Weapons of War

A significant amount of imagination has been applied to the idea of apocalypse futures.  There are all kinds, radioactive wastelands, natural disasters, and  probably more superpernatural disasters than anything.  The curious thing, though, about a zombie apocalypse is that the war still rages, seemingly neverending as long as there's a human left to turn.  Therefore when you're holed up in your compound, with dwindling resources and no power, you have to think of defense in a totally different way.

It's not an occasional human sized maurader luring you into a territory dispute, or a confused and dangerous animal accidentally finding its way too close to you.  In a zombie apocalypse, you are always on your guard...and desparate.  Don't forget desparate.  Here's a couple things from the history of war you might be able to implement.

During WWII  the Germans certainly had a knack for technology, but some of their low tech warfare was gruesomely ingenious.  As German forces were losing ground near the end of the war, they created booby traps to demoralize the enemy.  A booby trap, named after the titular bird that was so stupid it practically fumbled its way into extinction, is a trap that lures a victim into a false sense of security before the trap is sprung.  It uses the victims' own behaviors against them.  For instance,  when retreaving fallen soldiers on the battlefield, Allied medics would always take the helmet off to check for vital signs.  Imagine their surprise when medics found grenades with the only thing holding the strikers in place, the helmets.

How can this be useful?  Take the psychology of your zombie enemy and use it against it.  If the zombie consumes dead flesh just as much as living, fill an animal or a fallen friend with explosives or something equally nasty.  The point is to be able to make your escape as you thin enemy ranks.  I would suggest that poisons like arsenic and snake venom would still be debilitating, with its ability to paralyze and liquify the organs of a human body, including the brain.  Chemestry is one of your best weapons.

Another key problem with zombies is their heartiness.  Shoot 'em in the heart and they're still running or shambling at you.  You can shoot 'em in the head, but its a hard target, always moving around as they ambulate towards you.  One of the least explored weakness for the walking dead in pop culture is the fact that they walk.  Go for the legs.  Study martial exercises that ground the opponent.  Set up leg ravaging traps like this vietnam war era bamboo trap to decrease a zombie's lethality by as much as 80%



This is a very cheap and easy way to stunt your enemy's progress to your compound.  Personally  I'd rather a hundred crawling dead after me than one walker.

That's all the tips for now.  Happy zombie huntin'.