In an actual zombie apocalypse, I feel like they'd switch over to chainmail over Kevlar pretty quickly. Some police forces already use it when dealing with people wielding knives and you'd get better whole body protection.
I love the fact that a good set of full plate armour stayed really expensive throughout history. Even after all the metalurgical advances and production automation, it shows that the true value comes from a skilled artisan's time and effort. Makes it all the cooler.
It stayed expensive because it became so useless noone can make them anymore. If they were still useful we'd be producing them in industrial quantities
If for some reason there was a demand for plate armor, by this point in time they would be modular. You would go in and get measured and they would have a range of different parts that all interconnect. So they might have like 20 different sizes of gauntlets, sabatons, greaves, pauldrons, etc, and they would be held together by zippers or something. But because of the magic of mass production, an entire suit would only cost a couple hundred bucks.
all those fitness influencers are morons, TRUE masculinity can only be achieved by half-swording and wrestling another plate-armored combatant in the aspect of the pronghorn
I mean, they generally would have greater than average strength given that they wouldn't have the inherent limiting factor that is pain and instinct to stop before we hurt ourselves. That can still cause an open wound when using chainmail alone, which runs the risk of becoming infected through contact. Kevlar under chainmail would work just fine, but plate would be easier to produce.
I've always figured plate armor would be the best armor to have in a zombie apocalypse, you'd be practically immune to the classic zombie that's just gotta bite you, and it'd provide decent protection from anything else that's hostile and not infected, namely some guy with a gun who wants your stuff and not you. And considering armor piercing rounds is impractical/overkill for dealing with zombies, they'd most likely have something that wouldn't have the easiest time penetrating your armor
Not in any kind of CQB, no, but in a zombie apocalypse where theres hordes of zombies, would you really prefer to use any kind of gun that might attract attention, has limited ammo before you reload, in a CQB environment? Obviously a smart person would get close or use a more penetrating round, but a smart person wearing plate armor wouldn't use historical plate armor and would likely instead swap out some parts with kevlar plates for protection against bullets and just use plate to cover everything else, which would be better than chainmail in case of actually getting shot since it'd be more likely to deflect a glancing blow or actually slow the bullet so it'd be easier to remove.
Most importantly, plate armor would be easier to maintain than chain armor in a case like PZ where power goes out, but even if you have access to something basic to maintain mail armor, if it rains once or you get blood on you (likely from zombies), you have to worry about cleaning it soon or else it'll rust, which is a much smaller worry with full plate armor.
plate armor wouldn't stop most .22s, let alone a real handgun caliber. It takes very little steel to stop a sword, it takes quite a lot to stop bullets.
chainmail is better against knives. but kevlar requires less maintenance and is lighter than chainmail. It is also sufficient to block teeth and bony finger claws of zombies.
You don't even need bulky chainmail - just sturdy leather jacket and pants already prevent from some biting, I never really understood why people in movies are constantly half naked. I understand it may be hot, but they get constantly bitten in uncovered hands and legs and gg
Yep. You see an infested building and have no immediate reason not to, you demo that shit. Or better yet, take off and nuke the whole site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
The fact that i cant see the zombie until they fully come out from the corner is nuts. Ive died so many times just from perching on a corner and getting bitten by an invisible zombie.
Woe be upon you, the zombies get glassed the moment the infected cities are considered a lost cause by military aircraft because airborne diseases can’t spread without the host being relatively near a victim.
Woe its already too late becauss if people are turning into zombies people with that have it but havent devolept symptons have already left the city. Were you not alive during covid?
Yeah, and not everyone got infected in one giant covid wave due to the way airborne diseases work and screening / quarantine systems of internal / external border systems.
The moment a zombie and its nature is confirmed pretty much all borders will be hard shut and military / civil security personnel within every nation will enact strict non-contamination procedures within their physically excluded barracks’s. From there cities will be cut off by military presence on major routes/highways and non recoverable cities will be glassed.
Other than L4D and later stages of the last of us (not even the initial apocalypse mind you) i genuinely can't think of another Zombie apocalypse where the spread was airborn.
