Which science fiction universe has the worst tactics?

[jollyreaper]

Also, you don't need headshots. Just keep shooting until the muscles are pulped and the zombie is no longer a problem.

Against one zombie yeah, that's a valid tactic for someone who is panicking. Bear in mind you'd have to blast through the goddamn spinal column to drop the thing and that's only because it couldn't balance upright anymore. It would still try crawling after you.

It's established fact that soldiers can panic and they can rip through the ready ammo on their person in a hurry. When shooting at things that won't die, they can go through the ammo real quick. Even if the

Yes, but no modern military has ever been defeat by a foe outnumbered Greek hoplites could take down.

No modern army has ever gone up against zombies. But if you want historic examples, doctrine failures can produce extreme levels of panic in soldiers. You have your vaunted tactics, the new enemy has a new idea that defeats yours, and now certain victory is turning into defeat. What the hell? Run!

The classic zombie fight is a case of the tortoise and the hare. But in this case the hare isn't larking about or farting around, he's trying to keep in front. But he needs to eat, he needs to sleep, and the zombie tortoise keeps moving. He never stops. And slowly he gains on the hare. The hare grows tired, the hare stops sleeping. What was once easy becomes a death march as the zombie tortoise grows ever closer. This is the way African bushmen hunt animals. Humans have greater endurance than any of the speedier prey animals. They may run a lot faster but a human can keep walking and walking and walking. We tire them out and then we eat.

As for military forces in battles that feel an awful lot like a zombie invasion, look at the battle Zulu was based on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rorke's_Drift

130 against 4000. It was a near thing, too.

[jollyreaper]

Though I don't hate WWZ per se, I fonnd it enjoyed it as pulp action-horror (I loved the segment with the PLA Navy nuclear submarine), but it required a lot of suspension of disbelief to take too seriously.

Bear in mind it's a story about a freakin' zombie apocalypse. I found it really held up under scrutiny. The two parts that stick out the most as being wrong are the stuff with the stations in space (they're describing hardware that doesn't exist yet and isn't even on the drawing board) and the bit about the Jews being nice to the Palestinians for a change. Let you inside our zombie defenses? Fat chance!

I have lots of favorite bits. Probably one of my absolute favs was the Japanese setting. The one that was the toughest to read through was the girl with her family up in Canada because that's how it would more likely go down, a descent into cannibalism by the living rather than the dead. But everything from the castle fights to the catacombs to under water to the grunt who made it across the whole country fighting the war to the pilot down in zack country to the old SaFra war criminal who went through the psychotic break. All good stuff!

What I love so much about WWZ is how it satisfied the questions I always had about a zombie apocalypse -- what's going on in the rest of the world? When I'm sitting and watching the survivors chased through the mall, I'm always wondering "What's the military brass doing right now? How's it going down on the other side of the world?" It was brilliant at that.

Have you listened to the audiobook of it yet? Performed with a full cast. Amazing! Also, there was a nice Coast to Coast you can find on Youtube where Max Brooks called in and they played it out War of the Worlds style, acting like they'd just come back on the air after the apocalypse and Brooks is interviewed about what he's seen.

[Sinewmire]

The problems with MoD equipment in Afghanistan and Iraq was the result of Tony Blair wrongly thinking Britain was a mini-America that could punch above its weight, with things like ski gear sent to a desert base being a administrative glitch, not the strategic and tactical planners setting themselves out to be as stoopid as possible from the ground up in fighting the enemy who, unlike zombies, could shoot back and set up bombs

What does that have to do with my argument about bad supplies and wrongly equipped soldiers? You seem to have avoided the issue entirely.

Quote:
Picked off? If you have more than 9 guys in a group (or stair and the willingness to destroy them) you can't be "picked off".

Aren't we talking about the battle of Yonkers, when there was something like 3 million zombies? Men run out of ammo, especially when cut off from supplies because they're raiding a city for shotguns. Are you saying that a group of say, 10 men, wouldn't be picked off once they'd exhausted their ammo and are surrounded by the encroaching horde? Especially frightened men fighting against an apparently supernatural enemy who need headshots for certain kills.

Anyway, what would they do inside the city with their shotguns that they couldn't do in their prepared battleground with M16s?

Nah, just have them use firehouses.

Good idea, but again, the reason they didn't was that it was supposed to be a propaganda victory for the ARMY. "US Army saves world from zombies!" sounds better than "US Army saved by civilians with hoses!".

Which is a whole nother world of stupid. Who let those idiots on the coms? How were people to dumb to recognize they could miss let into the army?
Also, you don't need headshots. Just keep shooting until the muscles are pulped and the zombie is no longer a problem.

