In a room the size of a basketball court? I think that’s small enough where the only practical limit, my endurance, wouldn’t come into play. I grab one by the ankles and batting practice starts. Unless one of the little buggers had superhuman speed, I predict Waverly: 750, Demon-critters: 0.
I so hope this becomes a Fox reality show.
They could call it The David and Goliath Hour!
This is the critical question. If you’ve seen the newer version of Dawn of the Dead, you’ll know that a genuinely blood-thirsty 5-year old is nothing to be trifled with.
You could swing a 45 pound bat 750 times without getting tired?
And 751 people on a b-ball court would be kind of crowded. They aren’t going to line up. They will come from all sides and swarm you. Your swing would cover, maybe, a 200 degree arc. Leaving your back open to attack.
“Gawrsh, Davey. Shoulda gone for the nads.”
Once over Thanksgiving I was visiting my aunt and uncle and their six-year-old triplets. My brother came over with his (then) girlfriend, who was horrified of children; as the kids ran screaming around the living room, she sat rigid with terror on the couch.
“Hey,” I said to them. “You know what would be really fun, is if you all attacked Tiffany with pillows.”
Tiffany turned to me, eyes round, mouth opening and shutting silently.
The children looked at me for a brief second, agape at the brilliance of my plan.
Then with unison shrieks, they fell upon Tiffany with their pillows, and she disappeared under the assault.
So, for her, the answer is: less than three.
Daniel
No. Early on, while the field was crowded, I’d be upset with myself if I couldn’t take out 3 to 5 with a swing. Later on, I could loose the weapon and side kick my way to victory. I might show off by power tossing a couple into the stands.
Oh, piffle. Sure, three or five kids can take out a teen, because the teen knows that s/he must not harm the little darlings. If the object is “kill” and all bets are off, it’s a very different battle.
Pick up one kid by an appendage and spin around in a complete circle. When the oncoming rush of kids backs out of range, hurl the kid into their midst, taking out several. Repeat process.
The idea behind defending against multiple attackers, you see, is to use the attackers against themselves. If you keep felling attackers between yourself and the other attackers, they have to go around their fallen companions to reach you. This buys you time.
I’d wager a full-grown adult male in decent shape could take about 5 of the little monsters at one time.
Six is probably pushing it.
No no. This is not a good idea. I know from experience that after you spin one around your head and toss it into the crowd, then every child in the arena will be screaming “Me next! Me next! Spin me around!” and the child who was tossed will hobble back giggling saying “Again! Again!” You’ll be trapped until you run out of energy.
(Well, I didn’t toss them into a crowd of other children, but rather into a very thin leaf pile. Landing on other children will soften the blow.))
This one occurred to me during the day:
Ever tried to tech martial arts to a bunch of five year olds? At the end of the day you might get them trained to get in a line and be quiet on a command, but anything past that is going to be a real stretch.
The saddest part about this is that I’ve pondered the same question in the past.
I’m 22 year old adult male, better wrestler than fighter which doesn’t really help me much as I wouldn’t be able to take it to the ground lest I be swamped, but I can’t imagine having trouble taking out at least 20. Thing is their heads are going to be about waist height, so I think kneeing (sp?) them in the head would be very effective for someone with average height. The best chance they have would be simply biting, going after the nads, or a combination of the two, as I’ve had my fit five year old nephew swinging away at me and it’s not especially painful. On the other hand, it’s not like you’ll really be able to punch away at their bodies as your fists will be going down to the top of their heads, so it shouldn’t be long before you’re hurting your own fists on their skulls.
You’ve obviously never seen a martial arts flick or you would know that they’ll stay back and attack in ones and twos, three at the most, in the perfect pattern so that our hero can fend them all off.
As for the 45 pound bat, if they’re zombies then you just rip off an arm or a leg from one of them and use it as a club.
I’ve been thinking about this one but trying to think of a non-disturbing way to put it. The most devastating stike in Muay Thai is the knee strike, because if you’re in a clinch and are able to pull the opponent’s head down with your clasped hands behind his neck or head as you knee to the face, you can do horrific damage. The main thing preventing you from doing this is your opponent’s strength, skill, and the distance from knee to head. None of those are preventing you from doing that here en masse.
Well if one of the kids is Richard Sandrak back when he was five then my odds of coming out victorious go down significantly.
I posed this question to a co-worker, and his first answer was “3”. After I explained the rules, he adjusted his answer to “2”.
I was initially thinking 10-15 until I saw this rule:
• There is no protective padding for any combatant other than the standard-issue cup.
This eliminates the main advantage that a kid has over an adult male, so my final answer is about 20-30 with confidence, maybe as many as 60 if I can get into berserk desperation. I think the best strategy for the kids would be to have a small group get behind me as a human trip wire, then have everyone else rush me from the front and knock me over, where I’d be easy pickings. To counter this, I’d probably have to keep moving fast enough to keep from getting surrounded.
I’m amazed at some of the low estimates for the number of children a healthy adult male could take out. Based on years of wrestling and horsing around with my little brothers, I’m confident that I could go on indefinitely until one of two things happens:
-
I become severely exhausted.
-
I break my right hand (presumably against one of the little bastards’ skulls).
#2 is essentially random, so I won’t factor it into the equation.
What about #1? Admittedly, I’m out of shape, but I figure the adrenaline rush I get from having to fend off hordes of bloodthirsty kindergarteners (not to mention all the fun I’ll be having) should let me keep going for, say, 20-30 minutes. How many kids can I kill (excuse me: “render unconscious”) in half an hour? Quite a lot, I figure. It’s very hard to pick a number, though, since I’m just not sure how a melee like this would work; I figure I could dispatch somewhere from 4-10 kids per minute. Therefore, given the 20-30 minutes I mentioned above. . .
Low estimate: 80-120 ---- High estimate: 200-300
So, somewhere between 80 and 300 – inexact, to say the least, but that’s hardly surprising given this sort of chaos.
Those number would shrink dramatically as the kids got older. If we’re talking 8-year olds, I figure 12 or fewer could take me, exhaustion or no. By the time we hit 10-year olds, 4 might do the trick.
Quite right. I can imagine, for the sake of argument, that you can train the 5-year olds to be virtual zombies in their determination and courage. I cannot imagine, though, that you can get them to sit still and learn anything about fighting in one day. That’s just ridiculous.
Utterly fearless five-year-olds? I prefer wargames with a sensible morale system, thank you very much. However, since I’ve got roughly the weight and strength advantage over a 5yo that a rhino has over me, I’ll just answer “How many have you got”? The only thing stopping me taking down a little brat of this age with a single swat is the very strong inhibition against doing so. They can’t physically get enough bodies on me to take me down and I don’t have any vulnerable spots that they can reach. Even a kick to the knee from a nipper like that is not going to do the business. I can wade through them as through a three-foot snowdrift and anyone I stamp on isn’t getting up again without a miracle of surgery.
And yes, using stunned or incapacitated kids as offensive weapons works for me 