4 Things The Battlefield Series Will Teach You About Real Warfare

I've often heard of the long and arduous tasks that recruits of the United States Air Force must go through in order to earn their "wings," but DICE has since informed me that being a pilot is a very simple process. Forget hours in the flight simulator, forget reading and exams, hell forget about even getting assigned to a particular plane. The real way you become a pilot is by sprinting towards the nearest plane Usain Bolt-style. It's like a crazy game of wartime shotgun, only the prize isn't a dust-covered front seat, but a deadly war-machine. Obviously, first one to the plane is crowned the pilot and has no doubt passed the rigid training, which probably looked something like this.

"All right recruit! Are you qualified to operate the F22-Raptor?" "Pfft, I've seen Top Gun 13 times!"

After getting over the fact that you lost the race for that plane, at least you can take solace in the fact that such a qualified individual has taken to the sky. You'll scurry on the ground waiting to see him bombing enemies and dodging enemy fire Will Smith-style, but will ultimately watch him slam-immediately-into-the-largest-solid-object-he-can-find Randy Quaid-style.

Yes, just as prominent as that "Being a pilot is hard!" myth, it turns out that military-grade snipers are a dime a dozen. Gone is the common notion of the recon man or the assassin. Snipers are apparently the workhorse of the American infantry. This is especially true when the operation revolves around capturing a set objective. Rather than making any progress towards said objective, real military operations consist of a group of ten men all huddled in one general area waiting to shoot anyone who moves.

"If I see someone in the next 5 to 8 hours they are SO dead"

Now I know you're all thinking, "Is a group of lethal human hunters really that bad of a strategy?" Well, now we find ourselves back to the pilot training conundrum as it seems that being a sniper is actually less difficult. The only criteria seems to revolve around you pretty much showing up.

"Give 'em hell soldier!"

What ensues is a barrage of bullets, none of which find their targets and a general confusion as to how in the hell any of these people even found their way to the Battlefield in the first place.

Contrary to popular belief, all fighting is apparently done with explosive munitions. While you may hear the occasional bullet whiz by your head and miss (see above), apparently every soldier's weapon of choice revolves around something that blows up. Be it mortars, rocket launchers, grenades, or tank shells, using that $12,000 "Tank-buster" rocket is the best way to get back at XxWeedKilla420xX for that time he stole your plane (see above again). After a while, you'll start to adapt to this and slowly convince yourself that you're battling an army of Terminators.

"Hasta la Vista, man-child!"

Yes, of all the insights Battlefield has provided me with, they all pale in comparison to the only true way to survive a war. This is of course, jumping around like a jack rabbit on PCP. After a while, you'll begin to wonder if you're participating in a war or actually attending a Cirque du Soleil show at the freaking Luxor.

"Sergeant First Class Corteo reporting for duty!"

No need to concern yourself with outdated ideals such as "grabbing cover" or "digging a trench." The only thing you need to do to survive is to jump as if you were on a pogo-stick. Actually, after seeing as much as I have, I wouldn't be surprised if a pogo-stick wasn't already standard issue.

So there you have it, gone are the History Channel documentaries depicting starving young men huddled together in a hole pissing on themselves to keep warm, and in is DICE's real-world tales of T-800's with springs for legs jumping around without any training for shooting straight nor flying.