[NGTM-1R]

Summarizing a recent conversation from EVE about the feasibility of zombie outbreaks:

NGTM1R > "It's zombies, you can only shoot them in the head!" "**** that, it's zombies, they stand there while you drop nine shades of artillery hell on them and reduce them to wet rags, then run the rest down with armored vehicles."

[Ravenholme]

Summarizing a recent conversation from EVE about the feasibility of zombie outbreaks:

NGTM1R > "It's zombies, you can only shoot them in the head!" "**** that, it's zombies, they stand there while you drop nine shades of artillery hell on them and reduce them to wet rags, then run the rest down with armored vehicles."

Hah, read World War Z

[NGTM-1R]

Hah, read World War Z

The realistic possibility of a zombie apocalypse died in the trenches of World War 1. This death was confirmed on the battlefields of World War 2, the Vietnam War, and Gulf One.

Fire kills. It kills wholesale. Cluster munitions, artillery, the machinegun. Nothing survives raw, unbridled firepower in huge quantities. No amount of mystical hoodoo will save you from the raw physics of the Steel Rain or a sixty-ton vehicle impacting you at forty miles an hour.

World War Z is bull**** and was written by an author who has no conception of what human weaponry is capable of.

[Nuke]

if i was fighting zombies, i think i would want a shotgun with an extended ammo tube with a capacity of no fewer than 10 rounds, a 9mm with extended clip (or two extended clips taped together), and a few grenades and molotov cocktails. i would love a minigun, or a flame thrower, or even an artillery piece or fifty, but i think mobility is key to surviving a zombie apocalypse.

[General Battuta]

Hah, read World War Z

The realistic possibility of a zombie apocalypse died in the trenches of World War 1. This death was confirmed on the battlefields of World War 2, the Vietnam War, and Gulf One.

Fire kills. It kills wholesale. Cluster munitions, artillery, the machinegun. Nothing survives raw, unbridled firepower in huge quantities. No amount of mystical hoodoo will save you from the raw physics of the Steel Rain or a sixty-ton vehicle impacting you at forty miles an hour.

World War Z is bull**** and was written by an author who has no conception of what human weaponry is capable of.

Actually...I buy World War Z. The realistic possibility of a global pandemic was pretty much born in the trenches of World War I. Whether or not you can kill the resulting zombies, I think the pathogen would ultimately drive civilization back to a few strongpoints.

And while humanity's various abilities might be tactically impressive I'm not convinced of any kind of strategic endurance against an opponent that ends up numbering in the billions. That problem too would probably end up being tackled the way World War Z did it.

[Dilmah G]

Is this the book where the zombies only die with headshots? I was mildly interested (have a friend who's up to his arms in zombie survival books and gear), but how do they justify only headshots killing the bastards? Surely if you force them to bleed out, they physically can't keep going?

[General Battuta]

Nah, traditionally in zombie lore zombies only die with headshots but World War Z is a bit more nuanced. You should read it, it's full of really brilliant and incisive analysis even setting the Yonkers chapter aside.

[Thaeris]

Hah, read World War Z

The realistic possibility of a zombie apocalypse died in the trenches of World War 1. This death was confirmed on the battlefields of World War 2, the Vietnam War, and Gulf One.

Fire kills. It kills wholesale. Cluster munitions, artillery, the machinegun. Nothing survives raw, unbridled firepower in huge quantities. No amount of mystical hoodoo will save you from the raw physics of the Steel Rain or a sixty-ton vehicle impacting you at forty miles an hour.

World War Z is bull**** and was written by an author who has no conception of what human weaponry is capable of.

Sir, you win. 

[NGTM-1R]

That problem too would probably end up being tackled the way World War Z did it.

Nuclear option? Oh wait...

Simple automatic weapons destroy the premise of World War Z. You cut them to pieces with massed automatic fire. You're not going to run out of .30cal.

[General Battuta]

That problem too would probably end up being tackled the way World War Z did it.

