Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Ben on October 26, 2015, 02:54:06 PM
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I didn't want to muck up the season 6 thread, but we mentioned some of the "what are they thinking?" tactics there (again!) so I'm curious to know what irks the APS "Walking Dead" fans the most regarding tactics. Note this is not an "I hate "X" and want them to get bit" thread. Just blatant tactical failures.
In the season 6 thread, Mike brought up armor again, and I have to agree that is one of my big peeves. Even if not armor, how about wearing something other than t-shirts and shorts? Leather jackets, etc. -- anything that would reduce the chance of the (after so many seasons) decomposing and weaker walkers from making skin contact with their teeth? Also gloves (see additional pet peeve below).
Also automatic weapons fire. Still too much of it for no reason. Rick actually had a good reason in last night's episode, but that was against the living, not the undead.
They still haven't discovered the .22 rimfire.
Killing zombies with knives with like 4" blades on them (relates back to gloves). Can you get your bare hands any closer to walker mouths than when trying for head stabs with a freakin' pocket knife? Machetes, please. Or at least some longer stabbing instruments that can easily be inserted into the skull, and more importantly, easily pulled back out.
What are your tactical pet peeves?
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Pretty much everything that they do.
So often zero situational awareness...
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So often zero situational awareness...
Yup. How many times was a person just standing somewhere when a walker appears from outside the camera's view and bites them? Did they really not see or hear it? Walkers are neither fast nor stealthy.
(This is probably laziness on the part of the director trying to surprise the audience.)
When traveling in a group, have one or two people watching their six. It's not difficult.
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Not just the six, all points of the freaking compass! :facepalm:
Constant scanning, especially when you're already dealing with walkers in front of you.
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Regarding armor, even a denim jacket would provide a lot of protection. Want to really up the protection? Sew some fiberglass cloth on the arms. Or even leather. Hell, even wraps of duct tape would provide some protection.
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Regarding armor, even a denim jacket would provide a lot of protection. Want to really up the protection? Sew some fiberglass cloth on the arms. Or even leather. Hell, even wraps of duct tape would provide some protection.
Motorcycle jackets, whether mesh or textile seem to be perfect for the job at hand.
When I worked in a window factory, the glass cutters would wear riveted kevlar coats that covered neck to knees with diving gloves- they offered really good puncture/cut protection and were pretty light at the same time.
Couldn't find a pic of a coat online, but below is a jacket.
(https://www.airgas.com/medias/Product-N33C35KVMD001-1200Wx1200H?context=bWFzdGVyfHByb2R1Y3R8MTgzODk5fGltYWdlL2pwZWd8cHJvZHVjdC9oNjgvaGY0Lzk5OTQzOTY4OTMyMTQuanBnfGU0MDFiZDQ3M2NmYWVlMGEyM2NmNzFiYmNmMmRlNGViMTcyZmQyYjQ3MTE0NTRjNzg2NDVlODM5ZmRiODkyZTg)
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it's almost as if Rick and his merry krewe have just forgotten all the hard learned lessons of the previous few years.
Every time I watch an episode, I wonder why one one wears leather collars, leather leg guards, arm guards and gloves. All of these would be bite proof.
Why don't they understand that a short spear is better than a Spyderco folder for those head stabs. WHY THE HELL DO THEY KEEP USING THE FRAGILE BUTTS OF THEIR AR RIFLES AS CLUBS? Please excuse my rant there. :)
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God, where to begin. Keep in mind, I'm a casual fan of the show. I like how they play with some of the morality issues, especially kindness vs. survival. Sometimes, I wonder about simply hanging cans withe pebbles inside on fishing line around the perimeter as an early warning system. Set it out 100 yards from your walls and you could have a patrol vectored in to eliminate the threat long before they hit the walls. Want to keep it quiet, so spear it, pin it to the ground, and chop the head.
Supply patrols make me crazy. They wander around unknown territory in condition white. Sweep the area, secure a building, set up overwatch, and search for supplies. Doesn't btake a lot of people to manage that.
