Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[sonerohi]

You will never give up on the spears. Of course it doesn't take much force to jam something through an eye socket! The problem with spears is that THEY GET STUCK in bone. You will never get it back, if you somehow have the precision and athleticism to jam it into their brain. It only needs to get stuck once.

The entrenching tool still has an edge. While edges make penetration easier, they also get stuck and dulled. Undoubtedly a decent last-ditch spur-of-the-moment anti-skull weapon, no doubt about it at all. Yay hyphens! I would still stick with a blunt instrument on a short handle for repetitive use, though the shovel has great trade-offs in utility and portability. A short hammer/mace isn't much good for anything but smacking stuff. The question now comes up: How much good is a ground-level shelter in a zombie apocalypse? The entrenching tool is designed to create such a shelter on-demand for moving/patrolling soldiers. However it would probably be pretty far down on my list of tools to carry (for zombies, though high on a list for a post-apocalyptic bullet-ridden landscape).

The most useful thing it would do for you is probably your gardening. If you have any really serious digging to do yourself, a bigger shovel will truly be necessary. It really does come down to mobility: how mobile do you plan to be? If you are going to be migratory, a small spade will dig a nice grave to go to sleep in each night until the zombies show up. If you don't plan to move, you have no need for the mobility of the spade and you can just use a real shovel to dig any holes you need much more quickly and easily. If you just want to garden, take a small gardening tool. If facing intelligent humans and trapping wild animals, an entrenchment tool could be useful to a migrant.

In the event of a much more likely non-zombie crisis, your entrenchment tool is the bomb diggity.

I'd like to participate in this hole-punching thing.
#1: As you have repeatedly reminded us, pain and bleeding mean nothing to zombies. Seeing as how a .22 cannot at all pierce the skull to hit the brain, your plan is equally worthless.
#2: You talked about how you would shoot a zed in the eye socket. While being extremely difficult, you treat it as easy as if it were breathing, while ignoring that up close and personal, a spear would fit that eyesocket much easier.
#3: Please either chill out or gtfo the thread. The discussion was pretty fun up until you popped up and with no kind words to anyone, began ragging on how all our plans are shit, but you, in your greatness, know everything and can do everything and will be the only survivor.

[The Architect]

I'd like to participate in this hole-punching thing.
#1: As you have repeatedly reminded us, pain and bleeding mean nothing to zombies. Seeing as how a .22 cannot at all pierce the skull to hit the brain, your plan is equally worthless.
#2: You talked about how you would shoot a zed in the eye socket. While being extremely difficult, you treat it as easy as if it were breathing, while ignoring that up close and personal, a spear would fit that eyesocket much easier.
#3: Please either chill out or gtfo the thread. The discussion was pretty fun up until you popped up and with no kind words to anyone, began ragging on how all our plans are shit, but you, in your greatness, know everything and can do everything and will be the only survivor.

Absolutely correct. I am here to end all fun. You should punch holes too, but do it with facts not conjecture! Hey, I'm just patently against edged weapons vs zombies. And staunchly supporting the fact that a .22 round pierces skulls (Fact, not theory nor conjecture, and thus not debatable. You can't any more debate it than you can debate that at this moment the Earth's gravitational constant is approximately 9.8 meters/second^2. A .22 long rifle round will reliably pierce a human skull up to medium range, though for obvious reasons it will not do as much damage as a heavier round. It doesn't matter what you think, it's just reality. That is why a .22 is the preferred weapon for putting pets out of their misery in the country. I had to witness my dog die by one. It was less pleasant to the observer than a needle and a slow sleep, but he was killed instantly via brain trauma.).

What is with the strong support for spears anyway? Multiple people have already pointed out how absurd they are. If you'd read more carefully before getting upset, you'd realize that I already stated it's only practical to aim for an eye socket up to about 80 feet and only on a shambler. Of course you can't hit something like that on a fast-moving target. Not only that, but you don't need to aim for an eye socket to hit the brain with a .22 round. And if you really simply can't understand that a .22 pierces skulls, so be it. You don't have to believe it. But you can't disprove it, and if you really want to go there I can cite reliable resources, with links.

But is it worth it? Is it really, really, worth it? Yes, I'm flaming idiots and non-idiots alike over the spears thing. If we were facing runners, I'd be the first to grab a homemade spear if I thought anything was going to get that close. You can be sure I would prefer it to fighting at arm's length with a bludgeon. But who would want to try to use an extremely ineffective weapon when we have so many other options to fight shamblers and avoid infection? Spears are suicidal. As I previously stated, if you want to go for heavier ordinance that's your problem. Feel free to do it; you'll be more sure of a kill but able to carry much less ammunition. I will be content with a .22 rifle for medium range and perhaps a .45 or 9 mil for anything that gets close. Though God knows I still can't hit shit with a 9 mil. It feels like a popgun. At 20 feet I couldn't even site it in to hit bottles.

There's no emotion in a debate. Kind words? I've been pretty even toned, and you would be dead wrong to say I haven't commended some of the plans for various reasons.
Edit: Oh yes, and the .22 wasn't my idea in the first place. I am actually supporting a couple of other people who put it up first. So it's not "my plan is superior!", it's "their plan is superior and I stand behind them!" I just added recruiting local redneck friends who can shoot and making sure to take some attractive girls along.

[sonerohi]

I'd like to apologize then. You keep coming off as kind of up-tight, but sorry if that is not the case. I think it's mostly just that you point out flaws with a statement rather than a question, which makes the tone more up-in-the-air.

[The Architect]

It's definitely not your fault. I'm notorious for being awful in text because of the total lack of emotion. Thanks to the way I learned to write, everything really is rigid and uptight. But that's not how I am at all as a person.

