World War Z

I'm sure many of you have read Max Brooks' books, World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide. Apparently they are making a movie of WWZ. Does anyone else think this will be a good movie?

As long as they cut yonkers from the cut, world war z would be a great flick. Cause apparently the author doesn't know crap about military hardware or its affects, even if the enemy is undead.


I just want to see that blind japanese guy kill a bunch of zombies, unless i read that from somewhere else.

Originally Posted by Space Wolves

As long as they cut yonkers from the cut, world war z would be a great flick. Cause apparently the author doesn't know crap about military hardware or its affects, even if the enemy is undead.


I just want to see that blind japanese guy kill a bunch of zombies, unless i read that from somewhere else.

Yeah, the blind Japanese guy is in there. (Tomonaga Ijiro) I thought that the section on Yonkers would be the best. Though a crazy, blind Japanese warrior monk who makes zombie killing a religous game is pretty dang cool too...

On another note: Could you please tell me some examples of where he is inaccurate with military effects? I thought it was somewhat accurate at least, but I don't really know much on the subject. (How accurate can a zombie book really be?)

@Captain Jin

Originally Posted by Knight_of_Ni

Though a crazy, blind Japanese warrior monk who makes zombie killing a religous game is pretty dang cool too...

Originally Posted by Knight_of_Ni

Yeah, the blind Japanese guy is in there. (Tomonaga Ijiro) I thought that the section on Yonkers would be the best. Though a crazy, blind Japanese warrior monk who makes zombie killing a religous game is pretty dang cool too...

On another note: Could you please tell me some examples of where he is inaccurate with military effects? I thought it was somewhat accurate at least, but I don't really know much on the subject. (How accurate can a zombie book really be?)

A tiny nit pick

Artillery pieces, such as the Paladin fire rounds that decimate entire masses of infantry, in this case zombies. These shells explode overhead and splinter into thousands of smaller pieces that rip through the brains of the zombies. I quote this from the wiki

As the undead became more tightly packed, the MLRS lost effectiveness

How do you lose effectiveness when the rounds you fire are exploding overhead unleashing thousands of fragments onto the heads of zombies? Instead the author just pictures it like you see in the movie, the shot is fired and round lands ON the ground and explodes.


Even then, when the zombies get close, you have infantry firing and its barely stopping the horde, who should have been decimated to an extent that the infantry can hold there own. While yes simple body shots won't outright kill a zombie unless you severe the spinal cord or shoot the head, the rounds don't just go inside and that's the end of it, the thousands of rounds being fired that hit your limbs your body, they tear through your bones reducing the zombies effectiveness and thus bogging the zombie advance. Not like in the movies where you shoot someone 500 times and its just bullet ridden, no the body will be dismembered. This isn't even including the 50 caliber which



Picture that round hitting you, ok so your a zombie, big deal, won't matter when the rounds enter your body dismember your limbs or even the body. Instead, he's picturing like it was a movie where it just hits you and that's it, no big hole or dismembered limb. And you have thousands of these rounds being expelled by infantry, and tanks as well.

Then there's the whole why don't you just get inside your tank or vehicle, and just proceed to run over the zombies, that i will never understand.

Okay, with the artillery you have a good point. Heck, you made a good point about everything.

The way I try to view it is, NYC's entire population (close to 22 million) was attacking them. Even killing 1,000 a second, it would take them more than two and a half days of constant shooting to kill them all. (Might be wrong, its pretty late and I'm tired at the moment)

How would you feel facing those kinds of odds?

I'm also not to sure what the size of the force at Yonkers was, especially condsidering that the army seemed to consider it a photo op instead of a real mission.

EDIT: Yeah, the tank option occured to me as I was reading. I guess he thought that once they ran out of gas they would be an island in a sea of zombies.