The military still fucking loses every time.
Its almost never a CBRN issue, its a plot convenience one.
They looks scary, but they're basically weaker versions of humans
They are slower, less durable [since they're LITERALLY rotting], and they're extremely dumb
Their main power is numbers, but it's unlikely that they would ever get to any high amounts, since a human with basic tools and armor can kill so many zombies, and the military with professional tools and armor would be even more effective
Makes no sense that a rotting corpse would have joints and muscles in good enough condition to be a predator, that's why many zombie media rather focus on the ego death and human drama aspects nowadays. Zombies should be a threat not because they leap and jump, but because they'd take over during panic and become a horde of shambling pestilent corpses.
The bigger physical threat of zombies is that they don't get tired, or hurt
Shoot a man and he dies, shoot a zombie and it keeps going. Zombies have no concept of pacing or tiredness, they will push their bodies at 100% 100% of the time to catch their prey
i mean, the zombie doesn't care about hurting their fingers
doesn't change the fact their fingers will get hurt crawling for like, 1 mile.
So just speedwalk a 10min mile, and do that twice a day. Great, now all the zombies you ditched just die from sheer wear and tear.
The bigger issue is not getting infected by broken-up zombie bits contaminating water, or mosquitoes, or ticks. Imagine any insect bite is an insta zombie conversion? Malaria 2.0.
It will still go forward, although dragging itself, by itself it's just a threat if you don't stomp its head and sleep nearby it for it to catch up, or if he's part of a huge horde that you'll need to shoot 30, 40, 50 legs as they continue to move forward and taking territory.
At this point you're assuming magic is powering them. A zombie in the physical world, when the heart stops pumping blood, oxygen stops powering cellular activity, muscles fail to contract, and they tip over.
Exactly. Even if it's just a mental thing and it's people going berserk, they're going to quickly injure themselves and their body is going to stop working from tearing their own muscles and injuring themselves then bleeding out.
The apocalypse would last a day or two bc they're not going to be getting enough hydration and nutrition for going all out with their bodies even if they manage to not injure themselves.
i mean, sci fi nonsense and magic are kinda required in these zombie scenarios. if a zombie exists in the physical world, you have to assume that they have some groundbreaking scientific phenomena backing them, because otherwise, it wouldnt be a "zombie in the real world" but a disease with one of the shittiest methods of infection that wouldnt be taken seriously and cured in a week
Yeah, it doesn't make much sense in walking dead where we're shown that they're decomposing so much that dudes just punch through them - then how tf are they able to walk and bite?
I'd say "zombies" are so varied that it's kind of nonsense to make sweeping generalizations. Dying Light volatiles are faster, stronger and more durables than humans for example.
Tbf ususually zombie plagues come with an added virus that spreads the plague first, usually some airborne thing that somehow only a lucky 5% is immune (but obviously can still get infected via bites) and gets through any air filter.
The example video is of Project zomboid where this literally happened. First outbreak happens, military is deployed, they successfully get everything under control, a bunch of them are re deployed to different USA bases overseas without realizing they are infected, they turn, suddenly it’s a global crisis and most of the military already turned.
Yeah, literally within 15 days it went from contained, to starting to splinter and then the whole world is kinda fucked due to an airborne strain being present. Note this all happened in 93', which meant even less ways to get information about what was really happening in Knox County.
The game starts on the 9th if I remember correctly which is crazy for how bad the zone is atp, and legit in six days the airborne strain happens and its gg.
I put like thirty hours into it and gave up before doing the mission where I'd have to stalk a spitter at night because it was scary. Which is odd because I love Dead Space and other scary things. They did a very good job making the night intimidating.
Really good, one of these days I'll get better with it.
In project zomboid (game in the gif) the high numbers are explained with the zombie virus being airborne, and the survivors are those that took precautions or are immune to the airborne strain of the virus
This is why almost all modern zombie media portrays the humans as the real threat. We almost wiped out the entire toilet paper supply over Covid, imagine how people would reacted if a global level zombie outbreak was actually permanently shutting down supply lines. Our level of globalization means that there isn’t a country on Earth that could remain entirely self sufficient indefinitely without international trade.
