Someone made an awesome video in which they set up a zombie infested town in ARMA and then had the US military attack the zombies.

Using a pretty realistic game like ARMA as an engine really resulted in something more satisfying, IMO, than you'd get from a typical unrealistic zombie movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22SYbw9ECoc

Could you expand on what you found more satisfying?

~J

Err... Uhm... no, L4D for me. Who cares whether it is realistic, if it is fun!

Bye
Thanee

The textbook-correct movements of the infantry, and how air strikes etc. had actual large areas of effect.

Though I would have to say against melee only opponent that the movements could well be adjusted.

Fair enough. I wasn't really feeling the scenario as a whole (zombies unmixed with civilians all in what appeared to be a well-defined area with military preparation), but those aspects were indeed satisfying.

~J

Well I think that was just a video not game play footage. Honestly IDK what the colataral damage outlook of millitary units will be in a zombie situation kill it if it's one one of us is wholly reasonable. The other options are also viable giveing commands will certainly help as zombies are normally incapable of following them. Even then you have all sorts of issues with survivors in that situation makes me glad zombies as fictional or at least freaking unlikely if you want to get really pedantic about stuff still governments have drawn up zombie plans I guess it's some thing that if it dose happen you want to have plans in place seeign as it culd grow hugely bigger an issue if you drop the ball at any point.

Realistic? Really? Like the sniper with foliage camo on top of a building? Or the sniper firing at targets about 2 feet away from allies? Or the chopper coming down to hover 3 feet above the street to launch rockets? Or (not really unrealistic, but kinda silly) the soldier tripping for no reason? Or perhaps the guy drifting with the jeep while someone was on the gun? Or maybe that they sent in troops to combat creatures with a contagious melee ability when they had plenty of air support and armor? Or the tank in the back of a convoy line firing forward?

I think this might have a larger epm (errors per minute) than a movie.

Yeah at least an actual ARMA zombie mod would be cool. The shear fact they had so much support that is zombie PROOF but still sent in foot troops is dumb if you can send in tanks and satiation bomb streets you don't need foot troops. Now those tanks need be loaded with "beehive" or shot rounds for the mass crowd clearing effect.

I mean, I could understand sending in foot troops after the bombing to clear out buildings or something like that, but they shouldn't be the first wave.

As for an ARMA zombie mod... well, L4D is just a counterstrike zombie mod that took on a life of its own.

This I know.

ARMA runs like a dog on my PC, but I wouldnt mind playing a Zombie mod of it. I do have every other Zombie mod/game known to man.

Yeah, yeah, of course you're right, but I was talking about the engine as opposed to the details of the scenario.

Of course if you wanted to do a realistic ARMA zombie scenario where a squad on patrol stumbles into a very strange situation it would also be possible to set that up with the appropriate mods and scenario editor.

I don't think the simulation encodes tactics on this level, and the point about letting squishy troops get that close to zombies to begin with stands, but under the circumstances risking the shot might be reasonable given that injury from a zombie is unrecoverable.

As for Errors per Minute, I think that has to do with the 2:46 length of the clip.

~J

Well, it's good for a laugh. I still think the Cracked article beats. I want to run a campaign where the zombies gradually swell with gas and finally explode.

You know, someone going by "Sgt. Hawkings" made a nice Vietnam war scenario for Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis where while on patrol you encounter the undead at an abandoned temple after a firefight while on patrol. It was rather nice.

World War Z deals with some of these problems (yes its a book). The only way to "kill" the zombie is total body destruction or a headshot. Hydrostatic shock does nothing. Shrapnel wounds are unlikely to get a "kill".

I seem to remember an article from way back (and it could have been total BS) that stated a wounded soldier needs 7 people to support him and a dead one needs 0, therefore conventional weapons were undergoing an evolution to inflict crippling/incapacitating injuries, but usually fall short of an outright kill. These crippling injuries do not stop a Z.

Also, zombies who are knocked down and unble to stand become a different threat. They are now harder to detect at range and it only takes 1 bite or claw at an ankle to "recruit" one of your Army soldiers.

