Too many of them, not enough ammo!

[Wyldwraith]

Right on. The inner cities will turn into hellholes quickly. But across America there are tons of communities where neighbors are still neighborly, and where people will have time to start pulling together *before* they have direct contact with the undead. ::agrees again with Publius:: That's my point. If you let it get to the point that there are a hundred ghouls per 100 feet before you act then yea, of course you're screwed. If instead you get even 7-8 neighbors with shotguns and hunting rifles, and maybe 4-5 more armed with bats and crowbars to handle anything that gets past the shooters then it seems to me that if the zombies stagger into the neighborhood 8-10 at a time that we could knock em down without terrible difficulty. I'm NOT one of those that want to play it off as being EASY, but I think you can get most men's heads in the right place with a "pep talk" about it being "them" or their families, or most women's heads right by putting it as "them or your kids" A mother grizzly has nothing on a 35yr old soccer mom from a redneck family with a 30/30 and a direct threat to her 9 and 6 year olds apparent. I've been thinking about all this a lot lately. Sort of using it as an escapist exercise to help me cope with a rough patch in my life atm. The more I've thought about it, the more I find myself believing that maybe we've gotten way too cynical about what we're capable of. I mean after all, we survived for thousands of years on little more than the strength of the tribe, fire and pointy sticks. We killed mammoths with STICKS....and teamwork. I refuse to believe that ability to unite for common cause has disappeared. Nope, I can't say I know how the zombie apocalypse would go down. One thing I can say for certain though. The situation(s) will be radically different all over. Put another way: Being stalked by a tiger while lost in the trackless wilderness is a heckuva lot grimmer a situation than having a tiger rush you in the middle of Times Square. Publius, glad to see not everyone's a complete cynic. Great minds think alike

[Yojimbo]

I do agree with Publis and Wyld that there are areas of North America that will fare much better than anyone living in the Greater Los Angeles basin, or on Manhattan Island, or Mexico City. It has been very correctly pointed out that certain areas are isolated enough and small enough to be able to band together before the armies of the undead make their way to invade the homestead. So, living in LA, I am basically screwed unless I bug out with my family before everyone else hits the road. I am saving up so that one of these days my wife and I can buy property - maybe a cabin or maybe one of those homesteads designed by a wacko survivalist back in the 70's or 80's - out in the sticks. Even without that, I would certainly rather start the era of the living dead in an isolated, small community than here in the city. Hell, I'd rather be living there even without the threat of ghouls! But, with all respect to the millitary and the fine job they do to protect us from being invaded by a hostile foreign army, and with all the respect that our fine law enforcement officers are due, I still do not feel that it is logical to rely on a governmental response in order to deal with a zombie crisis, or any other sort of crisis other for that matter. Sorry, but I don't have much faith in the machine, and in the end I fear that they will have their hands so full and their resources spread too thin to ensure my family's survival. I heard an NPR segment the other night ago in which a woman who had weathered through Katrina was interviewed about the current hurricane menacing the city, and she pointed out that she had enough supplies to carry her family through for several weeks. When asked why she had been procatively supplied herself and her family, she made a point about saying that so many people died in Katrina waiting for the government to come and help them. She did not intend to die this time in the same way as those poor folks, and instead was prepared to take care of her family without the govenment's help. "Be Prepared" she intoned. A small, tightly knit community far away from the cities, I do agree, would stand a fighting chance. Waiting for the government to hold you hand and soothe you, however, is an excercise in futility, and will likely end in a very painful death.

[sandrock74]