It also fucks with the human sense of community. See, despite what preppers think, natural catastrophe or other big disaster, even up to nuclear war won't become a 1v1 thunderdome. People will band together for mutual safety and resources, neighborhoods, towns, groups. A zombie apocalypse completely ruins that, as our neighbors and friends turns into monsters trying to kill us. Anyone can get infected(depending on zombie setting) and it will be a threat to everyone. The community structure is destroyed and we become our worst enemies.
That's all fine and dandy until you get the green flu zombies and not the walking dead zombies (which I'd argue is still dangerous just cause everyone is infected by default, you'll have to keep doors locked incase someone dies in their sleep and turns even though they weren't bitten)
Numbers but also they have zero logistics needs. Humans need to eat and sleep. Zombies do not. Humans need leaders to help coordinate them. Zombies do not.
I think The Walking Dead did late stage zombie stuff super well. In the later seasons, zombies are hardly a problem, it's explained that they're all rotten to the point of muscles not being usable, so all the survivors really need to do is watch their steps since most are now stuck on the ground, and the ones that walk haven't evolved at all, so the survivors can very easily just poke them with spears or spiked walls to kill them off easily. The zombie world I wouldn't want is Dying Light where zombies evolve very rapidly and are byproducts of experimentation, so it's a very real possibility that the same method of killing one zombie isn't the same as another. Imagine fighting one zombie and it's super easy, then another and the next one is impervious to bullets, then one where it's skin is made of rocks so you need to blow it up to kill. Then another that's just Dwayne Johnson but geared exclusively for slaughter. Looking back now, I understand why people shelter instead of run, those cities would be terrifying
The premise of the best zombie movies, from Night of the Living Dead onwards, is that humans are so dysfunctional that they destroy each other with stupidity and selfishness; the zombies are just the relatively weak threat that brings it out of the main characters.
And regardless of everything you just said human jaws aren't wide or big enough to easily bite people. We pretty much have to nuzzle our prey if that's the intent.
I think actually their main powers are the ability to infect and spread exponentially coupled with not fearing for or being particularly effected by major bodily harm.
If you have a machine gun you can stop a huge number of people from attacking because none of them want to die, and if they do bum rush you, you dont have to worry about hitting the head to stop them, leg, torso, maybe even arm would stop people. Zombies even if you have absolutely perfect aim you can only stop as many as you have bullets.
I think the hard part is the murder. This disease might be treatable. If soldiers and civilians buy into the zombie movie mindset and just start slaughtering everyone who’s infected instead of restraining and quarantining them, a LOT of infected people could die unnecessarily.
Other than that, even a medieval civilization would have no issue dealing with normal zombies. Killing unarmed, unorganized humans is easy as hell for just about any military ever.
slow creatures literally falling apart by the second vs. the 1,000 blades of grass each housing an American dreaming of the day they get to use the gun they bought just in case
TBH the Battle of Yonkers ticks me off with how stupid it was done, because we have canister shot exactly for situations like that, and goes of air weapons that would be perfect to annihilate masses of light infantry.
I get it had to go that way or the plot wouldn't happen, but I still think it's dumb.
I mean that was just the one battle, and it was a PR stunt anyway. Im sure modern the US military would struggle to comb every corner of the nation for zombies with a fuel requirements of an armored regiment anyway
Aren’t zombies and infected technically different things? Like the infected in WWZ for example aren’t actual undead zombies, they’re just infected people. A true zombie requires being undead, or am I wrong?
I mean, it depends on what you see as a true zombie. Because technically, the origin for a zombie is, basically, a slave to a sorcerer. They don't even need to be undead, just under control. If we're talking about. "They bite you and you turn" undead, then there's gonna be some magic fuckery and they'd be basically unkillable.
Now, if we're talking about infection zombies, undead or not, they usually infect animals that come into contact with their fluids
It's semantics. Theres no exclusive "true" definition; "True" zombies are not even zombies because they are not raised by voodoo.
