# Survival Lessons From The Walking Dead



## GatorDude (Apr 23, 2009)

I know that "The Walking Dead" on AMC was just a TV show and I know that Zombies wouldn't last long in real life for a variety of scientific reasons, but I still think there are some valuable survival lessons to learn from watching the TV show. The show really does show some group dynamics, supply issues, and tactical issues that could arise in an end of the world as we know it scenario. I think it does show the potential value of having supplies on hand, making a plan, maintaining a bugout vehicle, getting along with people, avoiding romantic entanglements during crisis, fortifying your position, and valuing stealthy weapons.

Seven Survival Lessons From Watching "The Walking Dead" on AMC.

Did any of you guys pick up lessons that you could apply to real world survival situations?


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## Ponce (May 3, 2009)

Not me but I did see a lot of mistakes that they were making......with all those army weapons and military vehicles I would choose something better than what they had.


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## piglett (Dec 10, 2010)

hey i liked the part about the bows & crossbows. no point in letting the whole dam town know what your doing if your forced to do it.


thanks
piglett


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## The_Blob (Dec 24, 2008)

how about that *half-assed* pseudo-scientific explanation of how the 'zombie virus' supposedly worked?  only the brainstem (plus, motor neurons etc etc) reactivated... yet the walking dead had visual/auditory/olfactory capability, in some cases *superior* to a baseline human... sorry, that requires a LOT of brain :gaah:

so close... yet SO FAR :ignore:


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## Salekdarling (Aug 15, 2010)

*SPOILERS....sort of.*

There were a lot of mistakes I saw over good ideas when it comes to traveling in a group. Especially during the "raid" at their camp, they should have had watch outs/security even if the other men were in the city. They could have headed off the walkers and not have to play the "blame game" when the other men came back to the camp.

What is wrong with these people to have been THAT close to a city? And with TENTS out in the open where there are walking dead that apparently could smash into buildings with rocks. Come on folks, common sense votes for at least finding a barricadable area far far away from the city. The group knows about the hordes of walking dead because they've been in the city. If they did not think that the walkers would not leave the city, well I guess they never heard of animal instincts. No food, move along. The walkers seemed to understand that much.

And also, I didn't see a lot of leadership whatsoever from the Sheriff's deputy. I understand he doesn't know much about the walkers compared to other people but his doubts and mistakes got people in his group killed. I'd have a hard time trusting his judgement.

UGH. I'm getting into a rampage. :gaah: I need to stop and go to bed. :surrender:

but onto the things I did see: bartering, works much better than using money. I like that! Why did we not keep the bartering system? People also had a variety of skills from mechanical, fishing, hunting, weapon knowledge and domestic skills. It was a nice variety of folks for a group. Just wished they all worked together better. It doesn't always work that way though.

Now I'm going to bed. I look forward to the debates I may have started.


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## SurviveNthrive (May 20, 2010)

Common sense...if people provide your primary source of threat, and people are concentrated in cities, then you don't go to cities in that scenario. You don't go near cities. You don't go near towns. You don't camp in a tourist area near a city. 

If the living dead is your threat it makes more sense to utterly avoid them then to worry what the CDC is doing. The motivation to go to the CDC to take a gander at what they're doing doesn't make sense unless a dear relative is infected and you somehow have the hang time to desperately seek a cure. The one person infected had no hope, so they'd no reason to go there...what did they expect, zombie repellant flu shots?

They were idiots depicted as idiots, and one has to wonder how this group survived when others didn't. They continually provided examples of what not to do. 

There were so many flaws and faults in not only the logic, but the whole show that it couldn't be taken as anything but entertainment. 

Just a few EPIC FAILs:

Let's cook food over a fire, and sit facing the fire, destroying our night vision, with our backs to the dark, jabbering our heads off when we just saw one of the things wandering near the camp a day or so earlier.

Deputy gets smoked in a shoot out, 1. After telling a guy to take the safety off his Glock (if that doesn't mean anything to you, it should) 2. the guy moves his thumb to engage an imaginary safety on a Glock slide after he checks his chamber revealing an empty chamber and magazine (HD TV shows too much). 3. Deputy leaves cover and 4. Doesn't confirm the scene is clear while yakking with his bud. Not to mention yakking after being shot instead of moving to cover which he shouldn't have left to begin with.

Handcuffs a combative, skilled and muscular individual to a fixed object where you'd be at a tremendous disadvantage (low position, head near pipes and such) if you have to uncuff him when he might have instead have been easily handcuffled and hobbled, or cuffed him and have those cuffs secured to a fixed object where he might be removed without being uncuffed. (Barney Fife wouldn't have made that mistake. Opie wouldn't make that mistake. Only Aunt Bea, an utter idiot or Floyd the Barber might have done something that stupid.)







Heck, as a living dead fan, those folks were flawed in living dead preps! 






