Just read WWZ

[Gunhead]

Erm, did you read the post above yours? The author brings most of that up. The ammunition logistics problem was a poster's point, not the author's. Have you read the book? I ask because it's hard to get the presentation of the Battle of Yonkers from this thread. The excerpts quoted in the post above yours help in that regard though.

I enjoyed WWZ as light reading fare, but am not a rabid fanboy for it, so I understand it has its significant problems. However, the Battle of Yonkers doesn't seem to me to be that huge of a problem. Bean already brought up the mistakes the military made that are presented in the book, so I'm not going to restate them. I just don't find it as unlikely as some that a combination of commanders trying to fight a different style of warfare and lack of experience with the enemy could result in the outcome of the Battle of Yonkers. Yes the artillery could shred them, but only as long as it has ammunition, and IIRC, the artillery runs out pretty quick. I doubt the artillery was given enough to handle millions of zombies. Again, in light of Bean's points, I didn't find it that SOD breaking. A stretch, sure.

Well the thing is unless the commanders in charge were even more braindead than their opponents they wouldn't deploy their troops as they did. They don't really need to do anything exceedingly clever to win this. Doing it by the book will more or less guarantee victory. I'm only familiar with urban tactics employed by the FDF, but I'm quite confident the principals are more or less the same in any modern day army. The examples presented here make the commanders look like morons who have never even played a simple RTS let alone attended a real military academy.

I should have been more specific about the ammunition part. But as it i's a problem that doesn't really exist in this scenario I don't see the need to go discuss it further. I haven't read the book and based on the amount of stupid dug up from it in this thread it is extremely unlikely I will.
Artillery is used to supplement direct firepower and any major army can supply huge quantaties of shells to their artillery. Which in turn are hugely effective against zombies compared to a target that can and will take cover, has armored transport and vastly superior mobility. Unless there is a huge shortage of artillery shells for some reason I'm quite confident running out is not that big of a concern.

The biggest problem I can think of is the possible presence of civilians in the area and logistic problems caused by their evacuation.

-Gunhead

[Battlehymn Republic]

The chapter on the Iranian-Pakistani nuclear war was chilling and taught us all an important lesson on the dangers of not establishing hotlines and contingency protocols between nuclear states and hopefully the governments of the world will take notice.

The chapter on the Israeli Civil War taught that Jewish religious radicals have an undue power in the nation's internal affairs but fortunately they are pacifists by nature and so would be easily subdued by the IDF.

Overall I applaud this novel and the lessons in geopolitics it teaches.

[Drooling Iguana]

Why do people treating WWZ as science fiction then?

A lot of soft science fiction contains stuff that can only be described as "magic". The key difference between fantasy and soft science fiction is that soft science fiction usually focuses on one or two major breaks with the laws of physics and how people would react to them, while fantasy tends to be more about breaking as many laws of physics as you can while still maintaining a semi-coherent narrative.

Basically, if a story is all about zombies and how people react to zombies then it can be classified as soft science fiction, while if a story has zombies in one chapter, vampires in the next and they're all wiped out at the end by the chanting of a coven of witches then it's fantasy.

[Samuel]

Why do people treating WWZ as science fiction then?

A lot of soft science fiction contains stuff that can only be described as "magic". The key difference between fantasy and soft science fiction is that soft science fiction usually focuses on one or two major breaks with the laws of physics and how people would react to them, while fantasy tends to be more about breaking as many laws of physics as you can while still maintaining a semi-coherent narrative.

Basically, if a story is all about zombies and how people react to zombies then it can be classified as soft science fiction, while if a story has zombies in one chapter, vampires in the next and they're all wiped out at the end by the chanting of a coven of witches then it's fantasy.

Of course, if the witches are using high tech gadgets bought from aliens to track down individuals infected with a virus that manifests as zombies or vampires... than it is sci-fi. Which is the reason some people like the phrase "speculative fiction".