You need soldiers on comms so they can report back, and make observations, and talk to each other through their NBC suits. It's easy to call people dumb when they panic from an armchair remember. When you're there up against the walking dead it's far easier to believe in impossible things.

Yes, but no modern military has ever been defeat by a foe outnumbered Greek hoplites could take down.

WTF does that have to do with my comment about bad equipping decisions? Are you suggesting that's in any way relevent? I'd love to see Greek hoplites take down the millions of zombies were at the battle of Yonkers. One thing zombies CAN do is push.

[adam_grif]

Good idea, but again, the reason they didn't was that it was supposed to be a propaganda victory for the ARMY. "US Army saves world from zombies!" sounds better than "US Army saved by civilians with hoses!".

Yeah but "US Army saves world from zombies" sounds better than "US Army defeated by zombies due to incompetent command structure."

[Samuel]

Aren't we talking about the battle of Yonkers, when there was something like 3 million zombies? Men run out of ammo, especially when cut off from supplies because they're raiding a city for shotguns. Are you saying that a group of say, 10 men, wouldn't be picked off once they'd exhausted their ammo and are surrounded by the encroaching horde? Especially frightened men fighting against an apparently supernatural enemy who need headshots for certain kills.

Correct. Zombies are that pathetic. You get on the second story of a building, destroy the stairs and if you have enough supplies and rocks (for slings- it doesn't matter if you don't know to start with- you are going to get alot of practice) you can last forever.

Anyway, what would they do inside the city with their shotguns that they couldn't do in their prepared battleground with M16s?

The buildings funnel zombies down streets meaning you don't have to aim as they pack together and your rounds pass through multiple ranks. If you have ammo problems you can just fortify the buildings on the side and drop rocks on their heads like an old fashion castle.

You need soldiers on comms so they can report back, and make observations, and talk to each other through their NBC suits.

No, you need them to talk to their commanding officers. The command structure would still be in place and people wouldn't be broadcasting for the whole army. Otherwise you get multiple individuals talking to a soldier similtaneously which leads to rather garbled orders.

WTF does that have to do with my comment about bad equipping decisions? Are you suggesting that's in any way relevent? I'd love to see Greek hoplites take down the millions of zombies were at the battle of Yonkers. One thing zombies CAN do is push.

Well, swiss pikemen would probably do better, but zombies don't have any reach so as long as you allow enough room in your lines to bring up new men you can last forever.

Bear in mind you'd have to blast through the goddamn spinal column to drop the thing and that's only because it couldn't balance upright anymore. It would still try crawling after you.

Actually bullets have a tendancy to pulp flesh. A couple shots through the arms and legs and the muscles won't work anymore.

It's established fact that soldiers can panic and they can rip through the ready ammo on their person in a hurry.

Enemies walking at a steady pass generally do not cause panic.

But in this case the hare isn't larking about or farting around, he's trying to keep in front. But he needs to eat, he needs to sleep, and the zombie tortoise keeps moving. He never stops. And slowly he gains on the hare. The hare grows tired, the hare stops sleeping.

So zombies have endurance... which does a fat lot of good against the military. Do you honestly think they field all their soldiers at the same time? Reserves, night patrols and the like exist specifically to keep this from happening.

As for military forces in battles that feel an awful lot like a zombie invasion, look at the battle Zulu was based on.

That is an insult to the Zulu. If the British were facing zombies they wouldn't be in the situation in the first place- they were only there because of a previous disaster where the Zulu over ran a British positions. Zombies don't do surprise attacks and they don't run like the Zulu's did. All they would have needed is enough ammo- or, failing that pilling the corpses until they bar their enemy's path.

[Wyrm]

The classic zombie fight is a case of the tortoise and the hare. But in this case the hare isn't larking about or farting around, he's trying to keep in front. But he needs to eat, he needs to sleep, and the zombie tortoise keeps moving. He never stops. And slowly he gains on the hare. The hare grows tired, the hare stops sleeping. What was once easy becomes a death march as the zombie tortoise grows ever closer.

Complete bullshit. Last time I checked, the conservation of energy is still universal law. It's precisely because of CoE that a human grows tired and needs to eat. That will apply also to a zombie with any realism to it. More so in WWZ because zombies are stated to have their blood replaced by a gel, and gels are not nearly as efficient at moving energy-bearing nutrient around as liquid blood. It also cannot move around oxygen, which means that the energy liberation must be completely anaerobic — a much less efficient process.