The modern zombie was created by Romero for Night of the Living Dead and it sets up most of the basic rules (the dead rise again, slow and stupid, eats human flesh, only weak to brain damage) but even the original modern zombies follow some rules that people would consider not normal for a zombie (afraid of fire, can use very basic tools eg a rock to smash a window, eventually start evolving some intelligence in the sequels). Also notably the Romero movies never explain the origin of the problem (theories mentioned in passing are a virus, space radiation from a returning probe, the damned escaping hell, etc) and almost never use the word zombie (like, only twice in the entire franchise and never in the first couple of movies).
So really, a "true" modern zombie would just follow a very basic definition ("feral behaviour, looks fucked up, eats human flesh, immune to most damage except brain damage or complete destruction") and everything else (slow or fast? Virus, magic or something else? Dead risen again or infected and technically alive?) is up to personal choice. And even the basic rules get played with at times too (Return of the Living Dead, which created the "they specifically hunger for human brains" trope, has them be immune to all damage including to the head making them basically unkillable, for example).
Actually in World War Z they played both cards. First you contract the virus through a scratch or a bite and the virus is 100% fatal so you quickly die from it, then the virus "resurrects" your brain without restoring the rest of your biological function. They're both undead and infected so nobody can complain.
I’ve had nightmares of mosquitoes that carried a zombie virus. This is one of the cases that a long incubation period for the virus would be extra deadly. If it starts in a poorer country with high tourism. People get infected, go home, then they infect mosquitoes in their country from getting bit while as a carrier. Then as you say all the animals get infected, it would be chaos.
Oh fuck, that's actually a very horrifying vector for a zombie virus. My country has problems with mosquito related diseases and it's almost impossible to get rid of the carriers.
Oh yeah, the base game is great! And then there are the mods to enhance the experience. Really fun, I would recommend maybe try to do a run without checking tutorials just to have a feeling of how deep the game is, and then check videos about how to survive. That's what I did and that feeling of powerlessness I felt was unlike any I had with other survival game
I remember arguing in the original video of this. People pointed out that this was a bug. I pointed out that this, as a chance of being an event, was far more realistic that what they usually have. And then they started saying that the buildings usually spawns 15 zombies and that this was not realistic.
Bro, you are meta gaming by knowing the amount of zombies that are going to come out of a building. And I find that just boring.
In PZ it was actually a decent explanation because the virus was airborne and had a rather long incubation period, so the military quarantining the town got infected without knowing, and as things got out of hand, the military were very fast to all turn, which left the US to be completely fucked.
Though I hate to say it, but the best explanation for how a virus destroyed every military is... The wwz film... Because they didn't give a shit so they were just like "yeah the virus takes over in 7 seconds and also it appeared in literally every country at once"
I definitely think it's possible to imagine a rather normal zombie infection actually taking over for at least a few years, but most media don't care about the outbreak and just about the apocalypse, so they don't put in the effort to make a realistic outbreak that got bad due to corrupt governments trying to hide it, social division, conspiracies, migration, military overconfidence etc. Though TLOU did a decent job with it coming from grain and the military being way too extreme
Honestly military tactics are among the least unrealistic things about zombie viruses.
Like I sorta accept the disease raising the dead if only because it facilitates the whole conceit of the story, but there are so many things about diseases that would make sense to include and would actually improve the story
Some ideas I have:
- the virus mutates, and I don't mean "videogame-enemy-esque zombie variants" I mean things like "It can now be spread by birds" or "zombies now hibernate to sustain their rotting bodies longer" or "humanity invents a vaccine, but it only works against certain strains of the virus"
- retained knowledge, I can understand somewhat "feral" behavior, but as long as the brain is intact then it makes no sense that they instantly lose all skills. I know there was a Korean movie that did this (Alive), but that's the only example I can think of.
- Incubation periods, not every movie ignores this, but they don't really understand it either. To my knowledge the fastest progressing disease takes about 12 hours to start showing symptoms, not even to die, just to show symptoms. And rabies (the closest thing to an IRL zombie virus) can take months to show symptoms. and often the first symptoms of a disease are more or less indistinguishable from a cold or flu. Not only is this realistic, but also I'd argue it makes things scarier. You never know when somebody will suddenly fall ill and try to bit you, and if you ever get a regular cold everyone will be scared of you and possibly kill you out of caution.
