[drnick]

Wow just read this entire thread, after hearing everything said I have to say that I think the mass confusion of what is going on would definally make it entirely possible for the zombie outbreak to spread to staggering numbers(pun intended)

As the poster before me said, if a soldier gets bit he'll go back to his med unit and then eventually turn. Also I should point out the us military has the policy 'leave no man behind', any severely injured military personnel would be brought back to the med unit, assuming they didn't turn first and killed their squad.

Sure you can take out hordes of zombies once they've accumulated because you know how to kill them and where to shoot, but when the outbreak is starting there is a large amount of confusion going on, along with looting and just pure anarchy. Someone who has been bitten could turn at any moment anywhere, it would spread like crazy.

This is one thing I love about the zombie genre there is so much room open to debate on how things would happen, what would be the most likely of senerios to happen etc. etc.

[xaviersaint]

World War Z is a good reference for the question. I think it was the Battle of Yonkers where they talk specifically about that.

[Brussell4]

I think there are several logical answers to this.

As Americans, we are very proud of our military and while I don't wish to talk bad about it, we highly overestimate it at times.

For one, our military simply has the best toys around, but that doesn't mean they can use them with absolute effectiveness. This can be evidenced all throughout history with any superior army. Many have been defeated by simple methods that would seem impossible.

Second, the military is part of the government, which means it is a bureaucracy. Not knocking this either, but it is a simple fact that our government was specifically designed to operate slowly, so as to keep checks and balances effective. No government could keep up with a virus that has an incubation period of as low as 8 minutes. We have enough trouble dealing with diseases we know about and know how to fight.

As others have said, the main factor would be mass confusion, terror and sheer numbers.
We are assuming the world at the start of the outbreak in the story was the same as our real world at that time. Well, an overwhelming number of military resources would have been deployed outside of the U.S. because in our modern world we have enough trouble keeping up with the demand for soldiers and supplies abroad, much less would we be able to immediately deal with a huge, confusing situation like that back home where most of the supplies aren't.

Plus, America has not historically been very proficient at defending its own borders at home post-independence. We simply aren't used to the fight being brought to our backyards, because we tend to take it to others'. This can be evidenced by the 911 attacks. Bureaucracy can be evidenced there as well, as the information was there and was available, but no one wanted to share it.


Basically, after whatever happened, it would snowball so fast that no one would be able to keep up with it. Any virus could spread so fast with international travel we would hardly even be able to track down where it initially began, much less keep up with it and halt it. Plus, no one would have any idea what happened, and those who did know would probably try to keep it a secret for as long as possible, even though that's stupid. But it has and does happen all the time, because each agency wants to deal with a problem on its own in its own way and get all the credit.

You would have a limited amount of soldiers at home, most having significantly less training, experience and discipline than those abroad. They would have weapons, sure, but if you have ever actually shot firearms before, it's not as easy to hit something as it seems in media. It just isn't. Even with training, sometimes it is simply an issue of natural ability, and not everyone has that.
Why does that matter? Well, this would be an enemy you would have to shoot directly in a part of the body that is roughly 2 inches long and 1 inch wide (brain stem). There would be hundreds, if not thousands of them. They would follow no strategic plan, and our military isn't very good at dealing with unorganized enemies. We do well with strategic, organized advances, but not illogical madness.
The soldiers would be scared, worried about their own families, carrying around lots of heavy equipment that makes them significantly slower and likely wearing bio-hazard equipment that limits their movement and senses. They would be fighting an enemy that never sleeps, is extremely difficult to kill, and will continue coming after it is shot a thousand times. They would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

As for the tanks. Yeah, you could camp out in a tank for a while, but not long. And yes, they have a significant range, but how do you know that those tanks weren't already sitting there for days cut off from fuel supplies and ran out of fuel, after all it was the end of the world and those tanks were the last defense at the last area of hope (the CDC). They are trained to follow orders and have limited information, so many don't know what to do or where to go or where is safe, and most were told not to move at all. What do they do when they are worried about their own families and relatives and friends. Some would simply desert and try to go home. From their perspective, the world is over and there's not much they can do about it.

None of this reflects badly on soldiers. After all, they are people too, the ones here being even closer to civilians than those abroad. Eventually, the virus would infect enough to effectively overwhelm the military.