[Junghalli]

A lot of soft science fiction contains stuff that can only be described as "magic". The key difference between fantasy and soft science fiction is that soft science fiction usually focuses on one or two major breaks with the laws of physics and how people would react to them, while fantasy tends to be more about breaking as many laws of physics as you can while still maintaining a semi-coherent narrative.

I think it's mostly a matter of the way the physics-breaking stuff is presented. If it's presented as technology or something similarly "rationalist" most people will consider it sci fi. If it's presented as magic, they will consider it fantasy. For instance, zombies created by a virus are thought of as sci fi, however absurd the virus's traits are, while if they're resurrected by dark magic it's fantasy.

[Drooling Iguana]

If dark magic can create zombies then presumably it can do other things. Having literally magical zombies in your story means that there's magic in your story, with all that entails. A technobabble means of creating zombies is assumed to be more specialised.

[K. A. Pital]

I doubt the artillery was given enough to handle millions of zombies.

How the fuck did these millions of zombies arrive undetected in the first place? That's un-fucking-believable, we're talking about the fucking military here, and thousand-kilometer wide operations with intelligence, we're talking about aerial and satellite surveillance of territory, about all that matters when doing an operation! Millions of undead corpses without a brain to hide, use terrain or camo, underground passages - all on foot, arriving "undetected" anywhere without a warning of several days or even weeks ahead about their concetration is ridiculous.

That's why Brooks knows nothing about the military. Or intelligence. Or weapons. Hell, he knows about nothing, because he's just a fucking clueless writer. Get over it, folks.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Stas, the zombies weren't undetected at Yonkers, because it wasn't a sneak attack; it was a major operation that was supposed to serve as a symbolic "final standoff", but the military ended up getting overwhelmed when hundreds of thousands of zombies gradually converged across the city and practically poured over them.

[K. A. Pital]

But that's the thing. If you plan to kill millions of zombies in a meatgrinder, you won't have a problem with it.

The military isn't fighting in a line - the "frontline" is thousands upon thousands of armed forces units moving across hundreds of kilometers. It cannot be "overwhelmed" by foot-walking men in any meaningful fashion - armored units can "overwhelm" it in the sense that they'd penetrate into the rear and destroy supply lines, making fallback impossible and encircling units on a scale of hundreds of kilometers - that's the basics of modern war. It also means moving at speeds of 30 to 60 kph, which is not possible for foot walking zombies.

The military cannot be "unable to retreat" into the deep when we're talking about men WALKING IN THE OPEN. The military's tempo will always be superior to that of the zombies; it will ALWAYS have the initiative no matter what.

Every "step" of the zombies is watched from above, and when you see them concentrating, you use artillery and MRLS clearing out the space. If they start concentrating again and you're short on ammo or they are out of range, you fall back, and do so until you're safe from an enemy whose top speed is walking.

Basically, there's no way zombies can "win" a conventional battle against a modern military, period. Unless it's totally encircled, but that wasn't the case with Z.

[Battlehymn Republic]

Prediction that everyone in this thread will be drooling over the JMS adaptation regardless.

[Drooling Iguana]

By the sounds of it, World War Z deserves a writer like JMS.

[D.Turtle]

The thing with the Battle of Yonkers is that it is NOT presented as a one-time disaster that was caused by gross negligence, ineptitude, idiocy, etc. It is presented as the NORMAL way things went when various military forces (South Korea and Germany are two I can recall off-hand) fought against the Zombies. The Battle of Yonkers is used to lead into the plan - used by pretty much all surviving states - of falling far, far back, retraining/rebuilding/re-equipping your military and then taking back your country from the Zombies.

Again, the Battle of Yonkers is intended to show that modern military forces would be incapable of dealing with a Zombie horde. THAT is the problem with Yonkers.

If it had been used to show how much you have to curtail the military in order to make the zombies become a threat, it would have been find. If it had been presented as a one-time disaster, it would have been fine. But it wasn't, and therefore it just shows how completely clueless the author is.