That means that the energy for moving around is contained entirely within the muscles for moving around, and it won't last forever. The ATP that drives the muscle contraction cycle will exhaust and the muscle with freeze up, as in rigor mortis, and will not release until the fibers are broken down altogether. Peptides require the Krebs cycle to break down, and in any case require some reforming before they may be consumed in this way, and they will produce toxic metabolites like urea anyway. (And don't think that zombies will be immune to urea poisoning — toxic metabolites interfere chemically with cell function, including protein function. That's why they're toxic.)

So the zombies have, at best, a few hours of lurching around before they collapse as rigor mortis finally sets in, and then never move again. Coupled with the fact that lurching around is very inefficient, they probably have less, and as such the only way a zombie plague can continue is if it is highly contagious — the bodies have hours before the parasites render the host worthless.

Rather than eating being a disadvantage to humans, it's actually a huge advantage — we can take in nutrients to replenish our energy reserves, while a zombie is stuck with the energy reserves of its host. Same with liquid blood — it's actually a huge advantage, rather than a disadvantage. A zombie that still moves around after a few hours has a de facto cheat in the form of violations to the CoE.

This is the way African bushmen hunt animals. Humans have greater endurance than any of the speedier prey animals. They may run a lot faster but a human can keep walking and walking and walking. We tire them out and then we eat.

Because we have an efficient stride. The classic lurching zombie has anything but that. Try lurching around like a zombie sometime — it's very tiring, and that's with fully liquid blood and all the advantages it conveys.

As for military forces in battles that feel an awful lot like a zombie invasion, look at the battle Zulu was based on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rorke's_Drift

130 against 4000. It was a near thing, too.

The Zulus had spears and could run around, able to use all the advantages of being human. A zombie horde will fare much worse.

[Temujin]

Bear in mind you'd have to blast through the goddamn spinal column to drop the thing and that's only because it couldn't balance upright anymore. It would still try crawling after you.

Actually bullets have a tendancy to pulp flesh. A couple shots through the arms and legs and the muscles won't work anymore.

Thank you. I'm so sick and tired of the idea that bullets always make nice clean little holes, and thus aren't going to hurt the "dead" flesh. This shit applies to vampires. werewolves and other crap as well. At least on in "Dog Soldiers" the werewolves were hurt and had to retreat until they healed, even if it was ridiculously quick.

The classic zombie fight is a case of the tortoise and the hare. But in this case the hare isn't larking about or farting around, he's trying to keep in front. But he needs to eat, he needs to sleep, and the zombie tortoise keeps moving. He never stops. And slowly he gains on the hare. The hare grows tired, the hare stops sleeping. What was once easy becomes a death march as the zombie tortoise grows ever closer.

Complete bullshit. Last time I checked, the conservation of energy is still universal law. It's precisely because of CoE that a human grows tired and needs to eat. That will apply also to a zombie with any realism to it. More so in WWZ because zombies are stated to have their blood replaced by a gel, and gels are not nearly as efficient at moving energy-bearing nutrient around as liquid blood. It also cannot move around oxygen, which means that the energy liberation must be completely anaerobic — a much less efficient process.

That means that the energy for moving around is contained entirely within the muscles for moving around, and it won't last forever. The ATP that drives the muscle contraction cycle will exhaust and the muscle with freeze up, as in rigor mortis, and will not release until the fibers are broken down altogether. Peptides require the Krebs cycle to break down, and in any case require some reforming before they may be consumed in this way, and they will produce toxic metabolites like urea anyway. (And don't think that zombies will be immune to urea poisoning — toxic metabolites interfere chemically with cell function, including protein function. That's why they're toxic.)

So the zombies have, at best, a few hours of lurching around before they collapse as rigor mortis finally sets in, and then never move again. Coupled with the fact that lurching around is very inefficient, they probably have less, and as such the only way a zombie plague can continue is if it is highly contagious — the bodies have hours before the parasites render the host worthless.

Rather than eating being a disadvantage to humans, it's actually a huge advantage — we can take in nutrients to replenish our energy reserves, while a zombie is stuck with the energy reserves of its host. Same with liquid blood — it's actually a huge advantage, rather than a disadvantage. A zombie that still moves around after a few hours has a de facto cheat in the form of violations to the CoE.

That's why in the Solanum thread I advocated this:

I've always figured that the best way to present the zombies would be too start off as fast Rage style zombies that eventually break down into the Romero shambles as they begin too decay, giving a Resident Evil (movie) style explanation as for why they are still active.

[Big Orange]

GHETTO EDIT: Though I don't hate WWZ per se, I found it enjoyable as pulp action-horror!

