The water cannon is a great suggestion.orion wrote:I think War created the best zombie killing weapon: the cricket-bat-shotgun combination. Don't know where that picture is though.
Laemkral seems to have some good ideas, although I think the weaponry choices may be a bit off. Guns seem like a bad idea, while bullets are easy to make, modern gunpowder isn't that simple (you can make black powder, but you probably don't want to). If the zombies are really undead (as opposed to the 'sick' kind) then bullets are a very inneficient way of killing them, since bullets are designed to put small holes in people so that they start to lose blood or pierce a major organ. Neither are concerns for zombies.
Obviously, the weapons you described will definitely do the trick, but in order to make a bullet (like the .50 cal machine gun) actually inflict singificant zombie damage it has to be oversized and overpowered or explosive (like the grenade launcher). Neither can be easily looted or manufactured, and making them requires supplies not easily come across. Obviously if the military base you're holed up in has very deep ammo reserves you might be okay, but it seems like too much for the final result.
The fact that both weapons have automatic fire seems undesirable since it just is a waste of grenades/bullets on slow moving targets that can easily be taken out with single shots. The chemical/biological weapons would also be pretty much useless against unliving enemies.
The best weapon really should be the vehicle itself, a moderately fast armored vehicle can easily outrun the zombies, crush them, and is immune to them (like you mentioned) and it's 'ammo' (gasoline) is much easier to find than .50 cal machine gun ammo or grenade shells.
if there is a vehicle mounted weapon my first choice would be a riot control water cannon. Easily refueled, it won't kill them but it will knock them around plenty (especially since zombies tend to have poor balance) and give you an opportunity to get away or run them over.
I'd prefer the grenade launcher for early on, when the zombie crowd factor is high and grenades exploding amongst them would cause significant damage.
The .50 cal is actually an ideal anti-zombie weapon. Automatic, yes, but not like AK-47 automatic, slower rate of fire. The bullet, as I said, will quite literally take entire LIMBS off, and the shockwave can cause damage even if you miss. A direct hit to the chest with one of these = no more zombie. Great defensive weapon once you establish a home base.
Once I had a home base, I'd definitely swap the big guns for the water cannon on top but continue to use firearms on my personnel, though with a 50/50 mix of rifles and shotguns. Shotguns are highly effective but require close ranges. Rifles you can take targets out from a distance, and that's highly preferable to me. Good fire discipline from the rifles can pick off lone zombies while shotguns engage zombies near the vehicles, the water cannon acting as crowd control. Maybe even stripping off some zombie flesh in the process.
As far as resupplying, should you manage to clear the area, little harm in expanding area of operations to search out new resources provided it's done with caution and lots of firepower at hand.
