Where's the army?

[LoneCrusader]

In Dawn of the Dead (1978), it was showing groups of people and the army effectively taking care of the zombies. How did those groups fall? Do you think it was not cooperating (as seen in all GAR films), the groups seperated, the undead just really outnumbered them until there was few men left, or maybe the groups did survive and maybe moved to the Fiddler's Green? Or maybe they're still on the road? Somebody give an explanation as to how things so slow and so stupid can whipe out the military.

[Philly_SWAT]

Well, look at the real life situation in New Orleans last year during hurricane Katrina. This was no where near a bad a situation of the dead coming to life and eating the living, and more than half of local law enforcement abandoned their jobs, starting looting stores, and generally contributing to civil disorder rather than helping. How long before military grunts in the field would start freaking out with the whole situation? Plus, in Dawn, I dont think we know for sure if those were army regulars that we saw or more reserves. Seems to me as if they were probably reserves, seeing as how chummy they were acting with the local cops and locla rednecks. They probably didnt have a huge supply of ammo. Once the ammo starting runnung out, for the reserves, the cops, and the rednecks, they would all either be killed or be forced to run.

[Danny]

i think they were just pushed further and further back, and the more people died the more dead which replaced there ranks quicker and more efficiently than the soldiers, strength in numbers.
plus in horror the army and police are always retards anyway.:D

[kar98k]

i agree, eventually the military would see they were fighting a losing battle and would just desert, making it even harder for the remaining law enforcement and military to stop the undead.

[Rottedfreak]

They'd probably stay behind and protect their families.
Only guys who live and breath military servitude would have stayed in uniform.

[Tricky]

I imagine the British army would fall back to their strongpoints & defend them,seen as most of their families live in the camps anyway,its not like they would be deserting to go look for them.Maybe regular units would fall apart,but i imagine crack units like the SAS,royal marines,SBS,paras etc would stay professional & would somehow contain the situation,at least enough to form "fiddlers green" style compounds.

[Danny]

true us british love a good fight, though normally just a pub fight this would be more of a scottish thing.


"they may eat our wives but they will never eat...OUR DIGNITY!!!!-muntch!- ow...my spleen...":)

[bassman]

Somebody give an explanation as to how things so slow and so stupid can whipe out the military.

Congratulations, you understand Romero's "Dead" films!

Seriously....that's the point:D

[Tullaryx]

I'm sure this has been debated and picked on and apart in this place for years. But recent events have shown that nothing could remain solid and organized if the people in charge of keeping it so have no clue of what to do. Which is why Yeat's classic poem is the best example of why in Romero's world the military never got the job done.

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

"Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

-- William Butler Yeats, January 1919

[Danny]

damn tullaryx youre going all edwardian philosopher on the forums' ass's today:lol:

[Tullaryx]

damn tullaryx youre going all edwardian philosopher on the forums' ass's today:lol:

Well, one doesn't have to be all philosophying to read Yeat's poem and see alot of why organized groups have no chance against the undead, or anything bad for that matter. Plus, that poem is always just so cool to recite for people then tie it in with current events. Either they look at you funny or you scare the crap out of them. :lol:

[Danny]

kinda like samuel l's swift vengance speech in pulp fiction?:D

[Trencher]

and more than half of local law enforcement abandoned their jobs, starting looting stores, and generally contributing to civil disorder rather than helping.

Really? I am very suprised to hear this. Can you give me more information?

[Brubaker]

In Dawn of the Dead (1978), it was showing groups of people and the army effectively taking care of the zombies. How did those groups fall? Do you think it was not cooperating (as seen in all GAR films), the groups seperated, the undead just really outnumbered them until there was few men left, or maybe the groups did survive and maybe moved to the Fiddler's Green? Or maybe they're still on the road? Somebody give an explanation as to how things so slow and so stupid can whipe out the military.

I remember reading online somewhere that GAR addressed this in either the Dawn novel or some other venue. Does anyone remember?

The common problem with the groups in the GAR movies is that they never went on sweep and destroy missions. In all four of Romero's films, the groups you saw were content to stay in one place and hope to ride it out. The first two movies had people who would sit still at rescue stations until they were overcome.

