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An excellent film well worth watching, that!

'Ave some of this, twinkle-toes!

Perhaps the most important thing is whether petrol keeps well enough to be useable in flamethrowers after a few months.

I'm not sure Flamethrowers are all that useful?

I mean, the typical scenario is that Zombies either just don't feel pain, or it bother them. So giving them a good dousing takes time, and for some of that time they're still mobile.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me?

Far better to just head for rougher terrain. With a poor sense of balance, they'll be slowed more than a healthy human. So yes, we'd need be careful of our footing - but they'd be more likely to fall over. If you're very lucky, they dash their brains on the fall. But even if not, they lack the coordination to get back up quickly.

Zombies VS Cockneys was a great film - far more amusing than Shawn of the Dead (of those 3 films I always felt like Shawn was finding its feet - Hot Fuzz got it perfect and then the last one was really rather boring and the film I wanted to see was the one they showed in the last 5 mins - DnD adventuring in a post-apoc world visiting pubs)


Also thinking on zombies I can think of one way that zombies could be a viable threat even with modern armies. Long overlooked incubation period.

Basically a disease that manages to infect a vast portion of the population in one go. Something like the common cold, mostly harmless to the vast majority of the population and thus something that gets overlooked and not targeted.

Then all it needs is some kind of fast acting catalyst or mutation to spread through it so that you basically do wake up with something like an 80% infection rate of zombies at random. That would break most modern countries because now the initial infection period hits everyone including armed forces and specialist forces.

You create an insane panic that in one sweep knocks out most organisation structures very quickly.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
One would think they’d also be devoured by insects pretty quickly.

That in itself is another issue for survivors, due to flies and that being known disease vectors.

I've always found this article about zombies and mother nature to be heartening.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/naturalist-explains-how-the-zombie-apocalypse-would-collapse-after-just-one-week-thanks-to-mother-nature/news-story/f7e62a72fea7a53df822f7e6606ff48f

Don't know if you've ever been around raptors, they're smart and model each other's behavior. Hawks and Owls especially will go after people, you have to fight back or they will kill you.

I could see a scenario where the zombie outbreak leads to bird apocalypse and survivors are fighting off thousand-strong bald eagle packs.

Tangentally related to a zombie apocalypse, one of the huge, HUGE problems with a collapse of society that is nearly never addressed is what happens when Nuclear Power plants stop being maintained.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I'm not sure Flamethrowers are all that useful?

I mean, the typical scenario is that Zombies either just don't feel pain, or it bother them. So giving them a good dousing takes time, and for some of that time they're still mobile.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me?

Far better to just head for rougher terrain. With a poor sense of balance, they'll be slowed more than a healthy human. So yes, we'd need be careful of our footing - but they'd be more likely to fall over. If you're very lucky, they dash their brains on the fall. But even if not, they lack the coordination to get back up quickly.

A proper flamethrower does use a type of napalm gel/liquid. Napalm is infamous because it just sticks to you and burns...and burns...and burns. So while I concur that a flamethrower is...questionable, a zombie cannot function without tendons, ligaments, connective tissue. So is a squirt of napalm going to do work? I'd guess. A zombie with ash in its joints is doing nowhere. Flamethrowers tend to be disastrous when they go wrong though, so I do think you'd be playing with fire (literally!). One cock up and you've burned down your stash house or your best friend.

Of course if we're talking fast zombies, a flamethrower would be the worst thing you could POSSIBLY use. Setting a zombie on fire seconds before it grabs you and hugs you to death is probably a gak idea.

PS: With nuclear facilities - it would depend entirely on the speed of the outbreak. I'd imagine (no intel) that all nuclear facilities are able to draw down, reduce output, go into a standby mode in case of some kind of potential disaster (i.e. a case like a rabid outbreak of disease). So I'd imagine they would have a fallback plan to put the generator into stasis for at least some period of time. Not entirely sure, but I'd imagine we don't have nuclear plants that'll explode if everyone takes a sick day for a week?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Depends on the countryside, really.

In the UK, it’s very tame. No bears, wolves etc to worry about. And the buildings tend to be old, and therefore solid. Many in my area are still walled in, giving further protection.

If the current owner/occupants let you in, board up the windows, head upstairs and stay quiet when a herd approaches. Sorted.

“Get to the Winchester, lock the doors, have a pint and wait for the whole thing to blow over.”

Seriously not far off.

Panic is the biggest enemy against the initial incident. Once people have had a chance to come to terms with it, and know how to take them down, Zombies aren’t a particular threat.

UK in particular has quite a lot of hedgerows out in the country, and from what I’ve seen on tv, fences a good bit more solid that the USA. Just a cultural thing, no judgement.

Consider up North, where Drystone Walling is more prevalent. It’s usually at least waist high, and fairly thick. Most humans can be up and over one in no time. Zombie? Not so much. Yes a serious herd could probably bulldoze one through weight of numbers. But in the meantime, you’ve either plenty opportunity to leg it, or use it as a defensive position to start stabbing bonces.

Heck, if you’re really organised, a group of 20 could probably shred a horde using shifts. Say five on at a time, ten in reserve, five resting up. Stab and spread. Thin out the pack. You’ve got time.

And you’ll notice the wall starting to give before the Zombies, allowing for an orderly retreat to the next Bumpkin Bulwark.

Lovely!

Depends on the type of zombie. Slow zombies, sure. Fast zombies? They'll be up that in a jiffy.

 Elbows wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I'm not sure Flamethrowers are all that useful?

I mean, the typical scenario is that Zombies either just don't feel pain, or it bother them. So giving them a good dousing takes time, and for some of that time they're still mobile.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me?

Far better to just head for rougher terrain. With a poor sense of balance, they'll be slowed more than a healthy human. So yes, we'd need be careful of our footing - but they'd be more likely to fall over. If you're very lucky, they dash their brains on the fall. But even if not, they lack the coordination to get back up quickly.

A proper flamethrower does use a type of napalm gel/liquid. Napalm is infamous because it just sticks to you and burns...and burns...and burns. So while I concur that a flamethrower is...questionable, a zombie cannot function without tendons, ligaments, connective tissue. So is a squirt of napalm going to do work? I'd guess. A zombie with ash in its joints is doing nowhere. Flamethrowers tend to be disastrous when they go wrong though, so I do think you'd be playing with fire (literally!). One cock up and you've burned down your stash house or your best friend.

Of course if we're talking fast zombies, a flamethrower would be the worst thing you could POSSIBLY use. Setting a zombie on fire seconds before it grabs you and hugs you to death is probably a gak idea.

PS: With nuclear facilities - it would depend entirely on the speed of the outbreak. I'd imagine (no intel) that all nuclear facilities are able to draw down, reduce output, go into a standby mode in case of some kind of potential disaster (i.e. a case like a rabid outbreak of disease). So I'd imagine they would have a fallback plan to put the generator into stasis for at least some period of time. Not entirely sure, but I'd imagine we don't have nuclear plants that'll explode if everyone takes a sick day for a week?

Yes, but imagine situations like the Walking Dead, where things have been down for a long time, and it was chaos as things got bad. I'm not sure how long even a safely "shut down" reactor can just sit there before something bad happens.

If a nuclear reactor is safely shut down, you’re looking at thousands of years before any sort of containment breach occurred through erosion or other natural causes. And the effects would still be relatively minor.