The problems with MoD equipment in Afghanistan and Iraq was the result of Tony Blair wrongly thinking Britain was a mini-America that could punch above its weight, with things like ski gear sent to a desert base being a administrative glitch, not the strategic and tactical planners setting themselves out to be as stoopid as possible from the ground up in fighting the enemy who, unlike zombies, could shoot back and set up bombs

What does that have to do with my argument about bad supplies and wrongly equipped soldiers? You seem to have avoided the issue entirely.

Boots that after a time melt in the desert heat is different to the US Army/Marine Corps. given way too many stupid gimmicks (like communications scramblers) and anti-armor weapons to destroy a massive crowd of walking corpses while acting like complete muppets at the same time. Even if the Abrams, Strykers, Bradleys, and Hummers had the wrong sort of ammo to destroy zombies, they could still rush forward and run down the hordes like wet corn, with infantrymen sitting on the roofs in relative safety, shooting down at the Zacks (with the MBTs and AFVs still given machine gun ammo that would be more than enough to mow down zombies at significant range). And by the time the military is deployed, the soldiers are going to know what to expect from zombies, since they're going to listen to the civilians and local cops who have been fighting the zombies for days already.

And what's wrong with using air and artillery strikes on zombies? It's an uncertain way of killing the enemy to begin with, but still used often, but unlike human soldiers the zombies have no concept of digging foxholes or getting down in a nearby ditch, still keeping together in a massive crowd.

Sure there's going to be the problem of legless zombies in the wake of massive explosions, but any mangled human corpse is going to be systematically destroyed anyway and seriously disabled zombies are easier to deal with than upright ones.

[Big Orange]

That's why in the Solanum thread I advocated this:

I've always figured that the best way to present the zombies would be too start off as fast Rage style zombies that eventually break down into the Romero shambles as they begin too decay, giving a Resident Evil (movie) style explanation as for why they are still active.

Hmmmmm, in Dead Set Charlie Brooker in the script writing process wanted that happen, with the fast zombies eventually becoming much slower and clumsier as they got more biologically degraded by the month, but the budget and time constraints stopped that from happenig.

[jollyreaper]

closer.

Complete bullshit. Last time I checked, the conservation of energy is still universal law. It's precisely because of CoE that a human grows tired and needs to eat. That will apply also to a zombie with any realism to it. More so in WWZ because zombies are stated to have their blood replaced by a gel, and gels are not nearly as efficient at moving energy-bearing nutrient around as liquid blood. It also cannot move around oxygen, which means that the energy liberation must be completely anaerobic — a much less efficient process.

You can either accept the premise or reject it. A Brooks zombie and all its zombie friends swarm the laws of physics and pull them down to the ground where their brains are feasted upon.

A Brooks zombie really lacks any sort of natural explanation. It has to be operating on supernatural rules. The moment you try to explain it away as a virus or something natural it all falls apart.

The very idea of a zombie flies in the face of reason. That's what makes them so horrifying. Is a burned up ghost of a child killer really able to kill you in your dreams? Try to explain it with any sort of logic and the whole thing falls apart. The only way to make it work is to run with the idea of the whole situation being impossible but here you are in it, now what the fuck ya gonna do? Nightmares don't have to make sense. Funny story, I actually had a nightmare I was in that fell to pieces when I started thinking through it. Bit of lucid dreaming I guess. My dreams hardly ever feel real and this thing had me sucked in completely. It felt real as life. It was only when I started questioning the reality of it that I slammed into consciousness. "Wait, my friend is off at UF. Why is he here with me in this situation? Shit, what day is this? I've got class on Monday! Where the hell am I?" Completely disoriented upon waking. Only ever happened to me a few times ever. My sister has dreams like this all the time, real as life to her she says.

Now as far as I'm personally concerned, if I'm telling a hardcore realistic zombie story I'm sticking with Rage-infected humans. They're alive, they're violent and cannibalistic, but they're still human. Might take a while to notice an arm torn off due to adrenaline but a .45 slug through the chest will put 'em down. If I were telling a "yes, they really are walking dead people" zombie story, I'd have to run with the supernatural angle. There's no other way to try and explain it. And by supernatural I don't mean there's a witch-doctor involved, I just mean that the means of reanimation remains completely impervious to scientific investigation and the scientists who try to figure it out are losing their minds because this should not be happening. It's not a virus, it's not solanum, it's not bacteria or anything like that. It's just happening.