[Big Orange]

Yonkers kinda of works as an example of a overconfident, yet panicking military setting about beating itself rather than the millions of relatively impotent zombies doing it for them, but I agree with common consent that it was a rather contrived moment in the book. It was the stupid Landwarrior system that done the soldiers and marines in, rather than their air strikes, machine guns, and artillery having no effect in chewing up the endless reams of walking cadavers, when a few zombies came out of a boarded up house behind the lines and killed a few infantrymen (with that incident being seen by everybody connected to the Landwarrior, spreading the misconception that they were surrounded, so in other words Stas Bush the US Military's ominpresent intelligence worked against them!).

But hey, at least we got some cool fanart from the debacle.

[[R_H]]

Yonkers kinda of works as an example of a overconfident, yet panicking military setting about beating itself rather than the millions of relatively impotent zombies doing it for them, but I agree with common consent that it was a rather contrived moment in the book. It was the stupid Landwarrior system that done the soldiers and marines in, rather than their air strikes, machine guns, and artillery having no effect in chewing up the endless reams of walking cadavers, when a few zombies came out of a boarded up house behind the lines and killed a few infantrymen (with that incident being seen by everybody connected to the Landwarrior, spreading the misconception that they were surrounded, so in other words Stas Bush the US Military's ominpresent intelligence worked against them!).

But hey, at least we got some cool fanart from the debacle.

(bolding mine)

Wonder why they didn't clear those houses.

[Gunhead]

Yonkers kinda of works as an example of a overconfident, yet panicking military setting about beating itself rather than the millions of relatively impotent zombies doing it for them, but I agree with common consent that it was a rather contrived moment in the book. It was the stupid Landwarrior system that done the soldiers and marines in, rather than their air strikes, machine guns, and artillery having no effect in chewing up the endless reams of walking cadavers, when a few zombies came out of a boarded up house behind the lines and killed a few infantrymen (with that incident being seen by everybody connected to the Landwarrior, spreading the misconception that they were surrounded, so in other words Stas Bush the US Military's ominpresent intelligence worked against them!).

Which is exactly how the system is not supposed to work. A platoon communicates with the company HQ. Company communicates with the battallion HQ which communicates with the regiment / brigade HQ and so forth. The higher echelon then decides which information is passed down to other units in the same command structure. Land warrior just passes down information that is vital to the unit receiving it with extra bits added. What is vital to the unit is determined by the HQs.
Unless the situation is really fucked up you do not break the chain of command, and a single unit being possibly surrounded is not that big of a deal. It's like the military can't plan for a situation if a unit gets surrounded. Which is a bloody common occurance in close urban combat anyhow. "Oh t3h nous, we is surrounded HALP... Oh wait, we'll just sit tight and call for the cavalry to come and get us."

-Gunhead

[K. A. Pital]

...the US Military's ominpresent intelligence worked against them!

Which is bullshit. "Omnipresent intelligence"? Just what the fuck's that? Brooks has no fucking clue what "intelligence" is anyway, that's the constant collection of data about enemy movements both on and beyond the frontline. Constant.

Without enemy counteraction like SAM sites, camouflage and night-time movement to conceal preparations, there can be no surprise at any point, not at night time, day time, any time.

The speed of a walking man is 4-5 kph. At all times the military units can move at several times that speed if nothing (hint: enemy armored formations, enemy aviation, or enemy artillery) disrupts the movement. The Zack have nothing. The Zack cannot obliterate the military. They can't obliterate anything. They're just walking cannon fodder, a little more resilient than the cannon fodder in the form of humans, and far less inventive, not to say absolutely lacking any countermeasures like firearms, etc.

Let's venture to HQ A:
"Hey look, our plane spotted another hundred thousand zombies heading our way".
"Who's there?"
"Units ABCD. They have munitions enough to obliterate only 50,000 of them or so"
"Okay, remove ABCD from their initial positions; move 40 to 50 km to fallback positions, send replenishments to fallback points for ABCD. Meanwhile, move artillery to strike at the enemy from 30-20 km. And drop some bombs on them, too".