[DisrupTer911]

karveli, on 29 December 2010 - 08:15 AM, said:

I am a corporal in my country's military forces specialized in artillery warfare and trust me there's no way any kind of zombie numbers can outrun the army... just no way...

This was really a movie mistake but without the army failure there would be no walking dead series at all ;-)

While I agree with you in real life, I figure they'd be better prepared for such a thing lol

in TWD however, they got overtaken by sheer volume of zombies.
All it would take is for one solider behind the defensive position to get infected and zombify and it's all over for them.

Zombies are sneaky sneaky mofos and will take our the living anyway they can.
they don't make a helluva lot of noise and they kill rather silently aside from the screams of the dieing.

but in a chaotic environment like Atlanta became, it's clearly obvious that infected people got behind defensive lines and took out the army.

Spoiler

Later on in Season 2 they show in a flashback that the army helicopters were dropping what appeared to be napalm on the city. that alone would have killed any remaining army personnel.

Edited by DisrupTer911, 30 December 2011 - 09:55 PM.

[Major Tom]

How it would play out in real life is unknown but it is usually explained by 2-3 factors that allow it to get out of control.

• The problem is treated as a medical emergency vs a military emergency. The virus spreads across the country until there are hundreds of fronts and many thousands of infected.
• Our best military units are overseas, leaving the job to untrained NG units.
• Poor tactics are used to fight against an enemy that is not understood.

[BeardedOne]

Quote

The political leadership would want EVERYTHING protected, so the troops  would spread too thin.  After folks realized just ow serious the heat  was, it might be too late to do anything about it...     

Agree with the above...

Nice to see that a lot of folks have so much faith in the military, however, there simply aren't enough to effectively cover down on a massive zombie event.  While I have no doubt that there would be military hold outs, and bastions of security, the force would be spread far too thin to effectively contain the outbreak, and more than likely, wouldn't be initially tasked to provide civilian security anyway due to political / posse comitatus reasons.  By the time federal troops got cleared to deal with the situation, it would be too late IMO.

Some of the key issues I see that would eventual allow an  overwhelming number of zombies to emerge....

The force would sustain an initial loss during the beginning due to personnel being attacked off duty, outside of base, in their homes etc, before they are even alerted.

A significant amount of the force would be required to clear and secure their resident military bases.

A significant amount of the force would be tasked with securing a vast number of non-military federal facilities around the nation.

A significant amount of the force would be tasked with securing non-federal national strategic "interests" around the nation.  (ie fuel dumps, nuke sites, communications networks, etc...).

And for every single muldoon pulling security, there would be anywhere from 7-10 + troops required to support and sustain their operations.

That's a LOT of troops out of the fight.

After all that is taken into consideration, the ACTUAL force available to secure civilians and destroy zombies is pretty small, and could be easily isolated or over run in the large metro areas.

While they have some powerful weapons to employ, they wouldn't be able to freely use them, as they would have to keep an eye out for civilians, and each other, less you create more zombies.  I don't see a lot of opportunities to use high explosives from either air assets, direct, or indirect fires.  Most of the population is in the metro areas, and those urban areas can suck up a LOT of ordinance, lessening the effectiveness of high explosive.  

Isolating and securing cities is a nightmare, and extremely manpower intensive, and it's pretty much impossible to cover every avenue in and out.  Clearing a city is worse.  I would NOT want to have to clear a modern U.S. city, as it would take FOREVER.  The empire state building alone can house 20,000 people in it, and has 100 floors.  Imagine having to clear every....single....room on every...single....floor......  Yea....that would suck.  And it's ONE building of thousands, and thousands, and thousands.

IMO, the military would have a handful just maintaining security at their own installations, and while there would be military  strongholds, there just aren't enough to prevent a massive zombie event from reaching critical mass.

Edited by BeardedOne, 31 December 2011 - 02:24 AM.

[Major Tom]

Bottom line, we have the best trained, best armed, military on the planet.

If Armageddon is fought as a conventional war we will win it. If it is an asymmetrical war we are in for problems. In many ways zombies are nearly perfect asymmetrical soldiers.

Look at the way we beat hell out of the Iraqis in days, GW I and II. Then in GWII they turn our warriors into policemen to rebuild the country and it gets very dicey.

[DeadCave]

Answer to the question solved!! It was Obama that killed the U.S.  
http://news.yahoo.co...60312836.html  
Without a strong military force the zeds met little resistance and thus... apocalypse.

