50 replies to this topic

[sam12six]

I've always had this philosophy with regards to the major, major disaster scenarios:

If 99% of the Earth's population wants to eat you, if a nuke detonates close to you, if the government turns its entire weight to exterminating you - you're dead. Yes, theoretically you could live through freakish good luck, but there's no way to be prepared enough to actually fight your way to survival.

Don't get me wrong. Skills and supplies will increase your miniscule, tiny, microscopic odds of survival, so they're good things to learn and amass.

Unless you have the money to create a military level fortress with guards, stockpiled food, weapons, and fuel (including the ability to manufacture or farm more of these things), there's no long term surviving based on your own preparedness.

In the case of zombies, think about how many people you see on a busy sidewalk (about a thousand times what they show in movies). Imagine all those people rushing you with the intent to eat you - one scratch and you're as good as dead. I don't care what kind of gun you're carrying or how good you are with it, there's no fighting your way out of that unscathed (unless you were visiting a museum and jack a suit of medieval armor or visiting a military base and jack a tank - but that's that luck thing again).

[asc.rudeboy]

save the .45s and other high caliber rounds for the land pirates in a zombie apocalypse i believe the .22 caliber would be king.small enough  to carry 1000s of rounds easily and can be used in rifle and pistol,giving you a wide range of defense. easily handled by even the smallest member of your family/party and is a great for hunting small game..just my .02$ on ammo choice for walking dead.

[Fluffybunny]

I have to agree with .22 for that kind of situation. A .22 headshot is pretty amazing in that it has tons of speed going in, but not enough to pass back out of the skull(usually) and so that small bullet ends up spinning around inside the skull like a marble in a can; doing lots of damage along the way.

A 500 round brick of 22's are cheap and light enough to carry in a cargo pocket. You can easily carry a few thousand rounds of ammo on your person and in your pack, not so for larger calibers.

Cheap rifles like a 10/22 Ruger are incredibly accurate within a 100 meters, easy to clean, dependable, light and easy to get parts for. They are fun to shoot as well, but that is beside the point.

I agree with many of the other posts, there are too many factors for having a plan that you could bet your life on. When it comes to planning for disasters(tornadoes, earthquakes, zombies, plagues, whatever), you can have a lot of things planned out to increase your chance while you are at home, when something happens while you are on vacation, all your planning is not going to help you out.

I do the best I can as a Medic and Firefighter to have enough equipment with me that I can handle most medical issues until help arrives, even in my truck, and in a bag that I take with me on vacation.

My experience as a firefighter and working on an ambulance has taught me really important issues. The biggest thing is that in every city I have ever worked, the EMS system is ALWAYS close to being overwhelmed on any given day; not even on a day that has had a disaster. Hospitals have figured out what the average flow of people are through the doors of the ER on a given day and they staff accordingly so that there is no wasted money on extra staff. That ends up meaning that if there are one or two more car crashes than normal, a hospital will be overwhelmed and shut its doors and divert to the nearest hospital

So considering the fact that on any normal Tuesday the local ER can be overwhelmed by the bad luck of several cars crashing into each other, how well will they all handle a regional disaster with thousands of sick or injured? Not well in my experience.

I tell all of my friends to take a really good first aid and CPR class that is taught by people who have experience; fire stations usually do them for free and have experience in the things they are showing you. If there is some major problem, there could be a delay of several hours in order to get any kind of care, so you need to learn how to take care of yourself and your loved ones until that help can come. That means that if there is an earthquake and Uncle Fred has a hand that gets cut off by falling shelving in the garage, then you should be able to at least keep him alive and not bleeding to death until help can arrive. That is going to be more than just a bandaid from under the sink.

Bad things happen to all of us sooner or later...it may not always be a zombie infestation, but it makes for a good mental exercise to work about all of the issues that come up in life that you may need to take care of while the people that normally help you are overwhelmed or hurt themselves.

[SilverCougar]

jfc...


When can we get a damned zombie section from the forums...  just to get the umpteen million "OMFGS ZOMBIES!!" threads that litter then other parts like this one... please?


*grumps*

[MstrMsn]

SilverCougar, on 27 September 2011 - 03:18 AM, said:

jfc...