[Oni Koneko Damien]

The problem with Yonkers is that it didn't present an 'incompetent military' scenario. It presented a military with a command structure that is either suicidal in regards to its men, or cartoonishly villianous to the point where any suspension of belief is just plain destroyed. Against zombies, especially the kind presented by Brooks, a friggen armed mob is a formidable threat. A military with absolutely no command structure could take out an indefinite number of zombies based on training and standard armament alone.

Basically, to have Yonkers be a loss, you have to set things up so that it looks like the military is completely suicidal and doing everything in its power to make themselves lose. That is far more than simple incompetence is capable of. It reeks of author-manipulation and 'they lost 'cause I said so!'

[CaptHawkeye]

Step-by-step analysis of the why the battle is bullshit will never work on fans of the book though. They treat it like it's an untouchable bible of sorts and respond to criticisms of it with circular logic like "zomg you make the same mistake they do in the book lol arrogance lawlawlawlawl".

[open_sketchbook]

Well, this leads to the obvious question. The idea behind the book is that the world is nearly ended by a Zombie apocalypse, which by extension means that conventional military power needs to fail at some point or another so that society can break down. This has to happen or there can be no book. Therefore, we are presented with a challange, as Max Brooks was; how can we set up a military failure against the zombies, without making the military suspension of disbelief-breaking stupid?

There is some potential in the Battle of Yonkers, if some of the parameters are changed. Some of the more stupid elements, such as setting up exclusively on the road, not packing enough ammo, and so forth can be abandoned. However, there are some others I think work very well thematically, like the idea that a universal communication system is actually a hindrance against a supernatural and primeval fear like zombies, being flanked by zombies, fighting in full hazmat gear (if it's unsure how the infection spreads as of the battle, it would make sense.) and so forth.

A better setup would be to attribute more heavily to being outflanked, and to turn the urban environment against the defenders. A degree of incompetence is nessesary for the loss to occur, but minimizing it as much as possible is best. A concept I like is that somebody misses a subway access or something like that (say, an older tunnel that runs through a building) and the zombies get right in among the rear echelons. This would work particularly well if the zombies come up right inside, say, the building that the military's field HQ or ammuntion stockpile is being held; all it requires is somebody missing an old tunnel, and refugees fleeing through them lead the zombies straight into the military HQ. A command breakdown combined with the zombies closing from unexpected angles (for example, a tank crew has a driver, who was bitten some days earlier, turn right in the middle of things) can lead to a "desperate last stand" scenario where the guys on foot and the heavy equipment get separated and moral breaks down due to an excess of communication.

What is basically necessary is to get the military, on some level or another, to panic, as that's basically what does you in when zombies are about. Having the higher level functions of the military being the ones that panic is optimal, because that'll trickle down the chain of command and disrupt the whole operation.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Here's an idea: Replace 'zombies' with 'unarmed cavemen with broken legs and colds' and see if they can win a proposed battle with an armed, trained military. If not, the zombie idea probably won't work.

Even if hundreds of zombies 'burst' from this missed subway tunnel, they're 'bursting' from it at a slow walking speed. Again, the only way they could leverage that into a victory is by making the military suicidally retarded. Yonkers, as presented in the book, was supposed to be the highly publicized, turning point in the war. In other words, the military was paying more attention to this than anything else at the time. Thus surprise attacks, flanking, and anything else that could fuck this up are more likely to be noticed and accounted for in this one battle than anywhere else. Which makes *any* loss against zombies reek of author manipulation.

[Gunhead]

Well, this leads to the obvious question. The idea behind the book is that the world is nearly ended by a Zombie apocalypse, which by extension means that conventional military power needs to fail at some point or another so that society can break down. This has to happen or there can be no book. Therefore, we are presented with a challange, as Max Brooks was; how can we set up a military failure against the zombies, without making the military suspension of disbelief-breaking stupid?

