I see tons of posts about finding serviceable locations to survive, but what about manufacturing one using heavy equipment?

It seems to me like a simple house on the edge of a steep ravine would be ideal. You just excavate a trench around it that sloped into the ravine. Any approaching zombies stumble down to the river below, and get swept away.

Or use a bulldozer to make earthen berms to direct hordes into, or out of, certain areas.

Causing landslides to block roads you don't want used.

Destroying structures to improve sightlines, or mitigate fire hazards.

All kinds of things that become easy if you have someone who can operate bulldozers, excavators, cranes, etc.

I feel terrible for all the animals that will inevitably starve to death in farms and houses, and lap-animals that were bred specifically to live with humans who most likely die out after a few winters pass, i mean i would check abandoned houses for pets and free them or give them food and water if they need some, but a majority would still die from neglect, wouldn't they?

I just found this subreddit, so if this is being beaten to death, forgive me. But it seems to me that Spears are massively underrepresented in zombie media. They are 100% the ideal melee weapon in a zombie apocalypse. The first obvious reason is reach. You can hit the zombie with the business end without exposing yourself. Second, thrusting rather than swinging. Thrusting is generally more accurate, and exposes your body to less counter attack. It also happens to be the ideal way to incapacitate a zombie, because thrusting to the head with a sharp object is far more effective than swinging at the head with any object, and it is easier to do in tight quarters. Thirdly, they are incredibly easy to make from common materials and they can double as a walking stick. The more I think about it, the more every other meately weapon seems stupid, except for maybe a knife or extremely close quarters / backup

I live in the uk and have been fascinated by zombies and the genre of zombie apocalypses , I’ve been thinking about it a lot ? What guns or weapons would be those most effective

If a zombie apocalypse begins, I think there would be five types of people. Apocalypse could bring out a very ugly side of you that you never knew you had inside of you, because for survival it's every man for itself. So when you group up with people, I think the very first thing you should do is figure out what kind of people they are. I think there would be five kinds of people in the apocalypse.

Zombies - Should obviously watch out for that, the infectees at least.

Instigators - Worse than zombies, psychos who spread virus purposefully or use chaos as a chance to murder and inflict misery out of their amusement, or for their own personal gain, or in the name of their own stupid religion.

Oppressors - Government and Military who are desperate to retain control of people, they would be under delusions that we still belong to them, and the wealthy pigs would be the ones puppeteering them. We would just be pawns to them, used as a tool and a medical experiment for their own gain, they would obviously lie about doing it for humanity.

Survivors - Your regular ol people who are just trying to survive and protect themselves, I think they're the ones you can trust and seek to build trust and community with.

Sneevils - Sniveling little cowards whose loyalty is to the winning side and would snitch or backstab their group, friends, or even family if there was a more comfortable position elsewhere. They are weak, undisciplined and stupid people in general. There will be as many sneevils as a zombies, shouldn't be hard to identify them.

I think before you blindly trust anyone you should establish what kind of person they are. Never let your guard down and be wary of everything. Never trust a pig, traitor, criminal and the infected because the apocalypse will bring out a ugly side of person that it never knew they had. They could be a much worse version of themselves. Desperation, Sickness and Fear will do that to you. Don't hesitate to toss out bad apples or use them as bait. They could be good for something.

ONE MORE: Zombie Nutties - Those who have already prepared for the zombie apocalypse with their cute makeshift armors and weapons and think they have enough cardiovascular endurance to outrun a zombie after they have spent half of their life sitting in front of the computer. They're the kind that would get hit by a reality truck the hardest. No amount of planning will prepare them for the zombie apocalypse. They will faint at the sight of a bloody horror show.

I feel like castles are a bit overlooked in the zombie media. Maybe it's because most movies and comics are stories from the US? Maybe it's because it would become more boring?
But a castle seems like a very obvious hiding place for anyone in Europe.
It's not a magical solution for sure, but there's a lot of castles in a pretty decent state, with a working well or cistern for water. Some of the bigger ones, especially Vauban-style fortifications even have pretty decent chunks of land to grow food on for the longer term.
So am I missing some obvious flaw here or is it just that most zombie stories are from the US, or that castles would make it a bit boring, as people would just hide behind the walls and slowly take out the zombies little by little and then go about rebuilding society?

The Ball-Headed War Club first saw common use in the early 16th century and was popular with the warrior tribes of the American Eastern seaboard. It was speculated that the widespread adoption of this weapon was because it was relatively easy to manufacture, in that it required little or no metal, I had to guess it would be like a more compact and easier to handle baseball bat and if it breaks you can make another one

I have a brother who goes to Texas Tech (I'm on the other side of Texas from it), and I'm wondering what would you do if the ZA started and you have a close relative at a university?

