Zombie movies are unrealistic... [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

kamikasei

2009-01-28, 11:47 AM

why is it, in every zombie movie, someone gets bit and doesnt tell anyone and then later in the movie they turn and bite someone else by suprise??? Why are people that selfish? Do they think they will somehow survive even though they know that evey other bite victim turns into a zombie?

Yes, at some level, they do. Or to put it another way, their sense of self-preservation coupled with their natural reluctance to face an unpleasant truth leaves them in denial that they are inevitably going to die and should be killed before they become a danger to those around them.

And another thing, Why, with a small group of survivors, does someone always have to turn on someone else and try to kill them??? I Feel the same way about Battlestar Galactica...The humans are trying to survive, yet they make enemies among themself and end up just screwing themselves...dumb...

It is a common thing for humans to take actions in their own immediate interest that are to the detriment of their long-term survival. On the hand you have simple short-sighted stupidity, while on the other you have the point that given a choice between an action that endangers the group but increases your odds of surviving over those of the others around you, and one that keeps the group safe but endangers or certainly kills you, there are obvious reasons why the tendency to take the first choice would survive in society.

It's also true that humans in a group in dire situations often behave better than might pessimistically be expected, and that people really are often willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of those around them. It's just that zombie horror scenarios or Battlestar Galactica or the like are not just examinations of "what might happen" but also commentaries on society and human nature, often negative ones.

There's also the argument of numbers: your complaint would find purchase if even one character behaved stupidly. It's not terribly unrealistic for at least one person in a large group to be selfish or foolish even if all the others are paragons of self-sacrificing altruistic rationality.

Is a zombie apocolypse really plausable?? I have my own religious beliefs so my initial answer is no,

I have no idea how your religious beliefs would enter in to it unless you wanted to check whether, in your religion's teachings, it's considered possible for a plague of supernatural corpse-animation to spread among the dead. Since that discussion seems both too broad for this forum and prohibited anyway, I'll just go with "no of course a zombie apocalypse isn't plausible!" Dead bodies can't get up and walk around, however well-preserved - at least, not without outside intervention (strings?). Now, you could construct an internally consistent and scientifically... possible, if not plausible... rationale for a zombie apocalypse type of scenario, and probably end up with something like 28 Days Later: the "zombies" aren't dead, just effectively mindless.

Beyond that you're weighing the plausibility of hypothetical supernatural events, which doesn't seem like a productive use of time to me. Not like zombie demographics.

late for dinner

2009-01-28, 12:04 PM

I am bored at work...and thinking about everything but work...definitly not trying to get into any religious arguments or conversation...just figured I would talk and anyone willing to listen and/or respond could do so...Definitly agree that a virus is definitly more plausible than just a get up out of the grave and walk around situation...I dont see either of them happening in the future though.

Myrmex

2009-01-28, 12:16 PM

The true monsters in many zombie movies aren't the monsters, but the people. George Romero's flicks are generally accepted to be social commentary, not just a gore fest. 28 Days Later was a quasi-update of Romero's Day of the Dead (the latter being allegory for the US military-industrial complex), while 28 Weeks Later was a heavy handed allegory for the recent invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Resident Evil films are rather exemplary of the other type of zombie cinema- gorefests with scary monsters because you'll pay $8.50 + popcorn to be bored out of your skull for 90 minutes. It's in the same category of unrealism as the Freddy, Jason, or any other monster franchise. You make some suspensions of disbelief so you can be scared/entertained, much like many other movies.

To your contention that people don't tell others about their bites, a main facet of the zombie movie is that people are selfish and self destructive. The allegory being that we don't need legions of the living dead to eat us- we can do that well enough on our own. It's similar to how the black guy is often the first to die in a slasher movie (then he comes back later and sacrifices himself for the white protagonist), or how a couple having premarital sex (or extra-marital sex) are often the first victims in a monster film.

chiasaur11

2009-01-28, 01:15 PM

You know, it's weird, but thinking about it, the people in Shawn of The Dead are much better about the zombie apocalypse than in most Romero styles.

And that's just kind of sad.

Jack Squat

2009-01-28, 01:24 PM

You know, it's weird, but thinking about it, the people in Shawn of The Dead are much better about the zombie apocalypse than in most Romero styles.

And that's just kind of sad.

Why? Shaun of the Dead is a homage to the old style movies, not a parody of. Simon Pegg himself said it was made out of a desire to go back to the old style movies, where the zombies weren't some mindless creature with superhuman strength and speed.

Here's a nice article on it (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/04/television-simon-pegg-dead-set)

chiasaur11

2009-01-28, 01:35 PM

Why? Shaun of the Dead is a homage to the old style movies, not a parody of. Simon Pegg himself said it was made out of a desire to go back to the old style movies, where the zombies weren't some mindless creature with superhuman strength and speed.

Here's a nice article on it (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/04/television-simon-pegg-dead-set)

I wasn't thinking that because Shawn of the dead isn't an incredibly great zombie movie.

The sadness was because, well, Shawn and Ed seem a mite dim most of the time. You would hope trained emergency personnel would be better at this kind of thing than them.

Jack Squat

2009-01-28, 01:50 PM

I wasn't thinking that because Shawn of the dead isn't an incredibly great zombie movie.

The sadness was because, well, Shawn and Ed seem a mite dim most of the time. You would hope trained emergency personnel would be better at this kind of thing than them.

There's training for a mass uprising of the undead?

First, EMS would probably be called to several bite victims, the EMS would be bitten...etc. Police could try and hold public order, but they can't really do anything because anti-riot techniques don't work on zombies. The media releasing the news, causing widespread panic about a possible bioterrorist attack wouldn't help things either.

That leaves the Military, but they're not really an emergency service, and they would be more interested in ultimately defeating them instead of protecting the survivors anyways..

chiasaur11

2009-01-28, 02:07 PM

There's training for a mass uprising of the undead?

First, EMS would probably be called to several bite victims, the EMS would be bitten...etc. Police could try and hold public order, but they can't really do anything because anti-riot techniques don't work on zombies. The media releasing the news, causing widespread panic about a possible bioterrorist attack wouldn't help things either.

That leaves the Military, but they're not really an emergency service, and they would be more interested in ultimately defeating them instead of protecting the survivors anyways..

Fair enough. Still, far too many people in these films cross that fine line between "That might be dumb, but I can see the reasoning. I mean, I doubt I'd do better under this kind of pressure" to "Wait. You did WHAT? You know what, I'm going to root for the zombies now."

Innis Cabal

2009-01-28, 02:16 PM

You'd think with all the zombie movies, games, and such that there would be at least one doctor or other medical personal that would go "OH! Their ZOMBIES! Go for the head people."

Myrmex

2009-01-28, 02:26 PM

You know, it's weird, but thinking about it, the people in Shawn of The Dead are much better about the zombie apocalypse than in most Romero styles.

And that's just kind of sad.

Have you seen Land of the Dead or Diary of the Dead? The people in those function better, especially in Diary, but that's because those movies are more about activism than cultural juggernaughts cannibalising America for their own nefarious ends.

I really like zombie movies.

In the Zombie Survival Guide, an important point is made that most people who are watching a zombie apocalypse movie forget- presumably the characters of the film are not aware (yet) that the dead are truly returning to life to consume the living. I'm not sure if you guys have ever stumbled upon a drunk, irate, incoherent homeless person, but if your first response is "zombie! go for the head!" you may have a bit of difficulty explaining that to a jury.

Coplantor

2009-01-28, 03:14 PM

LurkerInPlayground

2009-01-28, 03:18 PM

snoopy13a

2009-01-28, 03:40 PM

I Feel the same way about Battlestar Galactica...The humans are trying to survive, yet they make enemies among themself and end up just screwing themselves...dumb...

Whenever a group of people gets large enough (over 15-20 or so), factions start to develop. All of the factions want to lead which leads to mistrust of the other side. People in a faction think those in the opposing factions are wrong and that they should be in charge. This can lead to conflict.

chiasaur11

2009-01-28, 03:43 PM

Funny that's not what I got out of Weeks. I got a "Har! Har! Your petty military and humane values are no defense against human evil, foolishness and the forces of nature!" The one act of compassion in the movie, was demonstrably, the wrong thing to do.

And I got the moral: "Never make out with people who have the zombie virus or you'll destroy London."

A useful moral for us all, really.

Neon Knight

2009-01-28, 03:46 PM

Whenever a group of people gets large enough (over 15-20 or so), factions start to develop. All of the factions want to lead which leads to mistrust of the other side. People in a faction think those in the opposing factions are wrong and that they should be in charge. This can lead to conflict.

That statement is hardly an absolute.

TheBST

2009-01-28, 03:55 PM

^That and wear a thick jacket. If I see one more zombie story were someone gets bitten because they were wearing a T-Shirt

On the other hand, zombie films are very realistic because during the zombocalypse everyone turns into looters or survivalist fruitcakes and the military never solve anything.

Neon Knight

2009-01-28, 04:01 PM

On the other hand, zombie films are very realistic because during the zombocalypse everyone turns into looters or survivalist fruitcakes and the military never solve anything.

That hardly seems realistic. We can't discuss much further without drifting into politics, but I don't think you can equate the zombie scenario with recent real life conflicts. My other objections cannot be discussed due to aforementioned drift into real politics territory.

WalkingTarget

2009-01-28, 04:05 PM

On the other hand, zombie films are very realistic because during the zombocalypse everyone turns into looters or survivalist fruitcakes and the military never solve anything.

I'm looking forward to the adaptation of World War Z. Sure, the government/military screw up early (Battle of Yonkers as a prime example), but once they get their act together and re-equip for the type of enemy they're fighting they clean house.

TheBST

2009-01-28, 04:10 PM

That hardly seems realistic. We can't discuss much further without drifting into politics, but I don't think you can equate the zombie scenario with recent real life conflicts. My other objections cannot be discussed due to aforementioned drift into real politics territory.

No. No, no ,no. I was making a joke about human greed, paranoia and incompetence, not politics.

Cynics: you can't tell when we're kidding, neither can we

Neon Knight

2009-01-28, 04:19 PM

I'm looking forward to the adaptation of World War Z. Sure, the government/military screw up early (Battle of Yonkers as a prime example), but once they get their act together and re-equip for the type of enemy they're fighting they clean house.

I've always wondered whether the events depicted in World War Z were realistic. I mean, sure, I'll accept that 5.56mm can't do much against something that's already dead, but .50 cals can remove limbs if they hit solidly, and the Army has no shortage of those.

FoE

2009-01-28, 04:24 PM

You'd think with all the zombie movies, games, and such that there would be at least one doctor or other medical personal that would go "OH! Their ZOMBIES! Go for the head people."

I think it's important to remember that zombie movies generally occur in universes where there are no zombie movies. No one says "Go for the head" because no one has ever seen Night of the Living Dead and all its successors.

It should be noted that most zombie movies take place at the start of the apocalypse, when there's no apparent proof that zombie bites cause infection. That infectee in Resident Evil: Extinction had no excuse, though. I think he just wanted to take as many people with him as he could when he finally turned.

GreenDelusion

2009-01-28, 04:53 PM

There's actually a book, Zombie CSU: Forensics of the Living Dead, by Jonathan Maberry, that not only examines the feasibility of a zombie apocalypse but also how emergency personnel would respond to such an event, using pre-existing strategies. It's very good, very well-researched. The main thing to remember is that police, EMTs, and such already have to deal with crazy people, drunk people, druggies who don't go down when shot, people who try to bite them... there's enough that they've already dealt with that would help the police deal with a zombie attack, even before anyone knew they were zombies.

warty goblin

2009-01-28, 05:37 PM

I've always wondered whether the events depicted in World War Z were realistic. I mean, sure, I'll accept that 5.56mm can't do much against something that's already dead, but .50 cals can remove limbs if they hit solidly, and the Army has no shortage of those.

