The Armchair Infantry

Waylay00

Golden Member
Nov 15, 2004
1,793
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Most commonly found on internet forums for first-person-shooter games set in modern times like Counter-Strike and Battlefield 2, the Armchair Infantry spends his day browsing gun sites (chiefly http://world.guns.ru) memorizing every factual statistic about every weapon known to man. In any instant, the Armchair Infantry can deliver to you every possible statistic about any of an obscure line of military-grade weapons that never even saw live combat.

Armchair Infantry are easy to identify. If they have an avatar, more often then not it is the logo of the United States Marine Corp. If they have a signature, it's almost always a Barrett sniper rifle, or a guy hiding in a bush with a rifle (that may or may not be a Barrett). Your typical Armchair Infantry will hide behind a veil of lies to 'reinforce' their point; the most common and effective being that they own several of the military weapons and are pure marksmen with them. Slightly rarer, but more effective, is the Armchair Veteran, who protects his ass with unearned respect by insisting that they've fought in ANY number of real-world conflicts: Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Bosnia, Grenada... If the debate is about the Vietnam war, you damn well know that these guys will crawl out of the woodwork, insisting that they served 4 tours in Vietnam. If it's about Kuwait, suddenly they tell you about Operation Desert Storm as if they were there firsthand.

When provoked, the Armchair Infantry will pull out a dazzling number of 'facts' that they've almost completely copy-pasted off another website. In a conversation about a military asset of some sort, they will be determined to convince you beyond a shadow of a doubt that they've fired/flown/driven whatever it is they're talking about. The goal being, of course, to convince you, someone who isn't hiding behind the Armchair Infantry persona, that they have much more experience then you (which they don't), and therefore are right, and you're an idiot.

In their FPS games of choice, these 'veterans' generally play as a sniper whenever they can, clinging to an emo-esque image of a lonewolf cold-blooded killer out for revenge, or some cliche bullsh!t like that.

The irony of the Armchair Infantry is that most have never even been around a real gun outside of Boyscout Camp. Even more aren't even old enough to enlist.

If you ever meet an Armchair Infantry, patronize and mock them. There's a slim chance that yes, they DID fly an A-10 in the Gulf War (because you know how many 40-year-old Veterans play FPS games to recreate a war they saw people die in), but there's a far greater chance that they're utterly full of sh!t.

"The accuracy and range of the rifle is way off. I have three and go to the range four times a week and I can put 20 bullets within a half inch of each other at 500 meters."

"I flew a Cobra in Kuwait and I can tell you that they do NOT fly like that."

"I risked my life for the United States and it's disrespectful that you guys got the turbine sound of the F/A 18 TOTALLY wrong."
 

Waylay00

Golden Member
Nov 15, 2004
1,793
0
71
1. Armchair Infantry - Guys who profess to be battle-hardened war vets who have actually never even picked up a gun.
2. They give every detailed description of a gun, probably copy and pasted from a firearms/weapns website.
3. They get pissed off when vehicles and guns in games don't fire or turn or drive or whatever the same way as their real life counterparts do, even though they've never probably seen the real world counterpart in person.
4. They usually have a military avatar and have a gun as their signature or a guy in a bush with a gun.
5. Make fun of them if you see one.
 

FlakPanzer

Banned
Jun 20, 2005
136
0
0
Originally posted by: Waylay00
1. Armchair Infantry - Guys who profess to be battle-hardened war vets who have actually never even picked up a gun.
2. They give every detailed description of a gun, probably copy and pasted from a firearms/weapns website.
3. They get pissed off when vehicles and guns in games don't fire or turn or drive or whatever the same way as their real life counterparts do, even though they've never probably seen the real world counterpart in person.
4. They usually have a military avatar and have a gun as their signature or a guy in a bush with a gun.
5. Make fun of them if you see one.

I was joking, d@mn...
 

GasX

Lifer
Feb 8, 2001
29,033
6
81
I am an armchair ventilator. I replace the oxygen/carbon dioxide/nitrogen mix in the cushions with a nealy pure methane concoction of my own making.
 

Bootprint

Diamond Member
Jan 11, 2002
9,847
0
0
What do you call D&D/Fantasy people that are the same way?

"No way will a broadsword +1 cut through chainmail +10"
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,075
1,555
126
Originally posted by: Waylay00
Yes



I can't show it to you because <insert lame excuse here>
Xut I swear I have 423 different Artillery cannons in my closet and I go to the artillery range every day and shoot them. Mine are very accurate and I can always hit the target dead on at 500.000 yards.

 

Rastus

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
4,704
3
0
I've met a lot of pseudonams in my day, guys that claim to be viet nam veterans but never were. I guess there are a lot of pseudogulfwarvets and pseudoiraqwarvets out there too.
 

PanzerIV

Diamond Member
Dec 19, 2002
6,875
1
0
Good post. Can also apply to other things "internet experts" proclaim to be or have done.