There is some potential in the Battle of Yonkers, if some of the parameters are changed. Some of the more stupid elements, such as setting up exclusively on the road, not packing enough ammo, and so forth can be abandoned. However, there are some others I think work very well thematically, like the idea that a universal communication system is actually a hindrance against a supernatural and primeval fear like zombies, being flanked by zombies, fighting in full hazmat gear (if it's unsure how the infection spreads as of the battle, it would make sense.) and so forth.

A better setup would be to attribute more heavily to being outflanked, and to turn the urban environment against the defenders. A degree of incompetence is nessesary for the loss to occur, but minimizing it as much as possible is best. A concept I like is that somebody misses a subway access or something like that (say, an older tunnel that runs through a building) and the zombies get right in among the rear echelons. This would work particularly well if the zombies come up right inside, say, the building that the military's field HQ or ammuntion stockpile is being held; all it requires is somebody missing an old tunnel, and refugees fleeing through them lead the zombies straight into the military HQ. A command breakdown combined with the zombies closing from unexpected angles (for example, a tank crew has a driver, who was bitten some days earlier, turn right in the middle of things) can lead to a "desperate last stand" scenario where the guys on foot and the heavy equipment get separated and moral breaks down due to an excess of communication.

What is basically necessary is to get the military, on some level or another, to panic, as that's basically what does you in when zombies are about. Having the higher level functions of the military being the ones that panic is optimal, because that'll trickle down the chain of command and disrupt the whole operation.

1. Underground access is secured everytime a building is prepped to function as a fire base. This is in addition to HQ securing any major tunnels by blocking routes available to the enemy. By blocking I mean you have to blow or blowtorch your way through. Mines are also employed + observation equipment.
2. The above goes double for any building that's meant to house higher HQ centers (battallion or greater)
3. Ammuniton dumps are spread by standard so enemy cannot take out all of it at once. In addition troops are ammoed up before urban combat because of the added ammo expenditure.
4.Unlike in the hollywood movies, taking out a single HQ is not going to paralyze the entire army. Disrupting communication is a serious threat to troop coherency, but that's because a real enemy has the means to exploit opportunities like this. Zombies do not. Against zombies it is simply a matter of putting someone in charge and having him establish a new CP somewhere safer. Lower echelons will continue to act on given orders until someone tells them not to or the objective is reached.
5. As Damien pointed out even if all this fails, it will most likely be at one or two locations which are easily suppressed and contained.

-Gunhead

[Junghalli]

Well, this leads to the obvious question. The idea behind the book is that the world is nearly ended by a Zombie apocalypse, which by extension means that conventional military power needs to fail at some point or another so that society can break down. This has to happen or there can be no book. Therefore, we are presented with a challange, as Max Brooks was; how can we set up a military failure against the zombies, without making the military suspension of disbelief-breaking stupid?

The way I'd solve this is by having the zombie virus become a massive pandemic before you start getting actual zombies. Maybe it has a prolonged initial airborne or otherwise ultra-contagious incubation period before it moves into the zombie stage. Or maybe a big percentage of the population is healthy carriers who will carry the zombie virus to lots of different places without realizing it*. Or both. Basically, you need to have simultaneous massive zombie outbreaks happening everywhere all at once, all over the world, without any warning. If you want a zombie apocalypse, ideally you want a scenario where most of the population is already infected before anybody shows any symptoms, so we just wake up one day to find most of the human race turned into zombies all around us.

* This would work well for one of those "anybody who dies, infected or not, spontaneously becomes a zombie" scenarios. This is what happens in Romeroverse, isn't it? Most of the people left alive would probably be healthy carriers, and when they die or maybe just if the immune system is severely weakened the zombie virus in them gets to take over. Although that leaves the question of why you're still zombified by being bitten ... maybe the virus is rapidly mutating so it's slightly different in each person, and your immune system isn't able to fight down the "foreign" zombie virus from the bite on top of the one you already have.