The already dead bit is honestly the thing that always gets me about zombies/assorted other undead. If that limb is moving, it's because something is moving, and the only something available to do so is the musculature. That in turn requires oxygen and chemical energy, which require a functioning respiratory, circulatory and cardiovascular system, and a nervous system to tell it to do so. Blowing holes in any of these systems is going to be as physiologically impairing as it would be to a human, although the psychology of the injury would be missing.

Now a disease or other agent driving people insane and filling them with unquenchable bloodlust is possible, maybe even plausible. Such an infection would be really very easy to contain however, since the infected would simply shred each other, and mindless rage really isn't that hard to stop with modern firepower.

Let me put it like this, walking people at machine guns worked really poorly in World War I, and those people had the advantage of intelligence, coordination, artillery and suppressing fire. Zombies have none of these things, and the non-zombies also get air support. Sure a lot of the fighting will take place in an urban setting, so what? What makes urban warfare hard on modern armies is the number of chances it gives individuals to escape detection and cause serious problems before they can be killed. Zombies lack the intelligence or weaponry for this. Here's how I'd solve the urban zombie problem.

1) Start by using air and artillery strikes to level a substantial swath of the suburbs, a couple miles in from the edge of the heavily settled region. Not a huge swath, but a wide enough area to serve as a handy kill zone.

2) Blitz armor through the outskirts, blowing the living hell out of any and everything that moved and didn't have a very large and clearly printed sign saying "don't shoot." All who did have such signs would be relocated to emergency quarantine camps.

3) This will allow the formation of reasonably large secure areas in the suburbs themselves, which will be fortified.

4) These areas will be fortified some more. No, more than that. I want machine guns on every window, barbed wire, trenches, mortar emplacements, you name it*

5) Now take some tanks and some volunteers. Strap fresh meat to the tanks, and drive them into the city. As soon as they've got aggro on a lot of zombies, have them turn around and drive back to the fortification.

6) Machine gun all the zombies attacking the tanks.

7) Repeat steps 5 and 6

8) ???

9) Profit.

For an island like Manhattan the above is entirely overkill. Just blow up the bridges, wait a couple months and check back to see if there's anything left alive larger than a roach. Chances are fairly poor.

*Except for land mines, those would cause too many problems later.

Myrmex

2009-01-28, 05:45 PM

Funny that's not what I got out of Weeks. I got a "Har! Har! Your petty military and humane values are no defense against human evil, foolishness and the forces of nature!" The one act of compassion in the movie, was demonstrably, the wrong thing to do.

Much of the movie was about the evils of good intentions.
/cough cough

Gavin Sage

2009-01-28, 05:49 PM

The zombie apocalypse is rather silly as an idea. Sure I've got no problem with them taking pistol shots, because normal people can take that kind of damage and not go down right away. Its an entirely different story when we start talking heavy machine guns, artillery, air support, and armored vehicles. Hell even well armored riot police in a shield wall would survive pretty well, since that's what the formation is bloody built for. Keep going up and aside from its weapons, a tank could simply run over a zombie mob a couple of times.

The only moderately plausible apocalypse is the Night of the Living Dead series where the dead, any dead, don't stay that way unless you burn em up. Which is a frankly totally mystical occurence anyways, just reinforcing how silly all these zombie virus things are.

That said I think the disorganization of isolated survivors and the stupid things they do in these situations is fair enough. The reason we have governments, police, and disciplined militaries is because humans have only a moderate ability to get along in an unstructured enviroment.

rankrath

2009-01-28, 06:10 PM

Phase

2009-01-28, 06:52 PM

I would say that the battle of Yonkers was fairly realistic. The military was kicking butt up until the point that they started to run out of ammo, at which point the army was simply overwhelmed by the shear number of zombies running around. Human wave tactics work when the wave does not suffer from moral issues, and vastly outnumbers the defending force.

This. Human troops are used to fighting humans that react. When you fire thirty rounds into a being's torso, you feel crappy when it keeps tugging at your friend's flesh. It's all about morale.

Jimp

2009-01-28, 07:22 PM

By your posts combined I form my current play by post zombie game. A week or two ago.
Relax guys, most zombie films aren't really about zombies in the first place. They are generally commentaries on other aspects, using zombies as either a comparison, metaphor or exacerbating point. For specific examples see previous posts. The zombies themselves are rarely more than a plot device unless it's a comedy film.
EDIT: or just a bad film.

Fri

2009-01-28, 07:26 PM

For wide scale zombie apocalypse, I think most of the time everyone were surprised, and didn't manage to do anything until it's already too late. For example if suddenly somebody knocked your front door and yelled, "The Zombies are coming!" would you prepare your shotgun right then?

Some guy/police/doctor saw drunk people->tried to deal with them->get bitten->turned into zombie that behave like drunk people->meet another set of guys/police/doctor->and so on.

One or two will realize that they deal with zombies, but most people will ignore their frantic yelling.

Before you realize it, zombie army.

CrimsonAngel

2009-01-28, 07:57 PM

chiasaur11

2009-01-28, 08:23 PM

Am I the only one that noticed everyone forgot about the big alien rock that crashed into the cemetary in "Shaun of the dead"? The only wierd thing is people in the general area were infected. Maybe it gave of fumes? Plus, they were probably there as people that are the first at news sights, and or reporters. "Oh! I want to touch the big apocaliptic alien rock first!" - Not a very good idea. (didn't work out for them so hot.) So inconclusion:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e381/CrimsonAngelChris/g40.png

Actually, Shawn of the Dead gave pretty much every origin possible to the zombies at some point or another.

Never made it clear which one was right, although I think the news at the end said something about industrial dumping.

Innis Cabal

2009-01-28, 08:43 PM

The newscaster does say that it was industrial waste that was the leading culprit

Neon Knight

2009-01-28, 08:51 PM

This. Human troops are used to fighting humans that react. When you fire thirty rounds into a being's torso, you feel crappy when it keeps tugging at your friend's flesh. It's all about morale.

Most people other than snipers never really see the men they kill. Zombies, at least classic zombies, are a loss less threatening than armed human resistance.

I mean, seriously. They walk bolt upright, shamble about, and in general make themselves very easy targets.

Plus, 30 rounds of even an intermediate caliber like 5.56mm is bound to inflict a large amount of tissue damage. As warty goblin pointed out, that kind of damage will simply cause those systems to out and out fail. Of course, different forms of zombie media have different standards for what a zombie can take before going down.

Personally, I feel that most people just don't simply understand the sheer amount of energy and power involved with modern firearms, and military weapons in particular. They ooh and aah at .44 magnum handguns when there is some quite frankly scary stuff out there.

Let's visit our Ruskie friends for a few examples.

The ZPU-4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZPU-4) is a anti-aircraft gun comprised of 4 KPV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KPV_heavy_machine_gun) 14.5x114mm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14.5_x_114_mm) heavy machine guns. It has been widely produced and exported to countries around the world. A few of these jury rigged for better performance against ground targets should chop through entire crowds of zombies. Even using short bursts to conserve ammunition (And zombies don't destroy infrastructure, confiscate supplies, or deliberately target supply lines, and you can afford to wait to make your shots count, so ammo shouldn't be an insurmountable problem) you should be able to make mincemeat of most corpse hordes.

Let's think bigger. ZU-23-2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZU-23-2). Same deal, but with twin 23mm autocannons. In use in over 20 countries.

It gets better. ZSU-23-4. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZSU-23-4_Shilka) 4 quad mounted 23mm autocannons.

Human wave tactics don't work when employed by living attackers with ranged weapons, heavy artillery support, and freakin' chemical weapons. It didn't work in WWI, or Korea, or Nam' or the Iraq-Iran War. I keeping reading anecdotes about Vietnam artillery gunners firing beehive rounds point blank into charging VC. There seems to be no ends to the ways in which we can adapt heavy hitting firepower to utterly scythe down mobs of people.

So, yeah, I have difficulty swallowing that pill.

rankrath

2009-01-28, 09:09 PM

<snip>

Human wave tactics don't work when employed by living attackers with ranged weapons, heavy artillery support, and freakin' chemical weapons. It didn't work in WWI, or Korea, or Nam' or the Iraq-Iran War. I keeping reading anecdotes about Vietnam artillery gunners firing beehive rounds point blank into charging VC. There seems to be no ends to the ways in which we can adapt heavy hitting firepower to utterly scythe down mobs of people.

So, yeah, I have difficulty swallowing that pill.

Again, human wave tactics don't work when employed by humans. A human will instinctively take cover, panic, and run when twenty of his buddies get moved down. A zombie won't, he'll keep coming at you, until you kill him. and all his buddies are doing the same thing. Plus Zombie hordes tend to be rather large, while military personal tend to make up a very small percentage of the population.

Even assuming only one quarter of America is zombified, they would vastly outnumber military personal about 25:1. And many of these military personal aren't front line troops, and are involved in logistics, ect. Any many of these troops would have to be used to control panicking civilian populations and be used to keep supply lines free of roaming zombies. So probably less than a third of the military's total force would be grunts put on the front lines. So that ratio goes to around 75:1.

So it's very easy to see a scenario where the military is simply overwhelmed by the shear size of a zombie horde the size of Manhattan, because such a force of men would be demoralized, and be suffering severe logistical difficulties.

Innis Cabal

2009-01-28, 09:18 PM

Why would they be demoralized? There is no reason for that. Because they are the walking dead? Like we don't have enough of that in the media? Because they just keep comming -SLOWLY-....ooh, we can outwalk them. What would make trained soliders turn into crying babies when they have range and firepower over walking decaying bodies?

Numbers only mean so much against better weapons. Bodies pile up, they take up space, their are flamable. They arn't smart enough to run from weapons, they don't know fear or pain. They don't know how to use tactics, they know how to shamble forward. They are not a more powerful foe. They are flamable, slow, and stupid.

As for people running for cover when they charge a line and their friends get mowed down...how are they getting the time to do it? I think you are vastly over estimating the power of the human mind in the time of crisis.

DrakebloodIV

2009-01-28, 09:22 PM

The already dead bit is honestly the thing that always gets me about zombies/assorted other undead. If that limb is moving, it's because something is moving, and the only something available to do so is the musculature. That in turn requires oxygen and chemical energy, which require a functioning respiratory, circulatory and cardiovascular system, and a nervous system to tell it to do so. Blowing holes in any of these systems is going to be as physiologically impairing as it would be to a human, although the psychology of the injury would be missing.

Now a disease or other agent driving people insane and filling them with unquenchable bloodlust is possible, maybe even plausible. Such an infection would be really very easy to contain however, since the infected would simply shred each other, and mindless rage really isn't that hard to stop with modern firepower.

Let me put it like this, walking people at machine guns worked really poorly in World War I, and those people had the advantage of intelligence, coordination, artillery and suppressing fire. Zombies have none of these things, and the non-zombies also get air support. Sure a lot of the fighting will take place in an urban setting, so what? What makes urban warfare hard on modern armies is the number of chances it gives individuals to escape detection and cause serious problems before they can be killed. Zombies lack the intelligence or weaponry for this. Here's how I'd solve the urban zombie problem.

1) Start by using air and artillery strikes to level a substantial swath of the suburbs, a couple miles in from the edge of the heavily settled region. Not a huge swath, but a wide enough area to serve as a handy kill zone.

2) Blitz armor through the outskirts, blowing the living hell out of any and everything that moved and didn't have a very large and clearly printed sign saying "don't shoot." All who did have such signs would be relocated to emergency quarantine camps.

3) This will allow the formation of reasonably large secure areas in the suburbs themselves, which will be fortified.

4) These areas will be fortified some more. No, more than that. I want machine guns on every window, barbed wire, trenches, mortar emplacements, you name it*

5) Now take some tanks and some volunteers. Strap fresh meat to the tanks, and drive them into the city. As soon as they've got aggro on a lot of zombies, have them turn around and drive back to the fortification.

