Guntrucks of the Living Dead

**Wooley** · 07-Jul-2009

If you're into Vietnam War history, you've probably heard about the creation of gun trucks to guard convoys from ambushes. These were regular supply trucks that had extra armor (usually improvised from sheet steel and sand bags) and guns fitted, usually M-60s and Browning .50s, and crewed by members from the supply and transportation company that made up the convoy.

These trucks got a second go around in the current Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, and I was thinking they'd make a great anti-zombie weapon for fiction writers out there.

First, some changes. They're zombies with teeth, not insurgents with bombs, so we don't need the extra armor, so the fuel usage is decreased and the strain on the truck's systems is less. Likewise, instead of a couple of machine guns, we're putting soldiers in the back, with their rifles and carbines, and they'll use aimed fire to maximize rounds expended per reanimated deactivated.

The bench seats in the back will be moved from the outside walls of the bed, where the soldiers would have sat facing each other, to the inside middle of the bed, so the soldiers will now face out, so they can see and shoot. I've seen photos of other armies who have similar seating arrangements when their troops are transported by truck.

The tactics will be a fire team (4 men) per truck, so there's lots of room for ammo, fuel, water, food, and anyone you need to pickup, like the troops from a broken down truck if you can't fix it quick enough and too many zombies show up at once. If the mission is picking up civilians from surrounded rescue stations or just infested neighborhoods, you bring along buses and put them on those. The fire team leader is in the passenger seat up front with the driver and the radio, and the platoon sgt is in the end truck, the platoon leader in the front. The leaders can communicate any number of things-contact, survivors sighted, low on ammo, too many zombies-let's move, by radio or hand signals.

The plan is basically a mounted motorized zombie whacking safari. The convoys drive into areas uncontrolled by humans, and draw out the dead using any number of tactics (a boom box blasting death metal would be my choice in a screenplay) and when the zombies get a certain distance from the trucks, the troops open fire, and keep firing until the numbers thin or the numbers get too heavy to deal with. At which point the trucks move, either for new hunting areas, or to avoid being overwhelmed.

As part of pre-mission planning, spy sats or helicopters could survey potential routes and note blocked roads, downed trees, heavy zom concentrations, potential survivors (presumably in structures surrounded by large numbers of reanimates) and this info would be part of the platoon leader's briefing.

Areas for resupply, probably by helicopter, artillery or air support in case of higher than anticipated zom numbers, and other details would likewise be mapped out prior to roll out.

Basically, instead of forting up and letting the zombies overwhelm us, I'm thinking fort up, and send out search and destroy teams to thin out the zombie menace as best as possible given the huge expanse of country, and limited fuel, time, men and ammo to do so.

I could see civilians and law enforcement doing something similar but probably not on as large a scale, or as long as the military during a zombocalypse.

Thoughts?

**Danny** · 07-Jul-2009

swear i read a story with this kind of deal in, a town surrounded itself with fences, thinned out the rest of the town and week by week kept extending the wall, this is gonna bug the crap out of me.

**FoodFight** · 08-Jul-2009

I think the crisis would be over before the vehicles would be refined to that level. The U.S. Army, at least from my recollections of it, is slow to adapt to doctrinal changes (although area commanders can be greatly adaptable at improvisation to specific threats i.e. welding plows onto tanks to clear hedgerows, or uparmoring trucks with 'found' armor). Most likely the current issue (and doctrinally modified) vehicles and equipment would soldier through the problem and not meet with any real change until years after the event. It might even make for a better story.

"Rollins cursed as the sandbag fell from its' positon and fell heavily upon his shoulder as his truck negotiated a tight turn. 'Those things out there don't shoot back, why are we carrying this extra weight? Typical Army, the manual says convoys vehicles will provide protection from small-arms fire, so here we are he concluded' ".

Unless of course, the story takes place sometime later when the U.S. goes about clearing out other countries that didn't fare as well.

**Slain** · 08-Jul-2009

Gun-trucks without side and overhead armor would fare badly if they ran into even lightly armed band of living humans. An APC or a tank would be my choice to support forging/recon operations. If fuel consumption or maintenance of a tank or tracked APC is too much hassle, the band could haul the armor around on tractor-trailor rigs, and dismount the armor if they ran into opposition or a potential ambush situation.

Other survivors might of course mistake a group driving around in military vehicles for an operational military unit; this could a good thing or a bad depending on who runs into who.