You don't need to kill anyone

[thestalkinghead]

Originally Posted by DreadMagus

To be honest, I doubt the military would be that efficient.

For the main reason they're dangerous - their training... Aren't most soldiers trained to go for the center mass instead of the head on normal targets?

Now apply that to enemies who will not go down due to torso shots..... by the time people actually realize the only way to kill a zombie is with a headshot/blow - and... well... there might not be much military left.

let me put it this way, why would all of the survivors in the comic, tv show and game survive where a squad of trained well equipped military personnel would die?

then add onto that, it would be planned out mission the military would be sent on not just parachuted down to random places on the planet, the military could build a city sized wall with guard post and mounted weapons in a day with the correct planning, plus overtime our technology would be developed to more efficiently kill/defend against zombies.

i'm not saying everything would be fine in a few days, but we would recover a lot of our infrastructure in a short time (key power plants tactically taken and maintained etc.)

[DreadMagus]

As I said, their training would work against them.

And besides police, Military personnel would be the first to encounter groups of zombies..... survivors are usually those who watch first responders fail

[Rommel49]

Originally Posted by Cyreen

Approximately 150,000 people die every day. Consider that community epicenters will be hospitals and it will initially quietly spread from there. Even assuming the military of whatever country in question tweaks to the situation early, how willing are they going to be to obliterate a hospital? Then there is the normal human reaction to hide weakness, the bitten will deny out of fear, loved ones will hide the infected until it's too late, and in the meantime, people will continue to die and whether they are infected or not, will reanimate. By the time the powers that be are aware of the situation, I doubt they will have a military left to command, considering soldiers are people with families too.

It won't spread quietly however; the idea it would is mutually exclusive with the very notion of shambling zombies that are incapable of passing for the uninfected. Being dead or being both dead and moving are both pretty damn big warning signs that something is wrong and you shouldn't get too close.

Militaries also specialize in dehumanizing people so they can get guys to kill them. It worked in the Civil War, after the Christmas truce of WWI, and worked for the Germans of WWII. And as the training has become more sophisticated, the number of troops willing to fire their weapons in anger has only gone up. Hell, there's actually plans on the books about what to do in the event of an uprising by the Girl Scouts, including dealing with the psychological aftermath of having soldiers gun down little girls.

Dehumanizing the rotting corpses that like to eat people alive to make more of themselves wouldn't even be a challenge by comparison, hospital or not. Particularly since things like artillery mean the guy doesn't even need to see his target, to him it's just a set of coordinates on a map.

Everybody in the Walking Dead is already inflected, bite or no bite.

I'm aware, it doesn't matter much. It's played up as a big thing in-universe, but most people unsurprisingly have a natural aversion to corpses and try to stay away from them anyway... given their tendency to stink and carry diseases.

[thestalkinghead]

Originally Posted by DreadMagus

As I said, their training would work against them.

And besides police, Military personnel would be the first to encounter groups of zombies..... survivors are usually those who watch first responders fail

a lot of first responders will die, but the entire military wont be the first responders just a small amount of them, the second wave wouldn't be a zombie win it would be the start of the recovery

[DreadMagus]

Yeah, but, these corpses won't just lie down and stay quiet - they tend to chase you down and eat you.

[DreadMagus]

Originally Posted by thestalkinghead

a lot of first responders will die, but the entire military wont be the first responders just a small amount of them, the second wave wouldn't be a zombie win it would be the start of the recovery

That unfortunately depends on how widespread it is.

If it's everywhere, the various military bodies will be spread razor thin..... which works against them as well.

[thestalkinghead]

Originally Posted by DreadMagus

That unfortunately depends on how widespread it is.

If it's everywhere, the various military bodies will be spread razor thin..... which works against them as well.

why would they be spread thin, my point is that the military, isn't just generals sending in waves of troops to die, a military plan would pass through many hands of some seriously intelligent people then handed to well trained disciplined and smart soldiers.

it wont be plan "send soldiers in and fire big guns at zombies"

[Rommel49]

Originally Posted by DreadMagus

To be honest, I doubt the military would be that efficient.

