Explosives

[chef1]

Question. Do explosives effect zombies? thanks everyone.

[Rockwolf66]

I personally love useing homemade claymore mines and firebombs on groups of zombies. basically find a way to lure a group of zeds together and then boom. since zombies can't regenerate then any damage you do is going to count towatds destroying the critter.

[Beatmeclever]

Really it would depend on the size of the explosive, and, therefore, the rate of expansion (pressure wave), heat, and any fragmentation. For instance a claymore is high in expansion and frag, but low in heat; a fire bomb is high in heat, but low in expansion and frag; just about any good sized explosive in a closed space (such as a bedroom) could be low in heat and frag, but the pressure in the small space would likely pulp any zed(s) in the room.

There's a nasty thought. Do zeds continue living after they've been pulped?

[Teltum]

I agree with everyone else. It depends on the type, where and how it is used. Personally I think explosives are great buy, morons are normally the ones holding them, so long story short: a dumb person with explosives is a liability not an asset. They are infact going to ruin your day about 90% of the time.

[chef1]

Thanks for the help everyone.

[Beatmeclever]

I think for explosives I'd go with a claymore and napalm mix you got the ball bearings and then you have fire that sticks to anything it touches with the napalm. Napalm is also easy to mix. Supplies to make it are everywhere.

Against zeds, I tend to use fire bombs (napalm, Molotovs, etc.). The fragments, projectiles, or shrapnel are not as much of a sure zombie-killer, and a pressure wave just knocks the zed around a lot but doesn't necessarily kill it. Fire (especially the sticks-to-everything and water-just-makes-it-burn-hotter type) is ALWAYS a game ender for the zeds.

[azazel1024]

A pressure wave if powerful enough would kill a zed. Enough overpressure will jelly a person's brain, should do the same to a zombie.
-Matt

[azazel1024]

Why, regular old incendiary devices can be made easily enough from what is laying around.

Heck thermite is relatively easy to make.

I'd frankly make a thermite/claymore type mine. Or heck if I could get it, WP/claymore. Combination of WP mixed in with ball bearings with a backing of a few ounces of C4 is going to ruin a crowd of zombies' day.
-Matt

[Thinyser]

Why, regular old incendiary devices can be made easily enough from what is laying around.

Heck thermite is relatively easy to make.

I'd frankly make a thermite/claymore type mine. Or heck if I could get it, WP/claymore. Combination of WP mixed in with ball bearings with a backing of a few ounces of C4 is going to ruin a crowd of zombies' day.
-Matt

Lead balls with a hole straight through filled with White Phosphorus used in a claymore setup would do some hardcore damage to zeds.

[azazel1024]

Or safer, red phosphorus contained within the lead balls. That might be DIY. That is the super basics of how a match works, the friction causes the red phosphorus to change to white phosphorus which auto-ignites in the presence of oxygen. Not sure of the transition temperature though. You may be able to mould pour lead around red phosphorus and the 'explosion' of the claymore would be enough to transition the RP to WP and/or upon impact.

Really don't know enough about RP vs WP to know about transition temperatures, ignition in water/body, etc.
-Matt

[Thinyser]

WP and magnesium powder in a plastisizer are what give tracers their light. Fill the claymore with the lead balls that have be stuffed with WP and then fill the gaps with black powder to get the WP to its ignition temp as the launch charge would probably not ignite them.

Mount several claymores to a pedistal under big thin plastic drum of fuel and rig them to all detonate at once just after the drum explodes from a tube of C-4 down its center so that the drumb explodes into a cloud of atomized fuel and air and then the ring of exploding claymores would ignite the fuel/air mixutre causing a thermalbaric explosion of large proportions while simultaniously sending incendiary frag into the gathering zombie hoards.

[azazel1024]

Heck just a high pressured atomizer followed by an igniter. You don't have the lack of oxygen 'damage' that a thermobaric explosion can have with people, but the overpressure and heat is probably going to be enough to take out zombies for a good distance.

Setup a remote controlled solenoid with a spike to pierce a paintball CO2 cannister in a 5 gallon gas can and then have a follow on igniter a couple of seconds later. Or better yet, a soldering torch fuel cannister in the gas can.
-Matt

[Thinyser]

Heck just a high pressured atomizer followed by an igniter. You don't have the lack of oxygen 'damage' that a thermobaric explosion can have with people, but the overpressure and heat is probably going to be enough to take out zombies for a good distance.

Setup a remote controlled solenoid with a spike to pierce a paintball CO2 cannister in a 5 gallon gas can and then have a follow on igniter a couple of seconds later. Or better yet, a soldering torch fuel cannister in the gas can.
-Matt

A high-explosive charge works much better for atomizing the fuel. While you might get a good bang out of a 20oz paintball CO[sub]2[/sub] bottle its not enough to totally rupture the container and send the fuel out in the micro droplets needed for a proper fuel air explosion. You really need the big pulse of energy of a small HE charge to do this.

Thats the easy part though. The trick is to ignite it a spit second after it forms, before the micro droplets evaporate and displace all the oxygen the cloud needs to explode (vs just burn really fast).

and I'd not even bother with anything less than a 70 gallon plastic drum and preferably more like a 500 gallon water container.

If you intend to kill the zed with simple overpressure then you need a damn lot of it to make it work since the will only die if you pulp the brain and thats not an easy thing to do with just overpressure. Of course a few would be flash fried but if we're talking about a large group that has been lead to the detonation site then I would use something really like a 500 gallon water container on about a 4-6' tall base to ensure maximum fuel cloud dispersion in the instant before the detonation.