Forums of the Megaverse®

In my campaign the survivors are trying to make it back to a military base set up around an air field. Looking at the scale of the air field I was like, there is no way a small to even medium sized group of survivors could hold an area the size of an airfield.But then it got me to thinking. The airfield would likely have a perimeter fence, which would not stop a zombie horde determined to get through but would stop a zombie from wandering in right. I mean it won't gather a few of it's buddies and pound down a fence unless it could sense prey on the other side.

That is where the size of the airfield comes into play since you only need to reinforce the side of the perimeter that you are really close and just use distance and a fence to protect the other areas. You would need to conceal yourself at night and no large visual or noise displays but it may be doable. If you could put visual obstructions behind the fence that would help as well to reduce detection range.

Now take the idea and push it further. Enclose a large area such as military base or even a cattle ranch to ensure isolation since they have 100's of acres of enclosed area. Regular zombies won't hop a fence unless there is a reason and since where they are stopped is way far away they should not detect you except where you have to get close. This may not be fool proof against thinkers and the like and you would need an alarm system or regularly check the fence line for integrity. I would have a tower as well to provide advanced warning when zombies are getting too close or have breached the area. And always have a back up plan/escape route. with vigilance you could hide until the wandering ghouls depart.

Talk to ranchers though, they regularly have to repair fences from live stock damage, weather, wild animals, etc. Oh, sure, in general it could probably work, but it doesn't mean you won't necessarily still manage to trigger a swarm by being seen by one or more zombies setting up a moan.

Also zombies are kind of stupid. Just because there is a fence doesn't mean a zombie won't see a rat or something on the other side, or just general decide because it can see through it, it wants to keep going right through it. Given time a zombie could potentially damage a fence or find a hole in it caused by something else.

Against lone zombies you certainly could reinforce a fence easily enough to not be traversable by one, but the fence could still be damaged over time, which means you'd need to be checking over the fence fairly frequently to make sure this doesn't happen and/or repair the damage when it does happen. While doing that you'll have to make sure zombies don't see you, or else take them out quickly and quietly.

A small group of people could likely maintain a fairly large area securely so long as no swarms decided they wanted to wander that way, they were careful and no bandits came along.

Panomas wrote:How about an electric fence hooked up to a power generator?

Or would this just anger the Zombies?

Not sure about the rules in Dead Reign but according to Max Brook's "Zombie Survival Guide" electricity can stun zombies making them easy to dispatch; they can kill a zombie if there is sufficiently high voltage to cause it to combust (high voltage power lines).

In real life Direct current causes your muscles to contract. This can stop the heart if the current is going across your chest or cause your hand to clamp down on an exposed wire and ensure your electrocution (one reason Americans use AC, it's safer.) I suppose that even at a low voltage you may combust but standard electric fences are designed to deter trespassers by causing painful shocks. Putting to much power through a conductor (metal fence) could cause the conductor to melt as well (ever put the wrong AC adapters on your electronics, specifically one that is a higher voltage than the device is rated?)

Low voltage would not cause you to combust. You'd need both high voltage and the ability to deliver high amperage.

Oh you can certainly start fires with low voltage if you have the right resistance, but a human body has too low of a resistance to cause the kind of heat build up you'd need to combust unless you were pumping some SERIOUS voltage through a persons body. Well over what you could deliver through a typical electric fence.

Basically what an electrical fence does is it has an energizer that delivers a high voltage output along a wire and there is a grounding electrode somewhere along the path. When an animal/person touches the fence they act as the ground, allowing the current to pass through them back to the energizer. Very dry soils won't work (though I suppose if the grounding electrode is deep enough and you are close enough to it, it won't matter if YOU are on sandy/dry soil or even with rubber soled shoes with really high voltage electric fences).

basically an electric fence tends to run from around 4,000-10,000 or more volts, but only a couple of joules. It causes a severe and painful muscle contraction and it shocks with a frequency of about 1-2 jolts per second lasting only a few miliseconds in length.

It is painful, but no where near on the level of even a taser (which tends to be even higher voltage AND more energtic).

Its not like you are connecting power lines to a fence (which would likely destroy the fence). You can get away with much lower voltage with humans as it takes significantly lower voltage to carry a current across skin or through muscle on a human (roughly 100v to pass a current through a human body, and with enough amperage behind it, only in the range of 9-14v to carry a current across your skin). Of course to bypass the insulation, of say, rubber soles of your shoes you are back to needing pretty high voltage to then pass the current from your body through the ground back to the electrical sink.

