In my first post I talked about having your ready bag. I got a lot of response from a lot of people and thats great! To respond to a few things... first of all... having a gun in your ready bag is unreasonable. For most people, having a gun at all is unreasonable. I will keep these posts to what is reasonable and realistic. For example, some one wrote that you should master a martial art. Lol. The advice is sound, but for the average person... that is not going to happen. Time constraints, and money are two reasons. Martial arts are expensive. Plus, a lot of martial arts are based on using things like pressure points, pain and the fear of pain against your opponent. Who is to say that a maneuver that may work against some guy who is afraid of having his wrist broken will work against a zombie? It is more reasonable that you seek out a friend who does take some martial arts and have him teach you a few hold breaks. Or at best, take a local self defense class at the Y. That is the sort of approach I am taking. Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse for the average joe!
So back to my post. Be prepared! After the ready bag and lip balm. There are a few realistic things you can do to be prepared. A life changing diet is not reasonable. Of course it is healthy and smart, but preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse is not motivation enough to get us to stop eating yellow Zingers for breakfast. God those are good! Here are some things you can do on your own though that are reasonable.
Weapons training:
There are gun clubs in all areas. Take a saturday and seek one out. Pay for a day and fire some guns! The real world is very unlike Halo. Hitting a target through the scope of a 30/30 is a lot harder then you would think. Blasting away with two .45 caliber pistols like Neo is probably not going to land you many hits. Instead, fire a shotgun at some traveling targets. Ask some one to help you. More often then not you will find lots of guys willing to share their knowledge. Fire some hand guns. Both revolvers and automatics. Fire a rifle. Learn how they all work and where each are appropriate. All three have different jobs. The one you want to focus on is the Shot Gun. At the end of the day, you will have a lot more knowledge then the average joe, have some decent experience with a fire arm, and feel pretty darn content. Its theraputic! This will come in handy later.
More weapons training:
Now it is time for training with hand weapons. You are not a swordsman. You are not Conan. You probably do not own a sword. If you did own a sword, it is probably not useful as a weapon. In other words, forget the image of Butch from Pulp Fiction with the Samurai sword. Useless. And odds are you will more likely slice off your own nose before severing any Zombie heads. I have seen sites offering any number of cool and oddly shaped zombie fighting blades. Dont bother. To see why, take an Axe, an item designed to cut wood, and go out to a forest. Try chopping a tree. Notice how it gets stuck and requires force to pull it out? Well, imagine that happening to your super cool zombie killing slayer sword while there is another zombie coming from behind the first...
I suggest two types of weapons that are easily procured, probably from the neighbors garage. First of all, a simple club. Get your self a good, heavy aluminum bat. Probably even better still is a length of strong pipe. In case you did not know, a length of good pipe is more structurally sound then an equal length of solid metal rod. Lighter too. So get your self a beat stick. In a pinch, a wooden bat will do, or a piece of 2x4 if you have nothing else until you find better. Go out to some woods, set up a target dummy... you can make it out of posts, old clothes, hay bails whatever you can get your hands on. Practice swinging at the head to see if you can hit it. Better yet, sprint 30 yards, then practice swinging at the head. Even better still, have a buddy hold the dummy up for you on a stick. Run 30 yards, then try to hit the head of a dummy that your buddy is moving up and down. That is a skill you can master in a shorter time, and will take you a lot further then becoming a black belt. (Which you probably will not do any way.)
Oh and a word on targeting Zombies with your pimp stick. The head may seem like the natural target. However, I am not entirely sure that is the case. Zombies cannot be knocked out. They are zombies. It is my opinion that hitting them in the shin and arms will be a more valuable use of your time. Shatter those bones! A zombie, though still a ravenous soul hungry eating machine, cannot walk on shattered legs. It cannot grab you with shattered arms. Remember, survival depends on getting away, not slaying zombies. Knock em down. Move on. Sweep the legs!
The other handy weapon will be the garage variety timber axe. The kind most dads buy, use 3 times then hang on a wall in the tool shed. Even dull it is a formidable weapon. It usually had a flat edge on the back of the head that can double as a pimp stick, though the shape of the handle may hinder that. If you do end up in a situation where you or a friend has immobilized a zombie, now is the time to lop off its head with your choppa. Oh, and it is useful to cut wood too.