For the main reason they're dangerous - their training... Aren't most soldiers trained to go for the center mass instead of the head on normal targets?

Now apply that to enemies who will not go down due to torso shots..... by the time people actually realize the only way to kill a zombie is with a headshot/blow - and... well... there might not be much military left.

Yeah, we may be trained to aim center-mass (because it's the easiest, quickest target to hit) if we can make aimed shots, but it doesn't matter.

Purely by chance you're going to hit the head, particularly when you get to crew-served weapons like MGs simply by virtue of the amount of lead being thrown in the air (even leaving aside things like shrapnel for the moment)... seriously, it's not for fashion that we wear things called helmets.

It particularly doesn't matter since as-is pretty much everything else in the arsenal kills more people than a guy's rifle... seriously, it gets a lot of attention from the public for a weapon that only inflicts about 2% of the casualties in war. The rifle's primarily a pinning weapon, used to keep an enemy's head down so he can't concentrate on say, killing you. The real killers tend to be things like tanks, aircraft and artillery... none of which exactly require precision and none of which zombies can do squat against.

[DreadMagus]

Just out of curiosity, how likely would those be deployed in civilian populated areas?

[Rommel49]

Originally Posted by DreadMagus

Just out of curiosity, how likely would those be deployed in civilian populated areas?

Most tend to be pretty close to one. With aircraft it doesn't much matter due to their speed. Given modern artillery has effective ranges of over 20 - 60 km (depending on the piece and munitions), they don't even necessarily need to be in the area to affect it. Incidentally, those tend to be the two biggest killers in wartime.

Beyond that, most cities in the U.S. have a guard depot and/or reserve center with an armory. Even my old reserve company (which wasn't particularly well-equipped) had a number of heavier weapons. Moving beyond the first world, it's important to remember that in places like the Middle East, ready access to stuff like RPG's is pretty much a given in any populated area, some countries over there maintain armories in pretty much every village so they have a ready-made insurgency in the event of an invasion - it's a policy that'll serve them just as well in this case.

Regardless, even assuming access to just rifles to begin with and that somehow no zombies get shot in the face, there's already an expectation of possibly having to call for fire and then waiting until something heavier can come along to finish the job. The difference in this case is that the enemy is slow, won't take cover, and won't shoot back. They start getting close? That's what motorized transport's for, pick up, move down the road a ways and start shooting again. At the end of the day, they're still pretty much target practice.

[DreadMagus]

You know, after reading that....

...I'd kinda like to see a ZA style movie/book/game where the living actually won.

[Jaded X Gamer]

Originally Posted by DreadMagus

You know, after reading that....

...I'd kinda like to see a ZA style movie/book/game where the living actually won.

Shaun of the Dead actually does that. Just one more reason I love that movie.

[Cyreen]

Originally Posted by Rommel49

It won't spread quietly however; the idea it would is mutually exclusive with the very notion of shambling zombies that are incapable of passing for the uninfected. Being dead or being both dead and moving are both pretty damn big warning signs that something is wrong and you shouldn't get too close.

And yet... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHPMocTmC08

How readily believable will it be given the universal genre familiarity?

Originally Posted by DreadMagus

You know, after reading that....

...I'd kinda like to see a ZA style movie/book/game where the living actually won.

WWZ is well worth reading.

[Rock114]

Wait, there's really a plan for a Girl Scout uprising?

[Rommel49]

Originally Posted by Cyreen

And yet... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHPMocTmC08

How readily believable will it be given the universal genre familiarity?

Despite the fact it's an ad, note that people tended to avoid them more often than not. Add in the fact actual corpses stink (to put it quite mildly), and well...

WWZ is well worth reading.

Too many cases of authorial fiat for my tastes; that, or the author genuinely doesn't seem to understand how things like modern weaponry and such actually work.

Originally Posted by Rock114

Wait, there's really a plan for a Girl Scout uprising?

Yep. It's basically filed in the same catergory as what to do in the event of alien invasion though. I see it as either plan-makers taking their job very seriously to be prepared for any eventuality, or just screwing around. Maybe a bit from Column A and a bit from Column B.