Teamwork and cooperation would be key to successfully battling (and hopefully defeating) them damn ghouls. People always seem too keen on fighting and bickering amongst each other BUT humanity has a looooooooooong history of banding together under an "us versus them" mentality. I don't feel like listing a bunch of examples, just look at WWII. Nowadays people are divided by a great many thing, this is true. However, I've always felt that if the earth were invaded by aliens (ala "V" or "Independence Day") or was being overrun with ghouls, that humanity would pull together in the ultimate showing of "us versus them". The opponets wouldn't even be human! I'm sure we could all unite against an inhuman menace to ourselves and our loved ones. Would there be casualties? Of course. Would some people do stupid things? Yes. Would accidents happen leading to potentially disasterous consequences? Probably. I still feel that when faced with such an inhuman foe that people will band together regardless of race, religous beliefs or sexual orientation. If for absolutely no other reason, at least we are humans combating an inhuman menace who is trying to eradicate us all. Personally, I can care less who is on "my side" because we would be fighting for our survival and helping each other out whenever things get rough. I guess this is where I differ in my opinion of things as far as Romero's vision of events. I can see pressure leading to bad situations like in DAY due to the small amount of people involved and their lack of communication with anyone else. But I look at that as a specific situation, while I am thinking in terms of the overall general situation. I would be more than willing to work with my neighbors/family/friends/strangers to keep us safe from such a menace. I wouldn't be looking to lead or take over anything...my main concern would be with everyones security. If my neighbor is secure, odds are, I will be too. Maybe I'm just hopelessly optimistic, but I don't think the overall situation would be as grim as in the movies. Obviously, the movies have to show the bad situations, otherwise what fun would they be? Who would want to watch a zombie movie of people making neighborhood watch patrols and gunning down and disposing of the occassional zombie? Not too much fun there. What do you all think?

[Wyldwraith]

::agrees with Yojimbo and Sandrock:: We're basically saying the same thing Sand, and I'm with you on your reasoning. Zombies in particular because of their close ties to death and the way they just scream of the unnatural merely by existing to any human being on a deep instinctive level. I think that as strong as our fear would be of the living dead, that in many cases our hatred and revulsion for the walking dead would be the stronger. Combine that with the natural human ability to cooperate for mutual interest, and our primary advantage of intelligence, and that leads me to believe that humanity might fare better than we think against the dead. Even in areas that are totally overrun a few determine people with a plan could destroy huge numbers of ghouls. (Just off-hand, imagine transporting several fifty gallon barrels of 3/4ths gasoline 1/4th certain liquid soaps/petroleum jelly to a rooftop overlooking a main through-way in an infested city via helicopter. Make a lot of noise to bait the dead out, and then as they swarm towards the building roll the barrels of crude napalm off the side and detonate them in the midst of the horde. One crew with a helicopter, fuel, and access to these relatively basic resources could burn out countless zombies.) I'm not saying that this wouldn't be by far the worst catastrophe ever to befall humanity, it would. The movies however take it as a given that as a species we'd be all but helpless to fight back in any meaningful way. They emphasize things like for every one you shoot, there are ten to take its place. Plus, like Sandrock said, if the movies displayed a battered-but-resolved humanity, determined to exterminate the living dead by any means necessary, and enjoying some success at doing so then it wouldn't be a survival horror movie, it'd be Saving Private Ryan From the Undead. As for the military: While I don't really hold out much faith that the armed forces could do anything to save the population from the walking dead, I do believe that the Air Force and Navy in particular have the means to avenge us, IF the politicians can accept the necessity of flattening the cities. Low altitude fuel-air bomb detonations in large numbers over all the major cities and their suburbs, saturation bombing slow-moving hordes migrating outwards from the population centers, incendiary bombardment of coastal cities...Basically it comes down to whether or not the world governments are willing to burn down civilization to win. To me that's an easy choice. If we're driven into extinction or as good as, what use are skyscrapers and grocery stores? It doesn't take a great many air assets to do incalculable damage if the airspace is completely uncontested and the munitions are available for re-arming. In fact, once they got started the secondary fires burning out of control would do a lot of the cleanup work for us. There's no question in my mind that a zombie apocalypse would inescapably destroy our modern way of life. I think it's a mistake to write off the potential our military possesses to affect the outcome of the struggle for the species to survive. Of COURSE unsupported infantry actions would be a slaughter, especially given how thin our military is currently spread. The movies never focus on *intelligent* applications of air and sea assets, for the reason that Sandrock mentioned, that it wouldn't make a good horror movie to watch 20+ million zombies fry in a single afternoon as NYC was burnt to the ground. At least that's the conventional thinking on the subject. No scriptwriter with any talent has yet been inspired to write a script that depicts a straightforward linear depiction of humanity locked in a struggle for survival with the walking dead, that begins with the initial outbreak(s), carries us through the apex of the horror, and demonstrates humanity effectively fighting back. Don't know why either, since movies like Independence Day were so lucrative. World War Z will be the closest thing to what I just described if it's ever filmed/released, but due to the Oral History Snapshot format it's an open question whether or not they'll go with the snapshots or try to string it all together into a conventional narrative. It's kind of amusing to me that discussing an impossible apocalypse has increased my faith in some positive aspects of human nature.