Nuclear option? Oh wait...

That's not much good. Nukes aren't going to do anything. Zombies aren't an army and would be so widely dispersed you'd need to nuke a lot of acreage for any kind of results.

[Dilmah G]

Nah, traditionally in zombie lore zombies only die with headshots but World War Z is a bit more nuanced. You should read it, it's full of really brilliant and incisive analysis even setting the Yonkers chapter aside.

Ah right. Bearstrike was telling me about it earlier. May have to pick up soonish.

[NGTM-1R]

That's not much good. Nukes aren't going to do anything. Zombies aren't an army and would be so widely dispersed you'd need to nuke a lot of acreage for any kind of results.

They also don't move much. Infested population centers.

Also see edit.

[General Battuta]

They'll disperse in a Brownian fashion, actually. And I think you would run out of 30 cal, but the problems aren't tactical (killing them at any given point), they're what you do in the long run and what the consequences of having your population halfimated (or worse) are. Technological civilization as we understand it would collapse a few levels.

[StarSlayer]

Nah, traditionally in zombie lore zombies only die with headshots but World War Z is a bit more nuanced. You should read it, it's full of really brilliant and incisive analysis even setting the Yonkers chapter aside.

I think the main take away from Yonkers was that the military wasn't logistically prepared for the threat.  They were fighting an opponent that literally numbered more then they had ammunition and simply wasn't going to be rout like normal.  The bits about Steel Rain not working was silly.  If they took that part out of the plot and focused on the overall premise of being logistically unprepared for an opponent that knows no fear it would have been much more believable.  



Up until a couple platoons on M1A2s with mineplows rolled up the highway throttles open, line abreast and turned the zombie hordes into tread grease.  Or the fact that most zombies would rot into combat ineffectiveness PDQ.  That said I always enjoyed World War Z from a societal perspective then a military one.

[General Battuta]

Yeah, like all zombie lore its value is as a way to explore human nature and society.

[Titan]

Haven't read world war Z, but I read the Zombie Survival Guide by the same author.

[Nuke]

That problem too would probably end up being tackled the way World War Z did it.

Nuclear option? Oh wait...

That's not much good. Nukes aren't going to do anything. Zombies aren't an army and would be so widely dispersed you'd need to nuke a lot of acreage for any kind of results.

big firepower would make a difference only early on, but once urban zombies disperse, you would need an entirely different strategy. from the military standpoint its very difficult to draw the line from friend and foe. you could blow up your own cities early on but then you would also blow up any live ones still holed up there. so you might want to let them disperse. there is a gun in the world for every 7 people, and enough ammo to kill everyone on the planet many times over. in the usa with every redneck, every cop, every gangbanger and anyone else with a gun armed to the teeth and more gun stores than macdonalds, i very much doubt the zombies would be your biggest problem. its a situation where you could shoot anyone you run into on a whim, shoot em, and just say they were a zombie and get away with it. thats how the black guy died in night of the living dead. with society falling apart people may be shooting anything that moves whether theyre zombies or not. there will be looting and hoarding of supplies and ammo. zombies only want your brains and other assorted meats, but other people want your guns your food your water your fuel and will shoot you in the head for it.

[StarSlayer]

Since gangbangers seem to be much more adept at putting rounds into some 12 year old girl asleep in the house behind the stupid dirtbag they are trying to shoot, I would place my bets on the shambling undead hordes before I'd expect some chump who holds his weapon horizontally to make an effective headshot.

[Titan]

Since gangbangers seem to be much more adept at putting rounds into some 12 year old girl asleep in the house behind the stupid dirtbag they are trying to shoot, I would place my bets on the shambling undead hordes before I'd expect some chump who holds his weapon horizontally to make an effective headshot.

But he'll look damn cool doing it.

[Scotty]

You really should read the Zombie Survival Guide, if only for the lulz.  And the fact that the gangbangers vs. zombies fight was overkill.  As in, the gangbangers wiped the floor with their decomposing carcasses.