6) Machine gun all the zombies attacking the tanks.

7) Repeat steps 5 and 6

8) ???

9) Profit.

For an island like Manhattan the above is entirely overkill. Just blow up the bridges, wait a couple months and check back to see if there's anything left alive larger than a roach. Chances are fairly poor.

*Except for land mines, those would cause too many problems later.

Under the Max Brooksian Zombie the already dead thing is the key hinge as to why a zombie can take so much damage. They ARENT using oxygen. I always assumed they either use some form of efficient anaerobic energy or the virus broke down nerve cells (which it kills, other than those in the brain stem and some nerves for muscle movement). Musculature doesn't strictly require oxygen, it just needs it for peak efficiency. Therefore, the lymphatic, digestive, respiratory, and cardiovascular systems are in fact unnecessary, along with the reproductive which was already unneeded. This, along with the fact that most of the nervous system is useless, means that you are actually INCREASING the efficiency of a Z upon a successful body shot. Also, the useless cardiovascular and lymphatic systems congeal to form a crude sort of bullet proof vest. These factors point significantly toward the idea that a zombie can only be taken down with a successful head or neck shot, and a body shot will be next to useless unless damaging the spine.

1.) Do you have any idea how BAD an idea this is? Saturation bombing a location is only successful in destroying large objects such as buildings, and only non reenforced versions of those. A Z could easily avoid the bombing through dumb luck or avoiding buildings, not to mention those hit would most likely not be headshot. They would shamble on, possibly with broken legs or hips which only increase their danger to anyone not in heavy boots.

2.) I'll admit, pushing armor through there would work, as long as you had gas, bullets and drivers who could endure the moaning and pounding. But I think there are two fatal flaws: (DONT SHOOT SIGN BIT)- How would these signs be established and administered in a post emergency environment? And, even if you did successfully implement them, what would you do about a reanimated person with DONT SHOOT printed on their T-shirt or other such things.(EMERGENCY QUARANTINE HOUSES)- In the zombie world, quarantine is slang for death. You would have a logistical nightmare on your hands searching every human for the tiniest zombified scratch.

3.) If you could establish a safe zone, allowing for the incredible improbability that there were relatively few zombies in your area and the horde wasn't attracted to your saturation bombing, defending it would be hell on earth. Most suburban homes are build for visual pleasure rather than defensibility. With Z all around you, your men would be hard pressed to equip even a few houses for a Z siege in the short turn around time you have.

4.) Machine guns require swivel room to be effective against a mob and are ammo expensive and inaccurate they would have to be on roofs, not tiny suburban windows.

MORE L8R

warty goblin

2009-01-28, 09:50 PM

Most people other than snipers never really see the men they kill. Zombies, at least classic zombies, are a loss less threatening than armed human resistance.

I mean, seriously. They walk bolt upright, shamble about, and in general make themselves very easy targets.

Plus, 30 rounds of even an intermediate caliber like 5.56mm is bound to inflict a large amount of tissue damage. As warty goblin pointed out, that kind of damage will simply cause those systems to out and out fail. Of course, different forms of zombie media have different standards for what a zombie can take before going down.

Personally, I feel that most people just don't simply understand the sheer amount of energy and power involved with modern firearms, and military weapons in particular. They ooh and aah at .44 magnum handguns when there is some quite frankly scary stuff out there.

Indeed. I've fired and seen fired a couple different guns of around 5.56mm (SKS and M4), and they do a lot of damage to stuff, even shooting normal FMJ rounds. The Geneva convention doesn't apply to zombies, which allows for expanding bullets, incendiary bullets, and a wide variety of other nasties.

This isn't even touching on what you can do with grenades.

Again, human wave tactics don't work when employed by humans. A human will instinctively take cover, panic, and run when twenty of his buddies get moved down. A zombie won't, he'll keep coming at you, until you kill him. and all his buddies are doing the same thing. Plus Zombie hordes tend to be rather large, while military personal tend to make up a very small percentage of the population.

Even assuming only one quarter of America is zombified, they would vastly outnumber military personal about 25:1. And many of these military personal aren't front line troops, and are involved in logistics, ect. Any many of these troops would have to be used to control panicking civilian populations and be used to keep supply lines free of roaming zombies. So probably less than a third of the military's total force would be grunts put on the front lines. So that ratio goes to around 75:1.

So it's very easy to see a scenario where the military is simply overwhelmed by the shear size of a zombie horde the size of Manhattan, because such a force of men would be demoralized, and be suffering severe logistical difficulties.

Time for some more fun with numbers. A Browning Machine Gun (.50 cal) has a rate of fire anywhere from 400 to 1,200 rounds a minute, and a .50 will remove limbs. But let's be pessimistic here and assume that it takes on average three hits to kill or completely incapacitate a zombie, and the average gunner only has 50% accuracy, which is very low against horde type enemies. Assuming your ratio of 75 zombies per combat soldier, that means it'll take an average soldier just under five hundred rounds of ammunition to kill his statistical equivalent of zombies. That takes just over a minute. Coordinated fire, use of kill zones, and etc will make this really quite plausible against all but the largest hordes.

And for the larger hordes one simply employs armor. Beehive shells will really ruin zombie's day I'd imagine, what with the approximately 8000 metal darts hitting them head on. In a wave such an attack is likely to reduce the first rank to hamburger and just keep going. High explosive would have a similar effect. Plus there's literally nothing a zombie, or any number of zombies could do to armor.

For very large cities I agree that fighting for them is stupid, but there's generally no need to do so. Just blow up the major exits, guard the perimeter and wait for the things to starve to death. Since they lack any notion of, well, anything, this shouldn't take very long, a few weeks on the outside, and their lack of intelligence will mean they are very unlikely to try anything like an organized breakout.

Innis Cabal

2009-01-28, 09:52 PM

Containment would be a viable option, but you would either need to make sure all the living are able to hole up and stay safe, or evacuate before you intiate Operation "Blow the crap out of the city"

chiasaur11

2009-01-28, 09:59 PM

Indeed. I've fired and seen fired a couple different guns of around 5.56mm (SKS and M4), and they do a lot of damage to stuff, even shooting normal FMJ rounds. The Geneva convention doesn't apply to zombies, which allows for expanding bullets, incendiary bullets, and a wide variety of other nasties.

This isn't even touching on what you can do with grenades.

Time for some more fun with numbers. A Browning Machine Gun (.50 cal) has a rate of fire anywhere from 400 to 1,200 rounds a minute, and a .50 will remove limbs. But let's be pessimistic here and assume that it takes on average three hits to kill or completely incapacitate a zombie, and the average gunner only has 50% accuracy, which is very low against horde type enemies. Assuming your ratio of 75 zombies per combat soldier, that means it'll take an average soldier just under five hundred rounds of ammunition to kill his statistical equivalent of zombies. That takes just over a minute. Coordinated fire, use of kill zones, and etc will make this really quite plausible against all but the largest hordes.

And for the larger hordes one simply employs armor. Beehive shells will really ruin zombie's day I'd imagine, what with the approximately 8000 metal darts hitting them head on. In a wave such an attack is likely to reduce the first rank to hamburger and just keep going. High explosive would have a similar effect. Plus there's literally nothing a zombie, or any number of zombies could do to armor.

For very large cities I agree that fighting for them is stupid, but there's generally no need to do so. Just blow up the major exits, guard the perimeter and wait for the things to starve to death. Since they lack any notion of, well, anything, this shouldn't take very long, a few weeks on the outside, and their lack of intelligence will mean they are very unlikely to try anything like an organized breakout.

Zombies can last for years without food.

They only go down when they decay, and that process takes winter breaks. Not gonna be quick.

kentma57

2009-01-28, 10:07 PM

Assuming classic zombies(for one reason or another) a zombie apocalypse would not doom the world(see resident evil) that would require everyone to fail utterly. Now would such an infection cause a lot of damage, probably a yes. Most people will not have the skills/equipment to stop a zombie and will not know how much danger they are in(assuming that the infection is not well known yet). With the ease that people can travel the world a previously unknown infeaction could travel all over the world. (ex: you get infected and try and fly to find a better doctor, or just get 'mugged' while waiting to catch you plane)
So let us assume that there is an infection in several urban areas. (Now as suggested earlier we could blast the surrounding areas into dust and kill anything that tries to moved, or we could just blast the place into the ground, but we will start with a realistic response.) How about people hide inside(either because of a curfue, or just all the reports of attacks/angry mobs) the full force of the police comes into affect(the national guard/army if it is the only known outbreak). If they managed to quarantine the city(have you ever tried to quarantine all of New York) the infection might not spread to other places as people flee to stay with family. Now unless all the infected are in one area the military will be stressed, and I can say with reasonable certainty that if a full infection hits lots of people will die in the initial outbreak, and even after they know what is goning on people will still die while the infection is fought. In the end it will take some time to kill all the zombies and people will die but it will work out.

Excluding the senario where the infection is caused by a biological weapon being deployed in every major city around the world, that would be very very hard to fight, and would even stant a good chance of collapsing a few goverments(and that never helps).

Remember the source of the infection is important. (ex: if all the recently dead in the world rise at once via magic, we are in trouble).

warty goblin

2009-01-28, 10:11 PM

Zombies can last for years without food.

They only go down when they decay, and that process takes winter breaks. Not gonna be quick.

I find this implausible to the extreme. Simply running itself takes the human body a reasonably substantial amount of energy. Fighting off decay would also take substantial energy, and on a 90 degree summer day something can rot with remarkable speed- as in go from 'dead, but looks like it did alive' to 'sort of puffy and oozing, takes substantial effort to identify' in a day. By the next there will be bones showing. One good heat wave and the zombies will smell to high heaven, but won't have the muscles left stand upright, let alone walk or attack*.

*Although the brains might still be functioning for longer than one would think. It's my experience than animal skulls can have significant and recognizable brain tissue in them for years after death. Of course once the circulatory system goes, it's a moot point since the brain will either eat itself for energy or simply die.

Neon Knight

2009-01-28, 10:14 PM

Long post ahead.

Again, human wave tactics don't work when employed by humans. A human will instinctively take cover, panic, and run when twenty of his buddies get moved down. A zombie won't, he'll keep coming at you, until you kill him. and all his buddies are doing the same thing.

Actually, they don't. Humans have shown time and time again that we are the most crazy things to walk this earth. The VC attacked so fiercely during the Tet offensive and took such heavy casualties that they ceased to be an effective fighting force for the rest of the war. During the Iran-Iraq war, Iran employed massive human wave attacks of people's militia not only to wear down the Iraqi lines, but also to clear landmines. These people charged not only into machine gun fire but landmines.

Time and time again I've seen indications that human wave attacks break only when they have taken very heavy casualties. I honestly would not be surprised if the figure averaged around 80-90%.

I'd also like to note that until they get into melee range, zombies cannot suppress or otherwise affect their opponents. A wave of charging men can at least try to force the defenders to keep their heads down.

Plus Zombie hordes tend to be rather large, while military personal tend to make up a very small percentage of the population.

Conscription. It's not like zombies are difficult to fight.

Come to think of it, what happened to the NRA, survivalists, self-defense enthusiasts, militias, and the whole state of Texas?

Even assuming only one quarter of America is zombified, they would vastly outnumber military personal about 25:1. And many of these military personal aren't front line troops, and are involved in logistics, ect. Any many of these troops would have to be used to control panicking civilian populations and be used to keep supply lines free of roaming zombies. So probably less than a third of the military's total force would be grunts put on the front lines. So that ratio goes to around 75:1.

Those statistics are more sketchy than my reasons for not doing the laundry.

So it's very easy to see a scenario where the military is simply overwhelmed by the shear size of a zombie horde the size of Manhattan, because such a force of men would be demoralized, and be suffering severe logistical difficulties.