[Samuel]

Well, this leads to the obvious question. The idea behind the book is that the world is nearly ended by a Zombie apocalypse, which by extension means that conventional military power needs to fail at some point or another so that society can break down. This has to happen or there can be no book. Therefore, we are presented with a challange, as Max Brooks was; how can we set up a military failure against the zombies, without making the military suspension of disbelief-breaking stupid?

The way I'd solve this is by having the zombie virus become a massive pandemic before you start getting actual zombies. Maybe it has a prolonged initial airborne or otherwise ultra-contagious incubation period before it moves into the zombie stage. Or maybe a big percentage of the population is healthy carriers who will carry the zombie virus to lots of different places without realizing it*. Or both. Basically, you need to have simultaneous massive zombie outbreaks happening everywhere all at once, all over the world, without any warning. If you want a zombie apocalypse, ideally you want a scenario where most of the population is already infected before anybody shows any symptoms, so we just wake up one day to find most of the human race turned into zombies all around us.

* This would work well for one of those "anybody who dies, infected or not, spontaneously becomes a zombie" scenarios. This is what happens in Romeroverse, isn't it? Most of the people left alive would probably be healthy carriers, and when they die or maybe just if the immune system is severely weakened the zombie virus in them gets to take over. Although that leaves the question of why you're still zombified by being bitten ... maybe the virus is rapidly mutating so it's slightly different in each person, and your immune system isn't able to fight down the "foreign" zombie virus from the bite on top of the one you already have.

That is close to the plot behind Last Blood. Its a webcomic that ties together zombies, vampires and has things like zombies with guns. Fun stuff.

[SirNitram]

I really have to repeat the central points of my argument with Psyburn:

You can have allll the magic zombies you want. I don't care if they're super-magic-zombies from radiation, or disease, or T-Virus, or huge worm-parasites, or in one of the few zombie movies I really enjoyed, simple and to the point 'Unfinished Business'.

If they are shuffling up a highway at you, They Are Not A Threat.

B-52 and a fuel-air bomb. The few surviving zombies are on fire and thus provide their own flares for targetting.

A few WW1 HMGs and trucks full of ammo. Work in shifts. I don't care if they remain magic killer zombie heads. They are nothing more than magic killer zombie heads, whose bodies were just annihilated.

And the magic trick of locking the hatches on any stranded tank, and putting it in first gear to escape 'surrounded by zombies'.

Naturally, this caused me to be accused of being 'The guy who caused Yonkers'. Yea, Psyburn was a little.. Special.

For those wondering on the zombie film I mentioned earlier that I liked, it was 'Homecoming'. It's pure political commentary, the zombies are largely harmless, intelligent, and pleasant. They just want to go home and see their families. Not for eating, for being united. Poor zombie soldiers. There's shitloads of political commentary, but it's not trying to be 'deep' by hiding it in metaphor. It's right in front as cariactures of Bush, Cheney, Coulter, and the rest are the villains and the zombies the victims.

[consequences]

Really easy solution for at least a single battle. MAke Solanum highly resistant to standard water purification methods(or just have a fuckup made with some water buffaloes). At some point prior to the battle a zombified Hobo manages to stumble into the water source the military is going to draw on and contaminates the whole thing. The military holds the line for days, but many of the troops start feeling ill, and during the night turn and start attacking their comrades. Complete breakdown in order and morale, only scattered minute pockets remain cohesive and most of the armored vehicles are compromised from the start since someone racked out in them for privacy/security. Cue the rout.

It's still massively contrived, begs the question of why all the world's water wasn't contaminated already(as does Brooks' description of solanum and water in the Guide), and fairly reeks of an authorial copout, in addition to being potentially physically impossible(not sure on the chemistry details and what-not). But I'd buy it happening in a book. Once.

The idea that not a single military worldwide was able to see what happened to the others and not fuck up the same way is just the cherry that shattered the SoD camel's spine.