I've heard the MLRS nicknamed "The grid-square destroyer" because an MLRS strike can purportedly cover an entire 1km x 1km map quare with DPICM bomblets. If zombies were massed at a density of only one zombie per square meter, there would be 1,000,000 zombies in that area. There is no deficiency in the capacity of modern militaries to destroy large numbers quickly. Real wars are harder because the enemy is hard to find and/or shooting back. An unarmed "human wave" can be disposed of easily by any number of means. After reading the synopsis of the book on Wikipedia I must conclude that the author has completely no idea about military capability.

 

Even low tech -- hopelessly primitive 3rd world low tech -- militaries could achieve significant effects with options such as trenches filled with burning fuel, flamethrowers, IEDs, etc. More advanced 3rd world militaries with actual artillery would be even more effective even with conventional high explosive rounds - it just takes more of them and longer to do the same damage that ICM does. Note that artillery does not simply make a big boom, but physically sheds unprotected flesh with thousands of tiny splinters. Since the zombie hoard is presumably not taking cover to minimize the effects of such splinters, even ground bursts would be fairly effective. Airbursts would be even more so but require a fair degree of proficiency. Since the zombies are not shooting back it is not necessary to use indirect fire which requires a high degree of skill to be effective -- direct fire is fine. If the zombie hoard closes with the artillery unit, an option is HE rounds with time fuses dialed down to the minimum time, basically turning the howitzers into 155mm shotguns. There is a minimum range which if the hoard was able to reach would require the artillery be either moved or abandoned, but the numbers destroyed up to that point would be huge Also, though a theoretical zombie hoard would be able to overcome conventional countermobility measures such as concertina wire or barbed wire entanglements by simply climbing over the zombies entangled in the obstacle, arranging such defenses in depth would deplete the horde as more and more of the zombies became part of the landscape. Once immobilized the zombies could be wiped out at leisure. Even if these techniques didn't completely wipe out a zombie hoade, either because not every single one was killed by DPICM or cluster bomb bomlets or artillery, or because a flaming trench was eventually overwhelmed by bodies or whatever, it should at least thin their numbers enough that simple marksmanship would be sufficient to finish the rest off.

 

The following is a side trip from this discussions' main topic of military intervention in a zombie plague, but I feel compelled to point out that the author's lack of epedemiological understanding is mind boggling. Compared to a disease such as pandemic flu, a zombie virus would be easily and quickly contained. Simple biological spread from one person to another that requires such direct and obvious contact with the infected individual as a physical attack that wounds the victim has a number of consequences for a disease. It means that the number of people who are infected before the onset of the disease becomes obvous is negligible, unlike HIV. Also, the victim's behavior will cause people to avoid the person and report them to the authorities. It actually makes the disease easier to contain than conventional diseases because the victim does not require treatment by the medical personnel or family members which exposes additional people to conventional diseases. Since the victims are physically marked by the attack they can be readily identified and either quarantined or premptively killed.

  One might think that buttoned up armored vehicles moving at moderate speeds thru a herds of zombies that are hemmed into city streets might do good work as they trundle back and forth. Shooting could  be confined to those undead that were unpulped in the process. Local officials would likely welcome solutions that don't level their towns, and clean up would only require the fire department's hoses and some loaders and dump trucks. Let's try to keep FEMA outta this.

   i dont own WWZ but i do own the author's first zombie book "the Zombie survival guide".  there is a little too much military analysis going on here, this whole zombie idea just started after 9/11 when the author (mel brooks' son!) wrote the zombie survival guide as a joke (making fun of all of the "survival experts" who started pedaling their BS "run for the hills!" manuals to the fear stricken, sometimes sheep-like American public).

   the next book was just a logical progression from this, its not like the guy is trying to pass himself off as a psuedomilitary expert like we do (or at least i do!).  if the zombie horde cant take on a few tanks and choppers, the story will be pretty short and dull dont you think?

The Battle of Yonkers was basically the author's way of showing that using Iraq-style conventional tactics wouldn't work on zombie hordes.  The point he makes is that the troops panicked when zombies began getting up again after taking point blank SAW fire and even thermobaric bombs.  There was also the fact that the hordes just kept coming and were made up of people that the troops were intended to protect.  It's one thing to shoot somebody with an AK who's trying to kill you; it's different when your target looks like the girl next door--or if it is the girl next door.

