Walkind Dead Season 2 (continued)

[Yoadm]

Anyone ever notice that despite the sheer amount of automatic weapons inside the US, the group always uses single-shot firearms? It always seemed to me as the most obvious deus-ex-machina, considering howmuch easyer their lives would have been (and howmuch more boring the show), if they had one single M-16.

[Arthmail]

Anyone ever notice that despite the sheer amount of automatic weapons inside the US, the group always uses single-shot firearms? It always seemed to me as the most obvious deus-ex-machina, considering howmuch easyer their lives would have been (and howmuch more boring the show), if they had one single M-16.

I started to lose interest when they were at the CDC facility, where there had obviously been a last stand situation, and failed to pick up a single automatic rifle. I mean, come on. Jenner had one.

This show has gotten pretty stupid, and it should have been done better with smarter characters. Some people say, well, thats true to life - there are dumb people. That does not mean, however, that they are interesting to watch.

[red snow]

This article has a pretty good discussion with the showrunner on season 3 and explanations for where viewers thought season 2 went wrong and why some characters were virtually absent or really irritating. It has spoilers in though regarding season 3 so be warned.

[paddington]

post 323

Yeah their gun collection is pretty poor. Even in the UK I know where there would be a supply of automatic weapons and ammo. I'd probably blow my own foot off trying to us them, but I'd know where to get my grubby paws on them.

Also I'd be trying to make some zombie proof armouring, there has to be a limit to what they can bite through, geeze even motorbike helmets are going to protect your face from being chewed off.

[Yoadm]

I started to lose interest when they were at the CDC facility, where there had obviously been a last stand situation, and failed to pick up a single automatic rifle. I mean, come on. Jenner had one.

This show has gotten pretty stupid, and it should have been done better with smarter characters. Some people say, well, thats true to life - there are dumb people. That does not mean, however, that they are interesting to watch.

And that's just automatic weapons. A military unit which includes tanks, rockets and artillary overwhealmed by 2 mile an hour walking Zombies? Hardly plausable.

Edit: Another thing. The zombies in TWD are so weak that a human can easily overpower, trip and crush them, yet so strong as to be able to open up someone's belly with their hands alone?

[drawkcabi]

The gun thing has always bothered me the most about the show. There are guns everywhere in this country. Go to a freaking Wal-Mart, ok you don't want to be dealing with a bunch of zombies both post virus kind and the pre-virus Walmart shoppers kind, go to K-Mart then, those stores are always empty, even before the virus.

I think it's fortunate for TWD that they are the only game in town for zombie TV series. I think if there were other shows like maybe they adapted World War Z into a TV series instead of a movie or a 28 Days/Weeks Later TV series adapted from the movies and they were better written, TWD would have been cancelled by now.

[Kaldaur]

http://io9.com/5894789/what-i-did-during-the-second-season-of-the-walking-dead-by-t+dog

Enjoy the journal of Theodore Douglas.

[TheBigTEA]

Ahh, the guns. I don't think automatic weapons are the answer. I think hi capacity, accurate, semi-auto rifles are the answer. So yah..an M16, M4 or other military rifle with select fire would be the way to go. Or how about a P90? 50 round magazine anyone? The local Gander Mountain would be my first stop shopping location once the zombies came. Last time I was at that place they had a couple F2000, a P90 and a bunch or M4 clones. All semi auto only with 30+ round magazines and a TON of ammo. Hell I think I would just set up camp in the Gander. Only the front doors and the rear door to watch....

Still, I love this show. I think the idea that there are ZOMBIES pretty much makes me suspend my reason for the show.

[Spring Bass]

Someone in another forum brought up an interesting point about escaped animals from zoos and the predator population. Some of the bigger animals - including elephants - are smart enough to get out of their enclosures, and their thick skin and size means that zombies would have a difficult time bringing down a group of them unless it was a monstrously huge swarm (which could bring them down through exhaustion). They'd never get the budget to show it, but it would be cool to have a group of feral elephants wandering around in some of the warmer parts of the US.

Then there's the population of predators, like coyotes, wolves, and the big cats. They'll probably just hand-wave the issue with "zombie blood is poisonous to them too", but it would be interesting if they didn't - and the predator population exploded due to all that easy meat shambling around. It'd be a huge problem a couple of years down the line, particularly if ammunition starts to run low.

The gun thing has always bothered me the most about the show. There are guns everywhere in this country. Go to a freaking Wal-Mart, ok you don't want to be dealing with a bunch of zombies both post virus kind and the pre-virus Walmart shoppers kind, go to K-Mart then, those stores are always empty, even before the virus.