[tyweezel]

I think that the biggest issue was a misunderstanding of the phenomenon. This isn't a contagion, its not something that is spreading and can be contained. Yesterday everyone died and stayed dead, today anyone that dies becomes a predator. Every car accident, heart attack, shooting, bar fight, whatever produces predators that will mostly just look like people. Many won't even have apparent injuries to indicate that they are coming to eat you. That first day hospitals will collapse...period. Thats an almost immediate loss of major infrastructure. Doctors and nurses and what have you, will be lost almost immediately, and these will be the most credible witnesses to tell you whats really happening. Instant confusion with very few knowledgable people able to communicate with authority figures. Meanwhile everyone is still dying natural deaths as well as a growing number of zombies out there killing people who will also become zombies.


And this is happening everywhere simultaneously. Day two people still probably won't know whats going on, by and large. The number of zombies continues to grow exponentially. Non-stop. Day three, and plans are being made, troops are being called up. The info is starting to get out. Most people, including soldiers, will still feel like TV-Herschel, these are just sick people.

Maybe troops will be out on the ground fighting zombies by the end of the week, probably not. Confusion is growing, non-zombie related deaths are now also climbing exponentially as there are more cars on the road, more frightened people, accidental shootings, etc.

How many soliders will be able to form up and just open fire into a large group of meandering civilians, which is what zombies on the street will look like for the most part? And what about people who are still alive and don't want to cooperate with evacuation orders, or don't want soldiers to shoot their love one's brains out? Civilian disagreements with military personnel results in more deaths, and more zombies. Meanwhile people must eat and drink and sleep to survive.

Zombies need none of this. They are just out there, responding to stimuli 24/7.

Also they are unorganized. We can't just have a UAV bomb an installation. There is no installation. We can't just take out a charasmatic leader, there isn't one. We can't depend on allies for help, because their countries are falling apart as well.

Institutions in place simply aren't meant to deal with something that would happen so quickly and have so many different factors to consider. I don't think the military would be 'overrun' but would simply fall apart.

[Faltain]

digitard, on 02 December 2010 - 02:53 AM, said:

You also have to factor in the human element.  Do you really think that everyone was calm during it?  I'm sure that they had huge numbers of AWOL soldiers trying to get to their own families, panic, stupid mistakes, etc.  They probably didn't have huge numbers in EVERY city. Eventually they were over run between numbers, and the human element. Not to mention ammo, etc.  You've only got so much, and I'm sure they didn't conserve ammo initially.   Ammo runs probably became less and less likely.  Supply lines to them became broken as area's fell, and so forth.

When it hit the fan the big dogs probably started sending troops all over and things got stretched thin, supply lines became lost, and as I said above... the various elements that could cause them to lose things eventually won over.

There's SO many factors that could upset the unified front that most likely it just caught up with them.  

I'm sure there are strong holds still out there, but probably few and far between.

Well said.

I want the "Army will never fall!" people to really sit down and think about it a bit, and add the following number into your mental equations: The amount of deserters who leave to go to their families + the amount of infected brought into bases/otherwise secure areas because they are loved ones to people in charge/soldiers.

Military folks are the same as everyone else, and would want to make sure their families were safe. In the eve of a huge "Apocalypse" occurring, desertion would be epidemic. And the people that didn't desert outright (and after all what difference would a court martial make in an Apocalypse?) who stuck around... might suddenly be stuck between people rushing to their bases for protection (with their own infected), and infected on their base (either brought in by accident or misdiagnosed and not properly disposed of). So if a zombie doesn't kill you then a rioting person looking for protection/their best interests just might. People are selfish and there's more "Shanes" in the world then "Ricks".

I won't get into the whole "supply chain" aspect of the military discussions because I've seen others championing that cause very effectively. It's a house of cards in some respects and all it'd take is a few different things happening at once to make the military machine severely crippled.

Morale of my ramble? Don't forget the human element when you're tossing out hard numbers.

[Faltain]

tyweezel, on 08 January 2012 - 11:17 PM, said:

I think that the biggest issue was a misunderstanding of the phenomenon. This isn't a contagion, its not something that is spreading and can be contained. Yesterday everyone died and stayed dead, today anyone that dies becomes a predator. Every car accident, heart attack, shooting, bar fight, whatever produces predators that will mostly just look like people. Many won't even have apparent injuries to indicate that they are coming to eat you. That first day hospitals will collapse...period. Thats an almost immediate loss of major infrastructure. Doctors and nurses and what have you, will be lost almost immediately, and these will be the most credible witnesses to tell you whats really happening. Instant confusion with very few knowledgable people able to communicate with authority figures. Meanwhile everyone is still dying natural deaths as well as a growing number of zombies out there killing people who will also become zombies.