-Both Night movies had the group of people barricading themselves in that house. While the "rescue team" at the end did clean out the area, that is something which was probably an exception.
-Dawn had the residents barricading themselves in the apartment building, the main characters barricading themselves in the mall and the rednecks/cops riding it out in the woods. Even the motorcycle gang chose to ignore almost every zombie that wasn't in their way. All Roger and Peter really cared about was cleaning out the inside of the mall when they went on their shooting spree.
-In Day, the characters occasionally made reference to shooting the zombies outside of the fence or in the corridor. It never happened, though. Granted the zombie invasion prevented Rhodes from the grand plans he had of taking his men inside that corridor to blow the **** out of every last specimen before leaving. That and Logan's position that there wasn't enough ammo. I seem to remember Rhodes going for a gun near the end and seeing some other guns and ammo sitting on the wall in the room he emerged from. I could be wrong, though.
-In Land, everybody was located inside of the Green or other outposts. The characters delibrately avoided shooting any zombies they didn't have to. This happens on the raid, for one. Riley's decision at the end says everything you need to know. So that means he essentially dooms any unlucky human or humans that Big Daddy and his gang happen to run into as they look for a place to go.

I have two theories:

1. I guess those rednecks, military men and cops probably sat back until a group of zombies too large for them to effectively handle snuck up on them. I'd expect it was similar to the way Brubaker and his men were caught unprepared and looked up to find their fence about to come down in Land.

That and I am sure with three different groups of people there (rednecks, cops and military), they started to fight amongst themselves and probably became divided. It's not out of the realm of possibility for a few rednecks to start firing at the cops or military guys, or vice versa, in a struggle over who is going to "call the shots" in their wooded area.

2. In the apartment building, during Dawn, the teams of men were struggling to control the zombies. There was nothing effective about it. When the barricade (boards) came down and the zombies flooded the hallway, you see them brushing by all the guys with the guns. There was no room to move or fire, so I would assume that most of those army/swat fellows in the hallway were bitten and never made it out of the building alive. Sure, it isn't shown in the movie and you see the zombies just brushing past them to move through the building but there is no way a big group of zombies would let those guys go unscathed. I would imagine all of the guys at this very complex had the job of cleaning out several other buildings in town. They had a hard enough time controlling things in that one. How many swat/military guys would have been left when that building was "contained" to go on to the one down the street? That group would have been finished before the night was over, especially if men were shooting each other (ala Wooley) or leaving post like Roger and Peter.

Dr. Logan says it best in Day, when it comes to wiping out the zombies. The time to have done that was the beginning.

Having some military guys or whoever go on sweep and destroy missions, where they actually hunted zombies and shot them, would have been beneficial. It would have reduced the number of existing zombies and presumably lowered the number of people who were newly infected.

It's easy to say behind a keyboard but if I'd been as good of a shot as Roger or Peter, I'd likely have been outside of the mall with a good amount of ammo trying to find and destroy as many zombies as I could. Nobody ever bothered to do something of this nature in any of the four movies. I guess they always assumed "somebody else" would wipe out all of the zombies and eventually restore order.


Well, look at the real life situation in New Orleans last year during hurricane Katrina. This was no where near a bad a situation of the dead coming to life and eating the living, and more than half of local law enforcement abandoned their jobs, starting looting stores, and generally contributing to civil disorder rather than helping. How long before military grunts in the field would start freaking out with the whole situation? Plus, in Dawn, I dont think we know for sure if those were army regulars that we saw or more reserves. Seems to me as if they were probably reserves, seeing as how chummy they were acting with the local cops and locla rednecks. They probably didnt have a huge supply of ammo. Once the ammo starting runnung out, for the reserves, the cops, and the rednecks, they would all either be killed or be forced to run.

That makes sense. I'd say reserves because the A-Team would have been in the city itself, which explains why the best of the best in the military ended up becoming zombies. You might even argue that they were people already living in the area, or nearby, as opposed to a special unit of troops that were sent specifically to keep things under control there.

