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Old 10-16-2012, 01:39 PM   #31
Anders
 
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Default Re: Z tactics against Military

Tanks will be nice, but I expect machine guns and artillery to be the major killers.
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Old 10-16-2012, 02:07 PM   #32
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Default Re: Z tactics against Military

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Originally Posted by Asta Kask View Post
Tanks will be nice, but I expect machine guns and artillery to be the major killers.
Maybe, but bear in mind that tanks bring two powerful things to the table:
-Direct-fire artillery. Indirect fire has a lot of advantages but against zombies with no ranged capability, field guns are just fine too. Though I don't know how much antipersonnel tank gun ammo is knocking around.
-Heavily armored high-performance tracked vehicle. Squish.

MGs, artillery, and air-dropped ordinance would probably do more damage simply due to greater numbers or greater volume, though.
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Old 10-16-2012, 02:13 PM   #33
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Default Re: Z tactics against Military

I think I just thought up a good scenario that would allow for a 'the zombies do rule'.

Infected oil.

Oil is vitrified dino-blood, what if ye-old crude is the original zombie vector, coughs, hacks and weird behaviour from oil miners is generally pretty par for the course. It gets a bit of the 'dug too deep, too greedily' factor going, and your original infection path IS your supply chain, so the things you need working the most are the things that are going to break the hardest. As I understand it the backlog of refined oil products is generally only good for a week or two (and a month or two in the military). If multiple major refineries are offline infection hubs while simultaneously the infection is branching off from supply lines the military could end up exhausting there fuel reserves before they get a good understanding of whats going on, worse still the number of soldiers who would get infected from trying to re-secure those supply lines before the cause of the infection is identified could radically damage the number of support personnel in the respective armed forces of any nation. Couple this with a massive oil spill of the infected dino-goo along a major coast and you have a huge source of initial infection to start off the cataclysmic that tends to re-ignight periodically as new pockets of oil wash up elsewhere.
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Old 10-16-2012, 02:13 PM   #34
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Default Re: Z tactics against Military

Are tanks very effective in squishing people? I thought the point of the tracks was to distribute the weight so that the ground pressure was low and the tank could move on uncertain ground?
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Old 10-16-2012, 02:22 PM   #35
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Default Re: Z tactics against Military

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Originally Posted by starslayer View Post
I think I just thought up a good scenario that would allow for a 'the zombies do rule'.

Infected oil.

Oil is vitrified dino-blood, what if ye-old crude is the original zombie vector, coughs, hacks and weird behaviour from oil miners is generally pretty par for the course. It gets a bit of the 'dug too deep, too greedily' factor going, and your original infection path IS your supply chain, so the things you need working the most are the things that are going to break the hardest. As I understand it the backlog of refined oil products is generally only good for a week or two (and a month or two in the military). If multiple major refineries are offline infection hubs while simultaneously the infection is branching off from supply lines the military could end up exhausting there fuel reserves before they get a good understanding of whats going on, worse still the number of soldiers who would get infected from trying to re-secure those supply lines before the cause of the infection is identified could radically damage the number of support personnel in the respective armed forces of any nation. Couple this with a massive oil spill of the infected dino-goo along a major coast and you have a huge source of initial infection to start off the cataclysmic that tends to re-ignight periodically as new pockets of oil wash up elsewhere.
Wow, fossil fuels as THE original zombie carrier. That is an Idea worth exploring! The entier energy chain all the way down to the consumer, and almost the entire plastics chain would be at risk.