[SRP76]

Oh, come on! A helicopter, fuel, drums, etc...good luck getting all those now, much less in the middle of doomsday. Almost everyone will have access to what's in their own house at the time, and that's it. And if you're in some town in the middle of nowhere, you'll have a tough time no matter how "together" everyone is. You have a town that's 5 miles in diameter, with 1,000 people in it. One small grocery store, one convenience store, two gas stations. One livestock feed store. One hardware store and a Napa autoparts. Now, what are you going to do with that? Ghouls are coming from all directions (we can't assume everyone always lives on an island, or the tip of a peninsula). How are you going to keep them off you? Build a fence (15 miles of it)? With what? You don't have 15 miles of materials to build a barricade. Even if you did, good luck building that much barrier in the time you have (assuming everyone is Borg, all cooperating perfectly and instantly). With that many people, it will take at least a week (probably more, as it's real slow going in the woods that surround your whole town). You don't have a week; you have one day, if you're lucky. And if they get in, what? There's maybe 1000 bullets in the entire town. More and more ghouls roaming your streets every day. And it's not like you'd have the run of the place once they're in town; everyone will have to be locked in their own homes. And even if you did manage to keep them out, you've got enough food in town to last maybe a month, if you're lucky. There will be NO trucks coming in to restock your shops. So what are you going to do at the end of the month? Starve, that's what.

[Yojimbo]

Oh, come on! A helicopter, fuel, drums, etc...good luck getting all those now, much less in the middle of doomsday. Almost everyone will have access to what's in their own house at the time, and that's it. And if you're in some town in the middle of nowhere, you'll have a tough time no matter how "together" everyone is. You have a town that's 5 miles in diameter, with 1,000 people in it. One small grocery store, one convenience store, two gas stations. One livestock feed store. One hardware store and a Napa autoparts. Now, what are you going to do with that? Ghouls are coming from all directions (we can't assume everyone always lives on an island, or the tip of a peninsula). How are you going to keep them off you? Build a fence (15 miles of it)? With what? You don't have 15 miles of materials to build a barricade. Even if you did, good luck building that much barrier in the time you have (assuming everyone is Borg, all cooperating perfectly and instantly). With that many people, it will take at least a week (probably more, as it's real slow going in the woods that surround your whole town). You don't have a week; you have one day, if you're lucky. And if they get in, what? There's maybe 1000 bullets in the entire town. More and more ghouls roaming your streets every day. And it's not like you'd have the run of the place once they're in town; everyone will have to be locked in their own homes. And even if you did manage to keep them out, you've got enough food in town to last maybe a month, if you're lucky. There will be NO trucks coming in to restock your shops. So what are you going to do at the end of the month? Starve, that's what. I do see your point, SRP. Obviously, it would be very difficult to survive with no resupply and not all communities, even those that are far away from an urban center, would be able to survive for an extended period of time. Perhaps if there was a farm nearby this town with a large stock of grain and animals (chickens, goats, etc) and it's own well, and was isolated enough, and the farmer was a NRA dude who also stockpiled large amounts of ammo because he was also a survivalist and also was an avid reloader, and maybe his brother Darryl who lives nearby used to be an army triage surgeon who became a country doctor and he is also a survivalist/hunting freak, and they live next to a lumber stockyard owned by his other brother darryl, and they all have the same geo-political views and religious beliefs, and would never hit on their sisters-in-law... ok, point being, it would have to be a "perfect storm" of a community to survive. I don't really know that it would ever be feasable to band with other like minded communities on a scale large enough with sufficient supplies and equipment necessary to take back the world from the dead. But for the short term, if properly stocked and with the proper attitude, I do believe that a small isolated group could probably survive for quite a while. Certainly, if they are out of high population areas they would at least have a better chance at organizing and pooling their efforts than if they were living in an apartment on the corner of Hollywood and Vine when the dead start to walk.