When can we get a damned zombie section from the forums...  just to get the umpteen million "OMFGS ZOMBIES!!" threads that litter then other parts like this one... please?


*grumps*

My idea behind this wasn't to have anther zombie thread. The basis for this thread is to show what parts of actual survival scenerios will work, and which won't, and why they will or will not work.

Preparing for ANY survival situation, you will always run into variables, and in ALL situations, you run into only 3 unknown variables. Those being: When will it happen, will I actually be able to survive this, and when will it be over? The reason why I chose Zombies as the basis for this is because (IF it were to ever happen) there are dozens of unknown variables, added on top of the many known variables. Everyone uses various movies/games/books as their base for what they would do in an event like this. I'm trying to show them that limiting themselves that way can be very dangerous.

[MstrMsn]

asc.rudeboy, on 25 September 2011 - 02:53 PM, said:

save the .45s and other high caliber rounds for the land pirates in a zombie apocalypse i believe the .22 caliber would be king.small enough  to carry 1000s of rounds easily and can be used in rifle and pistol,giving you a wide range of defense. easily handled by even the smallest member of your family/party and is a great for hunting small game..just my .02$ on ammo choice for walking dead.

I agree for the most part about the .22, with one exception. In order to penetrate the skull (or even chest bones covering the heart, depending on how they can be killed), you would need a more powerful round. You could go through the eye, temple or back of the ear behind the lobe. But that means that you have to be either a very good shot, or very close. That's why I recommend the higher calibers.

[MstrMsn]

sam12six, on 25 September 2011 - 01:25 PM, said:

I've always had this philosophy with regards to the major, major disaster scenarios:

If 99% of the Earth's population wants to eat you, if a nuke detonates close to you, if the government turns its entire weight to exterminating you - you're dead. Yes, theoretically you could live through freakish good luck, but there's no way to be prepared enough to actually fight your way to survival.

Don't get me wrong. Skills and supplies will increase your miniscule, tiny, microscopic odds of survival, so they're good things to learn and amass.

Unless you have the money to create a military level fortress with guards, stockpiled food, weapons, and fuel (including the ability to manufacture or farm more of these things), there's no long term surviving based on your own preparedness.

In the case of zombies, think about how many people you see on a busy sidewalk (about a thousand times what they show in movies). Imagine all those people rushing you with the intent to eat you - one scratch and you're as good as dead. I don't care what kind of gun you're carrying or how good you are with it, there's no fighting your way out of that unscathed (unless you were visiting a museum and jack a suit of medieval armor or visiting a military base and jack a tank - but that's that luck thing again).

Think of it as it you were hiking with a friend and came across a hungry bear.

[SilverCougar]

MstrMsn, on 28 September 2011 - 03:46 AM, said:

My idea behind this wasn't to have anther zombie thread. The basis for this thread is to show what parts of actual survival scenerios will work, and which won't, and why they will or will not work.

Preparing for ANY survival situation, you will always run into variables, and in ALL situations, you run into only 3 unknown variables. Those being: When will it happen, will I actually be able to survive this, and when will it be over? The reason why I chose Zombies as the basis for this is because (IF it were to ever happen) there are dozens of unknown variables, added on top of the many known variables. Everyone uses various movies/games/books as their base for what they would do in an event like this. I'm trying to show them that limiting themselves that way can be very dangerous.

Unless a mass of people were given pufferfish toxin to be placed in the "sleeping death" state and then given the antidote by a voodoun priest/ess to be "brought back to life" as a zombie...  I think we'll be safe.  

good lords sometimes I hate movie makers so damned much...

[sam12six]

MstrMsn, on 28 September 2011 - 03:53 AM, said:

Think of it as it you were hiking with a friend and came across a hungry bear.

Note to self - If surrounded by thousands of zombies, play dead.


Seriously, imagine a thousand tireless humans who feel no pain and no fear. Even if they're the slow zombies, unless you're lucky enough to get to a spot that they physically cannot enter (that also happens to be stocked with a gun and over a thousand rounds of ammo), they're going to catch you. Look at a football game: the running back may be the fastest guy on the field, but 9 times out of 10, he's caught within 10 yards (I know, you might not start out 6 feet from the closest zombie, but then again you might).

