrong spelling and citation. Instead of Sữa em bé (baby milk) it was Sửa em bé (Repair baby). And there are multiple like that throughout this mission. And thank you for very accurately depict our army back then.

Can’t wait for someone to make a historical accuracy mod like they did for WAW. 6:51 They are also flying with their landing gear deployed and rear cargo ramp open. 40:20 The model for 747 appears to be the 400 variant which wouldn’t enter service until 1989. 45:31 Fun fact: The Sten in this game is actually an unused asset leftover from WAW as it was originally going to feature a British campaign set in the Netherlands during Operation Market Garden. - One of the maps in the Project Nova mission seems to show a Nova 6 laced V-2 launch site being located in Baffin Island, Canada. - Missed inaccuracy: SR-71s were never deployed on recon missions over the USSR due to the fallout from the 1960 U-2 Incident. They simply flew near Soviet airspace and use its powerful cameras and sensor to peer into the country. 1:04:47 This underwater base seems to be partially inspired by Project Azorian which was a CIA operation to recover the wreck of a Soviet ballistic missile submarine that sank north of Hawaii in 1974. 1:05:57 I think those are supposed to be Gearing class destroyers.

54:26 Can't believe that without investigating any development and background of Activision during 2007 to 2011 you actually nailed it. The main inspiration for Black Ops were 80' action flicks taking advantage from conspiracy theories while recycling the assets of previous installments thus why everything around is in flames and explodes with metal and hard rock music in the background, the ending just screams 'MURICAH! to your face (Let's be honest, it only lacked the eagle screech), why Black Ops Zombies is so over the top almost being nuts and the presence of an arcade style mini game despite everything being set in the 60's Along side with this project another team was in the works of another Call of Duty spin off but in third person perspective set in Vietnam, it never got out of the prototype stage because the higher-ups thought it lacked modern-like action and looked like an uncharted-another goddamn oldie shooter bastard child They decided that the Vietnam setting and the 80's flick styled action could benefit from each other and merged them together with the assets they already had

I was pretty shocked when I first played BO and saw all the optics used in guns. I thought, wow, this tech existed way earlier than I thought. Turns out it really wasn't the case.

54:47 The Steyr AUG is Austrian, not Australian! Although the Australians would later adopt it too. Great video btw, really enjoyed it!

One thing to note. The HS10 makes an appearance in the mission with Hudson and weaver. It’s in the hidden weapons box that the British dude opens.

The Commando rifle is literally an ancient precursor to the M4A1. The CAR-15 and M16A1 and M16A2 rifles would be the ones that had no removable carry handle sight.

The difference between the innacuracies is BO1 and Vanguard is the fact that while BO1 is wildly innacurrate, it had respect for history. Unlike Vanguard which changes the nationality of WW2 heroes.

I would absolutely love to see historical inaccuracies of the Battlefield 1 war stories. So many crazy weapons and the codex entries give history about them but my friends and I have realized there are a lot of anachronistic items in the game and would love to see your take on it!

Ignoring the anachronisms, the weapons in this game always felt a bit incomplete to me. Several of them are missing attachments, all but two of the automatic weapons have a fixed fire rate of either 750 or 937 RPM, and I'm convinced that almost half of the SMGs were supposed to be in a machine pistol class at some point, but Treyarch probably changed their minds once they saw how they were being used in MW2.

One thing you missed about the Commando, the sling is wrapped behind the bolt release, as it is visibly opened and kept open, theoretically the gun wouldnt even be able to fire

BO1 on the DS has more historically accurate weapons despite some guns arent really present at the time it takes place. Overall BO1 made Cold War small arms interesting and crazy. Crazy as in the SPIW project is the closest we can have to a IRL COD MP loadout

I feel like the mason portions of black ops 2 as well as cold war were treyarch's way of rectifying the issue of bo1 being set in the 60's even though they likely want it to be in the 80's

11:54 love the drawings, they're actually really good and informative.

17:55 Fun fact about carl gustav. We sweds officially refer it as m/45 submachine pistol (offical name kulsprutepistol m/45) my source is SoldF soldaten i fält (mine is from 2001)

The 45 round 'extended mag' for the AK in game is actually just a 30rd 5.45 magazine instead of the 7.62 its supposed to be. So a completely different ammo conversion when you get the extra 15 rounds.

29:37 not only is this tank a T-55 but judging by the sideskirt it's a type 69.II, the chinese version of the T-55 which entered service in 1982

17:30 the m1911 has a last round hold open. The magazine, when the last round has been shot, pushes the slide catch up so the slide locks back on an empty mag.

It's really cool to see that even though Treayarch had to constantly reuse assets and butcher many fine details from the development rush, they made a darn fine game in spite of it.