 

Implausible? Yeah, maybe.  I didn't think his idea of a Jewish civil war in Israel was very accurate either.  Not to mention what two or three AC-130s would do to a zombie horde.  But like someone just said, it'd be a short book if the military just wiped out the hordes with no trouble.  Brooks was going for the Dawn of the Dead thing, not Shaun of the Dead (where the zombie outbreak was brought under control in less than 72 hours).

 

Still, I liked his battle sequences with the old Napoleonic-style firing lines and "orc blade" melee weapons, and his descriptions of how cities held out (Ford Field in Detroit was great). There were some parts in this book that gave me genuine goosebumps--like the part where the Sears Tower was literally filled with zombies, or the zombies moving around the ocean floor, or the guy who fights across America only to kill himself when he liberates his own house. Spooky.

 

I'm not objecting to the book. It is a work of fiction and its job is to entertain. And apparently it is sufficiently entertaining that it will soon become a movie. I'm objecting to the people who puff up and assert that "No that wouldn't work because this book says so!" Get real. And a life. Be entertained by the book but also recognize that it is a work of fiction and as such just because something didn't work in the book doesn't mean it wouldn't work in real life, and don't go around shooting people down who are having fun actually bothering to think through the implications of actual real world military technology to an enemy that is invulnerable to anything short of physical destruction or a brain shot.

Of course its just a book, and damned fun as well.   Here's someone who Does take his Zombie military seriously:

 

 

www.home.earthlink.net/~shouseman/eastsidegamers/id2.html

 

 

swhitebull- not to mention that there are several Zombie Role Playing games out there. BTw -  Ving Rhames is filming his second zombie film remake following the remake of Dawn of the Dead - he's doing the Day of the Dead remake, but as a different character from his first one.

I agree that I wouldn't expect detailed insight into Newtonian physics from Star Trek, because that is not the primary focus of the story*. However, with Arthur C. Clarke, when dealing with near-future spacecraft, I expect a more accurate approach. Bear in mind that Arthur C. Clarke has suggested numerous features of space travel that obey Newtonian physics and have since come into being as technology catches up with hypothesis.

One can hardly expect to discuss a book on a military sci-fi board and not cast an extremely critical eye over the science aspects of it.

What makes it worse is that there are many believable, scientifically sound devices that could be used to defeat a modern military.

1) The virus can be transmitted by the aerosol created by attacking the creatures with heavy weapons. Therefore the use of such weaponry worsens the situation by creating a new set of zombies who would otherwise not be.

2) Or, the belief of the military/scientist is that the former point is the case (whether it is or not need not be established) therefore resulting in a morotorium on the use of such weapons.

3) The virus has an initial  dormant stage, meaning that the method of transmission is not clear and that large sections of seemingly healthy populance suddenly turn into zombies, thus coming at the military from unexpected angles (Resident Evil-style).

4) The virus has a secondary dormant phase, meaning that he bodies cease activity (fall over, seem dead, again) in order to preserve energy/fuel/food - a sort of fugue state. When nearby movement is sensed, the zombie re-animates, which gets them up close with a military used to fighting at a distance.

5) The virus allows movement through otherwise impassable terrain, such as water, and this aspect is not known to the military. Therefore a seemingly safe natural barrier, like a river, is suddenly breached, threatening rear-echelon units like artillery, logistics and supply and cutting off forward troops from fire-support and ammunition. 

6) Indirect support is intedicted by one or more of the above factors at airbases, pockets of unexpected zombies etc.

7) Zombification affects other creatures, and can be spread by them. Birds especially would be dangerous, being small and airborne.

8) The military is heavily involved elsewhere, leaving only small, less well trained and equipped scratch forces to confront the zombie threat.

9) Zombies move quickly. (28 days later)

10) Troops move into an urban area where artillery cannot be bought to bear (crest restrictions) before being attacked.

So, there are ten options, all of which make more sense than magical ineffectivenes of HE.

*The original series is far closer to science fiction that later efforts. Less technobabble and more focus on the issues involved when dealing with sentient life vastly separated on the technology spectrum.