The movies do not use logic because they would be an unstoppable force. If the zombification allows rotting flesh to walk around attacking people, why does it need an intact brain? If they defy all the other biological rules (like eating and sleeping), the only reason a headshot kills them is because the movie would suck if they had to literally chop the zombies into little pieces to stop them.

The other problem with choosing fictional creatures as your opponent in your survival scenario is they can have whatever attribute you want them to have. In writing zombie mythology, novelists and screenwriters assign arbitrary weaknesses to zombies because they want the heroes of the story to have a chance. In some movies, zombies can think and talk. If it remember language, it's not a stretch to think it can remember to hop into a truck and drive it through the wall of your hideout.

The variables with fictional creatures are so numerous you may as well say, "What preparations should you make to survive a mystery disaster?"

You'd need to define "zombie" - what they can and can't do and precisely how the infection is spread - before you can even start to think about what preparations would save you.

[MstrMsn]

sam12six, on 29 September 2011 - 01:37 AM, said:

Note to self - If surrounded by thousands of zombies, play dead.

*SNIP*

The variables with fictional creatures are so numerous you may as well say, "What preparations should you make to survive a mystery disaster?"

You'd need to define "zombie" - what they can and can't do and precisely how the infection is spread - before you can even start to think about what preparations would save you.

No, not play dead. Trip the person closest to you, that way you have better odds.

Can't define "zombie" for the simple fact that they are not definable. What caused them, what they can and can't do, how the infection is spread, and so on, and so on.... those are unknown variables that will remain unknown until the outbreak has been around for a bit. This isn't a situation that can be realistically prepared for; not totally, anyway. What we know about zombies, we know from books and movies. We don't know if something like that ever happened in real life would be like in the movies. Heck, depending on the movie, depends on what kind of zombie as well as their attributes, weaknesses, and how the infection spreads.

With the original Romero zombies, if you got scratched or bit, you didn't turn, unless you died. And a bite or scratch didn't kill you unless the bite was an artery or something and you bled out. It wasn't until the remakes and the cheesy Romero rip offs and newer movies that a scratch or bite would infect and turn you.

Basically, it comes down to many unknown variables that won't get answered until the sh** already hit the fan. So, if you want to prep, prep for the basics that can get you through even the worst case scenario, and keep building upon that (without causing any hardships).

[sam12six]

MstrMsn, on 29 September 2011 - 08:40 AM, said:

Basically, it comes down to many unknown variables that won't get answered until the sh** already hit the fan. So, if you want to prep, prep for the basics that can get you through even the worst case scenario, and keep building upon that (without causing any hardships).

That's one of the reasons I don't like zombies for this type of discussion. If you're just being goofy, sure. If you're talking seriously about surviving disasters that could really happen, the priorities of zombie survival are different from real survival (and would therefore cause people to waste their resources if they were planning for it).

For real world survival of 99% of survivable scenarios, it's all about food and water.

If you store six months of food and water, you can survive the vast majority of things that would have most of the world starving and rioting. Think about it, if gasoline magically disappeared off the Earth, it'd be about a week before people were shooting each other for a sandwich (less in really crowded cities).

After having a stockpile of food and water, everything else is about protecting it and getting more:

Your secret room in the basement to prevent looters and government thugs from taking your carefully hoarded food supply.

Your arsenal to keep hungry mobs from invading your hideout.

Your farm supply to get more food.

Water filters to get more water from whatever moisture is available.

Once you have food stocked and reasonably protected, anything else you want to add is optional (The exception is someone who needs insulin or something like that to stay alive. In those cases, it has the same priority as food).

If you plan for zombie attacks, instead of extending your food supply by a month, you're thinking about buying a zombie-proof door. Instead of digging that well, you're installing zombie-proof shutters on all the windows. If a real world disaster hits after you've spent all your money for the last several years building your perfect zombie-proof retreat, you know what you have to do? Leave it and find food and water.

