I was going to wait until a zombie-hunting thread came up again—it’s only a matter of time—but I decided to just seize the day.
I was researching WWII vehicles the other day, when I happened across mention of my old favorites, “Hobart’s Funnies”—a variety of tanks modified by the allies during the war for special combat engineering work, such as mine-clearing, bridgelaying, etcetera.
But it was upon looking over the Sherman “Crab,” which was equipped with a rotating drum equipped with chain flails for mineclearing that the thought struck me…hey, zombie slayer!
If anything, the concept would work better against the living dead—you don’t have to dig through rocks and dirt for a target that’s going to blow up. You’d simply drive into crowds of slow-moving, dimwitted creatures that…well, zombies would “explode” too, after a fashion, but they wouldn’t take hunks of vehicle with them. Cleanup would be kind of a bitch, though.
The big problem, as I see it, is that zombies require a large head wound to kill. Yes, this will decapitate and bash in several zombie skulls, but I can also see just a lot of them “wounded,” and maybe not able to move much but still able to move enough and infect people. And any zombie killing method that puts you in the midst of them is bad, bad, BAD! You may think a tank is impenetrable, and for the most part it is, but what if all their guts clog the gears and you’re stuck in the middle of 4,000 zombies. You got two choices: die of dehydration in the tank, or die by being ripped apart by zombies.
The most effective way, as I see it, is just a line of troops, a good distance away, all shotting for the head with large caliber rifles. If the zombies are out in the open, and far enough away, then a lot of napalm would also be effective, but as said, there has to be no people, buildings, trees, etc… around them. If a big mass of Zed (why yes, I have read World War Z, why do you ask?) was moving through the mid-west or something this would be good method.
But what about The Battle of Yonkers? It seems to me that you’re ignoring the lessons learned from that battle.
As for the OP - I’m not sure if that tank would be effective or not. But I for one would volunteer to try it because it looks FUN. Besides if a modified hockey stick can kill a zombie certainly a motor driven flailing chain should screw one up good!
And to slightly hijack - simply because it’s a zombie thread … Is it morally wrong or just ridiculously funny that I will move a copy of World War Z into the Military History section of every bookstore I go into? Ok, not really - but I am tempted every time I go into one of the major chains - I just don’t want to deprive Max Brooks of a sale is all.
Not at all. Yonkers failed because it was the wrong strategy for the wrong place. Soldiers too close to Zed, tactics for real people, etc…
When I mean only use in a wide, open space, I mean it. And you drop enough fucking napalm to burn for five god damn hours. THEN it could be effective. And even if it isn’t, the point is only yo use it when there is no one around, so no harm, no foul.
There may be any number of tanks, modified tanks, heavy construction equipment, and so forth that could be used in anti-zack combat. But any vehicle that lacks lateral slots for chainsaws falls short of being ideal.
Hey, you know the saying…“Out of commission, become a pillbox. Out of ammo, become a bunker.” (There’s a bit about what to do when out of hope, too, but I don’t think it’s quite germaine to the discussion…)
