As many of you are aware, Gearbox Software prides itself on authenticity and our ability to create an immersive historical experience. Sure, we can say that all day long, but what facts do we actually have to back that up? Well, how about having a real live Colonel on our staff? Most of you probably know about the Colonel (John Antal, US Army Ret.). He's our Military Advisor, and he's sort of an expert when it comes to all things military hisotry.
In order to make the Brothers in Arms games the best experiences possible, Colonel Antal not only oversees the authenticity and accuracy of our games, but he educates our developers so that they understand how to use military tactics and understand the locations, weapons, and experience that they're working to recreate. He has lead Gearbox on field training missions (see the FTX album ), and often takes groups of developers to the Bullet Trap near our offices to fire the WWII weapons - how better to get to know the weapons you're recreating digitally than to hold them and fire them yourself? I got to tag along on one of these such outings a while back, and took some photos to share with you all!
Once we got to the trap, we read the rules and signed our waivers stating that we understood the rules. We proceeded into a small training room, where the Colonel gave us a briefing on gun safety. He handed out our goggles and ear protection and told us a little bit about the weapons we'd be firing that day. We'd be firing the American weapon the M1 Garand and the German K-98. He deomstrated the use of each weapon and told us some of the background for them.
After the briefing, we proceeded down the narrow hallway to the range. The Bullet Trap is an indoor range (I'd only fired at outdoor ranges previously). It smelled strongly of gunpowder and the walls were covered in carpet to help absorbe the sound of gunfire. We fired from a sitting position, resting the barrel of the guns on a thick styrofoam box for stability. Each participant got to fire both weapons three times. We all wore ear protection. Even with them on, the sound of the rifles firing in such close proximity made me flinch. I was amazed at the Colonel, who didn't have ear protection and never jumped when the guns were fired. He could even tell each person where their bullet had hit the target - I guess you get used to the sound of gunfire when you're a Colonel!
After we'd all fired, we compared our targets - some of us had never fired such weapons before, but all of us hit the target at least once! I only missed the target once, which I thought was pretty good considering I hadn't fired anything in several years. It was a very cool experience to actually hold and fire the weapons that were used in WWII - thanks to the Colonel, we have a chance to do things like this and learn how to make our games even more authentic!