[sandrock74]

It would be easy enough to come by a civilian helicopter and ALL sorts of supplies where I live. Now, finding someone who knows how to fly it? Maybe more difficult to come by. I live around several small civilain airports. Things would be dangerous, certainly. Casualties would be suffered for sure. I still think that with proper planning and good timing, that humanity could come out victorious against zombies. We have the speed and the intelligence on our side. That's just my belief.

[Ivarr]

Explosives, long nails/ball bearings/marbles and luck you can thin the heard a bit... but you better have a tank ... because no matter what... your gonna get tired. There has to be some movable bararier between you and them or its just a matter of time. But in the end ... what applies to the dead applies to the living... Both are stronger in numbers. A group has a better chance of getting anywhere than a single person...

[sandrock74]

OK, I was thinking of all this as I went on my daily constitutional. Since most of my military knowledge comes from G.I. Joe, the A-Team and Predator, I won't say what the military should or shouldn't do against an earth being overrun with zombies. What I do know is this: The time to act is right away. There is no time to waste in observing the enemy, trying to make plans that won't hurt anyone, etc. The longer time to a response means MORE zombies to deal with. That's bad folks! Zombies control the ground. It will be contested by plucky civilians, but essentially, it's not illogical to "give" the zombies the land. Humanity controls the skies and the water, uncontested. This is a real no-brainer. Evacuations, troop movement, reconaissance, etc. can all be done via sea and air without even the need to conceal what is being done. Who would not take advantage of such a thing?? Scorched earth policy. It's harsh but these would be brutal times like none other in history. All major cities would have to be burned down to the ground. This could be done using non-nuclear missles or probably some other engineering way. Keep helicopters on hand to spray napalm on migrating hordes of zombies who may be smart enough to try to get away from the fire from the city behind them. Such a policy would reduce the numbers of zombies by MILLIONS at a time. Don't rely on Infantry. The ground troops should only be called into action after the city is ash and roveing hordes of zombies have been burned into a non-working state. Infantry would be responsible for picking off straggler zombies and announcing the area "secure". The other thing Infantry troops would be good for is taking targets too valuable to destroy, such as Hoover Dam. Otherwise, these guys should be at the rear of the offensive, NOT at the front! I would think that these would be effective (but brutal) ways of combating the zombies. It would also send a message to the surviving populace that help is coming. It should be easy enough to evac people from the cities by rooftops prior to the fire bombing. If survivors are unable to make it to an evac sight or are unwilling to leave...them's the breaks. (again, I know it's a brutal way of doing things, but it's desperate times) This would be the worst event in human history, no doubt BUT we have the technological means, weapons, intelligence and speed to accomplish it. Teamwork is the linchpin. Once complete, things would indeed be different. The world would have a MUCH smaller population. Probably go from 6 billion to around 1 billion. Cities would need to be rebuilt, smaller than before obviously (to accomodate the smaller population. Get those architects and construction guys to work! Even with cities destroyed, the rural areas and farmland should be reasonably untouched...which is good. Get those farmers to work! Funeral homes would be a thing of the past, as well as how people view death I'm sure. Someone dies: bullet in the head and burn the body. An enterprising person could even create a business around this need. A zombie extermination type business. "You can't kill your zombified loved one? We can! Call us." More work! Again, this is too logical and optimistic (Maybe on Vulcan this is how they would deal with zombies). While this would all be effective, it would make for a reasonably dull movie. You agree or disagree? Think it out and let's hear it.

[Wyldwraith]