And this is happening everywhere simultaneously. Day two people still probably won't know whats going on, by and large. The number of zombies continues to grow exponentially. Non-stop. Day three, and plans are being made, troops are being called up. The info is starting to get out. Most people, including soldiers, will still feel like TV-Herschel, these are just sick people.

Maybe troops will be out on the ground fighting zombies by the end of the week, probably not. Confusion is growing, non-zombie related deaths are now also climbing exponentially as there are more cars on the road, more frightened people, accidental shootings, etc.

How many soliders will be able to form up and just open fire into a large group of meandering civilians, which is what zombies on the street will look like for the most part? And what about people who are still alive and don't want to cooperate with evacuation orders, or don't want soldiers to shoot their love one's brains out? Civilian disagreements with military personnel results in more deaths, and more zombies. Meanwhile people must eat and drink and sleep to survive.

Zombies need none of this. They are just out there, responding to stimuli 24/7.

Also they are unorganized. We can't just have a UAV bomb an installation. There is no installation. We can't just take out a charasmatic leader, there isn't one. We can't depend on allies for help, because their countries are falling apart as well.

Institutions in place simply aren't meant to deal with something that would happen so quickly and have so many different factors to consider. I don't think the military would be 'overrun' but would simply fall apart.

Amazing post and I totally agree with everything you said.

It's not a black and white phenomenon, but something that could spread very organically and just become like a tide that cannot be stopped. We're so plugged into our safety blankets in modern society that all it'd take is a little push to send us headlong into chaos and that chaos would fuel the zombie horde immensely (thanks to our stupidity).

[daveeek]

Because if the army won the battle the comic would have lasted about 3 issues at the most and the tv seires would be over.......

[petertel]

I'm still not buying it, I mean even IF the zombies could somehow take out the forces on land, how would they take out an aircraft carrier for example?

[Barry Cade]

petertel, on 12 April 2012 - 02:21 PM, said:

I'm still not buying it, I mean even IF the zombies could somehow take out the forces on land, how would they take out an aircraft carrier for example?

Ninjawalkers.

[babywalker]

I think it was piss poor planning and political bullshit that let things get so out of control so quickly.

The majority of people probably believed just as Hershel did, they're just sick.  How would the military mowing down sick people play on TV?
Do you have any idea how many lawyers (sorry for any offence, but we all know they exist) were threatening lawsuits in the very early days.  Government was probably treading very lightly at first.  When it is finally accepted that these things are what they are, all hell probably broke loose.

The military was probably still having to keep some of their stupid rules that they have for engaging the enemy.  Can a 50cal be used as an anti-personnel weapon?  Maybe I'm thinking of something else, been a while since I was an Army wife.  I've no doubt that most probably did what they were supposed to do.  Just way too little, way to late.  Washington didn't get their shit together in time.  Lot of ammo wasted on body shots.  Spray and pray probably not very effective against Z's.  


But, who would ever think that the dead would ever really walk the earth and eat the living for real, especially with no zombie culture.  In our world, my seven year old knows how to take out a Z.  He wants to do it with a knife so he can do it quietly.  Zombies wouldn't stand a chance in our world were the majority of people in Industrialized World (I think this is the term I want) know how to kill them.

I am waiting for the day that I turn on the news and hear these words:  I thought he was a Zombie, so I shot him.  Don't get me wrong, I don't want this to happen.  I'm just really surprised that it hasn't.

[Barry Cade]

babywalker, on 14 April 2012 - 04:04 AM, said:

I think it was piss poor planning and political bullshit that let things get so out of control so quickly.

The majority of people probably believed just as Hershel did, they're just sick.  How would the military mowing down sick people play on TV?
Do you have any idea how many lawyers (sorry for any offence, but we all know they exist) were threatening lawsuits in the very early days.  Government was probably treading very lightly at first.  When it is finally accepted that these things are what they are, all hell probably broke loose.

