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[dragnar]

The key to surviving a zombie apocalypse is not killing the zombies, but not running out of resources. Any idiot with a gun kill kill the first wave or so, a fortified person might survive weeks, but both will die once they run out of bullets/food. Your best bet would probably to become a  hunter as far from civilization as possible, and to keep moving so you never have to deal with more than a few zombies at once.

Or course, if these are smart zombies, you are doomed anyway, since they will hunt YOU down, attacking from all sides at once.

Magic zombies on the other hand are much easier to deal with:
1. learn magic
2. cast turn undead or equivalent
3. repeat as necessary

[The Architect]

Hah. This is a fairly serious thread. I have yet to meet anyone who could use "magic", it's just not a reasonable solution. But these are "semi-magical" zombies, in the sense that perhaps they are animated and directed by means beyond our understanding, and defy our comprehension of science, but they aren't some fairy-tale made-up thing you can just make up an answer to. We'd just be facing something beyond our understanding in the world we actually live in.

Keeping that in mind, I agree that finding the source seems like the only solution. There are going to be countless people who are helpless in the face of the zombies or who will be caught in helpless situations (wake up with a corpse strangling them, and thus have no chance to fight back). Even an old grandmother might become a serious threat if she became a mindless, relentless killing machine. Sure, she's slow and weak, but shoot her fingers off and they're going to crawl into your throat and choke you.

It's the ultimate nightmare, I say! Probably slow and stupid like the classical zombie, but without the easy solution of wacking/shooting it in the head! On the bright side, there has to be a controlling intelligence of some kind. It's not like a headless torso has the ability to sense an enemy or pursue a goal without direction from another source.

Or we could end up with "rage" zombies, who for some reason are so angry they forget how to eat, then we can just let them starve themselves. Neat.

We could ask how to handle Will Smith zombies, but he already showed us. Only travel in daytime and destroy your scent with chemicals. To eliminate threat, follow a lion or deer and see how they survive each night against a horde of semi-intelligent superhumans. Otherwise, find Will Smith and a grenade and use him as a sacrifice.

[sonerohi]

On page before: I wasn't talking about barrels. I'm talking make like, a friggin wine rack designed to hold front-loader black-powder rifles. Get enough rifles and racks to make a wall, and ready all the guns. When the zeds come a knockin to break down your wall, your wall breaks them down like it's Soviet Russia.

[The Architect]

Das boom!

However, don't you think that a .50 cal machine gun might be more time/cost/safety effective? If you were back in the 19th century, hell yea to black powder single-shot rifles. Nowdays, it might be cheaper to buy bullets than a gun for every shot you want to fire.

In short, your suggestion highly dwarfy in a real-life way. Which makes it awesome. But scary. I still say I want to be standing next to an explosive once the nutjob blows up the fence :-P

[Neruz]

Ah, the good old .50 cal, now there's a weapon perfectly suited for mowing down zombies. Fires fast enough to give you a real nice scything effect on groups, and the bullets are big enough and hit with enough force to make sure that once those zombies go down, they stay down.


Ammo, as always, is a problem, but that's the same for any firearm.

[Strife26]

Ah, the good old .50 cal, now there's a weapon perfectly suited for mowing down zombies. Fires fast enough to give you a real nice scything effect on groups, and the bullets are big enough and hit with enough force to make sure that once those zombies go down, they stay down.


Ammo, as always, is a problem, but that's the same for any firearm.

It's a lot worse for .50 though. There isn't that much in civie hands (of course, there aren't any full auto duces in civie hands either), one would have to find some army supplies somewhere.

[The Architect]

I guess we're assuming the military would be out of commission on this one, so we ought to have access to whatever we want with a little ingenuity (iow felonies).

No matter what one might say about conspiracy theories, the government, etc, there's nothing that will induce patriotic soldiers to let zombies eat their country. They'd have to be out of the picture or overwhelmed themselves, or there wouldn't be a zombie apocalypse. Or of course the zombies would have to be powerful enough to prove a real challenge to them, in which case it is my humble opinion that the rest of us are effed.

[RAM]

Lets assume that zombification 'happens' and then drops off to more manageable levels, maybe it is airborne but some people are immune, maybe it was magic but it has died down a bit and doesn't actually kill people my itself any more. Maybe the virus spread faster than word could travel and took everyone by surprise, but now everyone knows what is going on, for whatever reason the survivors have it slightly better as survivors than they did during the outbreak.

[The Architect]

Oh shiz, we can't assume all of those things at once so which one do we take up on

[sonerohi]

Seriously, unless an entire third world country gets zombified due to poor resources, lack of communication, etc. and the entire country-large shambling horde takes to the sea, a real apocolypse won't happen. Local quarantines, sure, but advancing technologies would let us get the word out to a 100-mile radius by the time we spotted the first zombies, and 105-miles by the time they are dead. Especially here in America, with the idea of a 'well-armed' citizen.

[Neruz]

Depends entirely on the type of zombificiation.

If it's virus based and has an incubation period during which the person is infections, but not zombie (fairly common for a virus), then it'll get all over the world before the first Zombie even shows up. By the time anyone's worked out what to do, all major population centers will already be hit.

[kilakan]

you do realize that if it's a virus, it could get into water supply, air and food right, so you could become "zombiefied" without even being touched by a zombie, simply having it bleed in your well would be enough.  You also would have people who know they are infected yet refuse to admit it, and still get on planes and on boats trying to "escape" the zombie apocalypse while spreading it.  As for the, needing a huge mass, to be able to cause anything, in most causes something that could bring back the dead would also sky-rocket said creatures metabolism making it REALLY fast and strong, in other words, you can be as well armed as you want, but unless you have a .05 reaction speed your screwed.

[Neruz]

Depends entirely on the method by which the virus transfers itself from host to host.

[The Architect]

We've been through that pretty extensively. The main thing would be: in the case of something that virulent, it wouldn't need to be a zombie plague. It would kill everyone anyway. I guess this whole thread is just absurd, in that respect. There are so many ways in which zombies just aren't very threatening.

[NewoTigra]

Best offence is a good defence IMO.
As per such, I have a leather / kevlar chain motorcycle suit*, which should stop up to .22 calibre bullets and is reasonably light, and a nearly-finished set of blue steel Plate Armour.
Originally started making to see if I could, then just continued for the hell of it. Gone through several redesigns though.
I have this, a nice sledgehammer, a weaponised chainsaw** and some various other .22 and .50 calibre weaponry in my house. And some nice welding torches - zombies can't catch you if you've melted their face.

Just for the sheer overkill of it, I have a plan to install a railgun into my car. Removing the passenger seat and covering every part of it near to me with rubber should work properly.
It would only fire forwards and use up a good part of the cars battery, but possibly worth it for the awesomeness. _{Although it would probably only be able to fire 2-3 times before needing to be replaced... more planning is needed.}

I am fully aware that most of this would probably be useless or redundant in an actual zombie apocalypse (insomuch as one could fail to happen), but most of it I just have for personal taste and would be fun to get a use out of it.

_{*said motorcycle suit has been useful on a few occasions; ie. when my cousin invited me to go Dirt Biking with him. I ended with bruised limbs instead of broken ones 
**Pretty much just weighted so it's like a heavy sword. Rather unwieldy, as you might expect.}