The cheer up thread.

[Psychosplodge]

That's why I was talking large calibre, at that size doesn't it blow large chunks out of the body, so potentially blows all their legs off?
Yeah the modern assault rifle is designed to wound (to drain logistics right?) so would require headshots.

I was assuming once they were crawling they'd be at the mercy of people with knife-sticks

[Mr Mystery]

Artillery should work - Zombies aren't typically noted for their subtlety and stealth. At least not at herd strength.

I guess the main question is how quickly you can identify the vector and get that information out to the populace.

Walking Dead in particular has the double hazard that's it anyone who dies becomes a Walker, as opposed to the more traditional 'only if you were bitten' trope.

Even so, that's quite easy info to start noticing, and thus confirm over the airwaves. Get that out and get people acting on it, and most of the problem is contained at that point. See a corpse? Approach with care, take out its brain.

Advice on surviving? They're slow, but attracted to noise. If encountered in low numbers (relative to your group size) they can be effectively tackled - but try not to use guns, as the noise will attract more. If encountered in large numbers, seek shelter, and remain as quiet as possible. In most instances, they will pass you by.

There is no need for you to have anything other than a walking speed yourself. So take your time as reasonably as possible, and try to head over even ground. Move at the slowest pace of your group for so long as is possible.

Bingo - situation about as containable as it can be.

[Psychosplodge]

yeah but how accurate is modern artillery?

- - - Updated - - -

A quick google suggests in some circumstances it can be as accurate as modern aircraft ordnance.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Incredibly so, depending on how much you pay for it. A .50 Cal could and does chew through zombies in WWZ, but it's an inaccurate suppression weapon, it's not really meant to hit. Most of the rounds expended in war are suppressing fire to keep an enemy down, rather than specifically aiming to kill. The recoil makes firing an SAW with accuracy incredibly difficult. The Battle of Yonkers also had the problem of zombies appearing from unexpected directions in houses they didn't have the time to clear.

Artillery is useful, but you can only drop so many shells before you need to requisition more. They do exactly that before they run out of heavy ammunition because they're not equipped for protracted meatgrinder engagements. The US Army especially operates on hitting fast and hard on key targets, rather than a slog.

The other problem is that Anti-Tank weaponry doesn't explode anymore, HEAT and HESH just aren't good enough, so most anti-armour rounds are APFSDS, basically a giant dart launched as fast as possible to defeat armour through sheer kinetic energy on impact. Most ammo given to a tank is this kind of ammo, which does bugger all to a swarm of corpses because it's designed to pinpoint all its killing power on a pinhead.

They had Canister Shells and HEAT, but those were limited because in no engagement would an enemy still hold ground against more than a couple of shots of anti-infantry weapons from a tank, so the US Army in WWZ simply never equipped them with more than a token few just in case.

The other problem was that at Yonkers they were engaging the entire Manhattan horde in a line defense at a bridge, which is an almost perfect defensive scenario. Defending within a city means covering multiple avenues of approach. Around buildings, underneath them, down roads. In the same way a military cordon often can't hold back an angry enough mob, a military cordon would have it even tougher trying to hold against a mob of zombies as they have no fear, ignore casualties, and just keep on coming.

The funny thing is that the main character calls out the Army for a lot of the things you mention in this, like why the tanks weren't equipped with certain loadouts, how the soldiers weren't trained for that kind of combat, etc, etc. It's why the reformed US Army later on utilises Civil War-era massed gunlines and reinforced squares.

[Mr Mystery]

Depends how accurate you need it, really.

Got a massive Horde of shufflers approaching? General direction would help - this could mean older, simpler artillery pieces can be dusted off from army reserves and put into suitably trained civilian hands.

Any kind of incendiary shell could be of use as well - Walking Dead has shown shufflers are drawn to the flames. Get the whole city ahad, and you're pretty much laughing - even if a total wipe out remains ever unlikely, you've still dealt with the bulk of them.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Flesh takes ages to burn, especially if you only ignite the skin and it needs to reach muscle and brain to kill or incapacitate. Fire normally kills through shock. Zombie on fire grabbing you is also worse than a zombie not on fire grabbing you.

How do you train civilians to fire artillery in a Danger Close fashion in a timely manner? Could you rely on them to properly calibrate it so the round doesn't go off-target and hit something valuable? A missed shot could level a vital building or wall, opening a chink in your line. It could hit your own men. It could hit the zombies and launch zombies into the air over an area.

In TWD the military firebombs Atlanta and it barely makes a dent. Heck, there are charred zombies in the Pilot for TWD that are still mobile. Napalm works because it a person on fire simply isn't fighting anymore, their comrades immediately have a horrifying thing to deal with in order to save them, meaning even hitting a squad means a platoon isn't fighting properly anymore.

War is designed to scare rather than kill. It's really inefficient at actually killing people.

[Tyrendian]

Flesh takes ages to burn

...probably one of the more unlikely quotes in something called the Cheer Up Thread by the way xD

[Psychosplodge]

Start an out of context thread

[Mr Mystery]

One thing that irked me about the Walking Dead....

Lots of farmland. Suggesting there'll be farm machinery.

Yet nobody has even attempted to find, let alone use, a Combine 'Arvester on the walkers. You know that big herd from the Quarry? Line 'em up down the road, drive through them with a Combine 'Arvester - job jobbed.

[Morgrim]

One thing that irked me about the Walking Dead....

Lots of farmland. Suggesting there'll be farm machinery.

Yet nobody has even attempted to find, let alone use, a Combine 'Arvester on the walkers. You know that big herd from the Quarry? Line 'em up down the road, drive through them with a Combine 'Arvester - job jobbed.

You've never used a combine harvester then. :P Those things do horrible, horrible things to anything living that gets in them, sure, but they're also reasonably precision instruments that jam up and stop working if you've got too many sticks in your paddock. As in, if you've got a tree dropping sticks the thickness of your fingers you've got to avoid said tree because you'll jam the blades and dismount the cutting head.

Bones are a lot thicker and stronger than that. You'd be lucky to get 20m into a hoard before the harvester ground to a halt, and then the rest of the herd is going to leisurely pluck you from the cabin and eat you. (I'm not sure about other people's, but my uncle's harvester has the latch for the door right down the bottom so you can open it before climbing up. Any grabby walker is going to hit it sooner rather than later.)