That means that the energy for moving around is contained entirely within the muscles for moving around, and it won't last forever. The ATP that drives the muscle contraction cycle will exhaust and the muscle with freeze up, as in rigor mortis, and will not release until the fibers are broken down altogether. Peptides require the Krebs cycle to break down, and in any case require some reforming before they may be consumed in this way, and they will produce toxic metabolites like urea anyway. (And don't think that zombies will be immune to urea poisoning — toxic metabolites interfere chemically with cell function, including protein function. That's why they're toxic.)

It's called suspension of disbelief. I'm right there with you on this. Brooks zombies eat but don't need to -- they don't digest the meat. Where does the energy come from to power them? Best to not even attempt to explain it and just treat it as the one big assumption in the setting. The rest of the material is good enough that you can just look at the illogical, impossible nature of the zombie as part of the horror. If the story wasn't any good, I'd be at your side tearing it apart for this.

So the zombies have, at best, a few hours of lurching around before they collapse as rigor mortis finally sets in, and then never move again. Coupled with the fact that lurching around is very inefficient, they probably have less, and as such the only way a zombie plague can continue is if it is highly contagious — the bodies have hours before the parasites render the host worthless.

Even if we're talking supernatural zombies, I'd think the bodies would fall apart in weeks or months. The idea of decade-old Zack roaming the countryside seems a bit off.

Rather than eating being a disadvantage to humans, it's actually a huge advantage — we can take in nutrients to replenish our energy reserves, while a zombie is stuck with the energy reserves of its host. Same with liquid blood — it's actually a huge advantage, rather than a disadvantage. A zombie that still moves around after a few hours has a de facto cheat in the form of violations to the CoE.

Hey, it's the basic premise of the story you're talking about. You either buy the existence of a Brooks zombie or not. Could a man really dress up like a bat and fight crime? Sure, he could, but he'd be dead or in jail inside a week. If you can get over that one hurdle, you can enjoy a Batman movie, assuming it's not by Schumaker idiot. If you can't, Batman ain't for you. The Batman story says "Yes, a man can dress up like a bat and fight crime. Now we're going to try and do a good story with that premise." Hell, there's no explanation for Superman and his powers. Yellow sun? Please. You accept the premise and see what follows. Of course, the writers can always fail you there. Personally, I can accept the premise of a super-powered kryptonian for the sake of the story but I can't accept everyone working at the Daily Planet being so thick they can't recognize that Clark Kent is Superman wearing glasses.

The Zulus had spears and could run around, able to use all the advantages of being human. A zombie horde will fare much worse.

Too subjective. We don't have any real zombie attacks to use for reference. It all comes down to whether or not you buy what the author is selling. Honestly, I could just as easily enjoy a story where the premise is that zombies are much weaker and containable but their existence puts increase pressure on the governments of the world. A story like that, it's not a Zombie Apocalypse over in a week but a decades-long slide into hell as human society changes and adapts to the zombie threat.

I think Brooks did a good job selling his zombie war but it's a matter of opinion. We'd need a real zombie war to decide which one of us has the right idea. And even if we did have one, someone could come along and say "Well, real life zombies are slow ones, this is true. But if we had an outbreak of fast zombies, we probably wouldn't even be here!"

[Samuel]

The very idea of a zombie flies in the face of reason.

Nah, just have something that screws up your brain and makes you hyper aggressive. A zombie horde flies in the face of reason.

Sure, he could, but he'd be dead or in jail inside a week.

To be fair, in the universe is in "top of the line normal" is slightly different than what we would consider human.

We don't have any real zombie attacks to use for reference.

We do have situations where soldiers were horribly outnumbered, where men when up against untrained troops using melee weapons and when troops advanced at a walking pace.

But if we had an outbreak of fast zombies, we probably wouldn't even be here!"

Bulldozers are your friends. It just means fighting them is difficult compared to cakewalk.

[Vendetta]

You can either accept the premise or reject it. A Brooks zombie and all its zombie friends swarm the laws of physics and pull them down to the ground where their brains are feasted upon.

A Brooks zombie really lacks any sort of natural explanation. It has to be operating on supernatural rules. The moment you try to explain it away as a virus or something natural it all falls apart.

The premise of the zombies isn't really the problem with Brooks' story. The problem is the response to them. In WWZ it doesn't just come down to one or two bad decisions either, it's everything, every single human response to the rising is incompetent and stupid. And if everyone has to be stupid to make the plot work, it's an Idiot Plot.

Too subjective. We don't have any real zombie attacks to use for reference.

But we've all seen George Romero's movies

[Zor]

Also, one would think that they could just kill sarah in infancy or something.

Skynet knew very little about the wereabouts of Sarah Conner.