In Dead Reign the Zombies don't feel pain so that aspect of the fence wouldn't work. It doesn't mention electricity anywhere in the book that I remember but a case could be made that it would cause the Zombies muscles to lock up trapping it on the fence, at least as long as the current was going. Given enough Zeds your fence would go down or start drawing enough power to short out or something releasing all the zombies at once.

Panomas wrote:

Tadrith wrote:In Dead Reign the Zombies don't feel pain so that aspect of the fence wouldn't work. It doesn't mention electricity anywhere in the book that I remember but a case could be made that it would cause the Zombies muscles to lock up trapping it on the fence, at least as long as the current was going. Given enough Zeds your fence would go down or start drawing enough power to short out or something releasing all the zombies at once.

Warning a little off topic!

-I don't have the book yet- But what about moats-

Can the Zombies in the game swim or breath underwater?
Of coarse I am talking about a 20ft wide by 20ft deep moat-might be useful at least the slow the brainhungry buggers down in key areas.

Waring me I was going off topic or that your post was?
Of the six posts in this thread (discounting the last two) four were about Electric fences. In fact you brought them up to begin with.

All good. I was just curious as too what you meant.

A half drained water tower with rooms built in the upper half. Water storage and distance from zombies all in one.

Or just a completely drained water tower. Ya don't need that much water if it is just one or two people living in it and that can easily be stored in a few rain barrel with a little rain water collection off the top of the tower.

A lot of old water towers have been converted in to homes over the years, especially some really old ones.

Pretty cool actually. One perk is you'd be high enough up that even if you attracted a swarm, they won't be able to notice your life signs, so after a period of time (Minutes? Hours?) they'd likely all wander off.

You could even make blocks in the structure frame under the actual water storage unit to make it difficult if not dangerous for the zombies to climb up to get you. Add a few zip lines from the top of the tower to a few strategic locations and you have a fast means of travel away in case of emergency.

Pedestal mounted 25mm MK .38 chain gun loaded with High Explosive and Armor Piercing Incendiary (Shake and bake). This will stop any vehicle short of a main battle tank. Would also be useful against helicopters and light aircraft if it can track fast enough.

Large caliber precision rifles with suppressors with day and night vision optics and IR designators. For zeds and anti personnel.

Mortars and heavy Machineguns can be pre-registered on choke points. A properly mounted and positioned .50 MG (tripod with T&E) can be used for indirect fire. This was done to good effect during WWI. Machineguns were orginally treated more like artillery when introduced in the late 19th century.

Beltfed machineguns are positioned in bunkers with interlocking fields of grazing fire covering all obstacles, minefields, etc.

Multipule rows of triple strand concertina wire and ditches filled with water and oil are a flare gun away from becoming burning barriers of death. Triple strand (properly staked) will stop anything short of armored vehicles. It could only be overcome by a mountian of zombies that climb over each other only to be faced with another row of wire. Living personnels have to either breach with explovives or painstakingly cut their way through each row.

Flamethrower teams will be sent out to clear zeds trapped in the wire.

In between the no mans land are a mix of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines. Directional, command detonated anti-personnel mines like claymores can set with trip wires or clackers.

Early warning systems I would look at trip flares/silent alarms, cans/bells in the wire, thermal video cameras, ground sensor pressure systems.

As long as food, ammunition, personnel and supplies hold out a fortified military base is impenatrable by unarmed (zombies) attackers. A modern infantry company (120 men) could hold alot of real estate.

Try to find digital copies of US Army Field Manual (FM) FM 5-15 Field Fortifications and FM 5-30 Obstacle Technique.

Yes, so long as it lasts.

And against a few million zombies it is going to last how long?

I'd certainly agree it would likely last a very long time, so long as it wasn't located remotely near any major population centers. If it was all the noise and fury of defending the base is probably going to attract every zombie within 10 or 20 miles...which could be millions of them.

Panomas wrote:Can the Zombies in the game swim or breath underwater? Of coarse I am talking about a 20ft wide by 20ft deep moat-might be useful at least the slow the brainhungry buggers down in key areas.

