The Gulag/Trivia

Approach

 * The level is set two hours after the raid on the oil rig.
 * During the cutscene there are three Littlebirds, but during gameplay there are four. The addition may have been a mistake as only three of the Littlebirds check in to Hornet 2-1.
 * Even though you left the oil rig in the mission "The Only Easy Day...Was Yesterday" sitting on the right side of the chopper, in the beginning of "The Gulag", you sit on the left side of the chopper, possibly to get a better sniping position.
 * On the previous level, there were six people on the Little Bird, including Roach. At the start of the mission only Roach and MacTavish are on the Little Bird.
 * At the start of the level, Hornet Two-One is a MH-6J Variant, which does not have missile pods. Later, on it becomes an AH-6J Variant equipped with missile pods.
 * After passing through the smoke on the Little Bird, it is possible to see another Little Bird firing at the tower in front of Roach. The pilot at this time says "Guns, guns, guns. Guns, guns, guns."
 * At no other time does smoke react to any other force (such as explosions).
 * The Russians running on the walls of the Gulag at the beginning of the level look something like the Ultranationalists in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. They are always carrying UMP45 and always die in the same way then fall through the ground.
 * There are gas tanks on the towers which you can snipe to eliminate most and possibly all of the hostiles.
 * If you kill the enemies in the towers really fast Worm will tell you "On the target"
 * On one of the towers there is a SAM site covered in a blue sheet. The sheet will be pulled off, whether or not there are enemies alive to pull it off.
 * You can advance without doing any sniping while on the Little Bird, even on Veteran difficulty.
 * After the destruction of the third castle tower, just before landing, MacTavish and Ghost complain to Shepherd about the "Yanks" bombing the gulag too early. However, when MacTavish can be seen to the right of the player during the latter half of the conversation, his lips are not moving.
 * Ghost's complaint about the "Yanks" being their supposed allies foreshadows the end of the game where Soap has to fight Shadow Company.
 * Before entering the gulag when you see two enemies running in front of you, to the right there is a place for executions.

Insertion

 * A Little Bird carrying 6 soldiers land before you do, and when you touch ground, the first 6 soldiers disappear.
 * If you stand too close to the Little Bird after disembarking, it will kill you while taking off.
 * Roach and Soap were the only soldiers as seen. When the player gets off and turns around very quickly to see no one else.
 * After getting off your Little Bird and running to the artillery trucks, look at Hornet Two-One (the AH-6J Little Bird attacking enemy troops). If you look carefully, the minigun barrels do not spin when they are revving or shooting like they should. This may have been overlooked by the MW2 staff.
 * Standing around on the landing pad will cause you to die from snipers.

Inside The Prison

 * When you are forced to grab a Riot Shield in the armory, take a look at the two other TF-141 members. One of them can be seen with his Riot Shield as though it were stuck to the barrel of his gun. During this time he is firing like normal as if he doesn't have a Riot Shield. However, this glitch is only for a moment.
 * In the armory, there is an M93 Raffica. This is rare to find in Modern Warfare 2 in any level except for the Museum.
 * As with any single-player and Spec Ops mission, regardless of whether you pick up another undamaged riot shield in this mission to replace a bullet-damaged one, you'll still end up with a damaged riot shield. Also, if you die with a damaged riot shield that was damaged before the last checkpoint, the riot shield will be completely undamaged upon respawning.
 * The part where Roach and MacTavish wait for Ghost to open the cell door is similar to the part Soap, Griggs, and Price wait for Gaz to open the door in "No Fighting In The War Room", in that both Ghost and Gaz don't appear in the action and only their voices are heard at the time. It is also similar because both teams have to wait until the door is opened.
 * When at the armory, if the player keeps looking at MacTavish, they will see what appears to be a Riot Shield spawn directly in his hand.
 * You do not actually have to pick up a Riot Shield in the armory. If playing on Recruit mode, you can survive just by claymore-ing the door and sitting/lying down in the corner with your gun. An especially skilled player can even survive on Veteran this way.
 * After the door at the armory is opened, if you still have your Riot Shield when you exit, MacTavish will tell you to use it to draw enemy fire. If you dropped it before you exit, MacTavish will say he'll draw their fire and tells you to take out the enemies.

Lower levels

 * When the player activates night vision, Task Force 141 troops will have laser pointers on their MP5ks. If the player kills one and takes his MP5k, there will be no laser.
 * A good tactic against the solders wielding Riot Shiels is to run up and hit them with Claymores, one or two can take out whole groups.
 * Debris in the lower areas (especially around the shower room) may cause dropped weapons to be unobtainable, as the weapons fall inside the geometry of the debris.
 * For the enemies on the upper level in the shower room (the ones with laser sight), they can still be shot by shooting through the walls even if none of their body parts is exposed, although it does less damage.
 * When the Navy bomb the Gulag after parasailing down, all Riot Shields will disappear.
 * Before breaching the shower room, if you go to the door next to it, Soap will say, "Roach forget that door, plant the breaching charge over here." Just standing around will cause him to yell at you to put the charge on the wall.
 * When breaching the shower room, there is a scripted Russian stood at the wall who will fly backwards. There is also always another Russian to the left of him.