If you are really feeling manly, grab the sledge hammer! But I suggest this only if you have a partner. The bat or pipe is quicker, but there is nothing like a sledge hammer to bring a satisfying crackle and shatter to a couple of shin bones.
So, you got your weapons training. You can hit a moving target with a shot gun. You have fired a pistol and a rifle. You can take a zombies legs out from under it after running a block. You are now one step closer to surviving the 1st hour of The Zombie Apocalypse!
Oh, by the way, the guy in the picture skewering a zombie with an IV pole... forget it. There is no way he is going to push the blunt end of that pole through the rib cage organs and back of the ribcage of a moving zombie.
Jawaballs
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13 comments:
Nice post, everyone should be prepared for the inevitable rise of the walking dead.
I would recommend a crow bar as a weapon. Light, easy to carry, can be used for opening stuff and hitting zombies with. Have you seen the Zombie Hunters website, plenty of tips there.
Crow Bar is very useful! Not only a good weapon, but reinforced and intended to sustain shock and not bend. Also it is multipurpose. They might be a little short and heavy though, and akward to wield. They will definitely help you later on when I get to what happens after the 1st hour!
Samari sword WAhTA!
The problem with the crow-bar, and pry-bars in general is the same one you'll encounter with a dull cutting implement. That is to say, chances are good it will get lodged inside something fleshy.
Your average crow/pry-bar is sharp enough to penetrate flesh when swung with a respectable amount of force, but, due to the "hook" shape, and over-all dullness, will probably stick the first time you "Squish" something fleshy.
A Heavy-bladed sword, or machete, isn't a terrible choice. With enough weight (And a good cutting edge)you can sever limbs. (or, at least hands) The weight of the blade helps you complete the strike and not get it lodged in a zombie.
Don't aim for the torso! This isn't anime, people don't part down some kind of magical seam, spraying blood everywhere like they've got a BP in the thousands. Extremities, far easier to cut through, less likely to get your stuff stuck.
Of course, the speculation on how best to defeat a creature is fairly useless without some knowledge of the creature. (And, in this case, their very existence is speculative, like, say, a Dragon) Do Zombies feel pain? Need their Hearts? Lungs? Can they suffocate at all? Die from internal bleeding? External bleeding? Do they even need their blood, or is it just there to splatter around to create atmosphere? Get stunned? Concussed? Starve? They do always seem hungry... Or do they operate more like Monte Python's Black Knight?
Final thought: The IV is actually more advantageous if it *isn't* pushed all the way through the zombie. If the IV-Stand lodges somewhere in the zombie's chest cavity, it gives you a kind of "handle" that you can use to control the zombie and keep him at range. If it goes all the way through, you just have a punctured zombie, which may or may not do anything.
Actually, a good sword would be excellent for putting down zombies if they aren't the "remove head to kill" type, because most swords have an air groove running down their length to prevent exactly the problem you describe.
Also, the IV stand? If you snap of the bottom of the stand in the jamb of a door, it should, with some luck, give you a functional spear. Given that the stand's pole is also hollow, this will act like a sword's air groove to make it easy to punch and withdraw.
Of course, if you are facing zombies of the "remove head to kill" variety then, resources allowing, a pole chainsaw and a sawn-off shotgun should be your first choices.
Yep, that's a chain halberd, right there.
Aluminum Bats and axes would be far too heavy for a good melee weapon. Your best option is a cheap machete. Another problem with axes is that they will lodge themselves in your target, requiring you to wrench them free... something you do not want to do if you have many zombies around you.
Handguns are impractical. At the range which they would be accurate/useful, you should be fishing out your machete.
Rifles are not as impractical as you would think (even as an average Joe). It's easy to get a .33 hunting rifle, and in a world where there is a zombie apocalypse, it could very well be a necessity to be able to pick off your targets from a distance.
... you really should read the book "Zombie Survival Guide." Everything you've mentioned so far (like seriously, ALL of it) is gone over in detail in the book with pros and cons for all of it.