Why is the horde automatically the size of Manhattan? Why would they be demoralized? Why would there be logistical difficulties? I don't see compelling reasons for any of these to be likely.

4.) Machine guns require swivel room to be effective against a mob and are ammo expensive and inaccurate they would have to be on roofs, not tiny suburban windows.

OH, BULL! Machineguns are stable, being designed for automatic fire. They tend to be heavy, handle recoil well, and the fire high powered cartridges effective at long ranges. They also have durable, long barrels. To put it bluntly, they tend to very accurate. When I was in basic, both our manuals and instructors told us that switching the M2 "Ma Deuce" to singleshot and picking off lone guys at long range was very effective.

Secondly, I have never heard of traverse being a significant problem for any weapon system short of permanent emplacements and tank turrets. I sincerely doubt that I would have trouble covering my entire street from my window with a .50.

Innis Cabal

2009-01-28, 10:19 PM

Come to think of it, what happened to the NRA, survivalists, self-defense enthusiasts, militias, and the whole state of Texas?

Same thing that happens when the Reds invade. They go from humble country folk to lead farmers.

Myrmex

2009-01-28, 10:25 PM

You guys are forgetting the part where enough of the civilian population turns into zombies to make the military have to invade its own cities. That's what a zombie apocalypse is. It's like a plague that kills everyone you know, except with a different sort of flesh eating.

Innis Cabal

2009-01-28, 10:26 PM

Zeful

2009-01-28, 10:31 PM

Neon Knight

2009-01-28, 10:31 PM

Callos_DeTerran

2009-01-28, 10:33 PM

This is assuming that they rot in a manner that is similar to the way all dead meat does. Some zombie apocalypse sources (Monster Island and it's pre/sequel) give the need to feed a more vital reason to zombies in that it prevents their decay.

To follow through on the example I know best (Monster Island) the zombies ate living things because they had something the zombies didn't but needed to keep from decomposing and that was life energy (The zombies from there definitely seemed more arcane then the 'virus' zombies). All living things had it, and even some well preserved foods, and all of that became food for zombies to keep from decomposing and to fulfill the only basic need they had. It meant those who didn't have access to it began to wither and decay and were forced to resort to eating things like bugs and bark for their fix while those with abundant sources could almost pass for living creatures or become...well...bigger.

Not to mention, assuming what they eat is actually digested and more..normal zombies, devoured food gives them more flesh/mass to replace that which has already decayed.

Myrmex

2009-01-28, 10:36 PM

I don't consider that a foregone conclusion.

It's a forgone conclusion if you're arguing the necessity to shell your own cities.

rankrath

2009-01-28, 10:38 PM

Time for some more fun with numbers. A Browning Machine Gun (.50 cal) has a rate of fire anywhere from 400 to 1,200 rounds a minute, and a .50 will remove limbs. But let's be pessimistic here and assume that it takes on average three hits to kill or completely incapacitate a zombie, and the average gunner only has 50% accuracy, which is very low against horde type enemies. Assuming your ratio of 75 zombies per combat soldier, that means it'll take an average soldier just under five hundred rounds of ammunition to kill his statistical equivalent of zombies. That takes just over a minute. Coordinated fire, use of kill zones, and etc will make this really quite plausible against all but the largest hordes.

And for the larger hordes one simply employs armor. Beehive shells will really ruin zombie's day I'd imagine, what with the approximately 8000 metal darts hitting them head on. In a wave such an attack is likely to reduce the first rank to hamburger and just keep going. High explosive would have a similar effect. Plus there's literally nothing a zombie, or any number of zombies could do to armor.

For very large cities I agree that fighting for them is stupid, but there's generally no need to do so. Just blow up the major exits, guard the perimeter and wait for the things to starve to death. Since they lack any notion of, well, anything, this shouldn't take very long, a few weeks on the outside, and their lack of intelligence will mean they are very unlikely to try anything like an organized breakout.

Ah, but how many round per minute can the browning fire without overheating? Also the thing you have to remember is that very few soldiers carry 500 rounds into battle. A typical MOLLIE vest has room for 12 AR-15 type mags, plus one in the gun, that makes 13 30round mags, or 390 rounds. Plus maybe 45-ish rounds for a pistol/sidearm. So our average front line troop would leave around 13% of his zombies standing, so the ratio goes down to 10:1.

As for tanks, the average tank can only carry around 40 shells at a time. And just how many beehive shells does the army have laying around, anyways? I'd imagine most of our tank ammunition is is HEAT and similar rounds. That's the thing we have to keep in mind when fighting zombies. No doubt we have rounds capable of ruining a zombies day, however, very few stockpiles of these weapons exist, the army preferring to buy weapons effective against a target they'd be more likely to fight, IE tanks and fortified positions.

Fighting in Large cities is tricky, because attacking them is dangerous, but in order to quarantine them, you have to secure a large portion of suburban sprawl, which can be just as dangerous to secure, and very expensive to turn into a kill zone. Despite this, the simple fact is that in a class 4 outbreak, most zombies are likely to diffuse out of the cities once they have become overrun. Also, zombies do not starve to death, they must decay, which takes fifteen or more years in colder climates.

Neon Knight

2009-01-28, 10:56 PM

Ah, but how many round per minute can the browning fire without overheating?

It's a heavy machine gun. It doesn't really overheat, you just have to change out the barrels every once in a while. An easy procedure.

Also the thing you have to remember is that very few soldiers carry 500 rounds into battle. A typical MOLLIE vest has room for 12 AR-15 type mags, plus one in the gun, that makes 13 30round mags, or 390 rounds. Plus maybe 45-ish rounds for a pistol/sidearm. So our average front line troop would leave around 13% of his zombies standing, so the ratio goes down to 10:1.

You can fight zombies defensively. Therefore, you can be sitting on as much ammunition as you need. Plus, most soldiers don't actually carry sidearms. For example, when I was in basic, my drill sergeant was only ever issued one when he was assigned the FN MAG (medium machinegun. Also a ***** to carry.) Rifleman just got their M16s or M4s.

As for tanks, the average tank can only carry around 40 shells at a time. And just how many beehive shells does the army have laying around, anyways? I'd imagine most of our tank ammunition is is HEAT and similar rounds. That's the thing we have to keep in mind when fighting zombies. No doubt we have rounds capable of ruining a zombies day, however, very few stockpiles of these weapons exist, the army preferring to buy weapons effective against a target they'd be more likely to fight, IE tanks and fortified positions.

Armor doesn't just mean main battle tanks. It means IFVs, APCs, mobile AA vehicles, and other such vehicles which carry anti personnel armament in spades.

And that isn't even approaching the subject of helicopter gunships, which zombies can't even touch.

It's a forgone conclusion if you're arguing the necessity to shell your own cities.

I don't need to, I just have a grudge against Topeka. :smalltongue:

More seriously, I don't think shelling is absolutely necessary.

Yulian

2009-01-28, 11:09 PM

Okay everybody, stand back.

Former mortician here. If you wanna talk unrealistic...

Embalmed remains have their jaws sewn or wired shut. There's no way a zombie is even getting its mouth open. If you do it by hand, you go through the frenulum in the lower jaw then up through the septum. Human jaws are in no way strong enough to pull that out. This is also sewn so that it's inside the mouth, they couldn't even reach the thread to rip it.

If it's not sewn, it's wired. We have an electrical device, sort of like a small nail gun, that fires pins into the jaw bones. They trail wires, which we then use a pair of needle nose pliers to twist together.

By the time the remains rotted enough to make pulling any of this out viable, the zombie would be rather fragile.

No graves in a developed country are escapable. First, you likely have a concrete vault. That's placed in the bottom of the grave itself, to keep the sides of the casket from caving in. Once you place the locked casket into the vault (Did I forget to mention most modern caskets lock with an allen-wrench style casket key?) you place a vault cap on top of that. Then you use an excavator to put the dirt back in, then the groundskeepers make it look nice. So it's a locked casket, a concrete vault, all under several feet of dirt. Oh, and sometimes an entire concrete slab is put over some plots, for aesthetics. If any thing can escape that, you don't have a zombie, you accidentally buried a superhero.

That aside, any military could walk over an almost unlimited number of zombies. You are aware that some outdoor wear that is "rip stop" cannot be bitten through? Corrections officers (I have a couple of friends) wear uniforms of material that a human being cannot tear or bite through, because that's an occupational hazard. Riot gear would make pretty much anyone infection-proof if properly worn. You could be bludgeoned or crushed, but you couldn't be bitten or scratched. You send out a few platoons with combat shotguns, LMGs, M4s, and the occasional M110 SASS for support (target-rich environment) along with air support and vehicle mounted MMGs and you're good.

Civilians losses will be nasty at first, but in certain areas there will be a lot of people (like me and some I know) who are fairly well armed, have off-road vehicles, and can get access to people who have or can get body armour, helmets, and so on.

It's really the developing countries that are hosed.

- Yulian

Vuzzmop

2009-01-28, 11:31 PM

Neon Knight

2009-01-28, 11:37 PM

Simple answer: People don't think rationally when confronted with situations which they are not mentally and emotionally prepared for. When bitten, a person's natural response will be denial. Very few will accept their fate and off themselves just like that.
At the end of the day, its expecting people to not act like stupid apes that's unrealistic.

Expecting people to act like stupid apes is just as unrealistic as expecting them not to. There are too many variables, not the least of which is individual human nature, to make either outcome more likely than the other.

warty goblin

2009-01-29, 12:05 AM

Ah, but how many round per minute can the browning fire without overheating? Also the thing you have to remember is that very few soldiers carry 500 rounds into battle. A typical MOLLIE vest has room for 12 AR-15 type mags, plus one in the gun, that makes 13 30round mags, or 390 rounds. Plus maybe 45-ish rounds for a pistol/sidearm. So our average front line troop would leave around 13% of his zombies standing, so the ratio goes down to 10:1.

With spare barrels and well crewed, many machine guns can fire more or less indefinitely. Some of the older Vickers machine guns could literally fire for 24 hours straight, allowing for replacement barrels.

As for tanks, the average tank can only carry around 40 shells at a time. And just how many beehive shells does the army have laying around, anyways? I'd imagine most of our tank ammunition is is HEAT and similar rounds. That's the thing we have to keep in mind when fighting zombies. No doubt we have rounds capable of ruining a zombies day, however, very few stockpiles of these weapons exist, the army preferring to buy weapons effective against a target they'd be more likely to fight, IE tanks and fortified positions.
Beehive might not be common, but I don't think cannister shot or similar is all that uncommon, and I know HE rounds aren't. Against dense targets HE will honestly work just fine. Maybe not as well, but a 120mm shell is going to kill a lot of zombies going off in a crowd. Airburst artillery is also hardly unheard of, and can be delivered from pretty extreme ranges.

Fighting in Large cities is tricky, because attacking them is dangerous, but in order to quarantine them, you have to secure a large portion of suburban sprawl, which can be just as dangerous to secure, and very expensive to turn into a kill zone. Despite this, the simple fact is that in a class 4 outbreak, most zombies are likely to diffuse out of the cities once they have become overrun. Also, zombies do not starve to death, they must decay, which takes fifteen or more years in colder climates.

Er, why would fighting in a city be dangerous? Again, drive in tanks to aggro the zombies out of buildings, mow them down with machine guns and autocannon, then clear the buildings with infantry armed with autoshotguns or similar. Most of the factors that really make urban combat dangerous, the good defensive positions and favorable firing lines for defenders really don't apply against a mindless enemy who's not dangerous outside of about five feet.

Gavin Sage

2009-01-29, 12:10 AM

While most undead-zombie movies aren't likely unless black magic/god exist and decide to punish us mortals that way. 28-days-later-zombie movies are possible, and would require very little technological advancement. Well, at least according to cracked.com (http://www.cracked.com/article_15643_5-scientific-reasons-zombie-apocalypse-could-actually-happen.html)

Now would be good to point out that the more alive a zombie is the less realistic it is for large scale destruction. Why would anything so aggressive as to engage in cannibalism of any sort limit itself to the uninfected. Hyper-rabies infected hordes wouldn't exist because they would eat themselves. Nevermind that fast or slow, no amount of rage is a substitute for military hardware and disciplined fighting.