Escape

 * No matter how many Task Force 141 members are with the player and MacTavish before they breach the final wall, it will always be Worm only after breaching. Even if Worm is not with you, he will always appear eventually. When Price calls MacTavish by his nickname, Soap, Worm asks "Who's Soap?"; MacTavish never told the other soldiers his nickname.
 * If you run past the Shower Room and through the hole in the floor, leaving the rest of the Task Force 141 members behind (including Soap), Soap will still appear near Price when the room is breached, despite being far behind.
 * The Riot Shield is nearly ineffective after breaching the last wall. The breach mechanic forces the player to use a gun, and prevents the riot shield from being raised against Price. The shield also does not protect against any of the falling debris, especially when scripted to knock out Roach.
 * Although nearly all of the Russian troops in the Gulag are wearing cold-weather gear, the soldier that Captain Price is strangling is wearing the urban camo that the Russian troops invading the United States wear.
 * Regardless of how much you shoot the guard that Price is strangling, he will remain alive until Price finishes strangling him and throws him towards you.
 * When Price is strangling the Russian soldier, if you attempt to stab Price at the last moment, you will be able to see your gun for a second when you are knocked down.
 * Price holds a rifle to the player's face before the reunion. When he's given the pistol, the rifle suddenly hangs off his arm. This may be due to the fact the game engine does not render weapon slings.
 * Price recognizes Soap by his voice, although Soap doesn't say a word in Modern Warfare.
 * Soap apparently pulls the M1911 he gives back to Price out of nowhere, as he can be seen with an M9 in his thigh holster throughout the level.
 * Oddly, after Price strangles the Russian soldier, if you look around the room after he knocks you to the ground, the Russian is nowhere to be found.
 * During the Reveal Trailer, Ghost is the placeholder or was to be in Prisoner 627 (Cpt. Price)'s position on the SPIE rig. Ghost was featured in the trailer as the soldier running on the left of the squad in the tunnel, before Price was put in that spot. Also, Ghost is seen carrying an AK-47 just like Price does as they leave the tunnels.
 * It is possible to take a shortcut at the end of the level by running straight to the 2nd extraction point.
 * After the player leaves with Captain Price, an enemy will spawn behind the team if the player follows them to the end of the hallway. The enemy is unarmed and seems wounded. He won't spawn if the player waits by the fork instead of following everyone down the hallway. If he survives the falling rocks, he walks forward and sits down.
 * The dazed enemy moves like the wounded Army Rangers in "Of Their Own Accord".
 * This is the only mission that Soap will say something like "Roach is down!" or "Roach!" when you are killed. He only does this because he is scripted to do so when Roach is knocked out by the fallen debris.
 * No matter where you stand,the scraps will always hit you.
 * It is unknown where the other Task Force 141 soldiers go when Soap, Roach and Worm go down in hole in the locker room.
 * If the player switches night vision goggles on right before Roach is hit by debris and Soap fires the flare, the player cannot turn them off and must complete the mission with them on.
 * It appears that MacTavish fires his flare from his M203 grenade launcher. This is accurate, as the M203 is capable of firing various types of rounds. He most likely fired an M662 Star Parachute, used in signaling and illumination.
 * When the team is waiting for the SPIE rig, Worm pushes Soap's head out of the way of falling debris.
 * If you don't hook onto the SPIE rig, Soap, Price, and Worm will leave you behind and you will die.
 * The explosion at the end of the level is likely caused by the bomb in the final room the player left before the SPIE rig was dropped to rescue everyone. The same bomb penetrated through the floors above, making the SPIE extraction possible.
 * The bomb in the final room seems to be an unexploded UXO; UXO's are known to explode with any slight movement, sound or spark, killing everyone in the immediate blast radius. Soap seems oblivious to this fact as he fires an illumination round right on top of the bomb. It is not known if the bomb is fused but most likely it is fused as it was dropped from an unidentified plane.
 * No matter who survives the assault in the shower area, Worm will always appear during the encounter with Price, even if he dies during the level.
 * It is unknown how Ghost managed to escape the gulag. He most likely backtracked to the team's insertion point in the courtyard and was picked up by a helicopter.
 * You don't have to hook up on the SPIE rig until the last second. Waiting until Soap starts moving means that you will skip the hooking animation and fly upwards without being connected to the rope.