I'm still amused that they used a poor mock up of an M1 tank, and then as a plot device, depicted M1's as having a belly hatch!


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## bunkerbob (Sep 29, 2009)

The_Blob said:


> how about that *half-assed* pseudo-scientific explanation of how the 'zombie virus' supposedly worked?  only the brainstem (plus, motor neurons etc etc) reactivated... yet the walking dead had visual/auditory/olfactory capability, in some cases *superior* to a baseline human... sorry, that requires a LOT of brain :gaah:
> 
> so close... yet SO FAR :ignore:


 Heck Blob I thought you were talking about me before my first cup of coffee in the morning.


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## SurviveNthrive (May 20, 2010)

My favorite part about discussing the living dead is I go nuts about the notion of a Glock with an imaginary safety or a belly hatch on an M1 Abrams tank, but I can accept the notion of a living dead thing coming after people.


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## The_Blob (Dec 24, 2008)

SurviveNthrive said:


> My favorite part about discussing the living dead is I go nuts about the notion of a Glock with an imaginary safety or a belly hatch on an M1 Abrams tank, but I can accept the notion of a living dead thing coming after people.


I think that's called _suspension of disbelief_ 

sometimes I need to break out my *+5 block & tackle* to suspend *my* disbelief, which I'm happy to do for a little cheap entertainment :sssh:


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## worldengineer (Sep 20, 2010)

SurviveNthrive said:


> I'm still amused that they used a poor mock up of an M1 tank, and then as a plot device, depicted M1's as having a belly hatch!


The hole time I had to believe it was some new development. Plus couldnt anyone then just sneak up on the tank and climb in?

Heck I woulda figured out how to drive that bad boy out.


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## SurviveNthrive (May 20, 2010)

The old M60 tanks had a belly hatch. I heard it was great for ditching trash, venting, evac under fire, or taking a leak during stand to. Unfortunately, it's a weak point for mines and explosives placed under the roads.

As for the Deputy telling a guy to disengage his Glock's safety...

This might throw someone for a second:










NO, THAT'S NOT A GLOCK!

Oh, I can accept slow walking living dead but sprinters? Nah, they'd tear their dead bodies to bits rapidly, George Romero discussed this and he's the one who created the whole genre. (Although I found the concept while checking out very old comic books.)


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## azurevirus (Jan 20, 2009)

*Walking Dead*

Its just entertainment, sci fi entertainment..but as long as we are talking about it..the dude with the crossbow was good with it if the target wasnt much more than 10-15' away...and Shanes wifey..what was it..two months before she was playing with his buddy cop..I mean sheesh..dont say much for spousal loyalty,,and how many deputies carry a nickle plated Python and sport a Vietnam air Cav uniform hat..and whens he gonna ditch the uniform for some reg duds..Im not a zombie type fan...make more sense to me to have some kind of government made virus that escaped through some kind of accident that made ppl act like they were a zombie..but I guess that would delve into the realm of morality..but its an entertaining show


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## Ponce (May 3, 2009)

About the Glock with the "safety".......about forty years ago I was working as a gas pump jockey and this guy came with a VW and asked me to chech the water........I went to the back of the VW and stayed there for a while I then came back to him and told him"Man oh man, there was no water at all, lucky for you you asked me to check out the water so that I filled it up, by the way, you have some oil in the radiator so you better check that out" hahahahaha, the guy came out flying out of the car to look for himself........he didn't even say thank you before going bye bye.


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## azurevirus (Jan 20, 2009)

Yeah, I didnt know newer generation tanks had the belly door either..suprised there was enough room in there where you could actually stretch out and take a nap by the looks of it..and if your referring to the blonde woman who had the gun on the deputy wanting to kill him but later was told the safety was on by the deputy...I was thinking by the brief look at the gun ..first pistol that came to my mind was a S/W ,,maybe 9mm ..I had looked at one a few days before that the local pawn shop had for sale,,and to me..a 9 would be a pretty good zombie round..the S/W I looked at while at the pawn ...to tell you the truth I just held it long enough to read the crazy expensive price tag and gave it back to the woman..telling her nice gun..but I could buy a new one for the price of this used piece


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## carlnet (Jul 29, 2010)

piglett said:


> hey i liked the part about the bows & crossbows. no point in letting the whole dam town know what your doing if your forced to do it.


I agree. I have always felt you should own alternate weapons like bows and swords and know how to use them as part of your weaponry. There are quite a few situations where silent and violent is much better then bang and a bunch of yelling... Of course the issue with swords is knowing enough about them to purchase one that is more likely to hurt your enemy rather than yourself. And the issue with bows is that they take a lot of practice to become proficient. Whereas you can strap a laser on a gun and hand it to a moron and they can point and shoot.


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## SurviveNthrive (May 20, 2010)

Let's see...heavy living dead fans have gone through this.