Originally Posted by Space Wolves

A tiny nit pick

Artillery pieces, such as the Paladin fire rounds that decimate entire masses of infantry, in this case zombies. These shells explode overhead and splinter into thousands of smaller pieces that rip through the brains of the zombies. I quote this from the wiki

How do you lose effectiveness when the rounds you fire are exploding overhead unleashing thousands of fragments onto the heads of zombies? Instead the author just pictures it like you see in the movie, the shot is fired and round lands ON the ground and explodes.


Even then, when the zombies get close, you have infantry firing and its barely stopping the horde, who should have been decimated to an extent that the infantry can hold there own. While yes simple body shots won't outright kill a zombie unless you severe the spinal cord or shoot the head, the rounds don't just go inside and that's the end of it, the thousands of rounds being fired that hit your limbs your body, they tear through your bones reducing the zombies effectiveness and thus bogging the zombie advance. Not like in the movies where you shoot someone 500 times and its just bullet ridden, no the body will be dismembered. This isn't even including the 50 caliber which



Picture that round hitting you, ok so your a zombie, big deal, won't matter when the rounds enter your body dismember your limbs or even the body. Instead, he's picturing like it was a movie where it just hits you and that's it, no big hole or dismembered limb. And you have thousands of these rounds being expelled by infantry, and tanks as well.

Then there's the whole why don't you just get inside your tank or vehicle, and just proceed to run over the zombies, that i will never understand.

I think you missed the point with some of it. He doesn't say it was ineffective. He says it was effective, but they didn't bring enough of them, but some zombies were coming at them with their arms and legs blown off, still crawling, some of them with their lungs sucked out of their mouths, and the men were freaked out, and they were all patched together so if one guy freaked out he affected the rest of his mates, and the stink started hitting them, and there was a column MILES long, then a few zombies burst out of a house behind them, and their friends get eaten and they SEE it all man, and then everybody thought they were surrounded, AND HOLY ZOMBIES THEYRE COMING RUNNNNN.

it's the holy freak out maaaaaan.

Chill out yo. Don't come in here with your technicalities bro. Don't be harshin' us with your weapon specs brother. It's zombie time mang. Enjoy. Do you not like star wars too because light sabers are impossible?

Put the military manual down my friend. Kick your feet up. Enjoy.
mmmm brains. Pass me another hunk of co-pilot.

Originally Posted by MrMofo

I think you missed the point with some of it. He doesn't say it was ineffective. He says it was effective, but they didn't bring enough of them, but some zombies were coming at them with their arms and legs blown off, still crawling, some of them with their lungs sucked out of their mouths, and the men were freaked out, and they were all patched together so if one guy freaked out he affected the rest of his mates, and the stink started hitting them, and there was a column MILES long, then a few zombies burst out of a house behind them, and their friends get eaten and they SEE it all man, and then everybody thought they were surrounded, AND HOLY ZOMBIES THEYRE COMING RUNNNNN.

it's the holy freak out maaaaaan.

Chill out yo. Don't come in here with your technicalities bro. Don't be harshin' us with your weapon specs brother. It's zombie time mang. Enjoy. Do you not like star wars too because light sabers are impossible?

Put the military manual down my friend. Kick your feet up. Enjoy.
mmmm brains. Pass me another hunk of co-pilot.

. They fired fragmentation shells which had even less of an effect than the MLRS barrages

Thats just laughable and silly, fragmentation shells are the best thing to explode over the heads of zombies and kill them.
[QUOTE]
The armor and helicopters then switched over to Anti-Tank rounds like HEAT or Sabot shells which had little to no effect on the swelling tide of undead. [QUOTE]

How does this have no effect, sure it may not fragment, but those rounds will go through hundreds of zombies, either killing them or reducing there effectiveness to fight, and slowing down the zombie advance. It might even make them splode...*shrug*

And yes, the land warrior system, the morale started to falter, but theres no excuse or reason to fall back like sissies. You have a long front of soldiers shooting bullets that can tear through the bones and reduce the effectiveness of the oncoming horde, and then you have tanks that can ride in and smash the zombies. You may rut out of gas, but honestly now, unless your going to tell me zombies are like the Navvi and rip the insides of a tank to get its crew with there x50 human strength? No one showed initiative, even if your in the army or not, there are examples of people showing initiative to do something just like that.