And any zombie virus spread by bites is not going to cause an apocalypse in any developed nation.

UncleWolf

2009-01-29, 12:14 AM

Simple answer: People don't think rationally when confronted with situations which they are not mentally and emotionally prepared for. When bitten, a person's natural response will be denial. Very few will accept their fate and off themselves just like that.
At the end of the day, its expecting people to not act like stupid apes that's unrealistic.

If I got bit, I'd ask for a few clips of ammo and take a walk through the horde, kill as many as I can, and die content with the knowledge that there are less zombies out there than there were.

Gavin Sage

2009-01-29, 12:41 AM

If I got bit, I'd ask for a few clips of ammo and take a walk through the horde, kill as many as I can, and die content with the knowledge that there are less zombies out there than there were.

Or more pragmatically have rotating teams using their ammo, withdrawing in good order to resupply, while being replaced by new teams with as much as they can carry. Any established 'line' would have functionally infinite ammo too.

There's a reason why there are as many (when not more) non-combat personel as combat personel in any military. To ensure things like running out of ammo are only momentary delays.

Avilan the Grey

2009-01-29, 03:00 AM

Same thing that happens when the Reds invade. They go from humble country folk to lead farmers.

Personally I am more inclined to answer that we can never make fun of Burt's lifestyle again. :smallbiggrin:

Myrmex

2009-01-29, 04:54 AM

Why would anything so aggressive as to engage in cannibalism of any sort limit itself to the uninfected. Hyper-rabies infected hordes wouldn't exist because they would eat themselves.

Hyper-aggressive marauding fire ants or army ants literally attack everything in their path and rip to shreds, yet never attack each other. There's no rule that hyper-aggression towards one thing means hyper-aggression towards all.

Nevermind that fast or slow, no amount of rage is a substitute for military hardware and disciplined fighting.

And any zombie virus spread by bites is not going to cause an apocalypse in any developed nation.

Depends on the initial number of infected and how fast they move. It takes time to mobilize the military, and when the riot cops get called out, they're going to be ill-equipped for fighting highly-infectious creatures with superhuman strength.

The average human body is capable of some extreme feats of strength. Even a moderately muscled individual has the capability of breaking his own bones. Most of us, however, never break the innate conditioning that prevents us from hulking out to such an extent that we shred our muscles or dislocate limbs. More than one football player has literally ran out of his legs when tackled because that's how determined pro-ball players are. I imagine creatures that lacked such inhibitory mechanisms would be similarly capable.

Many small arms are notorious for their lack of stopping power. In fact, people who have been shot won't realize it until they see blood, despite having mortal wounds. If the person believes that they have been shot, though, then they will fall over and think they are dying, even if they are perfectly fine!

revolver kobold

2009-01-29, 06:09 AM

Hyper-aggressive marauding fire ants or army ants literally attack everything in their path and rip to shreds, yet never attack each other. There's no rule that hyper-aggression towards one thing means hyper-aggression towards all.

I'm no expert on ants, but wouldn't that have something to do with the pheromones they use? They know to eat everything in sight except the things that smell like ants.

Unless it smells like another colony of ants.

Avilan the Grey

2009-01-29, 08:14 AM

I'm no expert on ants, but wouldn't that have something to do with the pheromones they use? They know to eat everything in sight except the things that smell like ants.

Unless it smells like another colony of ants.

Yes, to a large extent. "Learned knowledge" , bribes, looks and behavior also matters.

You have "smells" for different levels of "peace"*: "Ant from my Hill", "Ant from Hill that split off from my Hill", "Ant from Motherhill that my Hill split from", "Calm down in general (used by predators eating ants, as well as some bugs that just have figured out how to not be attacked by ants)".

You also have the looks (there are a number of spiders that has learned to walk like ants (using their first pair of legs as fake antennas) to get close to, and eat, ants, for example. it's also b elieved that they use some sort of general "calming" pheromone that works on ants, see above.

You also have genetically transfered "learned" behavior, especially in combination with bribes, that lets certain bugs that produce sugar be left alone by the ants. Etc.

*Ants from the same "family" of Hills will go to war against each other if food gets scarce enough, but are usually at peace with eachother even if there are 3-4 huge anthills in a small area.

Neon Knight

2009-01-29, 11:16 AM

Many small arms are notorious for their lack of stopping power. In fact, people who have been shot won't realize it until they see blood, despite having mortal wounds. If the person believes that they have been shot, though, then they will fall over and think they are dying, even if they are perfectly fine!

This actually has more to do with the fact that people just don't respond to trauma and injury consistently. Sometimes people do go into shock or otherwise become disabled when struck by small caliber rounds, and somewhere in some place some guy probably took a .50 cal to the chest and just kept coming. You can't just accurately predict how a person will respond to a wound.

Closet_Skeleton

2009-01-29, 12:04 PM

Nope, the unrealistic thing about resident evil 3 is the fact that in a few years, entire continents became deserts, oh, and animals seems to be affected as well, if insects are affected, then humanity los the battle before even starting it.

I had vampirism transferable by mosquito bite in my d20 modern game. It made the ensueing apocalypse grind to a halt in winter.

Krrth

2009-01-29, 01:29 PM

Since the topic is ZOmbies, I thought ya'll might find this amusing.

Zombies Ahead. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,484326,00.html)

Gavin Sage

2009-01-29, 01:33 PM

Hyper-aggressive marauding fire ants or army ants literally attack everything in their path and rip to shreds, yet never attack each other. There's no rule that hyper-aggression towards one thing means hyper-aggression towards all.

Ants main food source is not other ants.

Depends on the initial number of infected and how fast they move. It takes time to mobilize the military, and when the riot cops get called out, they're going to be ill-equipped for fighting highly-infectious creatures with superhuman strength.

Intial infection is irrelevant, a single tank can kill hundreds where not thousands by the simple expediency of running things over. And when hundreds of tanks take the field with air support like helicopters and a Spectre gunship or twenty. And then that if you want still want to make use of the area afterward. If one doesn't I refer you to B-52s, daisy cutters, incendiary bombs, and oh yeah nukes.

The average human body is capable of some extreme feats of strength. Even a moderately muscled individual has the capability of breaking his own bones. Most of us, however, never break the innate conditioning that prevents us from hulking out to such an extent that we shred our muscles or dislocate limbs. More than one football player has literally ran out of his legs when tackled because that's how determined pro-ball players are. I imagine creatures that lacked such inhibitory mechanisms would be similarly capable.

Note the whole shred your muscles and dislocate limbs bit. Yeah do that to your leg and still walk. Pushing the body pasts its limits means you are breaking it mechanically. A zombie ain't going to be walking fast when its leg muscles are no longer in place and has a dislocated hip joint.

Many small arms are notorious for their lack of stopping power. In fact, people who have been shot won't realize it until they see blood, despite having mortal wounds. If the person believes that they have been shot, though, then they will fall over and think they are dying, even if they are perfectly fine!

Normal people don't drop when shot all the time, so clearly those trained in firearms are not aware of that fact and do not possess strategies to counter it.

And why are you restricting humans to small arms?

Canadian

2009-01-29, 01:44 PM

Who died and made you king of the zombies?

Canadian

2009-01-29, 01:45 PM

Awesome independent short film on zombies.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3655465801474364288

shadowfox

2009-01-29, 02:01 PM

Pop quiz:
Which weapon type (in general) is more accurate at a range of 1200m?
a) sniper rifle
b) heavy machine gun

... Did you choose? Good. Here's the answer:
The correct answer is: b) heavy machine gun

It all has to do with what the weapon was made for. So, without any further ado, I'll explain it. At least, what I remember from the Military Channel special.

The standard issue US Army sniper rifle is designed to hit a target of a 3-5 inch diameter at 800-900 meters. This is, of course, for obvious reasons: snipers need to be precise, and snipers are trained to aim for the torso. Even better, snipers are also trained to... Well, not be so picky. A solid hit from a sniper shot is going to take down a person. Not kill them, but will take them down.

Now, the accuracy of sniper rifles declines as the target is farther and farther away. Some sniper rifles have better range, obviously, but I'm trying to take things into a more general scope.

The standard issue M60 is designed to hit a target diameter of 6 feet at 1200 meters. On full auto.

Now, I doubt that, if it were me, I would fire at a zombie (singular) at 1200 meters. A large group of zombies, if I could spot them, would be a prime target. Even then, there's the matter of sheer volume of fire. At close distances, as we all know, guns tend to become more accurate.

Hence, the use of machine guns would be ideal.

Next, we have to deal with the problem of over-penetration. Does anyone know what the Green Berets still use the 1911 Colt .45 as opposed to the normal standard issue 9mm Beretta M9?
The Colt .45 can take a person down with a single hit, while the the Beretta M9 has a tendency to do damage, but still enable the enemy to fight.

A .45 caliber bullet travels at a slower speed than a 9mm, which, in turn, makes it easier to stop. The 9mm bullet fired from a Beretta M9 has enough force to penetrate the target, go through the target, and continue out the other side of the target. In a sense, possibly more useful if you can hit vital organs, but not so effective against zombies, since the head in general is a small and difficult target to hit, and you're more likely to hit the torso than any other body part due to sheer size.

Now, over penetration, in a sense, could be good against zombies... If they are proven to have a good chance of over penetration against the zombified flesh. When it boils down to it, taking a target down is better in any case.

Unless you have crazy lasers that can cut through the zombies. That's when you use lasers.

Going beyond that, assuming you have a good amount of fuel, I'd recommend outfitting APCs with a sort of plows, and I'd recommend tracks to tires (just a guess; no zombie knowledge of tracks vs. tires known to me). I would also suggest fast-moving vehicles. Humvees with their standard machine gun turret can be effective; hit-and-run attacks. Infantry Fighting Vehicles, in my opinion, would also be recommended.

Then again, what it all boils down to is availability.

rankrath

2009-01-29, 06:11 PM

It's really the developing countries that are hosed.

lets expand on this point. Any 3rd world or developing nation is, as you said, hosed. Maybe the first world nations do deal mostly with their zombie problems, rapidly wiping out the homeland infestation with all their shiny toys. However, the majority of the world's population lives in countries that don't have all these new toys, and are less than effective at fighting the zombies, and will probably be overrun.

Suddenly, just as those countries that beat the zombies are mopping up, they have to deal with much larger hordes of zombies coming from those developing and third world nations. I'd say that at that point, things are going to go downhill quickly for the remainder of humanity, as ammunition and fuel supplies already depleted by the home front battles are burned through in short order. As for making more, well, much of the worlds munitions and much of the world's oil comes from countries that would be overrun.

Dervag

2009-01-29, 06:29 PM

This actually has more to do with the fact that people just don't respond to trauma and injury consistently. Sometimes people do go into shock or otherwise become disabled when struck by small caliber rounds, and somewhere in some place some guy probably took a .50 cal to the chest and just kept coming. You can't just accurately predict how a person will respond to a wound.True, but only up to a point. There are probably people who took a .50 BMG round to the chest and kept coming, but there are almost certainly no people who took one to the forehead and kept coming. Or who took one to the knee and kept walking.

That last bit is important. Zombies may be immune to shock or pain, but they're not (normally considered) invulnerable. Disabling their limbs or damaging their nervous system can greatly reduce the threat they present.

lets expand on this point. Any 3rd world or developing nation is, as you said, hosed. Maybe the first world nations do deal mostly with their zombie problems, rapidly wiping out the homeland infestation with all their shiny toys. However, the majority of the world's population lives in countries that don't have all these new toys, and are less than effective at fighting the zombies, and will probably be overrun. They might or might not be.