A final note, I hate that they split up so often. This is a situation where strength does lie in numbers.
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ummmmmmmmm....it keeps getting renewed by AMC. (which used to stand for American Movie Classics).
<ducks and runs> ;)
bob
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360 security. Anywhere.
Camp security.
Camp OP's LP's.
Layered defenses.
Weapons and firearms.
Sure we can break down individually bad tactics. Unfortunately, most of the Alexandria group is alive by sheer luck. Rick's group has fought and killed for it.
The real problem are people. So many of the things they do and plan are thwarted by people who've gone off the deep end or are just flat greedy. And they just don't seem to want to think about planning on dealing with people.
God, where to begin. Keep in mind, I'm a casual fan of the show. I like how they play with some of the morality issues, especially kindness vs. survival. Sometimes, I wonder about simply hanging cans withe pebbles inside on fishing line around the perimeter as an early warning system. Set it out 100 yards from your walls and you could have a patrol vectored in to eliminate the threat long before they hit the walls. Want to keep it quiet, so spear it, pin it to the ground, and chop the head.
Supply patrols make me crazy. They wander around unknown territory in condition white. Sweep the area, secure a building, set up overwatch, and search for supplies. Doesn't btake a lot of people to manage that.
A final note, I hate that they split up so often. This is a situation where strength does lie in numbers.
There was a camp that some of them stayed in, in one of the early seasons that had that.
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Took them, what, 3 seasons to find a Mosin, which is about as perfect a zombie killer as there is?
Hell, raiding any milsurp store should yield an ample supply on bayonets easily mountable to poles of different kinds.
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Hell, just some decent angle iron and hack saws could make good enough spear points. I always wondered why no one ever used a shield wall and Greek phalanx tactics against zombies. I guess TV/Movies never do anything resembling a formation. Normally, the professionals all get killed and the amateurs win.
Even window bug screens might make a decent make-shift bite guard.
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I always wondered why no one ever used a shield wall and Greek phalanx tactics against zombies.
Man, would I love to see somebody make a short of Lagertha leading her Vikings against a Walking Dead horde!
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A simple double layer canadian tuxedo would make them very bite and scratch resistant. And gloves!
If a bite or scratch is dangerous, undead bodily goo must be so as well. There seems to be little attention payed to biosecurity measures, and tools/weapons as well as characters are frequently covered in hazardous material.
Come on use short spears or pikes instead of pocket knives.
No reconditioning of large vehicles to trample large undead groups?
Since the quarry was such a good trap that kept the area walker-free, they should have just reinforced the exits and kept all the undead there.
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A simple double layer canadian tuxedo would make them very bite and scratch resistant. And gloves!
If a bite or scratch is dangerous, undead bodily goo must be so as well. There seems to be little attention payed to biosecurity measures, and tools/weapons as well as characters are frequently covered in hazardous material.
Come on use short spears or pikes instead of pocket knives.
No reconditioning of large vehicles to trample large undead groups?
Since the quarry was such a good trap that kept the area walker-free, they should have just reinforced the exits and kept all the undead there.
Everyone is "infected" with whatever the agent that causes zombification, so I don't think zombigoo would be bothersome. Plus, in the first season they learned that if they put zombigoo on them the zombis (yea, walkers...whatever) would be fooled into thinking the living were also walkers.
Putting the goo on caused a bad case of BO but it didn't hurt anyone.
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"Everyone is "infected" with whatever the agent that causes zombification, so I don't think zombigoo would be bothersome."
Except... bites are, for whatever reason, fatal. Jim from season 1.
You'd think if a bite is fatal, a cut exposed to zombigoo would trigger the same reaction.
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I've often thought that a piece of sharpened drill rod, tempered to give it some flexibility, or a similar material, ground to a sharp point, and attached to a stout handle, like a pick or ax handle, would be a great zombie eradication tool. Stout, easy punch through hard skull, and easy to remove. If the spear part gets broken, you still have an axe or pick handle as a club.
Of course, I'd rather have a katana.