The problem with that plan is that the major stores were likely scoured for canned food, guns, and survival equipment as the panic started to set in (when people were fleeing the cities, like Shane and Lori in the flashback).

I think hi capacity, accurate, semi-auto rifles are the answer. So yah..an M16, M4 or other military rifle with select fire would be the way to go. Or how about a P90? 50 round magazine anyone?

Sounds good, although you presumably want weapons for which ammunition is commonly available all over the place.

Revolvers aren't as hot in terms of killing zombies, but you get to keep the casings. You could use those plus other stuff gathered to cast new bullets for your gun.

EDIT: Phew! I finally managed to get this posted past the dreaded SQL Error.

[Yoadm]

Ahh, the guns. I don't think automatic weapons are the answer. I think hi capacity, accurate, semi-auto rifles are the answer. So yah..an M16, M4 or other military rifle with select fire would be the way to go. Or how about a P90? 50 round magazine anyone? The local Gander Mountain would be my first stop shopping location once the zombies came. Last time I was at that place they had a couple F2000, a P90 and a bunch or M4 clones. All semi auto only with 30+ round magazines and a TON of ammo. Hell I think I would just set up camp in the Gander. Only the front doors and the rear door to watch....

Still, I love this show. I think the idea that there are ZOMBIES pretty much makes me suspend my reason for the show.

Granade launchers and rockets would be good. Raid a military base and you would have thousands to tens-of thousands of ammo in that regard. That's why I was pissed off by "whole military units overwhealmed by zombies". A well equipped US battalion can kill millions of Zombies without breaking much of a sweat.

[TheBigTEA]

Granade launchers and rockets would be good. Raid a military base and you would have thousands to tens-of thousands of ammo in that regard. That's why I was pissed off by "whole military units overwhealmed by zombies". A well equipped US battalion can kill millions of Zombies without breaking much of a sweat.

You read World War Z? There is a pretty good section in the book where the author tries to explain that away. I think he does a relatively decent job.

Plus I have no idea how to use a rocket launcher or a grenade launcher and would probably kill myself or someone else before I killed a zombie.

[Yoadm]

You read World War Z? There is a pretty good section in the book where the author tries to explain that away. I think he does a relatively decent job.

Plus I have no idea how to use a rocket launcher or a grenade launcher and would probably kill myself or someone else before I killed a zombie.

I mean the military units that were overwhealmed by Zombies. They know how to operate the equipment. An armored battalion can cut through close to an unlimited amount of zombies (millions, in fact), if supplied right. And when out of ammo, simply drive over them for hours on end. Overwhealmed by slow moving zombies? Right.

[paddington]

Yeah the army could just tank splat them all. I guess the only way they could be overwhelmed is if something else actually killed them. I don't really see zombies doing it ethier, I liked the bit in WWZ with the battle of Yonkers an stuff. However you can squash a lot of zombies in a tank.

[Spring Bass]

The zombies in WWZ are FAST zombies though.

No, the WWZ zombies were the classic slow shamblers, probably even slower than the zombies in TWD show (who can move at almost a slow job once they smell food).

I mean the military units that were overwhealmed by Zombies. They know how to operate the equipment. An armored battalion can cut through close to an unlimited amount of zombies (millions, in fact), if supplied right. And when out of ammo, simply drive over them for hours on end. Overwhealmed by slow moving zombies? Right.

The Collapse usually doesn't make a lot of sense in zombie fiction. Brooks basically had to set up a situation where everything goes wrong: wrong types of ammunition, not enough ammo, wrong combat gear, bad positioning, inadequate knowledge of the enemy, and so on. I still enjoy Yonkers, and mostly chop it up to those factors plus terrible morale.

It's a little easier with The Walking Dead, since the "everybody's infected" rule means that panic and deaths from the chaos of the situation turn zombie containment into a game of whack-a-mole for the military and police. Even then, though, you should still have areas where remnants of the government are able to consolidate and set up rules to prevent internal waves of zombification when people inevitably die. Of course, the mass swarms would be vulnerable to things like air bombing and artillery.

[SwordoftheMorning]

WWZ's depiction of the military 's stratagic failures at the beginning of the outbreak made a lot of sense. There is no army around that is prepared or well supplied enough to kill millions and millions of opposing troops, even zombies. That's the problem, when your enemy consist of millions of bodies that are immune to fear, shock and awe, millions of troops that implacable opponents who will never stop trying to kill you, who simply keep attacking, the moral of your troops will be severely affected. While you can squash a "lot" with a tank when u are talking millions, there comes a point when even a tank can get clogged and bogged down. I won't fault TWD for not trying to graphically portray that, we'll see how well the WWZ movie handles it.