Assuming, say, Max Brooks zombies, one human soldier used intelligently is probably a match for several zombies. Unless the majority of a population is zombified before the local military even comes into play (unlikely), even a military armed with nothing more sophisticated than rifles and squad-level heavy weapons will take down a lot of zombies.

This is especially true if the zombie problem reaches levels where it presents an obvious apocalyptic threat. There are a lot of places where local governments do not enjoy enough support to fully mobilize their people. The War on Zombies would change that in many of those places. Which might be bad in the long run, but it would sure make undeath harder for the zombies.

rankrath

2009-01-29, 07:09 PM

They might or might not be.

Assuming, say, Max Brooks zombies, one human soldier used intelligently is probably a match for several zombies. Unless the majority of a population is zombified before the local military even comes into play (unlikely), even a military armed with nothing more sophisticated than rifles and squad-level heavy weapons will take down a lot of zombies.

This is especially true if the zombie problem reaches levels where it presents an obvious apocalyptic threat. There are a lot of places where local governments do not enjoy enough support to fully mobilize their people. The War on Zombies would change that in many of those places. Which might be bad in the long run, but it would sure make undeath harder for the zombies.

The problem many of these less advanced countries would face is crowd control and logistics. Assuming they realize the problem is occurring before it has become too large to stop, panicking civilians would prove difficult for a third world nation to control, and would be at high risk for major disruption of supply lines.

The other thing we have to remember is that in third world nations, information not only travels slower, but is also less prevalent, especially when it comes to zombies. In, for instance the USA, a large-ish portion of the population knows how to fight zombies, and in an outbreak would quickly alert the media and government about zombies (headshots, ect) In a developing nation, the people don't know as much about zombies, and the info could be very quick to spread, leaving many military and civilian groups with no idea what they're up against.

Oslecamo

2009-01-29, 07:20 PM

Ants main food source is not other ants.

Speack for yourself. Certain species of ants specialized in assaulting other ant colonies, slaughtering(and eating) the adults, then picking up the eggs and larvas of them, soak them with pheromones and take them back to their nest. The captured eggs and larvas grow to become humble servants of the raiding colony, allowing for fast growth at the expense of the destruction of other ants.

So, one must ask why do the zombies don't hack each other. They must have some method of recognition, and if it's replicated, the zombies become much less of a threat.

Then we enslave the zombies, and soon they become part of the industrial society, being used everywhere. Nevermind all the people killed in the name of progress of couse.

Ricky S

2009-01-29, 08:06 PM

Okay, so here is all I know about zombies. I have watched every single zombie movie read all interenet sources I can find and watched all vids on it as well. The only reason I excercise and learnt to drive was in case of a zombie apocalypse (I am actually kinda hoping there will be one, I really think the human race needs a good calamity to get rid of all the excess people). Lol call me crazy but its true (If you disagree with what I say I may be wrong but I dont think so).

Basically the zombie survival guide is very apt if they are slow moving zombies. It has actually been issued to some special forces groups as an official guide should there ever be a breakout (its concerning to think that a government think it may happen).

Rifles are the best choice when in a zombie apocalypse unless you are trained in other weapons. The M60 while may be more accurate at ranges of 1200m is probably not going to be useful. You must consider the weight of the weapon the amount of ammunition you will need. So unless you are stationed at a military compound it would generally be useless. Not to mention is they are slow moving they the majority of shots would just hit flesh and do nothing, maybe splinter bones but then you have a large amount of zombies crawling or stumbling towards you. Which is fine in open areas because you can see them. What about a marsh? or dense forests? you may not see them, then...

So, rifles would be better, they are lighter more accurate and why use 20 shots when you can use one? Honestly its common sense. Seriously when are you ever going to be engaging zombies at a distance of 1200m? (well when will anyone engage them ever?) It is more likely that you will be in some sort of terrain be it a city, forest, bushland, mountains, whatever. Also where the hell is the common civilian going to get an M60 or M249 or even an automatic weapon? Unless you live in America where everything is on sale at Walmart (generalisation).

I live in Australia and to be able to get a gun is extremely hard due to all the laws they now have all because of that jerk martin bryant who went on a killing spree (This was a while back). The one gunshop I knew of in Brisbane was closed like 2 years ago. So unless you can kill a zombified cop. Most people would have no weapons other than standard household items. I realise that other countries may be different but a lot of them wouldnt have a large amount available. Australia for its 23 million people has an army of 50 000 combat soldiers. I dont know about you but that would do nothing in a zombie apocalypse. The police would most likely be overwhelmed as well. The only thing that could save us would be travelling inland and even then there would be a shortage of food because of all the survivors and water would be a major issue. It is currently 45 degrees celcius in Victoria and South Australia. Massive heat wave.

The .50 BMG is a very powerful round. Consider though again the weight. Sniper Rifle: So unless you were in a fixed postion it would be useless. As was said it may splinter bones (understatement maybe), blow off limbs, etc. It was not designed to take down people but was designed to take out aircraft.
.50 cal machine gun: Okay if you have a military vehicle mounted with one of these it may be helpful for thinning ranks of zombies. But depending on how many there are you may have to fall back. Anyone see 28 weeks later? They had m21's, m60's, m4's, m16's, 50 cals and the zombies still broke through.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rankrath
lets expand on this point. Any 3rd world or developing nation is, as you said, hosed. Maybe the first world nations do deal mostly with their zombie problems, rapidly wiping out the homeland infestation with all their shiny toys. However, the majority of the world's population lives in countries that don't have all these new toys, and are less than effective at fighting the zombies, and will probably be overrun.

Also on this if you consider that they know how to utilize the land and are usually in remote rural areas they will actually have a good chance of survival. The downside of this is that there will be many more people. Usually those countries have many many people. India, Russia, China, Japan, dang imagine being in Japan. All those zombies on one small island. Africa would also have many zombies but considering the amount of weapons they have in that country Im sure it would be a short lived thing. Plus nature wouldnt go for them they already have aids and starvation.

There is also the issue of whether the governments will react in time to stop the outbreak. If it is like in every zombie movie/book they will be too slow to stop the outbreak and will have to work their way back up to civilization. So the issue is will they be able to use all their shiny toys? They will most likely send in special ops and try to keep the whole thing quiet in order to keep people happy and calm. Even if they do respond quickly there will never be battles where all the zombies are on one side of the battlefield and all the humans on the other. If there are a lot of the explosive weapons will do jack!

World War Z. Yonkers they had all the great weapons etc. But even if they had have brought more ammunition it would still probably have failed eventually. Considering New Yorks population, there would have been hundreds of thousands of zombies and helicopters would need to be refitted with rockets/ missles/ refuelled/ given more machine gun rounds. The ground troops would need a constant resupply of ammunition seeing as they were trying to use qauntity of fire not accuracy. The explosive weapons are only useful in the immediate blast zomne, the shockwave will do nothing to the internal working of a zombie so they wont fall unlike people. Also they would most likely not be in a compressed group but spread out everywhere across the land. The way I see it is that zombies are like a drop of ink. Place it in a glass of water and they will spread evenly across an area. The would wander aimlessly until the found survivors then soon a group would gather and then most likely get in or starve the survivors. Then spread out again. Soon the entire world would be infected.

There is a massive debate over the effectiveness of certain vehicles. It all depends on where you are, the resources you have and what you are intending to do. Basically fighting from a vehicle is not generally a viable option unless in open areas. Imagine every road would be littered with cars, barricades from survivors/looters. Also if in a tank. Sure you could run over all the zombies and kill them that way but does anyone have an idea how much fuel they need! Biggest gas guzzlers ever! What happends when you run out? eventually you would be surrounded. And if you were planning to do hit and runs, then return to you base wouldnt it just be easier to leave the zombies alone and pick them off as they come near your base/home/compound.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfbane
If I got bit, I'd ask for a few clips of ammo and take a walk through the horde, kill as many as I can, and die content with the knowledge that there are less zombies out there than there were.

Yea cause that would be a great option... Why not just use your gun kill them. Go to a safe house or make one. That way you can eventually kill more zombies. Wouldnt you want to live?

Too be honest if it is the slow moving zombie you would basically be able to walk away from them killing anyone that came near. They would be really easy to deal with unless they are in the massiv hordes we see in the movies. The 28 days version is the most dangerous just because of how fast they are. The virus's sole purpose is to find a new host so they will just infect people and not worry about food. So unless there were suvivors being infected the plague would die out eventually but by that time there would be a complete collapse of civilisation.

On the issue of animals it is extremely unlikely that the virus would transfer across every species of animal. So I doubt that insects would ever get infected. Maybe apes because they are so closely related (ie 28 days later chimps in the beginning). Any other cause would be impossible. Such as religion. I fail to believe that there will be an armageddon as described in the Bible. I believe that there is some sort of afterlife (maybe) but a virus seems to be the only serious possibility of an outbreak. Maybe if someone accelerated the effects of rabies or altered them then there could be a virus but even then I doubt it.

Dairy of the Dead and the 28 series are the most realistic out of all the zombie movies. The others are crappy basically because they exaggerate how stupid people are and always invovle the cliche person being infected or group infighting. Quarantine was also a more realistic version. Showing the fast response of the military and initial confusion by the general populace

Mewtarthio

2009-01-29, 08:45 PM

lets expand on this point. Any 3rd world or developing nation is, as you said, hosed. Maybe the first world nations do deal mostly with their zombie problems, rapidly wiping out the homeland infestation with all their shiny toys. However, the majority of the world's population lives in countries that don't have all these new toys, and are less than effective at fighting the zombies, and will probably be overrun.

Suddenly, just as those countries that beat the zombies are mopping up, they have to deal with much larger hordes of zombies coming from those developing and third world nations. I'd say that at that point, things are going to go downhill quickly for the remainder of humanity, as ammunition and fuel supplies already depleted by the home front battles are burned through in short order. As for making more, well, much of the worlds munitions and much of the world's oil comes from countries that would be overrun.

Zombies are mindless. They are incapable of full-scale military invasions. A few might wander over the border, but they won't pose a threat to other nations. Of course, there will still be plenty of chaos after the zombies all decompose and the surviving nations decide to reclaim all that prime real estate...

rankrath

2009-01-29, 09:28 PM

Zombies are mindless. They are incapable of full-scale military invasions. A few might wander over the border, but they won't pose a threat to other nations. Of course, there will still be plenty of chaos after the zombies all decompose and the surviving nations decide to reclaim all that prime real estate...

zombies are mindless, however they have a swarm mentality. One zombie wandering near the border moans, drawing a near by zombie, who draws a nearby zombie, ect, next thing you know the entire million strong horde is moving.

Kaihaku

2009-01-29, 09:33 PM

Zombie movies are unrealistic... Well, duh.

Jack Squat

2009-01-29, 09:39 PM

Zombie movies are unrealistic... Well, duh.

Common sense has no place in a discussion about fictional creatures.

Innis Cabal

2009-01-29, 09:42 PM

zombies are mindless, however they have a swarm mentality. One zombie wandering near the border moans, drawing a near by zombie, who draws a nearby zombie, ect, next thing you know the entire million strong horde is moving.

They have a mindless swarm mentality. Meaning, they don't have a mentaility at all, they go where there is food. No food, they just sorta stager around and do nothing. Not a threat if you avoid them.

warty goblin

2009-01-29, 09:56 PM

zombies are mindless, however they have a swarm mentality. One zombie wandering near the border moans, drawing a near by zombie, who draws a nearby zombie, ect, next thing you know the entire million strong horde is moving.

Corollary: one zombie near the time-delay 500 pound bomb recently dropped from 20,000 moans, drawing others. Soon a swarm of zombies clusters around the device, which detonates, far, far away from the border.

Corollary the second: one zombie near a random rock formation not particularly near anything moans. Other zombies gather. Soon there are millions of zombies standing around in the middle of nowhere.