There's a threat that is slow moving but presents a small, bone protected target because you're aiming at a brain stem, and they seem to come in numbers. For me that rules out a crossbow which is physically demanding and rather slow to 'reload' although that's not shown. There's also the fact that this threat doesn't have ranged weapons but is infectious in close contact so why give up the tremendous advantage of using ranged weapons? That rules out melee weapons as a primary for me as well...something that bashes, cuts or slashes is going to get their fluids on you, precisely when you're drawing in deep breaths, sweating, with your eyes wide open, and when a person is using something like a sword one heavily tends to create small injuries on ones self including blisters, nicks, and abrasions all of which might provide breaks in the skin which are bad for allowing possible infection. Protective clothing might prevent both the minor self inflicted injuries and infection but this is Atlanta and it appeared to be Spring/Summer. Anyone who has practiced with a sword, hawk, or polearm extensively can confirm that once you build your skill and stamina, you can move fluidly and rapidly and for several seconds without being too worn, HOWEVER, if you connect with targets that's stressful and very taxing.

[No one went there, but for the fun of it, since it does come up in survivalism, we sometimes see the silly 'swords are better than guns because they don't jam or run out of ammunition'. Well, with something like a Glock, in torture tests, they show very few jams in 50,000 round without cleaning by someone with a firm wrist shooting factory ammunition in torture tests, you can clear a semi automatic jam if you're experienced, almost as rapidly than someone can reposition themselves after a mis stroke with a sword, and I'm sure that given two comparable people in the same physical condition, a person with a firearm is going to be able to carry more ammo and do more damage with a firearm than a sword. The theoretical futility of trying to shoot them all is a totally different matter and that comes up in the RATIO issue.]

While silencers aren't silent, they aren't as loud as regular firearms and a single shot is hard to vector in on for even alert people. A silencer used within a building is very hard to locate unless someone is in very close proximity.

I'd opt for silencers, probably going with heavier 9 mm ball ammunition out of some form of carbine like my Beretta Storm which is a compact semi bull pup but I figure some folks would be able to access MP5's through armsrooms, given a crisis like that.

We've an odd law where I live. As the Federal government permits silencers for a license fee, we can have them, but we can't legally mount them so I've not bothered, but in Oregon you can license them, mount them, and shoot them legally. They are readily available in my area, but in practical terms, I've not been interested. (Of course zombie eradication falls away from 'practical' concerns.)


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## GatorDude (Apr 23, 2009)

Silencers certainly do seem to be a logical step in the struggle against zombies. Unfortunately, licensing fees and the social stigma surrounding silencers (as a perceived terror or assassination weapon) keeps them out of circulation.

In an anti-zombie struggle, I think bows, crossbows, and melee weapons might be useful. However, groups using them might want to also employ infantry squares and other small unit formations that were used in ancient, medieval, and even early 19th century conflicts.


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## SurviveNthrive (May 20, 2010)

_In an anti-zombie struggle, I think bows, crossbows, and melee weapons might be useful. However, groups using them might want to also employ infantry squares and other small unit formations that were used in ancient, medieval, and even early 19th century conflicts. _

In living dead fiction, the well thought out ones go with something similar to the Spanish-Aztec technique. Given experience and practice and choosen ground, theoretically much more can be done by using their techniques on the living dead.

One man with either a sword or pole arm can only do so much. The Spanish were out numbered scores to one. They double or triple teamed so they'd rapidly take out several. Three men on one can wade through individual fighters like the Aztecs rapidly...a double or triple team can take out many individuals, one after another.

The technique is one provides cover with a firearm, shooting only if necessary, one uses a pole or pole arm to 'fix' or destabilize the living dead target, and the basher takes it out. By then the polearms man has shifted to fending off another one and changes to fixing or pinning that one and it continues. This is to reduce the risk of a melee, provide all around security, etc.


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## GatorDude (Apr 23, 2009)

The tactic of fixing attackers with polearms and then bashing them sounds brilliant. The Conquistadors definitely knew how to kick arse! 

In "The Walking Dead", I think the survivor camp would have done much better if they would have used vehicles and natural barriers to create a barrier between the survivors and zombies and then channelize the zombies into narrow easily defended areas.


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## SurviveNthrive (May 20, 2010)

Heaven forbid, but if I were in such a place, I'd be in a cinder block or brick structure with only sealed roller doors, _and on the roof_. I'd be doing a lot of things, not CAMPING in tents...what are they thinking? With the majority dead, and many living dead, everything is RENT FREE!

You find a semi remote place with solid structures, harden them all and fill them with food, put up some fencing, and begin planting when appropriate and setting up salt licks...if you see a lot of deer, then they're there for when you need them, but their absence means the living dead or another threat is present. Dogs might draw them, but good dogs can be taught only to bark when needed as a warning.

But if I happened to be among one of these numb nuts...

How about simply getting in the vehicles like the big motor home while a guy on the roof took simple shots from a .22 rifle through the thin part of the skull up top?


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