I feel like the concept of risen dead itself really throws all scientific rationale out the window just by merit of existing - mutating viruses, loss of skills, incubation periods... it's all just sitting on top of "human bodies can move long after the facilities by which human bodies move have ceased to function".
If a given type of zombies can survive without drinking water, then all bets are off as far as biology is concerned. Which is why people are more likely to gripe about military tactics before incubation periods in a zombie movie - because the suspension of disbelief accounts for the latter, but not the former.
while I'd say that's kinda reasonable I generally disagree, though that's really just preference I guess, probably because I personally find diseases very interesting so I know more about them than the average person.
but I would say that these things are useful for designing new plot points, like they aren't strictly necessary, but they are useful for making a story unique. Honestly I don't expect any movie to be 100% accurate, zombie or not, but real life facts (or spinoffs of these facts) are basically a cheatcode for creating cool twists on the genre.
Like remember the walking dead and how it was revealed that everyone was already infected and they would become zombies when killed by anything. That was a twist that helped the story to stand out from other zombie stories. So things such as "the zombie virus is animal borne" or "the zombies maintain parts of human intellect" or "seemingly healthy people can become zombies even several months since being bitten".
It's less so "I need these things" but more like "these things would be interesting twists on the genre that would keep it fresh"
Yeah, having a short incubation time post bite is cool and cinematic, but having it take 12 hours would be super interesting and very dangerous. The classic “hiding a bite” thing can be completely shut down by isolating an arrival for a day or so in faster turning settings, but if the virus can take months to show signs of infection then smaller survivor populations simply wouldn’t be able to handle how much of their population would have to be isolated after each expedition. Hell it’d be really interesting to see a virus that works in two stages, the first actually benefitting the target with enhanced strength and speed (letting them use their muscles to their full ability all the time) as well as dramatically ramping up their ability to heal to help them escape the horde and reach survivors, become trusted because they’re so seemingly competent, and then weeks-months later, turn with almost no warning.
This is what always gets me in zombie movies. The military wouldn't fall nearly as fast as depicted, if at all. We've spent trillions on our military in terms of personnel, aircraft and naval capability. They could literally just go state by state clearing out the infected.
Most movies rely on assuming the military is incompetent. They assume the military would collapse, whereas the reality would likely be the government half collapsing and the military just going for it.
"The military got overwhelmed" like dude there's gonna be Marines trying to see what happens when you hit a singular zombie with a 20mm at point blank. If the zombies get into the base, you just KNOW the dude doing transport in that giant military semi is gonna have a fun day as he just floors it. The only thing I'd be worried about with the military is the decreased oversight into their actions.
I've also made the argument that Infinity War would've ended early from a sniper popping him with an anti-air round to the head
They nerf the military to make it into a survivalist fantasy where the regular average folks with some cans of beans and corner store guns survive in the apocalypse.
Military when the Zombies get their own Military complete with genetic abominations such as a whale with two legs, tamed animals such as mammoths and penguins and plants generals, media coverage and a massive mech or two
If it's an infection like world war z or left for dead, the military won't have much hope other than to try and contain it. But for the walking dead, the only reason it probably spread to that point is because you automatically turn into a walker even if not bitten, which could have the element of surprise against survivors.
It also doesn’t work here in the video because the zombie virus was airborne and had an incubation period of a week. So you’d have people unaware they were infected getting out of the quarantine zone while the military was also getting sick. It winds up spreading globally and by the time the game starts, the Knox Zone is full of zombies, military ones included. Only people immune to the airborne strain could fight back properly.
"Bro a zombie virus is not realistic, the military would easily win" mfs when an evil ass lich resurrects every single soldier and civilian casualty from WW2
I like World War Z's explanation for how the military feel apart: They had all the stuff they needed, they could've beat the zombies, but they were so preoccupied with "Shock and Awe" and using tactics from other wars that they didn't actually take the steps they needed to take to win.