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There are just so many "poke a hole in the head" options that are better than knives that it's ridiculous. In Walking Dead world, I think the characters probably walk past hundreds of items laying in the street that would make better brain pokers than their knives. At this stage in zombie decomposition, you don't even need a really pointy end. An unsharpened piece of rebar would push through the skull.
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That is why I mentioned angle iron. Surely there would be scrap metal places around where they are wandering. Cut a point into the iron and tie it to a spear. If nothing else, find a secure high point just out of reach and start spearing heads.
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The producers should hire some APS members as technical advisers. However, if they followed the APS tech advisers advice, the show would become boring pretty quickly and be cancelled as actual danger to the characters would be greatly diminished.
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Talked with a friend of mine a few minutes ago.
He's a DC, so he's got a pretty good idea what goes on with bones.
He also has a problem with the ease with which a toothpick can penetrate a zombie's skull. The bones don't really soften during decomp. If anything, they get harder as they dry out. After all, they're largely calcium, which means that they're a rock.
As Dave put it... "Death onset osteoporosis must be one of the side effects of zombiism..." :rofl:
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. . . They still haven't discovered the .22 rimfire . . .
Uhhh . . . until just recently, .22 rimfire has been in short supply these last few years, and that's WITHOUT a zombie apocalypse.
My peeve is the noise they make when on patrol - they KNOW zombies are attracted to sound, and they KNOW there are "non-zombie" bad guys out there . . . and yet they banter back and forth about irrelevant cr@p when they should be paying attention to what's around them. I think someone mentioned they're going around in "Condition White" . . . well, it's usually a noisy "Condition White."
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Spears have been a near perfect weapon for millenia for good reason- good reach and lethality. Up closer, a framing hammer would be good- I think I rememebr one of the characters carrying a hammer in his belt.
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Talked with a friend of mine a few minutes ago.
He's a DC, so he's got a pretty good idea what goes on with bones.
He also has a problem with the ease with which a toothpick can penetrate a zombie's skull. The bones don't really soften during decomp. If anything, they get harder as they dry out. After all, they're largely calcium, which means that they're a rock.
As Dave put it... "Death onset osteoporosis must be one of the side effects of zombiism..." :rofl:
Interesting, I would not have thought about that regarding the bones.
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Interesting, I would not have thought about that regarding the bones.
Makes sense. Bones that are hundreds or thousands of years old get dug up and they're quite hard.
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Uhhh . . . until just recently, .22 rimfire has been in short supply these last few years, and that's WITHOUT a zombie apocalypse.
My peeve is the noise they make when on patrol - they KNOW zombies are attracted to sound, and they KNOW there are "non-zombie" bad guys out there . . . and yet they banter back and forth about irrelevant cr@p when they should be paying attention to what's around them. I think someone mentioned they're going around in "Condition White" . . . well, it's usually a noisy "Condition White."
Just because it's in short supply doesn't mean that everyone who either has, or buys some, is shooting it up the second they get it. I bet you could, with searching, find a LOT of .22 ammo.
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Interesting, I would not have thought about that regarding the bones.
How many times have you seen a small animal rotting away in the wild? The bones don't rot.
I have a deer skull that I picked up years ago. It was dead on a friend's property. I let it rot out good and be worked over by critters before I grabbed the skull. It wasn't soft and mushy, it was hard as hell. I boiled it out in lye to get all the other stuff out of it (brains and the like, that smelled REALLY good... [barf]) and then bleached it.
Hard as a rock.
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Yeah bones don't get mushy while everything else does. But, a spear will still do the job better than a pocket knife.
But in regards to things getting gooy there's a better, IMO, question than the bones getting soft. If the rest of them is rotting, why the hell isn't the brain and they just drop dead after a few weeks of decomp?
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The lack of body hair on the women is just wrong, in the zombie apocalypse there wouldn't be time to shave their legs or arm pits.
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How many times have you seen a small animal rotting away in the wild? The bones don't rot.