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Old 10-16-2012, 02:23 PM   #36
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Default Re: Z tactics against Military

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Originally Posted by Asta Kask View Post
Are tanks very effective in squishing people? I thought the point of the tracks was to distribute the weight so that the ground pressure was low and the tank could move on uncertain ground?
They have lower ground pressure yes but are more then capable of killing anyone they actually run over by crushing them or important bits of them.
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Old 10-16-2012, 02:25 PM   #37
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Default Re: Z tactics against Military

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Originally Posted by Asta Kask View Post
Are tanks very effective in squishing people? I thought the point of the tracks was to distribute the weight so that the ground pressure was low and the tank could move on uncertain ground?
For a 70 ton vehicle, a tank has a low ground pressure. That doesn't make its ground pressure low in absolute terms.
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Old 10-16-2012, 02:36 PM   #38
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Default Re: Z tactics against Military

Quote:
Originally Posted by Asta Kask View Post
Are tanks very effective in squishing people? I thought the point of the tracks was to distribute the weight so that the ground pressure was low and the tank could move on uncertain ground?
http://afvdb.50megs.com/usa/m1abrams.html#M1A2

Foudn this link that says its around 15psi (assuming Im reading those charts right). We assume that a human body surface area is 1.9m squ and take half that 1 square meter is about 1600 square inches. That means, rolling over a human body with a tank is gonna put about 24000 pounds on it, or about 12 of its 68 tons. Again, were assuming that they are squished against something that can normal with that amount of force (like concrete) as opposed to 'squishing' the zombies into some softer soilto reduce the weight upon them.

Nymdok

ETA: I show 42 rounds for the big gun, 900 for the .50 cal, and 8800 for the 2x7.62 guns. If we assume we kill 30 zekes for each 120mm shot, and that every single .50 and 7.62 round hits, thats still only 11k kills. And since we only get statistically 2/3s of a tank, we only get about 8k kills out of the ordinance. Out of the crushing, the tank can only go 256 miles. Theres 200 miles worth of zeke there assuming that roling over a carpet of zekes doesnt negatively affect gas mileage. Also, theres a foot and a half of clearance under that tank (between the treads).

ETA 2:

Found this link also
http://www.almc.army.mil/alog/issues...arms_ammo.html

Says we crank out 1.5 billion rounds a year in rifle ammo. I dont know how much we keep in stock. Anyone have a number on this?

p.s. Does anyone hear that voice in their head saying

American Army....Zompie apocalypse...WHO ...IS.....DEADLIEAST!

Last edited by Nymdok; 10-16-2012 at 04:08 PM.
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Old 10-16-2012, 04:26 PM   #39
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Default Re: Z tactics against Military

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Originally Posted by Nymdok View Post
I show 42 rounds for the big gun, 900 for the .50 cal, and 8800 for the 2x7.62 guns. If we assume we kill 30 zekes for each 120mm shot, and that every single .50 and 7.62 round hits, thats still only 11k kills. And since we only get statistically 2/3s of a tank, we only get about 8k kills out of the ordinance. Out of the crushing, the tank can only go 256 miles. Theres 200 miles worth of zeke there assuming that roling over a carpet of zekes doesnt negatively affect gas mileage. Also, theres a foot and a half of clearance under that tank (between the treads).
You seem to be assuming a purely static line defense for a force that's trained extensively in defense-in-depth and other mobile defensive techniques. It sounds like you're thinking Napoleonic-era tactics...
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Old 10-16-2012, 05:13 PM   #40
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Originally Posted by Phoenix_Dragon View Post
You seem to be assuming a purely static line defense for a force that's trained extensively in defense-in-depth and other mobile defensive techniques. It sounds like you're thinking Napoleonic-era tactics...
I should definately footnote that Im not learned in military tactics, modern or otherwise. Heck I dont even read Tom Clancy novels ;-)

Im just doing a bit of 'back of the envelope' thinking and trying to see if there is a way that the zombies could have enough numbers to actually be a viable threat. We established in another thread that for the 'typical' case, Zed is no match for well trained millitary. Iim letting the number of enemies go large and seeing if that changes. Towards that end, I was just trying to see how many Zed would/could be killed by a fully loaded tank. And if the USA has enough tanks to factor largely in the estimations. Assuming all the bullets hit, with headshots, pretty much negates tactics. No tactic is going to get you better than 100% :)

Were treating the case of the USA vs Zombie World because this is probably where alot of us would set a game. If we were considering, say, Zombie World vs Costa Rica or Lichtenstein, we would of course come to different conclusions based on their military (I dont think either country has one).

Nymdok

Last edited by Nymdok; 10-16-2012 at 05:17 PM.
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