I owe you and the others an apology for being too negative and shooting holes rather than being constructive. Stubbornness isn't a great trait either in a give-and-take conversation about hypothetical situations. Sorry for not making more of an effort to be directly friendly and avoid stepping on toes! But maybe my comments will save a few lives when the inevitable zombie apocalypse comes?

How do you see a chain-link fence holding up to a zombie horde? Electrifying it is out of the question when facing more than a few zombies at a time; even if you had the power you'd have to take into account the loss of current as individual zombies grounded it, making it little threat for others down the line. I'm thinking even a high-quality chain link fence would fall to the traditional horde.

And to move the topic along, I don't think the conventional shamblers are threat to any person of average or better intelligence who calmly faces them. How would you deal with the good ole semi-magical zombies who have no need to use their central nervous system to move, and who don't infect but rather create corpses to be reanimated? The kind where you have to physically render them mechanically inert?

[Strife26]

For the super tough to kill zeds (the sort where dismemberment is required), I've always believed that running is going to be the solution. Get into the country with some buddies, then clear and pick them off in small groups to clear a small town. Pretty similar for the crappy electricity only zombies. The real question is, do the arms keep moving after you take it off? Cuz that just kinda sucks. In any case, fire starts to look like a much better idea when any bullet short of a .50 is useless.

[The Architect]

How about "THE THING" zombies? Well, I guess you'd be screwed if you didn't live in the arctic. How would you go about clearing a town? No point in going into it if you don't go super-in-depth and over complicate everything! The guy's plan to fortify a warehouse in the industrial center of his town was really tight, for instance.

By magical and not needing a central nervous system, I was thinking that even a severed finger would attempt to end your life. The kind of zombie where you'd have to cut his biceps, calves, knee tendons, arm tendons (for finger/wrist control) and sever its head to render it inert without creating a lot of pieces, then burn it. Or something of the kind. I think if you did that, you'd be left with a squirming torso with its only practical mobility in its thumb, toes/feet and last two joints of each finger. And of course a biting head-football. But it can't infect you, so just keep it away from major arteries and other important soft tissue

But then it could still hump its way toward you doing a modified version of "the worm", right? So maybe you should just smash its bones and leave it with no intact mechanical levers for the muscles to utilize?

Now, how to handle 200 of them? Smash the jaw, elbows and knees perhaps?

[Strife26]

Two hundred at once would be definite machinegun work. I'd try to get somewhere with a tank (a A2 with the TUSK and it's remote 50 cal's would be nice). Even if they're still squirming, blowing off their legs makes them much less of a threat (you'll note that this applies to pretty much every type of zombie). Ideally, I'd lure them to an area where they'd be trapped and burn them.

Short term, I'd end up running probably. Or pull the shovel.

[sonerohi]

I think with magical zeds you sacrifice your loved ones to distract the horde long enough for you to commit seppuku.

An electric fence would be counter-productive because it would shock you when you poked your spear through  . Although a good defence might be the ol' pirate method: Ready a bunch of high power blackpowders and stick the tip of the barrel through the fence so you can just run past and set them all off. It would be like a wall made of guns.

[Strife26]

Is duct tape conductive? I'm not sure, but I've got a pair of combat gloves that I'm pretty sure are an insulator. Thinking about it, if they're the electricity types, someone developed shotgun launched taser slugs a while ago. We'd have to get those.

[The Architect]

I think with magical zeds you sacrifice your loved ones to distract the horde long enough for you to commit seppuku.

An electric fence would be counter-productive because it would shock you when you poked your spear through  . Although a good defence might be the ol' pirate method: Ready a bunch of high power blackpowders and stick the tip of the barrel through the fence so you can just run past and set them all off. It would be like a wall made of guns.

Good plan with the seppuku!! But I've never poked my spear through a fence, that sounds awful. I'd never do it after what happened with that that guy with the girls with the goat. Yea, don't ask.

I don't get the black powder thing, but if you mean barrels of highly explosive gunpowder then yes: explosion good. I would probably stand next to one of them so that I wouldn't be around after the fence was obliterated.

[Strife26]

I'd only use my last bullet to off myself, it's standard policy to take down as many zeds as I can first. Eventually, humans WILL take back the world, and every zombie I can take down with me helps.

[The Architect]

Well we were talking about the magical, dead-reanimating zombies. I was thinking blowing myself to bits would prevent me from joining the horde once the nutjob's black powder took our fence out

[Strife26]

Good point. If my zed is still mobile after I've offed myself I'd have to try something different (even after cutting my jugulars out). Maybe cut my own tendons out? Then there'd just be a zombie with a mouth and an arm to deal with, and I could pull a Robespierre and shoot my jaw off while killing myself if I stayed conscious through the detendoning.

[The Architect]

eww?

[RAM]

For magic zombies you need to find the source or start getting religious about cremation...

Towards that end, find a newspaper and look for signs. Try to find the point of origin and then go door to door with an army and an automatic shotgun...
Better pack some silver rounds, holy water, and kryptonite(Aliens might be involved)...
Maybe a spear for those "your weapons are so primitive we never prepared for them" Scenarios...

Can't you think of 1000 better ways to send a helpless rotting shambler on the other side of an indestructible, perforable barrier[/spoiler]
Considering limited resources and risk of infection? Not really.
 Spears are simple, easily fabricated, effective without training, and comparatively safe to use.
 But against all forms of zombie the best melee weapon is a shield. Against runners, knock them to the side, their own momentum will likely damage them. Lurchers can be knocked over and killed while they are down, belt them with a corner if you are desperate. Perpetuals can be held against a wall while someone experiments on them. And against a horde it is the only melee weapon that might buy you any time at all.