Finally, wouldn't the emp from the nukes do huge damage to skynet?

[/quote]

Its mainframe is was locaded in a secured and probably very well sheilded area.

Zor

[Wyrm]

The very idea of a zombie flies in the face of reason.

Bullshit. Real world parasites turn their hosts into zombies all the time. It's the zombie horde that flies in the face of reason.

Is a burned up ghost of a child killer really able to kill you in your dreams? Try to explain it with any sort of logic and the whole thing falls apart.

A ghost killing you through dreams has far more plausibility than a zombie horde. A horrifying enough nightmare can cause the stress hormones in your body to do nasty things to your body systems, especially after an ordeal of horrifying dreams and sleep deprivation. If it induces a waking dream, it can cause you to jump off a building, which will also kill you straightforwardly. Zombies are violating core physical laws.

If I were telling a "yes, they really are walking dead people" zombie story, I'd have to run with the supernatural angle. There's no other way to try and explain it. And by supernatural I don't mean there's a witch-doctor involved, I just mean that the means of reanimation remains completely impervious to scientific investigation and the scientists who try to figure it out are losing their minds because this should not be happening. It's not a virus, it's not solanum, it's not bacteria or anything like that. It's just happening.

Then why have the WWZ zombies have antibacterial gel for blood? Why protect them from bacteria breaking down their proteins when they are being moved supernaturally anyway? Sorry, but WWZ tries to portray zombies realistically whether you like it or not, and the tactics of WWZ are the subject of the discussion whether you like it or not.

It's called suspension of disbelief. I'm right there with you on this. Brooks zombies eat but don't need to -- they don't digest the meat. Where does the energy come from to power them? Best to not even attempt to explain it and just treat it as the one big assumption in the setting. The rest of the material is good enough that you can just look at the illogical, impossible nature of the zombie as part of the horror. If the story wasn't any good, I'd be at your side tearing it apart for this.

Brooks makes a clumsy attempt to reconsile the fact that cadavers rot with the continued existence of zombies long after they should stop moving with antibacterial gel. Brooks is trying to portray zombies realistically, which raises the bar for suspention of disbelief drastically. WWZ is a "real" zombie horde story. Eat it.

Even if we're talking supernatural zombies,

We're not. Get with the program.

I think Brooks did a good job selling his zombie war but it's a matter of opinion. We'd need a real zombie war to decide which one of us has the right idea. And even if we did have one, someone could come along and say "Well, real life zombies are slow ones, this is true. But if we had an outbreak of fast zombies, we probably wouldn't even be here!"

Bullshit. We have real-life military experts here and they are saying that the zombie horde scenario is wholely unrealistic. We have people with a basic grounding in scientific principles saying that the zombie horde scenario is wholely unrealistic. Portraying a supposedly real zombie horde unrealistically is a deal-breaker.

[Big Orange]

The premise of the zombies isn't really the problem with Brooks' story. The problem is the response to them. In WWZ it doesn't just come down to one or two bad decisions either, it's everything, every single human response to the rising is incompetent and stupid. And if everyone has to be stupid to make the plot work, it's an Idiot Plot.

For the zombies to prosper in the tens of millions the Idiot Ball was certainly getting passed around every single adult on the planet, but unlike in the even more relentlessly grim and misanthropic and goofy George Romeo movies the zombie menace was none the less utterly crushed in WWZ, with humanity unambiguously victorious and beginning the prosper agan (otherwise a fictious Brooks wouldn't have interviewed the participants who survived).

Anyway why phase out vehicles and heavier weapons altogether, with infantry laboriously going about on foot without air and artillery support? I can understand that in major conflicts with unfamiliar scenarios (zombies are pretty out there) the tried and tested tactics of the day slowly change over time in response, with certain equipment and weapons gradually getting phased out then replaced with others. In a major war against zombies tanks and AFVs wouldn't be stupidly dumped altogether but would instead be slowly adapted to fight against the zombie hordes, with anti-personnel shells only issued to gun loaders and main guns sometimes replaced with flamethrowers, more machine guns get bolted on, and many military vehicles get so encased in barricaded platforms for infantrymen to ride on they resemble Medieval siege engines. The M16 rifle eventually gets replaced with the Atchisson Assault Shotgun.