We're talking millions people. Take it from an experienced ex-Airborne Ranger. If you fire an M16 for an hour or so continually on auto, the barrel glows red. You fire it for much longer and it gets too hot to even hold. The same holds true for M60 machine guns and most other ordanace. You simply can't fire enough rounds to kill millions of troops. If there is any tactical option not being explored, it would be things like napalm, You can fry a whole lot of zombies with things like that, but again, the simply mechanics of trying to eliminate millions makes even that a difficult proposition.

[TheBigTEA]

I was going to reply...but everyone else has said it better.

Another thing to remember is in TWD we are looking at just one small, cut off portion of the US. Who knows what else is out there? For all they know California could be relatively fine or something.

Again...it's a ZOMBIE show. Gotta let some stuff slide.

Although my idea about camping out at Gander Mountain is still boss.

[Spring Bass]

WWZ's depiction of the military 's stratagic failures at the beginning of the outbreak made a lot of sense. There is no army around that is prepared or well supplied enough to kill millions and millions of opposing troops, even zombies. That's the problem, when your enemy consist of millions of bodies that are immune to fear, shock and awe, millions of troops that implacable opponents who will never stop trying to kill you, who simply keep attacking, the moral of your troops will be severely affected. While you can squash a "lot" with a tank when u are talking millions, there comes a point when even a tank can get clogged and bogged down. I won't fault TWD for not trying to graphically portray that, we'll see how well the WWZ movie handles it.

Oh, I agree. I attribute the failure at Yonkers due to massive supply and morale issues. Keeping a large force supplied when the entire country is roiled with internal migration and panic is no easy feat, and there was their ignorance as well (they wasted most of their heavy ordinance on the first few thousand zombies out of a swarm of millions).

We're talking millions people. Take it from an experienced ex-Airborne Ranger. If you fire an M16 for an hour or so continually on auto, the barrel glows red. You fire it for much longer and it gets too hot to even hold. The same holds true for M60 machine guns and most other ordanace. You simply can't fire enough rounds to kill millions of troops. If there is any tactical option not being explored, it would be things like napalm, You can fry a whole lot of zombies with things like that, but again, the simply mechanics of trying to eliminate millions makes even that a difficult proposition.

If you can get a giant swarm of them moving on the highway or some other confined space, then massed artillery is your best bet. Zombies don't duck for cover or spread out when a shell hits, so you could sit there and pound them all day, possibly "killing" dozens to hundreds with each round. WWZ didn't use that, but I don't mind because they had to kill 200 million zombies over a vast area, with only a fraction of the US's prior industrial base.

Again...it's a ZOMBIE show. Gotta let some stuff slide.

I like reading/watching the collapse (my favorite parts of WWZ were those showing the collapse, such as the I-80 chapter), but I agree. It's probably a good thing Kirkman hasn't said much about how the whole situation went down, since the explanation would likely end up seeming stupid.

[Monday]

I can't believe I'm linking to Cracked, but.... 5 Reasons The Walking Dead Has to Get Better

:leaving:

[Spring Bass]

I disagree with the article about Rick. I think the show did a good job of showing how his "Good Guy" instincts and conscience gradually get punished over and over, with the disastrous trip into Atlanta, the disastrous trip to the CDC, the personal disintegration of Shane, and finally the fall of the farm. First Season Rick was "I can't believe I left Merryl back there - we need to go back and save him." End-of-Second-Season Rick was "I control this group - if you don't like it, then you can go die somewhere else."

Same for keeping Shane around. He was a good contrast to Rick, degenerating into something dangerous and erratic under the situation.

[SwordoftheMorning]

If you can get a giant swarm of them moving on the highway or some other confined space, then massed artillery is your best bet. Zombies don't duck for cover or spread out when a shell hits, so you could sit there and pound them all day, possibly "killing" dozens to hundreds with each round. WWZ didn't use that, but I don't mind because they had to kill 200 million zombies over a vast area, with only a fraction of the US's prior industrial base.

The primary effect of massed artillery is pyschological. The actual damage on personnel is not all that much. There is serious damage like the bursting of eardrums, concussion shock ( which can kill ) and those caught in the sheer force of the landing shell with limbs ripped off, shell fragments ripping through bodies, etc ... all that would be only partially effective against a force that simply doesn't react to any of that. A zombie with an arm ripped off by a shell fragment will keep moving forward with the one arm left. Ditto for one with it's guts ripped out, or eardrums bleeding, it's still trying to kill any human it can reach.

Napalm or any incendary rounds would at least try to fry they fuckers, Trying to get enough of it in the right place to effectively combat the zombies is still problematic.