I just never thought about the "tough" part of the hardness. I was figuring hard and brittle would break easier. Though in the case of a zombie, I guess the bones aren't really drying out to that point given they're encased in ooze.
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The lack of body hair on the women is just wrong, in the zombie apocalypse there wouldn't be time to shave their legs or arm pits.
After they're dead, the hair doesn't grow anymore.
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The lack of body hair on the women is just wrong, in the zombie apocalypse there wouldn't be time to shave their legs or arm pits.
It is wrong, but I can live with it.
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There's a YouTube channel called Zombie Go Boom that dows experiments with various weapons on simulated zombie heads...polymer skulls under a foam skin. It's a guilty pleasure of mine. Two takeaways from the channel are (1) skulls aren't as easy to penetrate as on the show (which they comment about all the time) and (2) the weapons from the show aren't rwalistic, and aren't the best choices.
Next time you're bored, and surfing the web, watch a couple of episodes and enjoy some low intellect entertainment.
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What has been mentioned:
1. Body "armor", doesn't have to Level III vests, but as mentioned Motorcycle Leathers or the like. Maybe not all the time, but definitely if you are "going outside the wire."
2. Everyone should have a Pike/Staff/Halbard. Seriously, Closet Rods sharpened to a point, Broomsticks, Tool Handles, tree limbs, etc. You don't even need to put a metal (or stone) point on it. Just give it to a pre-teen/teenaged boy and tell them to "whittle". All they make is sharpened sticks. Seriously Thag (rest his Far Side soul) and Ugg figure out how to kill Wooly Mammoths with nothing but sharp sticks.
3. Crossbows/Bows and Arrows. Again, I'll point to Thag and Ugg. Yes, the head is a small target, but with practice (and some instruction from Daryl) most folks could become proficient. Handy when out Patrolling/Scavenging.
4. Wandering around outside the wire in condition "Fabulous !!!" It's not even White, they move around like they are the participants in an anything goes Gay Pride parade. No Light and Noise discipline. No Situational Awareness. "Let's go into town and have some drinks at the local bar. We don't need anyone to watch the door!!" :facepalm: :facepalm:
5. Rick as leader. I would have headed out from this group a while back. But, after having runs various orgs, I do find a lot of people are absolutely terrified to make even the smallest decisions, so a bunch of folks that are scared beyond reason I can see. But he seriously sucks. He doesn't seek input, advice, wisdom or guidance from anyone in the group (or those he meets). He's probably the group's worst enemy when it comes to bringing in new members, as there is strength in numbers. Yes, the show seems to be focused on "The Group" vs the rest of humanity with the Walkers thrown in just to make things worse. But do you really think that should we get a Zom-Poc-A-Lips, that most folks aren't really going to try to work together to survive. Yes, you be get some aholes like the Governor (but holy *expletive deleted*it, I would want as many military folks inside my wire as I could find) But I would bet that most are looking to re-build and not destroy. So I find those characters a bit of a stretch.
6. Organization. No LP/OPs, no watch schedule, no planning, nothing. Everything is done by the seat of the pants. I can understand that at first, it's chaos, you're trying to survive and figure it out. But, by this point you know what's what. You know what the walkers are and how to attract/repel/destroy them. You should have a strong defensive position. You should have been able to scavenge lots of canned food, weapons and other needed supplies to live somewhat "comfortably". You should be growing your own food, and supplementing with fresh meat from hunting/animal husbandry along with gathering "wild" fruits.
By now you should be going on the offensive to reduce their numbers in your area and/or getting them to leave your area. Along with searching for other pockets of survivors. There's none of this. And yes, the quarry, once re-inforced, would have been a great spot to draw them in and reduce the zombie numbers. (Leave a number in to draw more...Have a monthly zombie shoot where folks use long guns from the rim above the quarry to "reduce the herd". Noise of shooting along with several zombies still making zombie noise draws more in. Rinse, wring, repeat.)