I don't think they'd retain any swimming skills (although I think the Mock Zombies, Half-Living and POSSIBLY Thinkers could manage it) but they could probably just walk across the bottom ala Pirates of the Carribean. I imagine that since Zombies don't breathe they could probably expel all their air and swallow water so that they're less buoyant and sink, unlike us.

I say make Booby Traps around your Hq,this way you known that the Zombies are coming.

Not if the Brulyxian priests trebuchet some biters over your minefield.

That's what snipers are good for. They can take out anyone trying to pull a launch lever.

Unless the bulk of the trebuchet is under cover. Dig trenches and extend your siege in a close as necessary. Portable shields call Mantlets were used by Sappers in Napoleonic period siege warfare. The Mantlets fully protected a standing man at ground level as trench works were dug.

Zombies really are the perfect trench-differs, and the ability to fire over walls using gravity will destroy the fortresses of snipers.

Your bullets are just too fast to benefit from gravity.

On a related note, I was watching a playthrough of Lollipop Chainsaw on YouTube and there's this one fat zombie in the farm level who throws other zombies at you as projectiles, so that's cool.

I find a large fenced in area is somewhat easy to defend against the creepers. During the day you a fire off a few rounds to keep the numbers down. At nighttime it would be harder cuz your glow can be seen for miles. However if your group has someone with robotic skills you can repurpose a few industrial robots to wield the long range weapons. Mount a camera to the scope so someone can remotely control the gun arm.

CarCrasher wrote:I find a large fenced in area is somewhat easy to defend against the creepers. During the day you a fire off a few rounds to keep the numbers down. At nighttime it would be harder cuz your glow can be seen for miles. However if your group has someone with robotic skills you can repurpose a few industrial robots to wield the long range weapons. Mount a camera to the scope so someone can remotely control the gun arm.

Where do you get the electricity to run the robots?

Icefalcon wrote:

CarCrasher wrote:I find a large fenced in area is somewhat easy to defend against the creepers. During the day you a fire off a few rounds to keep the numbers down. At nighttime it would be harder cuz your glow can be seen for miles. However if your group has someone with robotic skills you can repurpose a few industrial robots to wield the long range weapons. Mount a camera to the scope so someone can remotely control the gun arm.

Where do you get the electricity to run the robots?

Where indeed? Solar panels and batteries. Hydroelectric. Geothermal. Pick one for the energy needs of your home. After all it's hard work but what lengths will you go to secure your haven?

Hydroelectric and Geothermal are are very difficult to set up when you are one the run. For that matter, so would solar panels to a degree unless you happen to find them along the way. You need time, safety and the knowledge to build any of the power sources let alone a different set of skills to build and modify robots.

While it is possible to have those skills easily in a roleplaying game, that knowledge is not so easy to learn in real life.

Icefalcon wrote:Hydroelectric and Geothermal are are very difficult to set up when you are one the run. For that matter, so would solar panels to a degree unless you happen to find them along the way. You need time, safety and the knowledge to build any of the power sources let alone a different set of skills to build and modify robots.

While it is possible to have those skills easily in a roleplaying game, that knowledge is not so easy to learn in real life.

Yes irl it would be but we are here to discuss a game and not what can and can not be done irl!

Hello...

Icefalcon wrote:Hydroelectric and Geothermal are are very difficult to set up when you are one the run. For that matter, so would solar panels to a degree unless you happen to find them along the way. You need time, safety and the knowledge to build any of the power sources let alone a different set of skills to build and modify robots.

While it is possible to have those skills easily in a roleplaying game, that knowledge is not so easy to learn in real life.

True - geothermal energy would be hard to set up on the run. But hydroelectric power is much easier than you think. Specifically, a company known as Bourne Electric developed a hydroelectric generator that could provide several hundred watts of power and fit in a wearable backpack-sized container.[sup]1[/sup] As well, they could be set up in arrays to generate much larger amounts of power in the 20-kW range.[sup]2[/sup] Yet they are being developed for the military. Even if they weren't common in the Dead Reign timeline, a clever character could work up a similar contraption. Hopefully this fact answers the latest question that has been raised in this discussion. For now anyway, that is all I have to say, so please take care; thanks a bunch, and have a good day.


[1]: Source: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/backpack-hydroelectric-plant/
[2]: Source: http://www.bourneenergy.com/future.html#SPP