Ah, yes. Yonkers.

The problem with 'zombie proof' support is that it requires fuel and ammo, then you're just dead in the water (or in the case of aircraft, just dead). Easier to get a headshot with a rifle than it is with a main gun on an Abrams, and a hell of a lot cheaper, too!

i recall reading something similar but i can not recall the source. Still, it is highly plausible. Just consider the number of people doing logistics for each soldier in the field regarding the distribution of ammo and supplies. And that is on top of the psychological issue regarding a fellow soldier out in the "kill" zone crying for help.


full metal boots? Or perhaps some kind of kevlar/rubber combo? If a wild animal can not penetrate, nor would i expect a human to.

Yeah, although in the case of injuries it is logistics for getting medicine and medics and transporting someone who can not move under their own power. And quite true about the wounded soldier, one of the many reasons that mines were so feared, because if you stepped on one, not only did you lose a limb, but you were likely in the middle of a mine field, so it could take a while for a bomb squad to get in there to help you.

A human is lucky if they can penetrate jeans. Humans have a fairly poor bite strength.

We have an on bite strength its more the lack of penetrating teeth not muscle power.

This is true, a human has quite a nasty bite when pain is nonexistant and he's not trying to keep himself from breaking something. Had a crackhead bite my arm once, the bite didn't draw any blood because I was wearing a heavy fatigue jacket, but it hurt like a bitch and left a nice bruise. I don't want to be getting into too heavy a speculation, but while a zombie might not be able to get through heavy winterized BDU's the bite may be painful enough to distract the victim long enough to get pounced on by other zombies, pulled to the ground, etc etc.

Issuing kevlar limb guards oughta work real dandy though.

Disease investigators should wear BDUs to make them harder to bite. By disease carrying crackheads I mean.

Hm. That made me vaguely uncomfortable. I think it has to do with the idea that I wasn't getting a 'zombie' vibe from the targets, rather a 'wow, a bunch of bloodied civilians getting slaughtered by US troops'.

Development time + Production Time = Oh God, its biting me! Getitoff GET IT OFF! Blaargh!

The zombie apocolypse does not wait for the Army procurement system to get new shingards for the troops.

Can a human even bite through the pants that soldiers are currently wearing?

And development time is going to be basically 0, and production time will also be 0. Shin guards already exist. And even if you wanted something a bit more all round protective to prevent getting bit from behind better, well, that would take, I don't know, a couple days to develop, and maybe a week to get going on production.

Military has alot of resources to throw around to make this stuff go quick.

And a baffling amount of red tape. Everything a soldier wears and wields was put through a development, testing, bidding and production process that takes several years at minimum to implement and a decade or two to replace.

If it's a bad enough issue, the soldiers themselves would have already come up with a workaround - probably a thin piece of tin or aluminum wrapped around their lower legs and held in place with duct tape. Barring that, I wouldn't be surprised if the noncoms and eltees ordered a bullet in the brainpan of every body on the floor, just to be sure.

If you were just going to throw something out the door, yes. That's not how gear development works—human testing (for those things like "can you still bend your knees and ankles enough to run in this" and "will it not cause chafing injuries or something along those lines") alone will take more than days.


This is impossible to discuss, as it would depend on the details of the solution.


They really don't, or rather, they don't have them directed towards making it go quick. The process of redirecting those resources isn't quick either.

~J

Then they have to open the bidding process, and eahc congresman and senator that has a potential supplier in their state/district needs to throw in their 2 cents. The procurement process is an absolute disaster in an emergency. And yes, enough of our politicians are self serving enough to watch the house burn, just to ensure that their constuents get a good deal.


I don't know if the zombie really has to bite through the BDU's, they just have to break the skin and get some zobie slobber on the wound. Mmmmm slobber. You can probably get scratched or cut without ripping the cloth, and if the zombie is juicy (as opposed to the dessicated, extra crispy kind) it might saturate the BDU's with highly infectious stuffin.