There's research being done on swarming behavior right now, and the conclusion I've seen published is that in order to get anything like intelligent or organized behavior, the swarm needs a reasonably dense seeding of individuals who know where they are going, and every individual needs to know whether or not they know where they are going. If they know where they are going, they go there unless the majority of nearby creatures are definitely not going there, and if a creature doesn't know where it is going, it simply follows the herd. I seriously doubt zombies feature this behavior, since they are generally depicted as standing around doing nothing when left to their own devices.

rankrath

2009-01-29, 10:03 PM

Corollary the second: one zombie near a random rock formation not particularly near anything moans. Other zombies gather. Soon there are millions of zombies standing around in the middle of nowhere.

There's research being done on swarming behavior right now, and the conclusion I've seen published is that in order to get anything like intelligent or organized behavior, the swarm needs a reasonably dense seeding of individuals who know where they are going, and every individual needs to know whether or not they know where they are going. If they know where they are going, they go there unless the majority of nearby creatures are definitely not going there, and if a creature doesn't know where it is going, it simply follows the herd. I seriously doubt zombies feature this behavior, since they are generally depicted as standing around doing nothing when left to their own devices.

Zombies only moan when they see food, IE humans.

As for the swarm behavior thing, assume zombies wander randomly when not attracted to the sent/sound of food, or the moans to of other zombies. It follows that our of several million zombies, one or two will wander near enough to a food source that is a non infected area, start moaning, and draw other zombies. Chain effect takes place.

Innis Cabal

2009-01-29, 10:09 PM

What? They moan near constant in almost every movie they've ever been shown in. Not just when food is around. So they shuffle around, moaning and gathering others around them.

rankrath

2009-01-29, 10:18 PM

I'm using the zombie survival guide as my source for info, so AFAIK, zombies only moan when they see food.

revolver kobold

2009-01-29, 10:20 PM

What happens when a zombie sees a fox, or a bird fly past? Would they moan and follow it then?

rankrath

2009-01-29, 10:25 PM

Good question. I'd assume that a zombie would go after said food source, and continue after it until the scent of the animal disappeared or the zombie noticed a bigger or closer source of food.

Innis Cabal

2009-01-29, 10:25 PM

Its organic, so it would be food. So probably.

And the Zombie Survival Guide has....contridictions and issues of internal consitancy, its hardly the be all end all for zombie info. Its written for only his particular brand of zombies, which last I checked we weren't discussing, I think we were just using standard walking dead moaning shuffling one pulse short of a Floridian Zombie

Krrth

2009-01-29, 10:27 PM

What happens when a zombie sees a fox, or a bird fly past? Would they moan and follow it then?

Only if it counts as food. Depends on the type of zombie, really.

warty goblin

2009-01-29, 10:29 PM

Zombies only moan when they see food, IE humans.

As for the swarm behavior thing, assume zombies wander randomly when not attracted to the sent/sound of food, or the moans to of other zombies. It follows that our of several million zombies, one or two will wander near enough to a food source that is a non infected area, start moaning, and draw other zombies. Chain effect takes place.

If that's the trigger, the problem just became really very simple. Since zombies look like people except from very short distances, the 'see food- moan' response must be fairly short range, or they'd be attracted to each other, and hence keep bouncing back and forth- see humanoid, moan, move towards humanoid, discover it's a zombie, move off in random direction, see a humanoid... Zombie infested territory would be so full of these interactions there would be little to no chance of a real swarm getting going towards any actual food source.

Since it's short range, one can simply kill zombies at long range, and they'll never swarm. Either that, or just keep faking them out with decoys- corpses, pieces of cow or what have you air dropped into infested territory far away from survivor camps.

Innis Cabal

2009-01-29, 10:39 PM

They probably have some sort of "Life Sense"

UncleWolf

2009-01-29, 10:57 PM

Yea cause that would be a great option... Why not just use your gun kill them. Go to a safe house or make one. That way you can eventually kill more zombies. Wouldnt you want to live?

As I said, if I had got bitten by one and was going to turn into a zombie within a few hours, I'd go out and kill as many as possible that way there'd be less of them out there for survivors to deal with.

Why is it so hard for people to understand that?:smallconfused:

Yulian

2009-01-29, 11:01 PM

Suddenly, just as those countries that beat the zombies are mopping up, they have to deal with much larger hordes of zombies coming from those developing and third world nations. I'd say that at that point, things are going to go downhill quickly for the remainder of humanity, as ammunition and fuel supplies already depleted by the home front battles are burned through in short order. As for making more, well, much of the worlds munitions and much of the world's oil comes from countries that would be overrun.

Remember what countries like the US do when we mobilize into a country that has sapient inhabitants.

Now imagine the US with no restraint because the zombie plague is out of control in another nation.

We've been in the Middle East for almost six years, now, and our troops have enough supplies without the nation being on a war footing.

Tactically, zombies are useless and easily predicted and led. Several humans on ATVs can lead a swarm pretty much wherever they want that's a favourable place to engage. The zombies don't understand traps. Just drive into sensing range, drive away to a nice, open area, then let the gunships, artillery, land mines, and what have you thin them out. Once they're all immobilized, you send out mopup teams with firearms and/or axes, sledgehammers, or anything that'll crush a skull or sever a head. Or just dig a big pit, haul them in with hooks on ropes, toss in some jet fuel, and have a huge, horrible barbecue.

Swarming is not an effective tactic against a foe that's the same size as you and has excellent ranged capacity. The only reason ant swarms give humans problems is because the ants are too small to effectively target and they vastly outnumber the humans dealing with them.

Again, the early stages would be ugly, and the third world is hosed, but the outcome of human victory is inevitable.

- Yulian

rankrath

2009-01-29, 11:17 PM

Remember what countries like the US do when we mobilize into a country that has sapient inhabitants.

Now imagine the US with no restraint because the zombie plague is out of control in another nation.

We've been in the Middle East for almost six years, now, and our troops have enough supplies without the nation being on a war footing.

The problem with that is that the the united states would be dealing with their own problems, mopping up the rest of their horde, civilian populations, ect, These operations will likely take up much of a depleted and scattered military, leaving few personal to lay the smaketh down on another countries zombies.

Tactically, zombies are useless and easily predicted and led. Several humans on ATVs can lead a swarm pretty much wherever they want that's a favourable place to engage. The zombies don't understand traps. Just drive into sensing range, drive away to a nice, open area, then let the gunships, artillery, land mines, and what have you thin them out. Once they're all immobilized, you send out mopup teams with firearms and/or axes, sledgehammers, or anything that'll crush a skull or sever a head. Or just dig a big pit, haul them in with hooks on ropes, toss in some jet fuel, and have a huge, horrible barbecue.

Swarming is not an effective tactic against a foe that's the same size as you and has excellent ranged capacity. The only reason ant swarms give humans problems is because the ants are too small to effectively target and they vastly outnumber the humans dealing with them.

Again, the early stages would be ugly, and the third world is hosed, but the outcome of human victory is inevitable.

I agree zombies are easy to predict, but you make the mistake of assuming that zombies would found in similar proportions to military force. A typical swarm is likely to outnumber any army by around 50-75:1, and a mega swarm can easily range in the millions, outnumbering humans 200:1 and up. Of course, anyone who attacks a mega swarm on the ground deserved to get devoured, but whatever.

Kaihaku

2009-01-30, 12:49 AM

Zombie movies are unrealistic... Well, duh.

Common sense has no place in a discussion about fictional creatures.

Apparently proper adjective usage has no place either.

LurkerInPlayground

2009-01-30, 01:49 AM

Dervag

2009-01-30, 05:27 AM

Okay, so here is all I know about zombies. I have watched every single zombie movie read all interenet sources I can find and watched all vids on it as well. The only reason I excercise and learnt to drive was in case of a zombie apocalypse (I am actually kinda hoping there will be one, I really think the human race needs a good calamity to get rid of all the excess people).We can argue the "needs a good calamity" bit later. I think it makes much more sense to exercise and prepare for the real (nonfictional) reason stated in the Zombie Survival Guide: If you are prepared for the freaking dead rising from the grave to attack the living, you are probably ready for almost anything else that could more realistically happen.

Rifles are the best choice when in a zombie apocalypse unless you are trained in other weapons. The M60 while may be more accurate at ranges of 1200m is probably not going to be useful. You must consider the weight of the weapon the amount of ammunition you will need. So unless you are stationed at a military compound it would generally be useless. Not to mention is they are slow moving they the majority of shots would just hit flesh and do nothing, maybe splinter bones but then you have a large amount of zombies crawling or stumbling towards you. Which is fine in open areas because you can see them. What about a marsh? or dense forests? you may not see them, then...On the other hand, in a marsh or a dense forest your line of sight isn't 1200 meters. Think about what happens by the time you get close enough to the zombies in that terrain that you can see them to shoot them. By then, you're close enough that a medium machine gun can be used reliably for shots that will sever the head or destroy the spinal column in the upper torso. Either of those is effectively a kill against a zombie- rendering a zombie quadriplegic effectively eliminates the threat, because after that it's just a matter of battlefield cleanup.

Remember, in a major zombieocalypse, the bulk of the zombie killing has to fall on the military. Civilians are not coordinated precisely enough to do it reliably, and most of them will be unsuitable for zombie hunting. So if we're really interested in how to counter zombies, we need to think about military weapons and tactics. Not just the stuff you can pick up at Wal-Mart.

So, rifles would be better, they are lighter more accurate and why use 20 shots when you can use one? Honestly its common sense. Seriously when are you ever going to be engaging zombies at a distance of 1200m? (well when will anyone engage them ever?) It is more likely that you will be in some sort of terrain be it a city, forest, bushland, mountains, whatever.The military expects to engage at those ranges routinely, and will go out of their way to draw enemies into environments where they can do so. Since zombies are stupider than any living entity, it will probably be easier to draw them into kill zones where they can be picked off at long range, not harder.

As for the bolded passage, that betrays a lack of understanding about military ordinance. Which, incidentally, is one of the problems with Brooks' work. A modern machine gun such as a Squad Automatic Weapon is every bit as accurate as a long range automatic or semiautomatic rifle. This is a design feature. Only the most specialized sniper rifles are more accurate at long range than a SAW-type weapon. And those weapons are extremely expensive.

Likewise, modern machine guns can fire short, very precise bursts that put several tightly grouped bullets on a single point target (with an error measured in inches at typical rifle range). This is an excellent choice for neutralizing a zombie with shots aimed at the upper torso or head- a headshot is virtually guaranteed.

When we go from medium to heavy machine guns like the M2 HB .50 caliber gun, the accuracy improves further- there are famous historical snipers who used an M2HB for many of their kills, made at ranges of a mile or more.

Also where the hell is the common civilian going to get an M60 or M249 or even an automatic weapon? Unless you live in America where everything is on sale at Walmart (generalisation).Even in America, you can't get automatic weapons at Walmart. Certainly not high military-grade ones like the M60 and M249. But the military has tens of thousands of those weapons. Each of which can probably account for dozens of zombies during a Zombie War if used intelligently.

The Australian military has thousands of them too, and would be well advised to use them in a Zombie War, for the same reasons. Those SAWs will probably take down a lot more zombies than the efforts of the civilian population, no matter how well armed. This is not just because they are good weapons. It is because they are good tools in the hands of professionals who have a lot of practice figuring out how to use their tools in strange and adverse conditions.

The kind of adaptability and endurance that both US and Australian armies have displayed in the past would be a devastating weapon against zombies.
________

Australia for its 23 million people has an army of 50 000 combat soldiers. I dont know about you but that would do nothing in a zombie apocalypse. The police would most likely be overwhelmed as well.Does the word "conscription" ring a bell? It's a common response to national emergencies.