The unit “MACVSOG” that woods is from did not actually use camo unless kicking around in base. There were very rare instances of it being used by sog in actual missions but they really used standard jungle fatigues

To be fair, the “ACOG” sight in-game is actually a period-authentic Colt scope when used on most weapons (excluding the AK and Enfield which use the PK(?) and SUSAT scope) with the name “ACOG” likely only being for players to recognise as a familiar attachment from previous games. Both US and Soviet night vision/starlight scopes appear as thermal sights in multiplayer. Also if I remember correctly, the “Magic Bullet” Theory at 1:07:30 has been debunked as it assumes both Kennedy and the Governor were sat at the same height in the same bolt-upright stance, rather than being sat in different postures that roughly line up with the bullet’s flight path meaning it didn’t magically zigzag.

Well, I hope there will be a realistic mod for BO1. We really love to see it.

I've never heard the word "anarchronistic" used so many times before.

I think it should be noted that along with the M1967 web gear worn by American soldiers, there is also a lot of ALICE gear mixed in, which was not issued until the mid to late 1970s. Also, their uniform shirts have shoulder pockets, which were also absent from jungle fatigues. Nitpicky as well, but USMC troops in Vietnam did not have cat eye bands on their helmet, they used what’s commonly referred to as a tire tube.

Black Ops: Declassified is pretty much what you were talking about when you said you thought BO1 was designed to be set further in time, as the game reuses BO1 assets and takes place in the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s.

1:31 So the rifle that was in the picture here is an ArmaLite AR-18, which was made to be a cheaper alternative to the M16. And because it was first made during 1963, it would have actually been period correct if it was featured in the later missions. Period correct, but not accurate though, as it was never adopted by any armed forces.

i still remember the day i played the entire BO1 campaign a couple days after release. I still remember 90% of the missions. What a brilliant, brilliant game! such a shame that cod is moving in a terrible direction currently :/

1:24 is an AR-18 or an AR-180. Cousin to the AR-15. You can tell by the rear sight block and handguard.

"babe, wake up, The Frosty 1 uploaded"

Borning Teacher: OK Class We are going to learn about the Industrial Revolution with are books 📚 Cool Teacher: OK Class today we are going to learn the cold war with the help of Call of Duty Black Ops and Watching Frosty 1 on his videos about how accuracy and unaccuray of the game ❤

I'm currently in Hanoi and will visit Hoa Lo prison tomorrow. The real prison doesn't have the flagtower, but I am happy to report the front entrance was accurately depicted, as was the guillotines prominence. Hopefully I will see how accurately Treyarch did their homework with the multiplayer map.

I've also noticed that the Mi-8 are acutally Mi-17/ Mi-8M. The ingame helos have the tailrotor on the left, the shorter engines (with dustfilters) and the IR-jammer on the tail.They likely just used the models from the Modern Warfare series and modefied them a bit.

My guy out here historically critiquing everything right down to the geographical plausibility of crows - much respect!

35:36 Quick note, the weapon that appeared in the image is a XM177E1 instead of XM177E2, noticeable by the slightly shorter 10" barrel instead of 11.5" barrel and other small details.

19:28 The missiles on these MiGs are R-73/AA-11 Archers, which entered service in the 1980s. They also made the missile body and fins WAY too wide. Had they used the more time appropriate K-13/AA-2 Atoll (introduced 1961), you probably would have given it a point for "soviet plane using US missiles", since the Atoll is a copy of the AIM-9 Sidewinder.

If they wanted to put a red dot sight in the game then they could have went with the British Singlepoint sight. It is a primitive red dot that I do believe entered production in 1970 and was also famously used in the Son Tay Raid in North Vietnam in 1970. Yes it's a few years off even from the end of the game but compact red dot sights like some of the ones in the game did not exist until the 1990s, which is much worse in my opinion.

Also, apart from the Afghanka cut uniform being anachronistically used by the soviet faction, the camouflage pattern printed on it - generally referred to as 'flora', VSR-98 or 'arbuz' (meaning watermelon) - was only accepted into service in 1998! I think the Cuban Tropas' camo you said was supposed to represent their grey lizard pattern, also was just Russian flora.

As to your point on the 1911, the 1911 has a last round hold open and you can chamber a new round by dropping the slide release.

Imagine Treyarch sees this and implements all of these into a Remaster

17:27 These names are likely cover names assigned by the Soviet government. Not their real German names.

16:55 This is the last round hold-open present on most modern semi-automatic pistols. He closes the slide by using his thumb to actuate the slide release on the left side of the pistol.

This has always been my favorite COD game, the story is very unique compared to other COD games

43:09 Fun fact, for some weird reason, they used COD2 Mosin Nagant animations instead of World At War. Hence the strange incompatibility between the reload animations. And they used the strange COD4 scope overlay as well... really bad choices if you ask me.

5:50 this is a version of a soviet vest, was produced in 1960, was used by NVA in Vietnam War, and 'look like' versions for MACV-SOG personal

Frosty really improved since the Vanguard video, I can feel your passion and frustration growing after each new video!

The gas masks being worn at 24:44 are actually French A.N.P. M51/53s with Soviet GP5 filters.The m51/53 is a upgraded version of the M51 gas mask.The upgrades being exhale valve and exhale valve cover changes but overall the M51 and M51/53 masks face piece remains identical to each other.