The zombie fiction usually depicts infection from heavy bites, but they never really show someone with just a small scratch. Its up in the air how much skin penetration leave you open to recruitment, but I like to think that it doesn't take much.

The slobber would have to penetrate the BDU and the skin would have to be broken. If it was a light Kevlar weave, then the BDU's probably wouldn't need any extra inserts, but I wouldn't be surprised if the troops did duct-tape some thin aluminum around their lower legs in the case of ground-level zeds.

Yeah, right, because nothing new was developed and implemented during World War II or anything. No, the military just used the same stuff that they still had from World War I and didn't have any new innovations introduced at all, because it takes decades to get stuff replaced.

Edit: It isn't like the military built thousands of factories in secret to facilitate the testing and production of any sort of bomb or anything. No, that would have taken a decade at the least.

Only cos they can afford to take years I'm sure if the armed forced needed X in a months they could pull it off. It just if its any thing like the UKs MOD a 2k item will end up costinf 250k in random unessacry shit.

Currently the defence systems globaly is SHIT. It cost too much and takes to long. Why because it can. The Uk has a defence budget on par with France yet our soldiers have gone into combat under equipped the only contrary with a defence budget above ours is the USA and China as well why redtape and sponging these dont need to be part of the system at all if a situation is dire enough it can be scraped and still produce goods of likely the same quality. At the very leat we have anti bite tech for sharks in production now just add that to anti zombie gear if the need is urgent.

Well no, they didn't. They retooled existing ones, or civilian companies extended their production facilities.

The U.S. military does not build tanks, or planes, or guns, or ammunition. That is the purview of civilian enterprise, which undergoes a contract bidding process to manufacture these wonderful toys. This is why you can find battle rifles that are the same model, but made by different manufacturers. For example:

The U.S. Army's main battle rifle was the M1903 Springfield, a bolt-action beast in 1905 (go figure) and was in service with same until 1936, when it was replaced by the M1 Garand that had been in preproduction and testing since 1916-1919. Seventeen years, and they were looking for a semiauto rifle since 1911.

The M1 was designed at Springfield Armory, produced not only there but at Winchester as well. General Atomics manufactures and maintains Predator drones (or did, until they lost the contract) though they're flown by the Air Force. McDonnell Douglas owns the manfucaturing facilities for the military aircraft they create.

The military gives civilian contractors an idea for what they want. In the case of the Garand it was 'a semi-automatic service rifle'. In the case of the F-35, it was 'a stealth aircraft with modular design'. Contractors take these vague ideaes and create wondrous machines to see if it fits the military's needs. Military R&D is comparatively small, and even black projects are primarily civilians.

The red tape is meant to promote innovation as well as a healthy competition amongst contractors. Tell business that you're searching for something, and the drive to get a military contract (which can make or break a company) will net you some fabulous designs. From there, you merely pick the best that fits your needs.

Correct, however that system works against us when dealing with a geometric growth curve like the zombpocalypse.

Yes, though I still believe the troops on the ground will improvise a workaround until civilian R&D comes up with a fix, sped up as it may be.

Uniforms getting chewed through? Duct-tape some thin boiler plate and let Zed chew on steel.

Expending too much ammo against the unflappable horde? Emphasise a return to earlier fire tactics with semiautomatic fire rather than rock'n'roll.

Problems with Zed popping up behind you when you thought you cleared an area? Pop a cap in every skull on the ground, just to be sure. Barring that, use a claw hammer.

I look at it like the problems with unarmored Humvees in Iraq. The military needed the stuff now, and they were tearing down abandoned cars to weld extra layers of metal under their asses until the armor kits started coming in, and future 'Vees came equipped with it standard.

You bring up a good point on the improvised fixes and on running low on ammo. I would think that in the first engagement the army would be lucky to get 1 kill for every 20 rounds expended. This would be a combination of some using full auto, many shots still going for the torso, and missed shots to the head (headshots against moving targets are difficult, not impossible, just difficult).

How many rounds does a typical grunt carry? 200? 400? If you have more than 20 Zeds for each grunt, you are going to get Yorkshire.

