posted by Winston Smith at
6:54 PM
Monday, November 19, 2007
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19 Comments:
I don't know how useful a gun would be during the IZA. Even an ultra-spiffy gun like that would be loud, and need to be reloaded. Then you = breakfast.
If you can't stop thinking about how to survive during a zombie outbreak, and goodness knows zombophiles never can, then get this:
http://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Survival-Guide-Complete-Protection/dp/1400049628
Very in-depth, great dry humor, and leads to lots more mental survival scenarios. Plus they have a great zombie history section at the end. I'm hoping to get World War Z for Christmas, which is the collection of personal narrative from survivors of a near-future worldwide zombie outbreak. I think Brad Pitt is producing the movie version, actually.
World War Z is pretty good, sez me. I haven't gotten the Zombie Survival Guide yet.
But I gotta disagree with you about the AA-12 in case of a zombie attack. Your best bet by far is a shotgun--nothing else even comes close. And this looks like the best shotgun ever.
But intelligent people can disagree about such lofty matters...
I guess it depends on logistics. The guide makes a pretty convincing case for machetes, as they never need ammo or reloading, they can't jam, and they're quiet. For hand to hand combat where the goal is to kill, run, and not attract zombie attention, I think I'd stick with the big honking knife. However, the AA-12 makes a convincing case given that you'd have anywhere from 8-32 single shots before reloading.
If there was an isolated group on zombies and they weren't right on top of me, or if I was in a place where they couldn't get at me, i.e. behind a barricade or in some safe elevated position, I'd totally pick any gun over the machete.
Yeah--a machete is a back-up weapon, not a first line of defense. There's no reason to think that you should prefer a sword to a gun against zombies any more than against humans.
Personally, I'd rather have a katana than a machete as a back-up anyway.
Battle Axe for me.
If I died, I'd die doin' what I loved.
Backup = BFG 9000, of course.
Hell, if I wanted to go out with a bang, I'd use a flamethrower. My primary aim during the zombie apocalypse is to live, though. My feet or a bike would probably be what I used the most, instead of a weapon.
There's no reason to think that you should prefer a sword to a gun against zombies any more than against humans.
I do think there are crucial differences, mainly in the fact that a head shot/decapitation is the only thing that will really slow down a zombie, whereas with people you can shoot them just about anywhere to get them off your ass. In a horde of people, it would be real easy and quick to gun everyone down. Shooting randomly into a zombie horde, not so much.
I guess I'm partial to a big, sturdy knife because I know in a high stress situation like that I would be shaky and have trouble aiming for a relatively small target like the head. Precision is key, and I doubt most people would be able to pull that off. Even the police in high stress situations fire on a suspect much more than they actually hit them (citation needed, but I anticipate that this should be easy to verify anecdotally). Plus I'd probably forget to reload or fumble with bullets and be zombie chow.
But hey, now I know who to get in touch with should the inevitable occur. And the last person alive was right.
If we're talking serious Zombie apocalypse, in all honesty - I'd take a good ol' fashioned Light MG-42.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG-42
Probably the most bad-ass weapon ever invented. At a light 25 pounds of weight, it fires a killer 7.62mm round at 1200RPMs. When it fires, it fires so fast it sounds like ripping canvas, and the round packs enough punch to sever limbs. Not only that, but the ammunition comes neatly packed in 250 round boxed belts.
Only a 5 second barrel change on average and you're good to go. Strap me up with that thing, a backpack full of ammunition, and a couple spare barrels and I could waste an entire village of zombies before they got to me.
Shotguns are great and all for groups of 2-4 zombies, and I'd gladly strap on a sawed off semi-auto remington for a backup, but when I have to deal with a zombie apocalypse, well, light MG42 all the way for me.
I can't resist, but one more -
If I had a theoretical safe source of ammo and batteries (say, 100,000 rounds and 100 batteries) I'd totally take this beast.
In my wildest dreams - Mystic and friends vs. zombie horde, where Mystic's weapon of choice is the General Electric XM214 Minigun.
*drools*
Bring it, zombies! BRING IT!
I have to say that for effectiveness, I think a flamethrower would be better than a BFG. But the BFG would be more FUN.
However, fun != survival.
But if we're working from a purely defensive stance, I think your money would be better spent building a flaming moat. Keep the flamethrower so you can reach the flaming moat. And keep the BFG to build up a wall of zombie parts to slow down the attackers.
I was thinking about a flamethrower, but I don't think that zombies would succumb to a flaming death very quickly, so it might not be a good idea. My guess is that, if you had a wall of zombies coming at you, a flamethrower would simply mean you had a wall of zombies that are on fire coming at you. It'd probably catch your house on fire.
I'd stay away from that.
Well, The MG-42 is a crew-served weapon, and it typically fires from a bipod. So it's not really what you want in a classic zombie scenario.
A mini-gun would be great, but ammo is a problem--and, remember, on some conceptions you've gotta shoot 'em in the head. So even if you cut em in two, you've still got something of a problem.
So, if headshots are required, there's no team to support you, and ammo is a consideration, I'm still going with a shotgun of some kind. I'd normally say something more like a 20 gauge Winchester Defender (12 gauge recoil gets old fast, and you don't really need that much power). But the AA-12 solves the recoil problem...and no ammo is more widely-available than 12 gauge.
So I'm sticking with my conclusion.
The Light MG-42 variant is fireable by using the bipod as a forward grip on the barrel (the bipod was built to collapse into a handle). Certainly I wouldn't want the tripod variant that requires a crew, but the light version, I'd take.
Sure, if headshots are required, I'd have a problem after severing their torsos from their legs, but it'd be a more managable, slow moving problem that I could handle after I removed all the more quick moving ones.
It says so much about my mindset that I'm already worrying about how to keep my players from taking this in our next cyberpunkish RPG.
Goddammit.
I have to disagree. I think that it would be far easier to aim for the head looking for the decapitation with a flame thrower than it would be with a gun.
Additionally, the older a zombie is, the less moisture it will have, and the faster it will go up in flame. So older zombies, like vampires, should be rather flammable. Get one and it might take out its neighbors.
Newer zombies, however, may be more moist, and might require a longer time under the flame to dry out before they combust.
Ha ha Myca's a nerd
I mean seriously, though, how the hell do you balance something like this out? 300 rounds a minute? That means it can blow through a 32 round drum in about 7 seconds . . . that's about a single combat round.
I think my only hope is to give the bad guys that freaky 'make-your-skin-burn' raygun/crowd control thingie and let the best modernfuturetech win.
---Myca
It's a little rougher around the edges, but the Saiga 12 will get you pretty much the same thing as the AA-12 for a lot less dough...
Ooh, cool...
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