.50 cal machine gun: Okay if you have a military vehicle mounted with one of these it may be helpful for thinning ranks of zombies. But depending on how many there are you may have to fall back. Anyone see 28 weeks later? They had m21's, m60's, m4's, m16's, 50 cals and the zombies still broke through.Having not seen the movie, I can't tell you if that's realistic. But before you assume it is, remember the bloodbath that resulted from battles like the Somme and Gallipoli. A massive frontal assault against a position defended by automatic weapons (even the primitive ones of a hundred years ago) results in a lot of bodies getting stacked up to no effect, because modern infantry can shoot faster than you can charge. Without major support from artillery, aircraft, or tanks, a human wave attack isn't going to work reliably. And zombies have no way of overwhelming a well-placed military firebase except by human wave tactics. Even assuming millions of zombies attacking the same point (unlikely in Australia), the number of bullets it takes to kill a zombie (who makes no effort to take cover or evade incoming fire) will be small compared to normal military logistics requirements.
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Even if they do respond quickly there will never be battles where all the zombies are on one side of the battlefield and all the humans on the other. If there are a lot of the explosive weapons will do jack!On the contrary. Explosive weapons throw shrapnel- some of which will enter the brain or sever the nervous system. Airburst shrapnel shells, for instance, would be extremely effective against zombies.

World War Z. Yonkers they had all the great weapons etc. But even if they had have brought more ammunition it would still probably have failed eventually. Considering New Yorks population, there would have been hundreds of thousands of zombies and helicopters would need to be refitted with rockets/ missles/ refuelled/ given more machine gun rounds.Developed militaries handle that kind of thing all the time. One of the things they are professionals at is keeping large amounts of goods flowing even under adverse conditions. They have to be, because otherwise they get their butts kicked by other militaries that are professionals at that.

People familiar with US doctrine and capabilities have looked at Brooks's depiction of Yonkers. The general agreement is that the US military would have to screw up completely, as in getting almost everything far more wrong than they normally ever would, for it to happen like that. Among other things, most US officers are in fact trained to do the kinds of things that the viewpoint soldier says they should have done. Things like putting firing points on elevated rooftops. And remembering to bring a LOT of spare ammo. As in lots and lots. Not just a few shells for each cannon. More like a few hundred- with more waiting at the ammo dumps. In a mass battle, that's going to be decisive.

And I think there will be mass battles, because zombies are stupid and easily lured into killing grounds. It is to the military's advantage to do this, and there are some very cunning killers in the military. The kind of people who will think about this.

The explosive weapons are only useful in the immediate blast zomne, the shockwave will do nothing to the internal working of a zombie so they wont fall unlike people.From a physics standpoint, that doesn't make much sense. Zombies should collapse when their muscles are turned to jelly just like everything else.
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What happends when you run out? eventually you would be surrounded. And if you were planning to do hit and runs, then return to you base wouldnt it just be easier to leave the zombies alone and pick them off as they come near your base/home/compound.Tanks travel with an infantry escort for just such an emergency. Moreover, people driving tanks generally keep track of how much gas they have and return to base when they are running out, just like people driving planes.

If an amateur tank driver tried to do the same, he might make that mistake. Professional drivers of any kind generally don't run out of gas in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes they do, but it's a rare event.

Moreover, a man in a tank is completely safe from zombies, and can quite easily hold out for days until reinforcements arrive (with a spare gas can). It's like those hardshell diving suits mentioned in World War Z. The zombie simply can't do anything to hurt the tank, because it is made out of meat and the tank is made out of steel. Again, this is a physics thing
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Speack for yourself. Certain species of ants specialized in assaulting other ant colonies, slaughtering(and eating) the adults, then picking up the eggs and larvas of them, soak them with pheromones and take them back to their nest. The captured eggs and larvas grow to become humble servants of the raiding colony, allowing for fast growth at the expense of the destruction of other ants.Correction:

Statistically speaking*, the main source of food for ants is not other ants. That ant over there may be an exception, but most of the ants aren't.

*This corollary should be obvious, but isn't, I guess.

Then we enslave the zombies, and soon they become part of the industrial society, being used everywhere. Nevermind all the people killed in the name of progress of couse.If they died in a random disaster no sane person could have expected, and someone later figures out how to use the disaster for some useful purpose... how were they "killed in the name of progress?"

revolver kobold

2009-01-30, 05:58 AM

I haven't read World War Z, or The Zombie Survival Guide, but do either of those books mention anything about zombies having object permanence?

If not, I think the odds swing way towards the survivors, military and civilian alike. Anyone bright enough to survive the initial apocalypse should be smart enough to figure out that just ducking out of sight is enough to confuse a zombie.

Dervag

2009-01-30, 06:19 AM

Generally, zombies are portrayed as having at least one of the following two traits:

1) Object permanence (as you say). This may take the form of a more "mindless" kind of permanence, in which the zombie will endlessly travel in the direction of the last prey sighting, or something like that. The idea of object permanence does not mean that you'll make very good guesses about where the permanent object has gotten to.

2) Excellent senses of some kind that make it hard to "duck out of sight." Scent is a favorite. Even an animal with no sense of object permanence can follow a scent trail.

Bouregard

2009-01-30, 06:30 AM

Yes i wouldthink zombies will overwhelm us. Yes human military technology is quite good. But sadly not killing effective. It'S like somebody states al about morale.

The military thinks that way.

I kill one soldier = 1 trained Enemy less.
I injure one soldier =1 trained Enemy probaly less + 2 trained soldiers to carry him of the battlefield, more trained military personal healing him. A big bunch of moneyis used just for healing, retraining, feeding and helping the injured soldier. OH and just think aboutz new soldiers watching a full medical centre with moaning comerads. Not good for morale. A big graveyard however is always a "Hey look they died for their country. Don't make their dead useless." -Sign.

Yes not nice.

Examples of this:

Landmines, its nearly impossible to die from a landmine if someone emidiatly carries you to a doctor.

B+C weapons usually won't kill you on the spot. Usually a long time later.

Yes this is a sad truth but modern military don't aim for killing.

Oh and whoever thinks about machineguns...
Overheating. Yes a antiaircraft autocannon could mow down zombies. Yes impressive bullets/min but if you fire those things for more then a couple of minutes the gun will simply melt. OR run out of ammo, or, yes in real military entirely possible jams.

Shotguns are worthless against zombies. Shotguns are primary shock-weapons. You won't die from the pellets, and corpses can't be shocked.

Pistols, mhm no won't stop zombies.

In the modern military there are no weapons to kill millions of people attacking the same spot short of nukes. Why? Because military didn't need to kill tousends of people. There is no reason today to kill to much people because anyone you kill can't work for you later when you win.

Flamethrowers. Anyone tried to burn a corpse? Ok. Watched how they burned a corpse? humans are wet. human are 60% water. Yes the skin, hair, cloth will burn, but think
1. you have a approaching zombie horde
2. you have a flamethrower
3. you burn them
4. Now you have a big burning zombie horde still aproaching you.
5. They will now not simpy eat you, no they will also set you on fire.
The nice thing with flamethorwers is the pain they inflict. not the damage.

barbed wire to stop them? only hurt, don't kill, no use.

Best way for me. Tanks equipped with demining tools. Just think of a big 80 tons monster of steal equipped with a big rotating thing at the front. And then drive throught the zombie horde like a lawnmower.

Ricky S

2009-01-30, 07:00 AM

Quote
Originally posted by Dervag
"On the other hand, in a marsh or a dense forest your line of sight isn't 1200 meters. Think about what happens by the time you get close enough to the zombies in that terrain that you can see them to shoot them. By then, you're close enough that a medium machine gun can be used reliably for shots that will sever the head or destroy the spinal column in the upper torso. Either of those is effectively a kill against a zombie- rendering a zombie quadriplegic effectively eliminates the threat, because after that it's just a matter of battlefield cleanup.

Remember, in a major zombieocalypse, the bulk of the zombie killing has to fall on the military. Civilians are not coordinated precisely enough to do it reliably, and most of them will be unsuitable for zombie hunting. So if we're really interested in how to counter zombies, we need to think about military weapons and tactics. Not just the stuff you can pick up at Wal-Mart."

Thats assuming there is still a military to be around. Sure they would be trained and be better equipped too go an hunt zombies but to reach that point they would need to have rebuilt society. Most zombie survival genres basically state that the military is looking after themselves and is not able to help civilians. Also how do you expect the average civilian to carry around a machine gun and fight effectively. That is why a rifle would be better. My 14 year old sister could use one. Low recoil high accuracy and they are light. The are also the most common gun in Australia apart from the police issue glock 19.

Quote
Originally posted by Dervag
"Likewise, modern machine guns can fire short, very precise bursts that put several tightly grouped bullets on a single point target (with an error measured in inches at typical rifle range). This is an excellent choice for neutralizing a zombie with shots aimed at the upper torso or head- a headshot is virtually guaranteed.

When we go from medium to heavy machine guns like the M2 HB .50 caliber gun, the accuracy improves further- there are famous historical snipers who used an M2HB for many of their kills, made at ranges of a mile or more."

Yea but that is assuming you have one. Unlikely in most countries and that you are engaging at long ranges. Sure it might be accurate but after a couple of days you will run out of ammo depending on where you are and the amount of zombies in the area. Also arent machine guns bloody loud pulling more zombies in?

Quote
Originally posted by Dervag
"Even in America, you can't get automatic weapons at Walmart. Certainly not high military-grade ones like the M60 and M249. But the military has tens of thousands of those weapons. Each of which can probably account for dozens of zombies during a Zombie War if used intelligently."

How would they distribute the weapons? It would be great if they could but I dont see how they would. Also would they trust the civilian population which weapons and when would everyone train if they are conscripted? I agree they could account for dozens each. I just think that it would be easier to use a rifle. World war z was solved by an accurate carbine with 5.56mm ammo. semi automatic. I would prefer say a ruger mini 14 to a machine gun for the weight. also if you attach a scope you can sit on a building killing zeds with one shot each. Yes you could do the same with a machine gun but it just seems like a waste of ammo to me. consider it this way. you have 500 rounds in a defenceable position. You can use a fn minimi or a rifle. both use 5.56 mm ammo but the rifle can fire single and kill while the machine gun fires 3 per kill. Do you see where I am coming from? Of course if you have a compound that hasnt been overrun sure go for it using automatic it would sure be a lot quicker.

Quote
Originally posted by Dervag
"Does the word "conscription" ring a bell? It's a common response to national emergencies."

Lol kinda forgot about that. But still, when would they train? Would they have enough ammunition for training? Would there be any semblence of a society. I guess your right but generally it depends on the type of outbreak and the country and area you are in.

Quote
Originally posted by Dervag
"On the contrary. Explosive weapons throw shrapnel- some of which will enter the brain or sever the nervous system. Airburst shrapnel shells, for instance, would be extremely effective against zombies."

Have you considered though that as they are dead already the schrappnel with do little, the shockwave from the explosions will, yes blow limbs around and kill quite a few, but will ultimately have no where near the same effect on a person. Basically the bodies dont have the same nervous system (well do but it isnt as fragile) and they do not care about physical damage. They also cannot be broken and will never retreat. which could be a good thing killing more as they come, but also if one component fails then the pyschological effect could be devastating, especially if they are new conscripts.

They would also work only if there was a viable airbase with fuel etc. So it all depends on the situation. Again if they have the capabilities it would be fantastic but if not then all the shiny toys are worth naught.

I guess though the situation I see is kinda the entire collapse of society that is seen in 28 weeks, diary of the dead, left 4 dead, Dawn of the dead. That is the phase I am most worried about because that is when there would be complete chaos and I am pretty sure the governments and military would be in disarray. All I can hope for is that they are quick to respond and that if there is a zombie outbreak.

It is true that most advanced drivers wouldnt be caught in a situation like that but again what about the new conscripts?

(Sorry if I seem really argumentative but I just want to cover every possible outcome)