Couple that with the fact that they wasted what little ammo they had. Did anyone else notice how much ammo they wasted in killing three or four zombies that would show up? Some individual zombies were fired at several times by several people.

For the original poster, keep in mind there are one or two scenes in the woods where a zombie somehow sneaks by everybody there and comes within a couple feet of munching on a redneck from behind. Somebody wasn't keeping watch and after that happened a few times with enough zombies, everybody would scatter.


Really? I am very suprised to hear this. Can you give me more information?

You'd be best off using Wikipedia or Google as a reference. In short, several law enforcement people in New Orleans (and nearby) deserted their posts and quit on the recovery effort. The funny (or sad) thing about it all is that these very same people showed up again after things were under control (as best they could be) and expected to slide right back into their old jobs without any animosity from the community, fellow officers, their superiors or the people they deserted in the city.

As for looting and civil disorder, there were reports of officers looting stores just like common criminals. These same people also came out of the woodwork once things were cleaned up to reclaim their old jobs like nothing had ever happened. Others would open fire on anyone they thought that looked suspicious (like a looter), no questions asked.

Again, it is too much to ask a single person here to explain it all. Just do a quick search on some of the major search engines.

[Tullaryx]

Well, Brubaker pretty much gave alot of the best reasons and theories why the military and law enforcement with help from militia wouldn't have succeeded in stemming the tide of the exponentially growing problem.

One thing I would add to his reasons is the fact that even soldiers and policemen have personal feelings they need to get through to stay at their post to see the job through in such an epidemic. How many of them left their post to try and make it back home to protect their family? How long did the notion of the dead returning to life to feed on the living finally sink in before all the hunters figured out that the best way to kill is one-shot instead of a whole burst? In times of conflict and tension humanity by nature acts very illogically. Emotions and feelings get in the way of finding out the solution to a problem. How often were we taught in math classes to calm ourselves and use logic to solve the problem.

Max Brooks points this flaw out very well in World War Z. Soldiers, SWAT and militia groups still need to rest, eat and unwind to keep themselves in proper mindset for the job. Zombies do not rest, do not feel pain and will continue to go after those hunting them until there's none of them left or they finally overcome their hunters. The zombies' also has the advantage not in the physical sense but also psychological. Theyre appearance and they mode of attack and feeding would make any sane man break in time. How many soldiers and police broke under the strain of what they were witnessing.

[Wooley]

I think the reasons were attrition, logistics, and morale, communications, inability to adapt quickly. As mentioned already in this threat, and in the movies, books, video games, etc, the fact that the zombies did not need to rest, resupply, unwind, etc made them pretty formidable enemies.

Like the Building 107 bloodbath, the RPD blockade in RE3, etc, sooner or later, you'd have run out of soldiers, policemen, civilian volunteers to fight back, even more so when you take into account desertions like Roger and Peter. Attrition would have been really bad in the beginning due to the problems of dealing with the problem correctly, and the losses suffered early would have degraded combat effectiveness later on, when the problem, and how to deal with it were known.

Plus, the guys who did stay at their posts wouldn't have been effective once their ammo ran out, or the fuel for the vehicles ran out, or their food or water, etc.

An Army squad has say, 8 men, with two M249 SAWs, 1,000 rounds each, basic ammo load, and the rest of the men with M4 carbines, or M16 rifles, 7 magazines, 210 rounds each, basic load. How long would they have held out against the horde in the parking lot in the Dawn remake?

Policemen, depending on their department issued weapons, have 3 magazines for their pistol, and a shotgun, assuming a Remington 870 like Ken's in the Dawn remake, 4 in the tube, and a 6 round butt cuff. If they've got a low cap .45, like a 1911, they may have as few as 24 rounds of ammo, assuming 8 round mags, on up to 71 rounds for a Glock 17 with it's 17 shot mags. How long would half a dozen so armed policemen held the line at the RPD roadblock in RE3?