[Werrf]

Anyway why phase out vehicles and heavier weapons altogether, with infantry laboriously going about on foot without air and artillery support? I can understand that in major conflicts with unfamiliar scenarios (zombies are pretty out there) the tried and tested tactics of the day slowly change over time in response, with certain equipment and weapons gradually getting phased out then replaced with others. In a major war against zombies tanks and AFVs wouldn't be stupidly dumped altogether but would instead be slowly adapted to fight against the zombie hordes, with anti-personnel shells only issued to gun loaders and main guns sometimes replaced with flamethrowers, more machine guns get bolted on, and many military vehicles get so encased in barricaded platforms for infantrymen to ride on they resemble Medieval siege engines. The M16 rifle eventually gets replaced with the Atchisson Assault Shotgun.

Fuel, and detail. Fuel was at a premium, if the grunts could walk somewhere, they should. There was no real advantage to be gained from driving troops everywhere in a zombie war - the zombies couldn't be outflanked, didn't have any formations to out manoeuvre, so mechanised infantry was a waste of fuel. Secondly, during the big advance, the job involved going over every inch of ground to clear out every zombie, or as close to every zombie as possible. Vehicles would have been worse than useless for that kind of work, limiting vision, cramming several soldiers together meaning you're covering less ground, moving too fast for you to properly inspect the ground you were covering...sorry, vehicles provided little real advantage to fighting zombies, except possibly in cities, so they were only used in cities.

[Agent Sorchus]

Wrong. Vehicles give two great advantages that can never be overcome by a foot mobile group, reaction time and ability to concentrate forces. You will never have enough feet on the ground to clear out every single zombie in the wilderness, but if you retain vehicles you can strike against zombies before they slaughter their way through out laying parts of your civilization. And due to speed you cover more ground far faster in a vehicle than walking. Plus trying to flood the zombiefied in men means that you have to bring in far more supplies to support them, which also strains your precious fuel supply.

[Werrf]

Wrong. Vehicles give two great advantages that can never be overcome by a foot mobile group, reaction time and ability to concentrate forces.

Neither of which are helpful in the campaign that was fought after vehicles were discontinued.

You will never have enough feet on the ground to clear out every single zombie in the wilderness,

...though that is what was done in the book, and the reason it was done.

but if you retain vehicles you can strike against zombies before they slaughter their way through out laying parts of your civilization.

That's a defensive response, and the battle in question was offensive. They were doing exactly that at the rockies defense line, the soldiers who were hoofing it were the ones who were...being the feet on the ground to clear out every zombie in the wilderness.

And due to speed you cover more ground far faster in a vehicle than walking.

And speed is important here because...?

Plus trying to flood the zombiefied in men means that you have to bring in far more supplies to support them, which also strains your precious fuel supply.

Not if you use pack animals to transport supplies.

[Setzer]

The RCPD from Resident Evil was pretty damned idiotic. They chose to fight positional defenses in the streets, rather then taking advantage of their helicopters for mobility, or even just shooting at the zombies from the second floor.

I read one Let's Play of the series where the guy playing the game said "What if these aren't zombies? What if the people in this town are really just that stupid?"

[Night_stalker]

What, you were expecting the Magniot Line from a bunch of cops? If the STARS were there, they might've had a chance of properly holding them off, but naturally after the disaster at the Arklay Research Facility there weren't a lot of STARS left.

[jollyreaper]

The premise of the zombies isn't really the problem with Brooks' story. The problem is the response to them. In WWZ it doesn't just come down to one or two bad decisions either, it's everything, every single human response to the rising is incompetent and stupid. And if everyone has to be stupid to make the plot work, it's an Idiot Plot.

Lots of stupid reactions before they hit upon the right tactics. YMMV but it strikes me as completely plausible.

[jollyreaper]

The very idea of a zombie flies in the face of reason.

Bullshit. Real world parasites turn their hosts into zombies all the time. It's the zombie horde that flies in the face of reason.

Zombie as undead human. I made a distinction between walking corpse zombies and living zombies. Parasite-infested critters are living zombies. And if you're going with living zombies, then you are right that they should be easier to control. Even if the zombie loses the ability to feel pain, blowing a hole in the middle will make them die right quick.

Is a burned up ghost of a child killer really able to kill you in your dreams? Try to explain it with any sort of logic and the whole thing falls apart.

A ghost killing you through dreams has far more plausibility than a zombie horde. A horrifying enough nightmare can cause the stress hormones in your body to do nasty things to your body systems, especially after an ordeal of horrifying dreams and sleep deprivation. If it induces a waking dream, it can cause you to jump off a building, which will also kill you straightforwardly. Zombies are violating core physical laws.
[/quote]

Of course they do, if we're talking undead zombies. That's why I said that you really can't try and explain them with viruses or anything like that -- you provide a theory and anyone with knowledge can debunk it. If the premise is left at "they're rising from the dead and we don't know why," that's a Twilight Zone justification and valid. Serling never explains why the shit happens that does in the show, you've just entered the Twilight Zone and it's happening. As I said above, the impossibility of what's going on here is part of the horror.