7. And yes if there were APS advisers the show would become quite boring. Secure base (with work to continue to repair/improve defenses), guard mounts and duty rosters, everyone having roles and responsibilities to/for the group (cooking, growing hunting for food, standing guard, etc.) along with specialized groups that in addition to their everyday day duties will occasionally patrol outside the wire with zombie-proofed uniforms to obtain intelligence about zombie movements/locations, obtain/search for supplies and/or attempt to make contact with other groups of survivors. With detailed debriefs upon their return. Yep, pretty boring, pretty quick.
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After they're dead, the hair doesn't grow anymore.
I'm talking about the living ones.
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One thing I wondered about: I saw various bits of episodes. I recall they were in a prison or something and zombies were lined up on the fence trying to get in. All it would take is a few people with spears of some sort to go along the fence and knock holes in heads. A drill bit type spear as mentioned would work fine, but a shovel would work. They might get tired, but over the course of several days, the numbers would be wittled down quite a bit. Eventually, the area would be more secure.
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Yeah bones don't get mushy while everything else does. But, a spear will still do the job better than a pocket knife.
But in regards to things getting gooy there's a better, IMO, question than the bones getting soft. If the rest of them is rotting, why the hell isn't the brain and they just drop dead after a few weeks of decomp?
That is always part of the "magic" of zombie stories. WWZ indicated it was some new type of gel based biology which is sort of BS when you start getting to details. Resident Evil turned them into perpetual motion machines. The rabies virus idea is probably better since it would mean they are technically alive, just animalistic. Of course, that means they should be easier to kill and wounded ones should be either eaten by other zombies or die of infection. If they were lined up on the fence, just stab them in the gut.
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Electric Fence
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One thing I wondered about: I saw various bits of episodes. I recall they were in a prison or something and zombies were lined up on the fence trying to get in. All it would take is a few people with spears of some sort to go along the fence and knock holes in heads. A drill bit type spear as mentioned would work fine, but a shovel would work. They might get tired, but over the course of several days, the numbers would be wittled down quite a bit. Eventually, the area would be more secure.
They did have a "fence detail" that would go and play pokey pokey with the zombies.
A shovel wouldn't work because they were separated by a chain link fence.
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"Everyone is "infected" with whatever the agent that causes zombification, so I don't think zombigoo would be bothersome."
Except... bites are, for whatever reason, fatal. Jim from season 1.
You'd think if a bite is fatal, a cut exposed to zombigoo would trigger the same reaction.
Yeah, I've also wondered about that. The stars of the show do seem to get cuts and the like and they get splattered by goo constantly.
Kind of a plot hole.
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I can't say I understood at all the immediate crisis of the zombie horde. Run up a fire escape and wait things out... go in a dumpster and take a nap. Go on the roof the RV ect. If you've got a working radio and an entire community; the rescue could be worked out. And the whole idea of NEEDING to transport the wounded RIGHT NOW. Or... take them to the second floor of some building and lock the door; can't get that zombie horde crowd crush focus if its up some stairs.
And ok, I can see there being no wheelchairs around (maybe), but rather than mostly carrying the wounded, how about an office chair or a shopping cart? Moving the hobbled can cause fatigue very quick, waste of energy that could be spent killing zombies.
And gun control... The guy that shot wildly and then ran off... they are slow moving. If aiming isn't your thing, walk right on up and fire from closer. As long as it hits the head the zombie is no longer a threat.
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Yeah as far as the horde, I'd think that starting a building fire was a good sound idea. Any house would burn nicely and there were a few around. I'd set the fire outside town, though.
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Yeah as far as the horde, I'd think that starting a building fire was a good sound idea. Any house would burn nicely and there were a few around. I'd set the fire outside town, though.
I did laugh about how they went out to seek the most flammable building in town and found that it was already burned down.
:laugh:
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I did laugh about how they went out to seek the most flammable building in town and found that it was already burned down.
:laugh:
Cars are flammable, too....seems a couple car fires would have been a good bet.
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Cars are flammable, too....seems a couple car fires would have been a good bet.
The upholstery and tires would probably create enough black smoke to compete with a building fire.
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Didn't they have flare guns?