The author himself fails in every conceivable way picturing military grade weapons to just fail in ever way possible. Perhaps they didn't have enough anti-personal rounds, or regular rounds, but as scheuch13 posted above, its every militaries DREAM, yes DREAM to fight an enemy who clumps together in the thousands if not millions, sure you need a head shot, but those rounds send fragments that pass through one head and onto another head of a zombie.

As long as they cut yonkers from the cut, world war z would be a great flick. Cause apparently the author doesn't know crap about military hardware or its affects, even if the enemy is undead.

Or referencing his own story. If I recall correctly the author has a general suggests initial US covert efforts with special ops troops in Asia occurred and were valuable. So if the US military had actual battle results of fighting zombies why the complete failure suggested later - what the special ops guys never filed after action reports?

I don't know we had a really huge debate on it in a previous thread a while ago about how the hell Zombies could actually overcome the US military. I mean it's probably the most accurate showing of it, since mosst movies never even make mention of wtf happened to the military and only showed the charred remains of burned out trucks and tanks etc. If it's well done I'll like it, zombie movies are always filled with such stupid cliche stuff and predictability that it drives me nuts, though. I know it's part of the campiness or whatever, but bleh. I really liked Zombieland because it was funny and kind of off the wall.

Yeah that might be interesting.

That's really the whole point of zombies winning against guns is that there are to many of them. I mean where I live the cities pop is 10 million say 5 million get infected that means they already outnumber the enemy 10 to 1 and thats just one city.

The point being is that their tactics at the battle of yonkers were horrible, even a 2nd Lt. in the army could coordinate a better defensive. Its not like this was during the outbreak, this happened quite a while after, and people knew they were dealing with zombies and how to kill them.

Tightly packed mobs of bodies walking upright are an artilleryman's dream. Airbursting munitions even if they do not kill via shrappenal will kill via the pressure wave the inflict. A pressure wave will liquefy your internal organs, so that means by by zombie. If we are talking about millions of zombies walking in one direction, then massive airstrikes would be able to hit them long before they even got close to the defensive positions.

First you could drop daisy cutters and MOABs on them followed up by B-52s carbet bombing.


just think of the trees as densely packed zombies

Also the fact that nukes arent effective against the undead? please! Tactical nukes would be excellent to use on the millions of zombies. Nothing can survive the immense heat and pressure generated from the explosion.


Also if you know where you enemy is coming from you could mine the out of that area. Putting all kinds of things like mines, claymores, detcord.

Lets not even talk about effective strafing missions from A-10s would be.



I also love how he explains that tanks rounds are ineffective because they are using sabots.. who in their right mind would arm tanks with anti-tank rounds to fight zombies? They do have these things called High explosive rounds, and even better they have canister rounds that act like giant grapeshot.



Then you have things like the MLRS that is even mentioned. that can fire cluster munitions that will look like this when they come in.




It just doesnt make any sense, especially having all your soldiers on the ground in chemical gear. Instead you should have baracaded them up on the top of buildings with a metric ton of ammunition. Even if the zombies got too close to the vehicles, they could always scoot away, and the soldiers on the buildings could be airlifted if their positions were surrounded.

So yes, the battle of yonkers is the biggest case of mega fail train that I have ever seen. This is what happens when you have some super liberal trying to write military tactics to you. Its also why the zombie survival guide is pretty retarded especially in the weapons he recommends.


this is what the army is good at, bring massive amounts of munitions onto a target. and no one can do it better then the good ol USA.

Yep, not even trying to debate. I'm pretty much, and not in a mean spirited way at all, saying that you're ridiculous.

The author is the author and he's authored the authoring the way he likes to author. I personally, think he did an okay job with it. At least he made it believable enough that most people can accept it for the part of the story that it is. He could simply have had a character say *i don't know what happened to the army man* and have been off the hook, but at least he made an effort to try. Willingful Suspension of Disbelief is a wonderful thing imho. I get SO much more enjoyment out of my entertainment that way.