Or the Zombie outbreak happened in 17th-18th century, when people only knew so much about diseases and infection, especially when there was a War started by a man called Napoléon Bornaparte.
The shambling hoard zombies are dead. No one is really having their zombies be the dead back to haunt us. 28 Days Later popularized the disease method of zombification and we’ve been running with it since. Games like The Last of Us and Dats Gone are built on deliberate destructions of this norm even. That’s how prevent the fast moving zombies are now.
Project Zomboid (not saying this is inherently bad, I think it works well for what the game is) is regressive in its look at zombies. It shys away from the Day Z, I am Legend Superzombies and focuses on the Night of the Living Dead style Corpse Movers.
The Walking dead does this too, but as a whole the Comic and Show work as a critique of society more than anything to do with zombies. That’s there to be the constant outside pressure to the internally decomposing structures of society.
Seeing how most zombie movies has the military getting swarmed with mixed results on neutralizing threats, I would say making a successful tactical retreat after doing a number on the zombie population is a good sign of competence.
Kinda what happened in World War Z (the book) too. Incompetency lead to the absolute disaster that was the Battle of Yonkers which caused a major part of the collapse (on part of the Americans), but alot of governments survived and eventually the infected were beaten back
I mean the latter half of World War Z (the book) is literally OPs point after all, they use tactics and other such nerd things to finally defeat the zombies (welcome back, infantry square). That and the bait survivor cities to horde up all the zombies.
Anyways the Yonkers failed because the military fought like they were up against people, and to look cool for the evacuating survivors, because they thought they’d steamroll the zombies, but the zombs were really durable to explosions for some reason (would keep fighting with lost limbs), and also didn’t really have morale for the flashy light show to break. It’s stated explicitly in the books that it would’ve been better to put the infantry in the hotels to snipe the zombies rather than on the ground behind sand bags (to protect against what enemy fire?), but USA was too busy flexing for the evacuees under the assumption that their 5 million bombs and advanced radar systems (no clue why they brought those other than to look cool) would wipe out the zombies.
A competent fighting retreat on a failed objective (if that's what it was) is still evidence of competency. You don't always win even if you're the best.
Yeah this, taking out the zombies is easy, but with the way the infection is, stopping an outbreak might be hard, a Kindergarten teacher has an aneurysm and dies on the spot? Toddlers are not gonna understand what's going on, boom, a classroom full of kids turned into a breakout. There'd have to massive societal possibly cultural changes to make sure an outbreak doesn't happen.
i know squat about the walking dead so pardon my ignorance here, but why not just bomb them into oblivion? if it takes something like their heads getting destroyed to take them down would bombs not do that or at least cripple the zombies enough to make make hordes far less threatening?
I'm going to draw from World War Z (the book's) explaination. Basically, with most bombs not being purpose-built to destroy the head, all bombs would do is scatter zombies everywhere and limit their mobility by destroying parts of their body. While it's not entirely ineffective, the cheaper and more efficient method that's developed by the same military later in the book is to just have a line of sharpshooters shoot the zombies in the head, and once they're out of ammo they switch with another sharpshooter and reload.
Additionally, partially-exploded zombies can actually be more dangerous in some situations. Imagine a zombie crawling around in tall grass, or shallow, murky water. They're a lot more difficult to notice until it's too late.
Finally, more packed together zombies protect each other from getting shrapnel in the head, further reducing the effectiveness of bombs.
In the book the zombies got defeated by the military forming squares with semi auto rifles and constantly refreshing and replinishing the frontline troops.
i just read world war z and there is a really good section about the US trying to fight a big horde of zombies.
The old generals treat the zombies like a normal enemy and use tactics that are not suitable for the undead.
it has a lot to do with them not feeling pain, exploison trauma not working on them and them not getting scared and slowing down when being shot with the big guns.
I think the section was called "yonkers" or something like that, you should look it up!
I love the scene in Dawn of The Dead (1978, not the Cuck Snyder one) where the Pennsylvania National Guard are just smoking cigs and hanging around with the cops and local hunters as they all pick off zombies from a safe distance. Everyone's drinking beer & coffee. It's like a tailgate party.
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