It's worth noting that "high-tech army gets beaten by a poorly armed opponent" has been a pretty common trope in Sci-Fi since the Vietnam war. WWZ in particular came out in the middle of the Afghanistan/Iraq occupations when the US military was once again struggling to overcome a insurgency.
To be entirely fair, the zombies were magical in World War Z.
Wasn't it rumored in-universe that the Solanum Virus was biologically-engineered?
I am fairly sure a character talks about zombies being locked in a room then coming back five years later and you'll still find them in there ready to eat you. Not to mention freezing and then thawing out a-ok. Magic.
I remember when I read the screenplay for the WWZ movie, not the Bradpitt Saves the World movie, but the one that actually was more like the book.This wasn’t an insurgency this was a frontal charge against prepared defences in an massive set piece battle and yet the Yanks still lost WTF brooks
I remember when I read the screenplay for the WWZ movie, not the Bradpitt Saves the World movie, but the one that actually was more like the book.
There is literally a line from a US general that couldn't fathom in regards to what his superiors at the time were thinking at Yonkers. He literally says that they could've just positioned most of the troops on high vantage point positions and just sniped at the zombies all day. It would've literally been to the point that the US troops could've just been hanging out shooting zombies while helicopters just dropped supplies for them.
It was literally such a no brainer strategy at Yonkers. To the point that an in-universe commander says what happened at Yonkers was just outright insane.
Also another thing, the Israelis were so fucking certain about the zombie invasion, but evidently all their reports sent over to the US weren't taken seriously? What about the fucking Senators and Congressmen that are known to visit Israel, did the Israeli government not think "oh, we can just take Senator Smith to one of our military facilities where we have an actual zombie."You then also have the problem of this happening to every other country save Israel the South Koreans got f-ed at Inchon presumably so did the Aussies, the Germans, Brits, Turks, Greeks, Italians, etc etc etc Brooks for all the talk about a "realistic zombie book" basically has the entire world hold the idiot ball until the entire planets been fucked.
True, it should have been the Chinese Army, seeing as they encountered the zombies first. Actually that poses a good question. If the Chinese had been spending the better part of 6 months cleaning up zombies, how hadn't they known by that point that a headshot kills the thing? How come the Americans hadn't either?
Spec ops had the entire winter before the great panic killing zombies and they learned nothing?
The film was even worse with Israel supposedly heavily defended having the most half baked defensive positions seen since before the invention of gunpowder. No heavy artillery, no tanks (hard for a zombie to transmit a virus into a tank), no fighter bombers dropping heavy munitions, hell no flame throwers, not even a mine field or even barbed wire on top of the ridiculously easily scaled wall just troops stationed in easily vulnerable positions and not even for the most part wearing body armour.... .A frontal charge at walking pace
I remember when I read the screenplay for the WWZ movie, not the Bradpitt Saves the World movie, but the one that actually was more like the book.
There is literally a line from a US general that couldn't fathom in regards to what his superiors at the time were thinking at Yonkers. He literally says that they could've just positioned most of the troops on high vantage point positions and just sniped at the zombies all day. It would've literally been to the point that the US troops could've just been hanging out shooting zombies while helicopters just dropped supplies for them.
It was literally such a no brainer strategy at Yonkers. To the point that an in-universe commander says what happened at Yonkers was just outright insane.
I've long been mulling a second part to The Way Is Shut, the problem being that I don't want to wreck what I have to say is not a bad bit of literature. However, I've also been mulling a Battle of Yonkers that's run by a general who doesn't have a great view of his own lower intestine and who uses bulldozers and concrete revetments to make a killing zone on the highway and then sticks all the troops on balconies with the doors on the lower levels barricaded shut. Yonkers is the one bit in the book that I have skip when I re-read Word War Z, as it's fricking stupid.
The way is shut?
I just had an idea for an area that might end up surviving any sort of worldwide zombie apocalypse almost untouched. Namely the Turkish Republic of Northern cyprus. An isolated and heavily militarized country with relatively little foreign trade and contact and a land border that I think is still pretty heavily fortified. Cyprus in general has some pretty rough terrain and mountainous territory. There's roughly 40K Turkish and Turkish Cypriot troops in the north. There's also the British sovereign base areas, a sizable Cypriot military, and another sizable force of Greek Troops on the island as well as UN peacekeepers. The Turks might decide to have Northern Cyprus as one of their fallback zones (along with said parts of the more mountainous areas of Anatolia and some of the Aegean islands.) Be interesting to see the possibility of the Greeks and the Turks agreeing to put the past behind them and joining together to evacuate portions of their populaces, armies, and their navy's to Cyprus.
The walls of Nicosia are supposed to be in pretty good condition.
Personally I've always loved the idea of various fortified regions and structures holding out against the zombie horde. The parts of WWZ that dealt with that I absolutely loved. Not so much your average person talking about fortifying his local Walmart but more mountainous plateaus or old fortresses/castles. Or sizable enclaves deep in zombie infested territory. For instance Rock Island is supposed to have in WWZ survived as a fortified enclave throughout the war.
Sorry - here's a link to it: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6115555/1/The-Way-Is-Shut
Didn't Taiwan unify with the Chinese mainland?So, what became of Taiwan/the Republic of China in WWZ?
The mountainous terrain can also shield from the nuclear blast, and the fallout.Maybe an independent Kurdistan is a thing now? The mountainous terrain offers some decent natural zombie defenses.
So, what became of Taiwan/the Republic of China in WWZ?
Didn't Taiwan unify with the Chinese mainland?
Didn't Taiwan unify with the Chinese mainland?
The film was even worse with Israel supposedly heavily defended having the most half baked defensive positions seen since before the invention of gunpowder. No heavy artillery, no tanks (hard for a zombie to transmit a virus into a tank), no fighter bombers dropping heavy munitions, hell no flame throwers, not even a mine field or even barbed wire on top of the ridiculously easily scaled wall just troops stationed in easily vulnerable positions and not even for the most part wearing body armour.... .
You'd think one of the Middle East's most militarized countries would be able to hold their own against the Zs - guess the film thought wrong. They should've gone with the same style that was used in Band of Brothers and/or The Pacific instead of that terrible film.I remember seeing the Israel scenes in the movie and thinking "that's so stupid". When I was in Israel back in 2015, I remember asking one of the Israelis on the trip with us, "hey, was that good tactics?" and he laughed for a solid 5 minutes straight.
You'd think one of the Middle East's most militarized countries would be able to hold their own against the Zs - guess the film thought wrong. They should've gone with the same style that was used in Band of Brothers and/or The Pacific instead of that terrible film.