2:45 that actually sounds so cool

I love the historical breakdowns of these videos, but I really wish you'd ditch the CinemaSins format of "apply an innacuracy if the game gets it wrong, but also deduct inaccuracy totals if the game does something right". This isn't a tug of war match where you can have even amounts of right and wrong accuracy. Just make a separate counter for "interesting accuracies" alongside the inaccuracies counter. That way when the video is done, you have a total, correct tally of what the game did right vs what it did wrong.

You never fail to deliver man. As a war history buff, I approve.

Activion Blizzard should hire you as a historical professor for their "very historical accurate" Call of Duty games

Something else to mention is that them descending that fast underwater would cause them to get severe decompression sickness (its been a long time since I've scuba dived so that might not be the right name. Feel free to correct me). To get to that pressure they would need to take well over an hour to equalize their bodies to the pressure and would need to do the same thing while going back up. Severe decompression sickness can kill you. Also: You mentioned this in the description already but theres a max diving depth for highly trained scuba divers due to increasing pressure. For technical divers its between 170-350 feet. The amount they went down is wayyy past 300 feet. This pressure would fuck them up

18:15 Something you missed here. Those jets would NOT be flying THAT LOW!

I'd hazard a guess the orginal BO was supposed to be a more down to earth 80s Bond-esque secret agent game. It would explain alot of choices for weapons and uniforms, along with the whole vibe of the main three villians.

One thing, the Steyr Aug is an Austrian weapon, which is used by both Austria and Australia just one thing I noticed at 54:50ish

That wall at 37:41 gets worse as after doing a small easter egg you can get a Thundergun from zombies

3:20 Hey, im a Cuban The symbol on their arms and berets are actually the Roundel of the Cuban air force. Which is strange, because the police and milicianos have their own logos.

it’s funny that the corpsmen use USMC ranks and not navy ranks Also the AUG is Austrian not Australian

2:53 the comment about the acog sights is mostly correct, with the exception of the Colt 3x20 scope, since it was made in 1962 (still anachronistic for "Operation 40") all the other low zoom optics, like the PK-A, Swarovski and SUSAT were indeed period inappropriate.

A lot of the gun inaccuracies (specifically the M60E4, M249 SAW, and even the M67 Frag) are due to reusing assets from the earlier Modern Warfare CoD titles. Seeing how the majority of people would never see or care about the inaccuracies.

45:50 same problem with american M16 and 20 round mags they were mostly filled with 18 rounds

You accuracy checking the excavator model in Vorkuta is honestly astounding

frosty1: post historical inaccuracies video activision and treyarch: *instant regret*

54:56 The AUG is of Austrian make, not Australian. However, it is the standard service rifle of the Australian military, so i can see the confusion.

we never know the full game until we search every single bit of detail that was either missed or discovered. well played frosty

1:32 is not an AR15, it's an AR18, neither of which are anachronistic to the overall time period, though the AR18 was designed (according to a brief wikipedia search, so possibly off) in 1963. the AR15 was designed much earlier, in the 1950s, which would make it more accurate to the period

2:48 So...thing is, the 'ACOG' scope model in Black Ops 1 *is* based on the Colt 4x20 scope. It does actually somewhat fit the era and the part - what's incorrect, and I'm sure this is to make it understandable to gamer types, is calling the thing an ACOG (and y'know the fact that gets put on a flattop rail system with a majority of weapons which, sure rails have existed for a while at that point, but not exactly in the modern MIL-STD-1913 fashion). The exception is that the "ACOG" for Russian guns uses a different model. What it is exactly I don't know, but I don't think it's a frankenstein'd Colt scope; really it should be the PSO-1 since that is also ~4x magnification. Also, the red dot model in BO1 is apparently based upon the Elbit Falcon. Doesn't change the time-warping, but neat detail.

17:41 Not to mention the Elbit Falcon red dot sight. Is obviously anachronistic. A Singlepoint OEG would be appropriate but obviously unusable given the monocular perspective of video games.

22:44 Btw. PM-63 (also called RAK) has an empty-shot blocker. In short when You emptied the magazine, receiver won't go forward like most open-bolt weapons even when You try to pull the trigger multiple times - empty magazine will lock receiver in rear position.

The theory that the game was to be set originally in the 1980 just makes so much sense if you think about it. Weird that i never heard someone talk about that before. It seems so obvious now

It wouldn't be that odd for Green Berets to know Vietnamese as All Green Berets ( MOS 18x) are required to learn and be proficient in a foreign language as close work with locals is a big part of the 18x missions. Everyone in SOG picked up some Vietnamese and knew some other languages like Bru or Montauard to various degrees. But yeah they should have gotten real Vietnamese in there.

I love how you provide pictures of the accurate guns and equipment! Black ops1 and waw are my childhood though and are the reason I love learning about wwII and Vietnam!