Sawn off shotguns are not a good choice. You have one shot before reload, and at the range you need to be at to use it to kill them, chances are you have more than one zombie at that range. This is not like in a FPS, you can and will miss, get tired, and be outnumbered. Heavy swinging melee weapons and close range guns will hurt more than help.
But I dont want to read that stuff! The whole point of this is that I am writing it without reading all that stuff! I've read none of it at all and am writing the ideas my friends and I have been batting around for years to see how they compare to the pros. I suppose I could read it, but then what fun would I have in writing it?? :)
I already said that blade weapons will get stuck. I said an axe would be good to behead something your friend has knocked down. I made the point that using a blunt weapon to shatter the zombies legs would be better then trying to hack them to bits with a machete or sword.
I rifle is good, but only at range. Unlike in Halo where guys seem to be able to blow you away from 4 feet with a Sniper gun.
At any rate, I am just filling in fluff info. You could probably just substitute any thing I write here for whatever is written in those books. The real meat of this is coming when I get to more unique stuff like my personal plans etc. More to come!
When talking about swords, keep in mind when the last time you saw a real (i.e. not a replica) sword? Maybe a museum or martial arts store? Good luck getting one from there.
The upside to machetes in my mind are 1) They aren't replica machetes 2) They are easy to find and replace 3) Even the untrained user can hack an opponent's limb off.
axes and crowbars have a much higher chance of getting stuck than a machete. seriously, you're not hitting trees, a decent $7 machete from a hardware/garden store will sever limbs.
Also, while you might shatter a zombie's legs, that won't stop them, only slow them. You will eventually have to stop and rest. Zombies don't tire. It's like in Terminator ... take their legs off and they'll still crawl after you. Always go for the head, all else is an effort in futility.
Keep your wits about you and you should never be in melee range. If somehow you get surprised/surrounded, that's what the machetes are for, but primary focus should be range.
@ Katie:
"Keep your wits about you and you should never be in melee range."
Couldn't disagree with you more on this point. See, no matter how much you "Keep your wits about you" You're not psychic, clairvoyant, or anything down those lines. sh!t happens, zombies pop out of the wall, bridges/walls collapse, locations are suddenly and violently compromised. And you have to sleep sooner or later. You can't keep your wits about you when you're asleep. Is the person watching over you as "witty" as you are? In the hypothetical zombie apocalypse, you need, as in 40k, to be prepared for the eventuality of melee combat. It's not a "Maybe" it will happen sooner or later, it's in your best interest to make sure the first time isn't the last.
swords, knives, etc.
Bladed weapons have their uses... but everyone knows that if you have to fight zombies you use a Cricket Bat.
"bash em in the head, that seems to work."
@Jacob: I love how you didn't seem to notice Katie's very next sentence: "If somehow you get surprised/surrounded, that's what the machetes are for, but primary focus should be range."
If you focus on melee, you put yourself in more danger than you may need to. Discretion is the key to survival in this kind of situation. You make preparations in CASE you are caught in melee (machete), but for the most part ranged engagements or simply avoiding the battle altogether are your primary goals as they present the least amount of danger to you and your comrades.
She's right: a machete/katana will not get stuck in an enemy nearly as much as a crowbar/axe. Also, a machete is lighter weight, giving you the ability to last longer and not weigh you down in your travels. A sledgehammer? Might as well carry a cinderblock.
Also you mentioned that you have to sleep sooner or later. Another great reason to destroy zombies (presumably by head-shot/damaging brain) over simply crippling them by taking out their knees with a hammer.
You gUys make me feel like I'm spoiled. I did tie kwan do for many years and got a kekwan black belt. And 3 or 4 times a yeAr I go to my grandpas ranch and shoot his guns. ( enough for a small army ) for all the people comenting on the zombi book, please just drop it. This is ovously not as technocly good as it, this will unfartunatly amount to jack squat ( no offense ) compared to some person wasting hiz child hood and half of his adult life working on a thoey that isnt true, but that isn't the purpose. This is to mAke you think and hopfully get a few laughs. (I know I have, about the whole lip balm thing, doesn't realy apply to me for I can run a 21 minute 5k. Ha ha !! That's a 6:58 mile pace, slow for me competing against 11 year old kids runing 17 minute 5k.!? ) thanks for this set of articals!!
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