Then why have the WWZ zombies have antibacterial gel for blood? Why protect them from bacteria breaking down their proteins when they are being moved supernaturally anyway? Sorry, but WWZ tries to portray zombies realistically whether you like it or not, and the tactics of WWZ are the subject of the discussion whether you like it or not.

There's a natural explanation for the zombies in WWZ, true. I think that's the only mistake -- you can debunk everything an explanation's put to. Best to not explain. But given zombies of this nature exist, how would things play out from that point? I enjoyed his approach. You did not. Such is life.

Brooks makes a clumsy attempt to reconsile the fact that cadavers rot with the continued existence of zombies long after they should stop moving with antibacterial gel. Brooks is trying to portray zombies realistically, which raises the bar for suspention of disbelief drastically. WWZ is a "real" zombie horde story. Eat it.

What else could he do? What would your ideal story be?

I think Brooks did a good job selling his zombie war but it's a matter of opinion. We'd need a real zombie war to decide which one of us has the right idea. And even if we did have one, someone could come along and say "Well, real life zombies are slow ones, this is true. But if we had an outbreak of fast zombies, we probably wouldn't even be here!"

Bullshit. We have real-life military experts here and they are saying that the zombie horde scenario is wholely unrealistic. We have people with a basic grounding in scientific principles saying that the zombie horde scenario is wholely unrealistic. Portraying a supposedly real zombie horde unrealistically is a deal-breaker.[/quote]

Well of course zombies aren't real or else we'd have them. The whole point of a science fiction story is to create one or two things that don't exist yet and play through the consequences realistically. What if time travel could happen? Of course it can't or else we'd see evidence of it. But assuming it could, what comes next? What if aliens revealed themselves to the world? Of course they haven't and we have no proof aliens exist but if we run with that premise...

There's no evidence the unburied dead could come back to life and seek new victims. But if they could, what would it be like?

Military containing them or military not containing them are simply two scenarios that depend on how the zombies are portrayed. Either one could happen depending on how well the story is written.

Here's an example, Red Dawn. What would it be like if America found itself a modern warzone? The writers wanted the Russians invading. Even with the scenario presented in the intro, the plausibility seemed sketchy. I personally think that it would have been smarter to run with a 2nd Civil War scenario or setting this up as completely alternate history. But we can still watch the movie with the premise provided and critique it from those assumptions. "Fine, the Russians can do this. So do things play out sensibly from here? Could high school kids put together their own resistance cell? How does it go, do they win?" They got slaughtered. I think there ended up being like one survivor out of the band. The US eventually won but our heroes were killed by overwhelming Russian firepower. So given the premise of the film and the liberties taken, it's reasonably plausible. If the kids won and drove the Russians out of town, that's straight out fantasy.

[Stargazer]

How about Mass Effect? Too stupid to blockade chokepoints, too stupid to get out of the way when a giant spaceship drives through them, and such poor fleet control slow-moving projectiles butcher them even at long visual range.

As adam_grif said, the ending cutscene does not reflect the actual tactics they are supposed to use in space. Also, the books depict tactics on the ground in small-scale encounters being relatively competent. Definitely not "worst" material when it comes to space battles (no worse than stuff like engaging at ranges you could throw a beer can across in Revenge of the Sith when supposedly your weapons have lightsecond ranges!)

[Vympel]

As adam_grif said, the ending cutscene does not reflect the actual tactics they are supposed to use in space.

What bothers me is that they did the same damn thing in the sequel. I just don't buy that the animators could've made the same mistake twice. We see GARDIAN batteries that are exactly like turbolasers, the Normandy's regular and upgraded main gun is also nowhere near c - I think the only weapon that has a near instantaneous travel time is the Collector cruiser, but I don't really remember. Its been a few months ...

[Ghost Rider]

Because the zombie(Yes, because a bunch of slow moving shambling corpses present a challenge to any army), ME(Because VISUALS don't count!!!...but we're to rely upon their subjective wording), and other universe hurf durf spewing is amusing, please continue. But when you want to retort when someone goes "(insert universe) is filled with dumbfucks!!!", understand tactics is not strategy.

Tactics are by which actions are used to gain an objective.

Strategy is the overall plan.

But please, more with the wild assumptions of zombies being both a decent tactical and strategic asset and wild shit from potshot dumbasses about SW and such not. Really, with topics like this, no need to go into N&P for wild unproven assumptions .