[MstrMsn]

sam12six, on 29 September 2011 - 12:00 PM, said:

That's one of the reasons I don't like zombies for this type of discussion. If you're just being goofy, sure. If you're talking seriously about surviving disasters that could really happen, the priorities of zombie survival are different from real survival (and would therefore cause people to waste their resources if they were planning for it).

For real world survival of 99% of survivable scenarios, it's all about food and water.

If you store six months of food and water, you can survive the vast majority of things that would have most of the world starving and rioting. Think about it, if gasoline magically disappeared off the Earth, it'd be about a week before people were shooting each other for a sandwich (less in really crowded cities).

After having a stockpile of food and water, everything else is about protecting it and getting more:

Your secret room in the basement to prevent looters and government thugs from taking your carefully hoarded food supply.

Your arsenal to keep hungry mobs from invading your hideout.

Your farm supply to get more food.

Water filters to get more water from whatever moisture is available.

Once you have food stocked and reasonably protected, anything else you want to add is optional (The exception is someone who needs insulin or something like that to stay alive. In those cases, it has the same priority as food).

If you plan for zombie attacks, instead of extending your food supply by a month, you're thinking about buying a zombie-proof door. Instead of digging that well, you're installing zombie-proof shutters on all the windows. If a real world disaster hits after you've spent all your money for the last several years building your perfect zombie-proof retreat, you know what you have to do? Leave it and find food and water.

That's one of the reasons why I started this thread. To show people that their Zombie plans will fail.

Check out the CDC zombie apocalypse survival plan here

It lists practically everything you'd need for a survival kit (granted, staying home would be better, if you had the place to store mass quantities of canned and dried foods and water for extended periods of time). No where in it does it say to "zombie proof" your home, or to get weapons. Most people don't have a living area that can hold a 6 month supply of food, water, medicine (as needed), and anything else that would be needed, such as candles, matches, flashlights, batteries, etc.

I used the "Zombie" scenerio to get people thinking.

[sam12six]

MstrMsn, on 30 September 2011 - 07:54 AM, said:

That's one of the reasons why I started this thread. To show people that their Zombie plans will fail.

Check out the CDC zombie apocalypse survival plan here

Y'know, I actually agree with their list. Thing is, it looks like a good general preparedness article that someone just plugged the word "zombie" into.

MstrMsn, on 30 September 2011 - 07:54 AM, said:

It lists practically everything you'd need for a survival kit (granted, staying home would be better, if you had the place to store mass quantities of canned and dried foods and water for extended periods of time). No where in it does it say to "zombie proof" your home, or to get weapons. Most people don't have a living area that can hold a 6 month supply of food, water, medicine (as needed), and anything else that would be needed, such as candles, matches, flashlights, batteries, etc.

I used the "Zombie" scenerio to get people thinking.

That's sort of what I was saying though. If a zombie infection took out the vast majority of humanity, you wouldn't need any of this stuff. It's all waiting on shelves for you to walk up and take it.

Any convenience store has enough food and drink to last a single person for years (not getting into how healthy that food and drink are). Imagine how long you could live off what's on the shelves in a Publix.

To "realistically" survive a zombie epidemic, you'd need the following:

A place you don't have to worry about being eaten in your sleep - that zombie-proof home.

At least 2 people who can both shoot and drive and are in reasonable condition.

A vehicle capable of off-road travel and carrying cargo and people that has also been zombie-proofed.

Firearms - I'd recommend .223 for the combination of cheap and easy to find, plus there's no question that a solid headshot will turn a brain to mush.

Body armor - like those shark bite suits of chainmail, plus a helmet that protects your face.

Assuming you've got these things and you are not in a densely populated area (literally hundreds of thousands of zombies to wade through), you can spend a week raiding stores for everything you need to stay alive for several years.

Now, imagine a scenario that could actually happen like an infected water supply. Within a couple of days, every store's going to be out of water. Unless you're willing to become a bandit, shooting your neighbors to take their water, your zombie gear isn't going to help you at all.

As I said in the first post, you're better preparing for survival scenarios that could actually occur than to try and plan for unlikely catastrophes that are so big that the only chance of survival is being incredibly lucky.

[Biff Wellington]

Ha! Ha! .....Zombies....

[Moonie2012]

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/

A game you might enjoy.