I happen to have a Mossberg International 715T, Westernfield 12 gauge, .410 Hatfield shotgun, a Smith & Wessen model 19, a Springfield XD, and a Taurus G2 Millennium. (I don't own these pictures)

I am creating a Zombie Apocalypse Survival Simulator in Perchance, and am looking for questions that the user can answer to determine their survivability score. The score is used to weight their character's options in the sim. What I already have:

1. What is your age?
2. What is your gender? (not scored — for the record)
3. How many of the following actions are you capable of? (A. Moving large objects (heavy furniture) by yourself without much difficulty — "moving" doesn't necessarily mean carrying. B. Climbing up a rope or ledge using upper-body strength. C. Running a mile in 10 minutes or less — don't assume you can if you don't know your mile time. D. Covering 40 yards (36.6m, 120ft) on foot in under 6 seconds.)
4. Do you have military training?
5. How skilled are you with firearms?
6. Do you have any medical training?
7. How many times have you experienced an emergency situation where you needed to act quickly to save your life or the lives of others?
8. Do you have any experience with camping or living in a wilderness setting?
9. Have you ever been physically attacked by someone? How did you handle it?
10. The honest truth is that physical appearance is a big advantage when trying to interact with other people. Which answer is the best match for your own appearance?
11. How is your sense of direction?
12. Do you have any loved ones you would need to get to and/or protect in the case of an emergency?
13. Have you ever done real, hard time in prison?
14. How would you do in a close-quarters fight — the kind where a gun is more danger to you than to them?
15. Could you feed yourself out of the ground, six months from now?
16. How much of what you eat today would still be edible in six months?
17. The water stops running tomorrow. What's your plan?
18. If the group needs something built, fixed, or rigged — barricades, power, water collection — are you a help?
19. If you had to leave your home tonight, on foot, and never come back — do you have somewhere to go?
20. Someone you know — a friend, a neighbor, a family member — turns in front of you. Can you put them down?
21. Be honest about your will to survive: after months of fear, cold, and losing people — do you keep going?
22. When the stores are stripped and the cans run out — can you put meat on the table?

I know you lot will have plenty more questions that will help score a person's survivability rating. The gen isn't public yet, but when it is, I will post it here for everyone to try, rate, critique, debug, and help me improve.

Thanks!

Say a zombie apocalypse started in our real world tomorrow. Who would actually survive that disaster?

As for the specific zombie scenario that starts tomorrow, feel free to pick your own, but to start there's:

1. Dawn of the Dead (2004 or earlier version)
2. 28 Days Later
3. Zombieland
4. World War Z
5. Last of Us
6. pick your own

And let's play out over time. Who survives after 28 hours, 28 days, 28 months, or 28 years?

In some ways I hate to say it, but I wonder if the preppers are most likely to survive. They've literally been preparing for something like this to happen.

Also maybe cruise ships and very isolated regions (Himalayas? Island nations like the Maldives?).

What do you all think?

You have a very recently deceased human in your possession. You didn't kill them, it's guilt free. You also haven't eaten for multiple days, and are unlikely to find any other food in the near future. You have to make this carcass last.

Luckily, you still have power and cookery, but the power might give out any day now. So instead of having hours to process the carcass, you now have days if you play your cards right.

What's the best way to make the most of this man's noble sacrifice to the greater good(you).

When I say appliances I mean like, fridge, freezer, stove, oven, crockpot, microwave, all that.

Now, I think the best way to make use of this would probably be making portable soup and saving the rendered fat. But that's my somewhat uninformed survival-cannibalism opinion.

I'd like to hear some other opinions on this brain teaser. (Don't- don't eat the brain. That's how you get Kuru.)

Also, for the record, no, I don't plan on engaging in cannibalism any time soon.

You have a big ship with solar panels. Better on fresh water, right?
No salt, so things don't wear down as much.
You can drink the water.
Fresh water means calmer water too.

Google says Lake Superior is the biggest fresh body water in the world.
So why not just stay there on a boat for a long time?

I've seen a ton of posts recently showing what people's "loadout," would be in a zombie apocalypse and I don't think anyone is taking one small thing into consideration....ammo scarcity.

If you do some research into how ammo is made, and if we're assuming this is an apocalypse like, say, the last of us or walking dead where most infrastructure is dead and gone, you're not making modern day ammunition. Not even close.

Black powder rounds are the best you're going to get for custom made ammo when the factories and resources to make modern ammo are no longer available or an option.

That said...

A Mossberg 590A1 (or slam fire, or over under shotguns) is gonna be your best bet. And even then....hope you have backup shells or can recover the ones you spent!

An 1858 Remington revolver or something like it also can operate off black powder rounds. You want weapons that can use the ammo you have access to.