But noooooooooo, some people just can't let that sit, they gotta pry at the corners of common sense and good taste.

People with weapon specifications at their fingertips tend to make me nervous anyway.

Originally Posted by MrMofo

Yep, not even trying to debate. I'm pretty much, and not in a mean spirited way at all, saying that you're ridiculous.

The author is the author and he's authored the authoring the way he likes to author. I personally, think he did an okay job with it. At least he made it believable enough that most people can accept it for the part of the story that it is. He could simply have had a character say *i don't know what happened to the army man* and have been off the hook, but at least he made an effort to try. Willingful Suspension of Disbelief is a wonderful thing imho. I get SO much more enjoyment out of my entertainment that way.

But noooooooooo, some people just can't let that sit, they gotta pry at the corners of common sense and good taste.

People with weapon specifications at their fingertips tend to make me nervous anyway.

Hence why i said i like the book, just 1 part irks me, thats it, i dont care about anything else

Originally Posted by MrMofo

People with weapon specifications at their fingertips tend to make me nervous anyway.

lol what??

Originally Posted by MrMofo

Yep, not even trying to debate. I'm pretty much, and not in a mean spirited way at all, saying that you're ridiculous.

The author is the author and he's authored the authoring the way he likes to author. I personally, think he did an okay job with it. At least he made it believable enough that most people can accept it for the part of the story that it is. He could simply have had a character say *i don't know what happened to the army man* and have been off the hook, but at least he made an effort to try. Willingful Suspension of Disbelief is a wonderful thing imho. I get SO much more enjoyment out of my entertainment that way.

But noooooooooo, some people just can't let that sit, they gotta pry at the corners of common sense and good taste.

People with weapon specifications at their fingertips tend to make me nervous anyway.

No one has been using specific data tables or anything over the top, it has mostly been common sense that anyone that has read a book on today's military could puzzle out. I personally had my suspension of disbelief shattered when I was reading through and came to Yonkers. It read like a leaflet that someone who has no real experience with the military or with top military officials pictures the brass as: totally detached from the situation, and generally intellectually "Inadequate". This is a holdover from the Vietnam era, and it is quite annoying to me when I have to see such ignorance of how a modern military functions. No general in the US Army would order the kind of troop distributions that Brooks describes nor would the US Army so fail logistically. Logistics is one of the USA's main strengths, it is ridiculous that we would have the pathetic supply of munitions that the author describes.

ok, i've read the book, but i have it on audio book as well, with mark hamill. Maybe Mr. Hamill has convinced me of the efficacy of the chapter.

In addition to all the hardware, Brooks points out that the Zeds will literally walk off a cliff to get at a "meal" on the other side. Why don't the sappers as already suggested mine the approaches? Why not dig big trenches, fill them with napalm and lure the Zeds through them?
I agree that Yonkers was a big "fail" to me too. Then there's the whole idea of sealing off the Rockies and slowly reconquering the eastern US. How come the eastern USA is a lost cause yet the west coast is pacified?
It was a good book, don't get me wrong, but I think that's down to the human stories rather than the premise as such.

Originally Posted by emperorpenguin

I How come the eastern USA is a lost cause yet the west coast is pacified?

Because the east is densely populated and full of weak willed unless people who live in the metropolises. How many people do you know in the big city who don't even know how to put oil in their cars. I think it is pretty clear that survival of the nation will depend upon the rural populations who have plenty of guns and basic know how to get things done.

That is one thing max brooks explains well in the book that lawyers and other useless professions in the PAW will be superseded by farmers, doctors, mechanics..etc. If you do not know the basics of survival, then your going to die. If you don't know how to use a gun, don't know how to treat water, don't know how do kill and clean an animal, don't know how to cook....your going to die.

You would be surprised how many people would die off in our modern society without access to common utilities. People in the PAW are going to be dying of bacterial infection, dysentery, dehydration, starvation and all sorts of ailments probably just as much as they are dying to zombies.