::applauds Sandrock:: I wrote this huge post this morning in reply to SRP's points, only to discover that my internet had gone down while I was typing. Then I come on here and find you've said many of the things I was thinking Sand, bravo. To add to your points: The technology you're looking for is the Fuel Air Bomb. There is a ton of complex science at work with them, but the simple version is: Bomb detonates at low altitude, all oxygen in a substantial radius is sucked upwards, then a torrent of flame slams downwards like the finger of God. No fallout, plenty of zombies (and everything else) reduced to either ash or melted slag, depending on how tough the material was to begin with. Also reference implosion devices, nasty little conventional explosive system. I'm totally with you on the air assets being the key to breaking the back of the hordes, but I disagree with you about the role of the infantry. If you lose the airstrips and munitions dumps they're re-arming from, then your planes and choppers are SOL. Midair refueling is viable, but you need land-based airstrips for the flying refuelers themselves. You're going to need every rifleman that can be mustered, plus whatever voluntary and involuntary militiamen you can drum up just to hold a few military bases if the country is already overrun. Sadly, I'm forced to agree with the others who say the military can't save the population. They just can't move fast enough. 75% of the world's population will be dead or undead before the remnants of the world militaries have workable/viable plans ready to go. The VERY best-case-scenario we can hope for is that enough of the very first people to reach "safety" survive, and that enough of the military remains to burn the cities and wandering hordes to ash. I do agree that we'd lose 80-90% of the world's populace. Part of that die-off will continue, even once humanity is "victorious". Famine, lack of medical care, you name it. Also agree (and said in a previous post) that how mankind relates to death will have to completely change. There are things that worry me, about what would become of humanity as we rebuilt. For example, women of child-bearing age that are healthy enough to get pregnant/carry a child to term will be scarce. Are we going to try and force them to become little more than brood mares against their will? What kind of society could rise again that had its roots in barbaric acts like that? Oh, I wouldn't expect the majority of people would support rape, but I could easily see an unbearable level of social pressure being brought to bear against any woman who refuses to be an incubator. Using such pretexts as: "It being unpatriotic not to give your all in aiding the repopulation effort" Or what about power in this new world? By then the "military class" will have made tremendous overt sacrifices in achieving victory. How easy would it be to use as a justification to retain power? Since the undead will never vanish entirely, it wouldn't be hard for some initially well-intentioned agency created to deal with/ensure they never threaten humanity with extinction again to abuse the broad-reaching powers they'd need to do such a job and seize control, creating a police state. And people thing zombies are scary.

[SRP76]

I wrote this huge post this morning in reply to SRP's points, only to discover that my internet had gone down while I was typing. That's because my warning has come true! They reached your neighborhood already! Get out of there!

[sandrock74]

::applauds Sandrock:: I wrote this huge post this morning in reply to SRP's points, only to discover that my internet had gone down while I was typing. Then I come on here and find you've said many of the things I was thinking Sand, bravo. To add to your points: The technology you're looking for is the Fuel Air Bomb. There is a ton of complex science at work with them, but the simple version is: Bomb detonates at low altitude, all oxygen in a substantial radius is sucked upwards, then a torrent of flame slams downwards like the finger of God. No fallout, plenty of zombies (and everything else) reduced to either ash or melted slag, depending on how tough the material was to begin with. Also reference implosion devices, nasty little conventional explosive system. I'm totally with you on the air assets being the key to breaking the back of the hordes, but I disagree with you about the role of the infantry. If you lose the airstrips and munitions dumps they're re-arming from, then your planes and choppers are SOL. Midair refueling is viable, but you need land-based airstrips for the flying refuelers themselves. You're going to need every rifleman that can be mustered, plus whatever voluntary and involuntary militiamen you can drum up just to hold a few military bases if the country is already overrun. Sadly, I'm forced to agree with the others who say the military can't save the population. They just can't move fast enough. 75% of the world's population will be dead or undead before the remnants of the world militaries have workable/viable plans ready to go. The VERY best-case-scenario we can hope for is that enough of the very first people to reach "safety" survive, and that enough of the military remains to burn the cities and wandering hordes to ash. I do agree that we'd lose 80-90% of the world's populace. Part of that die-off will continue, even once humanity is "victorious". Famine, lack of medical care, you name it. Also agree (and said in a previous post) that how mankind relates to death will have to completely change. There are things that worry me, about what would become of humanity as we rebuilt. For example, women of child-bearing age that are healthy enough to get pregnant/carry a child to term will be scarce. Are we going to try and force them to become little more than brood mares against their will? What kind of society could rise again that had its roots in barbaric acts like that? Oh, I wouldn't expect the majority of people would support rape, but I could easily see an unbearable level of social pressure being brought to bear against any woman who refuses to be an incubator. Using such pretexts as: "It being unpatriotic not to give your all in aiding the repopulation effort" Or what about power in this new world? By then the "military class" will have made tremendous overt sacrifices in achieving victory. How easy would it be to use as a justification to retain power? Since the undead will never vanish entirely, it wouldn't be hard for some initially well-intentioned agency created to deal with/ensure they never threaten humanity with extinction again to abuse the broad-reaching powers they'd need to do such a job and seize control, creating a police state. And people thing zombies are scary. Well, let me just say as far as the Infantry goes, I was working under the assumption that they would be working as security at required installations. Also, as I said, the time to act is right away! Waiting is a death sentence for the entirety of the human race. Here's something else that I always find confusing...why does everyone assume that "women of child bearing age" will be rendered extinct? Women outnumber men as of now overall. Why do all young women disappear? Only our grandmothers will be left? I think there will be women left, just like those who survived the Black Plauge. The Plague killed off HALF of the population of europe and 30% of the population of Asia. This was the deadliest disease to ravage mankind. Men AND women survived in reasonably equal numbers. Women would still be around. Always have been, always will be. As far as what kind of "ruling class" would be around afterwards? Who knows. I'll leave that to philosophers and smarter people than I. I just get the feeling thou that people won't stand idle and allow the military to assume command. Besides, I think a lot of people in the military would be ready to go back to living as normal a life as possible, like the vets coming home from any war! Ot even World War Z! Again, these are my opinions and not yours.