Morale has been mentioned. The military has field manuals on how to leaders should help their subordinates cope with the stress and horrors of combat, as well as systems to deal with combat stress. Police, fire fighters, and others have mental health professionals to help them deal with the horrible things they see daily. But horrible things would have been a daily thing in a deadworld and the ability of a human mind to process such things would quickly have been overwhelmed. Wooley and that cop who shot himself in the apartment building after dealing with the zombies in it are two exambles. Eating a bullet would prbably become pretty attractive alternative to being eaten alive and reviving to go eat someone else.

Communications. Fort Pastor gone, no help coming. Would Fort Pastor have fallen if they knew the bitten people were infected, and that they should be quarantined, and upon death, shot in the head? Would Andy have been bitten if he knew the consequences of a bite?

Inability to adapt quickly. We see this in the orignal Dawn and the second RE movie. Peter and Roger use their usual method of entering a room in the upstairs apartment of opening the door, and rapidly getting out of the line of fire by moving off to either side. It's a valid tactic-for when your opponent has a gun and will fire back. If your opponent is a dead man with a taint on his teeth worse than rabies and AIDS and ebola, then opening the door and shining in a flashlight to see what's in the room first makes more sense.

We see how many zombies handcuffed to benches in the police station in the RE sequal? The inability to rapidly change gears and thought processes doomed humanity, especially in our inability to see what was right in front of out eyes-these people were frikin' dead and somehow, were on their feet and trying to eat us, and the inability of people to do what had to be done, shoot their dead loved ones in the head, doomed us.

EDIT-one final major point. You can guard a lot of areas poorly, or a few really well. Judging from the news reports in the films, they tried the first, and with my points illistrated above, how long before the hordes took down the rescue stations one at a time, from within, like Ft. Pastor, or from without, like the house in Night? My guess, they collpased once the ammo ran out in most cases. And the dead from each fallen shelter added to the hordes that attacked the next one, and so on.

[Brubaker]

Just reading some of my old posts.

Anyone have new insight to offer on this topic?

[blind2d]

the army? they were fighting in korea, right?

[jim102016]

the army? they were fighting in korea, right?

In 1978? You sure aren't a student of history! A cease fire ended the Korean War in 1953.

[MissJacksonCA]

Well in todays times our army would be in Iraq... but I think back in dawns age the men of the army prolly decided fuggit and went home to be with families? Its not like anyone would imagine living to see the day when the dead walk so its understandable at that point they might just cut and run for their lives. Especially if all they saw were their bretheren falling and getting up and turning into zombies... what didn't make sense was seeing more zombie soldiers to emphasize the idea that the army wasn't winning the war. Instead Dawn kinda seemed like the Army was able to TCOB imho

[LoneCrusader]

but it seemed like they were doing so well in dawn. the military and rednecks, it showed them killing zombies, it didn't show any of them dying. and there were so many [military and rednecks].

and obviously there woulda been more sophisticated outposts and such nationwide. seems ridiculous that they'd all fall.

[MoonSylver]

but it seemed like they were doing so well in dawn. the military and rednecks, it showed them killing zombies, it didn't show any of them dying. and there were so many [military and rednecks].

and obviously there woulda been more sophisticated outposts and such nationwide. seems ridiculous that they'd all fall.


Isolated pocket. Plus still early on. The ones out in the country WOULD do better as well. But look at where we're at by the END of the film. The airwaves have gone silent. Even the Emergency Broadcast Network is off the are, which means some major shit is going down somewhere. And then we see the next step in Day....:eek::skull:

[LoneCrusader]

Yeah. Maybe I have too much faith in guns. And the military. But it just seems like they'd be able to handle them easy.

[It's weird, looking at my post in this thread back from '06. Makes me feel like one of the seniors here.]

[Wooley]

Holy Thread Necromancy Batman!

Now that I think about it, I bet a lot of the zombies were never bitten. They died of dehydration or cholera when the water system failed, or their insulin or anti-rejection meds ran out, or got shot by some retard like Khardis.

[MoonSylver]

Holy Thread Necromancy Batman!

Now that I think about it, I bet a lot of the zombies were never bitten. They died of dehydration or cholera when the water system failed, or their insulin or anti-rejection meds ran out, or got shot by some retard like Khardis.