A flare punched into a car is going to turn it into a bonfire in short order.
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Mtnbkr and I were discussing the deep issues of Walking Dead this weekend, and I mentioned this "bites kill, cuts slopped with zombie goo don't."
He posited an interesting theory...
Zombie mouths are, for whatever reason, hot spots, or as he said "sort of like hyena mouths." (You get bit by a hyena, and apparently infection is not possible, it's guaranteed.) Which means that the pathogens might be centralized in the mouth/head.
So maybe treating this zombie outbreak would be as simple as better dental care for the zombies?
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Mtnbkr and I were discussing the deep issues of Walking Dead this weekend, and I mentioned this "bites kill, cuts slopped with zombie goo don't."
He posited an interesting theory...
Zombie mouths are, for whatever reason, hot spots, or as he said "sort of like hyena mouths." (You get bit by a hyena, and apparently infection is not possible, it's guaranteed.) Which means that the pathogens might be centralized in the mouth/head.
So maybe treating this zombie outbreak would be as simple as better dental care for the zombies?
I'll chew on that idea for awhile -- it has possibilities .... [tinfoil]
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Mtnbkr and I were discussing the deep issues of Walking Dead this weekend, and I mentioned this "bites kill, cuts slopped with zombie goo don't."
He posited an interesting theory...
Zombie mouths are, for whatever reason, hot spots, or as he said "sort of like hyena mouths." (You get bit by a hyena, and apparently infection is not possible, it's guaranteed.) Which means that the pathogens might be centralized in the mouth/head.
So maybe treating this zombie outbreak would be as simple as better dental care for the zombies?
I'm foreseeing a plot twist with some granola crunchers living in harmony with the zombies by forcibly brushing their teeth every day...
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Actually, it makes sense when you think about it. Everyone already has the virus, so the virus itself isn't the cause of death. Human mouths are known to be just nasty when it comes to bites and now the biter is dead, decomposing, not practicing good oral hygiene, and eating, well, anything. That makes for an absolute cesspool of a mouth. My assertion is that zombie goo (blood, treacle, etc) is not overly infectious to a healthy human, but a bite (or bites) is more infections than a normal human bite for reasons explained above. Ergo, the bitee dies from a massive infection and systemic shutdown rather than anything specific to the virus itself. Toss into the mix a stressed body, lack of medical care, and overall lack of hygiene and you see how it kills like it does.
Chris
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I like the theory, and I think it very nicely covers the.... plot hole... that quite a few of us have noticed since season 1....
Except.... in one of the seasons didn't someone try treating zombie bite infections with antibiotics to no avail? Maybe it was something Jenner mentioned at the CDC.
You'd think if it were an infection antibiotics would have at least some effect.
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Could be a plausible explanation. Sort of like komodo dragon bites. Although I don't remember treatment attempts in season 1, if the lethal infectious agent(s) of the bite was unknown and deemed untreatable or not. Maybe due to a disruption in basic health care the right antibiotic combos just aren't available.
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I like the theory, and I think it very nicely covers the.... plot hole... that quite a few of us have noticed since season 1....
Except.... in one of the seasons didn't someone try treating zombie bite infections with antibiotics to no avail? Maybe it was something Jenner mentioned at the CDC.
You'd think if it were an infection antibiotics would have at least some effect.
Maybe something antibiotic-resistant has established dominance in the zombie mouth? Something that was always there, but held in check by the immune system?
Sort of like komodo dragon bites.
That was what I had in mind, but not that long ago, they discovered the KD is actually venomous and has a relatively clean mouth (especially compared to mammalian carnivores).
Chris
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Maybe something antibiotic-resistant has established dominance in the zombie mouth? Something that was always there, but held in check by the immune system?
Chris
I guess we can blame it on all those generations of mothers who go to the doctor and say "My child has a mild cold! Give him antibiotics!"
Or hookers with clap.
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I guess we can blame it on all those generations of mothers who go to the doctor and say "My child has a mild cold! Give him antibiotics!"
Or hookers with clap.
That's got to be it.