[jim102016]

GI Joe, Predator, and the A-Team...****ing hilarious. I wouldn't rely on those three for any accurate knowledge of the military. I think the effectiveness of using air power to bomb the more heavily congested areas would be greatly affected by who's sitting in a nation's highest office. If acting quickly is the answer to solving the problem before it escalates, then we're screwed. No president or prime minister in his right mind would firebomb his own cities (in a western nation at least), not while it’s still possible to harm large numbers of living citizens. Would a president readily agree to send B-52s or naval aircraft to bomb large portions of NYC or Philadelphia after initially being told the dead are coming back to life? Hell no. Would such a mission even be effective? Instead, the situation would be closely monitored for a while as it spiraled out of control, taking with it scores of local law enforcement officials, national guardsmen and maybe some active-duty units. There is no way to eradicate such a problem if it becomes an epidemic in a large, metropolitan area. In the time it takes to get a grip on what's really happening, those areas will be lost to the dead. Sure, those locations could be nuked or hammered into the ground with conventional munitions, but would it be worthwhile at that point, a waste of valuable resources? The only effective response would be a quick, coordinated campaign against the dead before all hell could break lose. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen.

[sandrock74]

It all is kind of moot anyway. Once enough people die (swelling the ranks of the zombies even further), any conventional thinking would tell you that cities are all dead zones. It would be totally irrelevant what whats left of the public would think. The cities NEED to be burned down to the ground. No half @$$ing it, complete and utter destruction. There would be no time to observe and take notes. There is nothing to argue with other surviving people in authority. Red tape is the zombies best friend! Like the Autobot Cliffjumper said, "Strike first, strike fast, strike hard!"

[SRP76]

OK, so here's something I used to put numbers and distance in perspective when it comes to writing and thinking about the living dead. It's a silly exercise, but an eye opener. While on a short drive at dusk on a weekend...not a week day when there's lot of traffic, but go a few miles in the suburbs and count the headlights that you meet oncoming. One pair of headlights equals one walker...I figure that this is a good indication of interval and numbers for scattered living dead through the same area, if you're moving rapidly on foot... Big bump, because I just did this! I live 20 miles from Gainesville (the closest city). I'm a little more than 5 miles from the nearest thing that can be called a town. I just set off to Bronson - a little, tiny, one-stoplight redneck village. A little over 5 miles away. I WALKED there and back (over 10 miles in less than 3 hours - you think it's easy? Try it). Set out at 12:45 AM, got back at 3:35 AM. It doesn't GET any more "dead of night" than that, people. And remember, I'm in the middle of fucking nowhere. I stopped counting headlights on the way there - at 100. Didn't even bother on the way back. I couldn't get 30 seconds of walking without having to hike down into the ditch to avoid traffic. So, guess what? Even in the sticks, you will encounter a shitload of zombies. Even in the middle of the night. There is no "oh, there won't be many out here". Thinking like that will get you eaten.