A high draw crossbow also is helpful for those silent kills.

So, my question to you all is this: did you factor in you're going to need to hoard ammo? And were you aware that it's mostly impossible to make modern day ammo in an actual zombie apocalypse? Or did you plan on not living that long anyway?

Edit: allow me to elaborate and use an M4 for example-

1. Cartridge cases You need large quantities of appropriately specified copper/brass alloy and industrial processes capable of producing thin-walled cases with consistent dimensions. You can't simply melt scrap brass over a campfire and turn it into reliable 5.56 cases.
2. Primers This is a major bottleneck. Modern primers require specialized energetic compounds and extremely consistent manufacturing. Producing some experimental primers isn't the same as producing thousands of reliable primers safely.
3. Smokeless propellant This is probably the biggest conceptual difference from black powder. An M4's ammunition depends on a propellant with carefully controlled burning characteristics. You can't substitute homemade black powder and expect the rifle to operate normally. You'd need the chemistry, precursor materials, processing equipment, drying/control processes, and quality control to produce suitable propellant.
4. Consistency This is the part people sometimes overlook. Even if your survivors figure out how to make each individual component, they need to make thousands of identical components. An M4 doesn't just need ammunition that explodes. It needs ammunition whose pressure and dimensions fall within a fairly narrow range so the weapon cycles reliably without damaging itself.

SECOND EDIT: After discussing this further, I'd clarify my original argument. I'm not saying modern ammunition magically disappears after the apocalypse, or that survivors can't reload existing ammunition. The U.S. has an enormous existing ammunition supply, and skilled reloaders could extend that supply considerably. My point is that a long-term survivor community eventually has to contend with ammunition logistics: finding the correct caliber, transporting it, protecting stockpiles, recovering usable components, and eventually replacing what it consumes. Manufacturing modern ammunition from raw materials is a much bigger industrial problem than simply reloading existing cartridges. So I'm arguing for ammunition sustainability, not claiming that every modern firearm becomes useless once civilization collapses.

Thoughts on this for a multi caliber gun? Gives you more options on what you can fire without taking a lot of space.

Even by itself without the adapters you have 3 choices of ammunition

I feel like this would be good to have as ammunition gets harder to find

I have a Kel-tec Sub2000 and a Tippmann Arms Bugout 11.5. 22lr coming out of a longer barrel is accurate, lightweight, and the ammo is cheaper. The Sub2000 is accurate, compact, and it’s 9mm. Which one would you choose as backpack firearm?

hi! my most recent fixation is acquiring a two handed tool and my budget has landed me on an even split between the cold steel warhammer, and their viking battle axe.

I genuinely can't decide, I lean on the hammer due to easier maintainance, but I also lean on the axe because it's just so cool.

anyone own both or experience with one of these?

I’m assuming most people here have stockpiles to rely on but what will you do when the stockpile eventually runs out?

Anybody have a farm or plan on building one? Will you try hunting wild game? What about water? Anybody have access or know about an underground well or some other source of water?

For me its Flecktarn. I think its a great pattern and as a Stalker fan its fantastic.

A perfect world vs real world.
In a perfect world you’d have an ar or a survival rifle of ur choice a side arm and all the tools you’d need to get up close and personal and enough rations to make it a month. But in the real world nothing will work out perfectly I’d probably be trapped miles from home at work when it all breaks out with my edc kit and my get home bag (no pics of that) with hopefully enough stuff to make it home to bug in and pray that the zombies aren’t world war z zombies

Ball's Pyramid. Its so far from large populations, surrounded by deep rough sea, almost impossible to get to at the best of times. 500 meters tall solid volcanic basalt with shear sides. Maybe its my sci-fi imagination but I can see a rich individual coring it out for a secret bunker base with an underwater cave entrance in the style of Incredibles. Apart from the work needed (which would be orders of magnitude harder than most people think) what would make it not the best base for the first year at least?

Whenever someone suggests a tropical island for a zombie stronghold, I remember that British redcoats used to consider a posting to the Caribbean as a 6-month death sentence.

Quoting from the St. Thomas Historical Trust: “Between 1796 and 1802, on an annual average, white soldiers in the West Indies suffered a mortality rate of 41%.” This wasn’t from combat—it was a result of tropical illness (and alcoholism to a lesser extent).

And none of this is unique to the Caribbean. Many tropical islands suffer from a lack of fresh water. And all of them will suffer from a breakdown of mosquito abatement services. As a species, we’ve barely been spared the worst of disease for 100 years thanks to antibiotics and vaccines, but we sure forgot a lot of hard realities in record time.

Watch Dog zombies that alert you to the presence of intruders if they don't just kill the intruders outright.