Miscellaneous

 * Especially in regards to the interior of the level, the gulag appears to be designed like a classic panopticon style facility.
 * The Special Ops mission "Breach & Clear" is based on the shower rooms in the gulag.
 * The shower room section bears a strong resemblance to a scene from the 1996 movie The Rock, where a SEAL unit is massacred by a rogue Marine Force Recon group in an ambush set in a room almost exactly like the one seen here.
 * This is the last level in which Roach and Soap are seen fighting together. Thereafter, Soap only speaks over your comms in "Contingency" and goes with Price to Afghanistan in "Loose Ends".
 * This is the first (and technically only) time that Soap and Price are seen together on screen. In "Loose Ends " Price and Soap are only heard over the comms, and in the following levels you play as Soap.
 * It will rarely ever happen, but the player will sometimes get an M4A1 with Holographic Sight instead of Red Dot Sight.
 * It appears that Soap did not know that Price was Prisoner 627, as he asks in a questioning tone if it really was Price. This is odd, as it makes it seem that a full-scale attack was waged to save an unknown man. However, Shepherd did not know Price was Prisoner #627 either, but he did know that the the Russians wanted to keep him, which means that Shepherd wanted him back.
 * It is evident that none of them are aware Price is Prisoner 627 because during various cutscenes they mention "hanging him from a tree" and using him as "meat" to draw Makarov out. They clearly believe Prisoner 627 is a nobody or possibly dangerous terrorist/criminal of no importance to them other than to get Makarov's attention. If they were aware it was Price, certainly Soap would speak more respectfully and have better reasons to rescue him. Thus if they knew it was Price beforehand, it would ruin the surprise for the players.
 * Although Soap stated that the Gulag was "filled with living casualties of the last war," Price appears to be the only prisoner in the entire facility, as all the other cells have no prisoners in them. Most likely, the guards in the facility killed them all, believing that the attack was an attempt to rescue a POW inside, but were uncertain as to which, this is supported by the fact there are bloodstains in some of the cells. Although it doesn't explain where their bodies are, it explains why Price is seen attacking a Russian guard upon breaching his cell.
 * After the F-15s strike the Gulag too close to the helicopter and MacTavish tells Shepherd to have the fighters cease fire, Shepherd says that "One man in a gulag doesn't mean much to the Navy at this point." However, the U.S. Navy does not fly F-15s: only the Air Force does. Furthermore, the F-15 is not capable of carrier catapult launches. The only way this would be possible is if a U.S. Air Base in the Pacific Region scrambled the jets, which is actually quite possible because the Kamchatka Peninsula (where the Gulag is located) is well within range of Yokota Air Base in Japan. As for why Shepherd only refers to the Navy, it may be because the Navy was overseeing the operation, even if the Air Force was involved as well.
 * The F-15 pilots incorrectly say "Good tone, Good tone. Fox 3, Fox 3," when they fire the HARM air-to-ground missiles. Both of these sayings are incorrect. "Good tone" is used by NATO pilots only when firing AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking air-to-air missiles, referring to the tone that sounds in the pilot's headset indicating that the missile has a lock. Similarly, "Fox 3" is used by NATO pilots only when firing active radar-guided air-to-air missiles, which would imply that the pilots had fired AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. The correct brevity code for firing HARMs would be "Magnum".
 * The F-15's at the beginning of the level have the Jolly Roger insignia on the vertical stabilizer. This is the insignia for VFA-103 a Navy carrier based squadron which flies F/A-18F Super Hornets, Not F-15's
 * On the F-15's is the abbreviation IW4, which could be a reference to Modern Warfare 2 being Infinity Ward's fourth game or possible reference to Modern Warfare 2's game engine, IW 4.0.
 * Almost all the Task Force 141 troops will have MP5Ks.
 * There is a SPAS-12 in this mission that has snow camo and an alternate firing sound, much like the M1014's.
 * This mission features the rare White Tape Camouflage.
 * Soap seems to carry a lot of weapons in this level. In the beginning on the Little Bird, he starts off with the M14 EBR. When they land, he is seen with an M4A1 Grenadier with a Red Dot Sight and Arctic Camouflage. When they reach the armory, he grabs the Riot Shield and the MP5K. And when they escape from the gulag, at first he has an M4A1 with no attachments, but when he fires the flare, it suddenly changes to a M4A1 Grenadier with an ACOG sight.
 * The SPAS-12 is used extensively by enemy troops before the showers and the M1014 is used frequently by enemies in the shower rooms.
 * In the armory the player can find two sets of akimbo M9 pistols. This is one of the few times that akimbo weapons are available in the single player campaign.
 * When breaching the last half of the level to save Price, wherever you move during the slo-mo sequence, Price will always run the Ultranationalist he's strangling to where you are. This reason is because he thought that you were hostile, and running the Ultranationalist into you would give him an advantage to attack you. A similar technique was used in the game Wolfenstein, in the opening cutscene, where protagonist B.J. Blazkowicz personally attacks the Battleship Tirpitz. At one point, he uses a Nazi as cover from another Nazi who was armed with an MP40 standing on a platform above him, forcing the Nazi to kill his own man.
 * During the armory part, the player doesn't have to take a Riot Shield, any weapons can be grabbed. It will be tough to survive, but is possible. MacTavish may also start telling Roach to pick up a Riot Shield until the door is opened.
 * It is possible that the Gulag will be used as a staging point for the American counter-attack because Shepherd says they are leading the counter attack.
 * This is the only level that the player spawns with a sniper rifle that is not silenced.