Yep. I've long contended that it would spread WAY quickly not because of zombies biting people, but people dying of natural causes & of the chaos that would ensue.

I once took a death statistic of how my people die per day in the world & extrapolated out from there based on this premise (I'm not a math guy, just was rough guessing it.) & the rate at which their numbers grew was STAGGERING.

If there are any REAL math guys out there, please feel free to take a whack at it!

[SRP76]

I once took a death statistic of how my people die per day in the world & extrapolated out from there based on this premise (I'm not a math guy, just was rough guessing it.) & the rate at which their numbers grew was STAGGERING.

If there are any REAL math guys out there, please feel free to take a whack at it!

I applied the zombie factor to Gainesville, Florida one time, using length of time to die, reanimation timeframe, shambling speed, and natural human reactions as factors. I had the first bodies getting up at midnight, and the city was completely overwhelmed by 8AM.

The military is a non-factor. In a zombie scenario, you need total lockdown of every room of every building on every street of every town. Not enough bodies. The military doesn't even have that kind of control of Baghdad. How the hell are they going to be able to do it to a thousand Baghdads? They can't. You'd need a billion troops.

[Trin]

The army is an organization intended to be used against foreign threats. To deploy the army against the US citizenry is considered abhorrent. A zombie uprising is a civil threat. Meaning local law enforcement and National Guard would be the first responders. The army might not be mobilized for days and days, after which we all know it would be pointless.

There are a lot of assumptions that would prohibit early defeat of a zombie crisis.

For example, you don't assume that a zombie is a threat right away. If someone is shambling toward you all bloody you assume they are alive and injured and you try to help them. The entire first round of responders is sure to get bitten not realizing the threat.

You also don't assume that a bite wound is an immediate threat. You treat it and move on. You assume the person is going to be fine

You also don't assume that a person who just died is a threat.

One major point which Dawn touched on - the law enforcement is going to be too consumed dealing with the living to focus on the zombies. Looters, vandals, gangs, etc. Even survivors who have figured out what's going on - for example, if you drive your police cruiser into a neighborhood and you see one person shooting into a crowd of people, who do you assume is the threat? The guy with the gun of course. You might very well shoot him. And you don't shoot him in the head. You shoot center mass. You've just killed someone who was helping and created a new opponent at the same time. That's a win-win for the zombies!!

[MoonSylver]

The army is an organization intended to be used against foreign threats. To deploy the army against the US citizenry is considered abhorrent. A zombie uprising is a civil threat. Meaning local law enforcement and National Guard would be the first responders. The army might not be mobilized for days and days, after which we all know it would be pointless.

There are a lot of assumptions that would prohibit early defeat of a zombie crisis.

For example, you don't assume that a zombie is a threat right away. If someone is shambling toward you all bloody you assume they are alive and injured and you try to help them. The entire first round of responders is sure to get bitten not realizing the threat.

You also don't assume that a bite wound is an immediate threat. You treat it and move on. You assume the person is going to be fine

You also don't assume that a person who just died is a threat.

One major point which Dawn touched on - the law enforcement is going to be too consumed dealing with the living to focus on the zombies. Looters, vandals, gangs, etc. Even survivors who have figured out what's going on - for example, if you drive your police cruiser into a neighborhood and you see one person shooting into a crowd of people, who do you assume is the threat? The guy with the gun of course. You might very well shoot him. And you don't shoot him in the head. You shoot center mass. You've just killed someone who was helping and created a new opponent at the same time. That's a win-win for the zombies!!

All excellent points, every single one.:)

[SRP76]

Yet another problem with trying to wipe zombies out is the fact that they aren't an army; they will spread ridiculously fast.

Say you've got a clump of 5 zombies. As soon as they hit the street, they're pretty much surrounded by living people (food). They aren't all going to move on the same prey; they're going to split off in 5 different directions, each pursuing the first thing to catch its eye.

Same will happen to generation after generation of newly-made zombies. Get up, then scatter throughout the living. They aren't going to offer a nice, one-assault-radius target.