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.
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Originally Posted by blind2d
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