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Subject: Question about world war Z
phalanx30    9/27/2006 2:41:41 AM
In the book "World War Z" at a battle called Yonkers between the U.S. military and a whole lot of Zombies, is the author correct when he says that massed fire from tanks, Artillery, helicopters, and planes on a packed crowd of zombies would have, at best, minimal effect and that the military would be defeated?
 
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buzzard       9/27/2006 4:11:25 PM
This rather requires a definition of the properties of the zombies. I mean, how does one have to destroy said zombies? If blowing them to itsy bitsy bits using high explosives won't work, then the author is correct. Given that the author defines the properties of the zombies in his work, one has a rather hard time arguing with him.

buzzard

 
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phalanx30    To kill a zombie?   9/27/2006 4:40:37 PM
"killing" would be done by a head wound.
 
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buzzard       9/28/2006 10:07:43 AM
It would be pretty slim odds that the zombies wouldn't get headwounds in massed fire. Maybe not all of them, but heck if you just do airburst artillery, there would be plenty of headwounds. Of course we're talking a horror novel, so I wouldn't expect a lot of military coherency.

buzzard

 
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phalanx30    yup   9/28/2006 3:04:14 PM
yeah me neither.
 
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Ehran       9/29/2006 1:50:27 PM
FAE should deal with them nicely for instance.
 
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timon_phocas       10/12/2006 7:57:16 PM
>>
"killing" would be done by a head wound.
<<

if you obliterate everything below the neck, does that count as a head wound?

if you blow off all arms and legs, does the zombie mumble, "flesh wound" and bounce towards you?

how do limbs with compound fractures continue to function? Can they regenerate without biological life?
 
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bender       11/3/2006 5:00:09 PM
 the only fatal shot that would kill the zombie is a head shot,that disrupted brain function(George Romero "night of the living dead"type zombies,which the book uses).The book portrays the military defending a choke point in yonkers against the migrating mass of dead from NYC...literally millions of them...i think mr.brooks was too brief in his description of the battle,but the outcome,given the circustances,was very plausable.
 
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joe6pack       11/15/2006 3:09:40 PM

In the book "World War Z" at a battle called Yonkers between the U.S. military and a whole lot of Zombies, is the author correct when he says that massed fire from tanks, Artillery, helicopters, and planes on a packed crowd of zombies would have, at best, minimal effect and that the military would be defeated?
  
   I have yet to see a Zombie flick where the Zombies were proficient at using PRGs or ATGMs or any sort of general AT strategy.  Why would the tanks have to bother shooting?   60tons at 35 mph is > than your average horde of zombies.
 
Aside from that, while the clasical Zombie has to take some trauma to the brain I'd say the cuncussions and overpressure from rocket and artillery fire impacting in the midst of their Zombie horde would go a long way to turning their zombie brains to mush.   
 
If all else fails, fire and more fire.  The military is generally pretty good at burning things up.
 
This is part of the reason why I prefer Zombie hordes over alien invasions.  Humans have a solid technical and tactical advantage

 
 
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Herald1234    Microwave the little things.   11/15/2006 3:22:56 PM
As long as we are going Zombie hunting, why not MASER the little pests?  Firehosing them with  focused radio beams until their heads explode is FUN!
 
Well this is science fiction................
 
Herald
 
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Jeff_F_F       12/30/2006 1:05:49 PM
Improved Conventional Munitions. Need the discussion even progress past that point? It is essentially the same question we faced in Korea with human waves of Chinese, but this time only headshots work. Artillery is still the solution, and now we have much better options than we had in Korea. "HEF" DPICM is the primary US Army combat artillery round. Normally not used in urbanized scenarios, but this isn't exactly a normal scenario. Beyond that, there are Mk.19 40mm machineguns/automatic grenade launchers can be mounted on any vehicle from a humvee on up, or fired from a tripod.  If all of that doesn't count as a "headshot," just because the author is a dork, then you could just use C-130 cargo planes, and drop daisy cutters. Since the standoff fuse detonates them well above ground level it should definitely count. Personally I'd say the author is an idiot. I take the view of zombies expressed in the FPS game Quake : "That which is already dead cannot die. But it can be blown to bloody kibbles."
 
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