The military was probably still having to keep some of their stupid rules that they have for engaging the enemy.  Can a 50cal be used as an anti-personnel weapon?  Maybe I'm thinking of something else, been a while since I was an Army wife.  I've no doubt that most probably did what they were supposed to do.  Just way too little, way to late.  Washington didn't get their shit together in time.  Lot of ammo wasted on body shots.  Spray and pray probably not very effective against Z's.  


But, who would ever think that the dead would ever really walk the earth and eat the living for real, especially with no zombie culture.  In our world, my seven year old knows how to take out a Z.  He wants to do it with a knife so he can do it quietly.  Zombies wouldn't stand a chance in our world were the majority of people in Industrialized World (I think this is the term I want) know how to kill them.

I am waiting for the day that I turn on the news and hear these words:  I thought he was a Zombie, so I shot him.  Don't get me wrong, I don't want this to happen.  I'm just really surprised that it hasn't.

Easy option: We round up the lawyers and send them in first. Ballistas are good in this sorta scenario.

[ElloraDixon]

I think there are two things to think about: the time of transformation and the fear factor.


Whether it is a bio weapon, a virus or an ET goo, what will probably determine the army success is how long it takes to people turn into zombies. Let´s say it really happens and we see on TV that a person died and actually came back to life trying to eat their family. BUT, it took a whole week for the poor person to die, and the family would never come up with the zombie idea, won´t run away in terror and the zombie bites two of the family. So another whole week till those two turn. In this pace, the whole thing could and would be controled.

But if we are talking about 3 minutes to two hours, then we have a huge problem, as others already explained beautifully.



And the fear factor. How many stories we saw on TV about people in coffins, suposedly dead, waking up and scaring the hell out of the family, people running away and all that? Dead people walking is antinatural, blasfemous. Even I, being a huge zombie fan, would first think the person is crazy, instead of a zombie. But then, when people realize what it really is, what kind of reaction those army guys will have? Same as ours: pure horror. And horror, fear, out-of-mind scary, can put soldiers down pretty quickly.

[Andrea]

Don't have time to read the whole thread so sorry if this has been suggested but:

In the traditional sense, ie zombie bite or scratch = propogation of 'virus/infection' then yes, I find it hard to believe that it couldn't be contained.

HOWEVER, the Walking Dead does not go by that theory. As was revealed in the series 2 finale:

Spoiler

EVERYBODY is infected.

Thus, the virus CANNOT be contained. It is basically impossible!

Spoiler

With new zombies popping up whenever somebody dies then every single person needs to now be monitered and dealth with immediately after death

In the immediate fall out they probably didn't realise this straight away, trying to clear the threat out but then you have zombies popping up literally everywhere and before you know it every corner of the globe is taken over

Spoiler

From people dying of heart attacks, murder, illness - everything results in a new zombie!

[Deadpelican]

The military being overrun is not hard to understand at all.  The situation was just like what happened to  Herschell's farm, but on a larger scale.  Rick and co. had guns at the farm, they had ammo, but they were vastly outnumbered.  The same thing happened in Atlanta, but on a larger scale. The military eventually ran out of  ammo before they even made a dent in the growing horde of walkers.     The military unit outside the CDC looked like it was maybe a few-hundred strong. The city of Atlanta has a population of over 500,000 people, and refugees were pouring in by the thousands from all over the state, and most of them eventually turned. The military could have  sent  in 10- 20,000 troops and a few hundred tanks and  still not had enough ammo to put down all the walkers.

Moreover, the gun fire, the napalm and the chaos could be heard outside the city and was heard by walkers miles away and drew them into the city.

[justin42499]

pyus, on 30 November 2010 - 08:44 PM, said:

number of active and reserve military personnel in the US military - 2,936,386. Not all of which are actually combat troops or in the lower 48 states
us population 308,000,000 minus 3 million or so military personnel is roughly 305,000,000 humans in the US
at even a 25% turn rate that means there is 77 million zombies.
77 million > 3 million by my math
that is how the military gets over run.
and it looks like there is much more then a 25% of the population being turned. If it is at 75% which i feel it is that is 228+ million zombies. I don't care if you have troops in crazy halo armor firing energy weapons with infinite clips 228+ million will always overrun 3 million

also refresh my memory if you die in the WD world you rise as a zombie no matter how you died? if thats the case any death from looting being shot etc would also rise

i think your calculations are slightly off. i think you haven't taken to account that many zombies are killed immeadiately after turning by a family member. taking that into account it's more like 16.9 percent that are zombies. Many of the zombies are completely in affective.