IIRC, a combat load for each soldier is...210 rounds, or 7 mags including one in the weapon.

And to be honest, more than 20 anything is going to be Yonkers for that grunt, unless he's in a superior position (like on a roof you need a ladder to get onto).

210 rounds is nothing. I go through around 175 in a couple hours of competitive shooting using semi auto only.

Indeed. It's light enough for anyone that passes Basic to carry without extended difficulty, but I believe those loadouts also assume you're on short patrols and can replenish supplies relatively quickly - plus units tend to get cycled back to base after an engagement for resupply and debrief anyway.

That's just for the M16A2-A4; the 240 operators may carry a bit more - 300.

Actually they produced entirely new facilities for the production of the radioactive elements needed to build the bomb.

I know that the military doesn't personally produce much, but they are none the less responsible for the production of stuff. The main reason we won WWII after all was that we were pumping out tons of tanks and airplanes and so on. Manufacturing power was what we brought to the table.

300 rounds for SAW operators? No way. Those things have 100-round and 200-round bags. Probably carry anywhere between 600 and 800 bullets if expecting a fight.

All this little discussion on military vs. zombies almost has me compelled to tell you people about All Flesh Must Be Eaten.

Ah, so the thousands of factories they produced equals the parts for the foundation of the atomic weapons program. Come, now.



As I said, they provide a general idea of what they want, and civilians generally do the rest with varying degrees of input from military R&D.

@Rastus - I know they've got the 100 bins, but that's a lot of weight for them to start hucking unless they're going to be in combat or using that piece on a vehicle.

The whole point of the SAW is volume of fire, also known as MOAR DAKKA. 300 bullets is pitiful dakka for a machinegun. That's basicly two or three extra mags to what a rifleman normally carries for patrols. Besides, SAW gunners are basically specialists and from what I've been told don't often train to do anything other than be a SAW gunner, so they basically carry lots of bullets while the rest of the squad carries the medical supplies, grenades, AT rockets, radios, etc.

Well, maybe only hundreds, not thousands, but no, I'm talking about the factories that housed the massive machines required to separate out the correct isotope needed for the bomb.

Ah, here we are. Modern loadouts have the gunner hisself carrying the gun and a 300 rounds in 100-round belts, his assistants carry 4 such belts each on top of their standard 210/M16, and the ammo bearer carries 300 rounds and a spare barrel.

There's your dakka, sir.

@Karoline - while the atomic weapons program is a fabulous deterrent against...other atomic weapons programs, it had nothing to do with the European Theater of WW2 and subsequent engagements. Civilian contractors create the combined arms that the military uses, and they did it from their own factories. The government bankrolled it, but provided little else.

Never said the bomb had anything to do with Europe, and I specifically said that the Military didn't produce the various other stuff (tanks, etc) themselves, but were responsible (paid) for it.

This is all well and good, but depending on what happens to the patient when it is infected/reanimated, their jaw strength could be substantially stronger/weaker or not change at all. There are many different types of Zombies portreyed (sp?) in the many books and movies. There is a general concensus of the 'normal Zombie' but its still all based around to what happens in the infection/reanimation.

Now now. You very clearly said that the military built thousands of factories in secret for building a particular bomb. You then amended to hundreds - when less than a dozen were created. You're being duplicitous.

The pure, undeniable fact remains that the military does not do its own fabrication. For anything. Livermore is primarily funded by DoE, as is Los Alamos. The military does not want to and will not waste its combat manpower putting people in manufacturing roles. That is why the contract bidding process exists for everything. The only time it doesn't is when it comes to nuclear weapons, and the military still doesn't build those(and none have been built in the U.S. since '89).

As for the Zed question, I assume the jaw strength will be about the same - just with no built in 'hey, this hurts I should stop' safety interlock. The point is to get enough armor between those jaws that the soldier can pull the offending appendage back and insert a 5.56mm round instead.

Going off WWZ logic - a nuclear weapon would likely not do the job against a Zed, either. Radiation isn't going to do much, so you only catch whatever's in the initial blast radius.