Outbreak II

[Yeti]

Correct use of nukes is a Civilian Authority descision, even rogue General contrary to popular hollyweird logic can't get them released to themselves.

Currently the civilian leadership and much of the military leadership is in disarray.
While I can see napalming, nukes are a huge step to take especially on US soil. Wasting one on Jackson, Ky at that.

[DarkAxel]

Yeti, this is your party. I'll edit that.

I've learned quite a lot about the shortcomings of my preps. My posts here have not really went into detail about them for several reasons, but I am revising my prep strategy. My involvement in this thread has made me realize that I had put all my eggs in one basket. My current situation dictates that I must bug in, and I've never given any real thought to an INCH situation or a long-term bug out. My last post was to get me in that direction, and I went a little overboard trying to come up with an INCH scenario.

I realized years ago that as long as I had soil, seed, and potable water, I could get by. Everything else is a luxury for me. Unless something disrupts my ability to farm, I can't see anything that would really endanger my ability to survive short of a disabling injury. My current lifestyle will be seriously disrupted, but the life I've lived has prepared me for drastic changes and hard times. Given a chance to bug in, my main problems would be psychological in nature. That and keeping my brother alive.

[DarkAxel]

Correct use of nukes is a Civilian Authority decision, even rogue General contrary to popular hollyweird logic can't get them released to themselves.

Currently the civilian leadership and much of the military leadership is in disarray.
While I can see napalming, nukes are a huge step to take especially on US soil. Wasting one on Jackson, Ky at that.

NORAD does have emergency release authority in the case of nuclear attack. I'm not sure how far that emergency power will go, though.

[IceWing]

I need to finish editing\adding to my last post still, but I felt the need to chime in here..

What you're talking about is, in effect, nuclear carpet bombing of pretty much ALL of the industrialized\urbanized areas of the US. This would, unfortunately, result in the death of pretty much EVERY survivor, as the rads\fallout will not be survivable on this scale.

I agree that napalming would be the better solution, although the best case would be to get the hordes to open areas where the armed forces could killbox them en masse. Remember, most modern military weapons, you die from trauma or bloodloss. This will not work with zombies.

Ice

[BassDrum]

Water stopped flowing completely today. We only have about6 gal/person left of potable drinking water, not to mention other uses.

Saw the man from yesterday outside again, it seems he was trying to fortify the house he broke into, possibly for a more long term place to live. He had a truck that he pulled into the garage of the house, so I guess he had a little sense and has it stashed before he came into the neighborhood. I don't really know what happened to the guy who owns the house but I sure don't want to be involved if he needs his house back any time soon.

Me and Friend went outside this afternoon and confronted him. We went out the side window again, walked up the street, then waved him down from a distance by yelling to him, which caused him to nearly jump out of his skin. We didn't want him knowing we lived across the street.

He seemed friendly enough and didn't raise his rifle to us except for when we spooked him. He told us he was the manager of a grocery store in North Huntsville and had been bugged in at his apartment with his girlfriend when he was 'robbed' for his things and his home. There had been four men that came to his door and pretended to be in dire straights, and they needed some supplies to get to some family's house around here. He gave them what he could spare and before he knew it they were breaking his door down. He ended up shooting all four of them, but his GF was killed in the struggle. With his door destroyed and him not wanting to knock on any others for help, he loaded up his truck and headed out here. He told us he was friends with the owner of the house and that he felt that he would understand if he ever came back.

We apologized for his loss and asked him if he had any training with his weapons or any other valuable skill. He said he could grow food pretty well and that he used to hunt with his father and shot his AR and handguns at the range once in a while, so he was a pretty good shot with them.

We ended up telling him where we lived and mentioned our lack of water, to which he offered up a portion of his meager supply, which was happily accepted by us. We told him we'd be back over later and if he needed anything to get our attention.

When we got back to the house we talked it out and decided that we would trust him as far as being a neighbor and helping eachother out, and that we would ask him for any input on the lack of water tomorrow.

[DarkAxel]

3 July

Well, things absolutely suck. Everything I worked so hard for is gone. All of my food has been "requisitioned". The guns I can't carry on me were passed out amongst the rest of the men of my community. My family was evacuated to a refugee camp being set up at Ft. Campbell, along with the rest of the healthy folks not pressed into service.

The last few days have seen us riding around and clearing houses, evacuating survivors, and fighting against those who resisted. I don't like it. Not one bit.

Yesterday morning we made it to Buckhorn Lake. A few families had set up near the dam. They fired on us and retreated back to the dam when the Bushmaster cannon on the Captain's APC returned fire. Our response? two groups of sappers tossed satchel charges at them. The dam didn't rupture, but the blasts killed the families and cracked the concrete up pretty badly. One of my neighbors tried to run after seeing that. He was shot before he got very far.

This morning, I found out that the Acting Governor had been infected and sanitized. Just who the fuck is giving the orders now? Ever since I've been stashing as much food, water purification tablets, and ammo as I can get away with in my pack. I'm getting ready to bug out from this rolling prison. I don't know where I'm going or even if I'll survive the attempt, but dammit, I can't take this shit anymore.

[Biggin]

June 29th

We had our first military convoy pull in today. It was comprised of two bradleys, 4 humvees and a tanker. The grills on the humvee were blood stained and the soldiers looking worse for wear. They pulled up to the gate and called out on a bull horn. We dropped the white flag and Mr. Wes walked out swinging a white t-shirt over his head to signal that he was uninfected. He went to the gate and talked with them some then got into the tractor and moved the trees out of the road. He they unlocked the gate. Two soldiers came in and secured him and put him into one of the humvees. Three humvees came up to the house and parked in the driveway. The M240b machine guns were leveled at the house and they ordered us outside, unarmed, with our hands up. Our group filed out and we stopped in front of them. They asked if any of us were infected. We all shook our heads. The medic with the group came by and shined a light in each of our eyes and checked our arms and legs for bites. Once seeing we were all clean, there was a visible wave of relief that swept over the roughly twelve troops that came in on the humvees. Mr. Wes was allowed to rejoin us.

"Got any water?" a soldier asked.
"Plenty, how much do you need?" Mr. Wes replied.

The soldier pulled off two five gallon tanks from the back of the humvee. He and another followed Mr. Wes to the back to our water source and filled up.

"How is the city?" I asked one of the grunts.
"Fucking gone. Theres nothing out there anymore. We made our way through from Ft. Beauregard. It was a tough fight. We stayed in the humvees though and battered slash exploded our way down Masonic drive. We are headed to the airport for resupply right now."
"Shit... we've only had one show up here... I guess they have been staying near the city."
"Well if you have weapons I suggest you stay armed up and get ready for a fight. They will make it here eventually... it's only a matter of time. (He saw the apprehensive look on my face) Don't worry, man. We aren't going to take your guns contrary to what the news casts say. That would be a death sentence. We did the whole taking guns thing at first, but after we came through and found a family we took a couple of Ar-15s from all dead our little grouped vowed not to disarm anyone else. Fuck the fed."

I was relieved to hear this. We gave them a few packs of jerky and their water. They ate a little then went on their way.

June 30th

We had another run in with infected today. At the warning of the crew we met yesterday, we decided to have a rotating sniper duty between me, Mr Wes, dad, and Daniel. At around noon we had two break through and start coming down the way towards the house. Both were easily dropped by my brother with the .308. At 1400 we had one more come through. It too was dropped. We decided to arm up and get ready because we were afraid of what may happen next. We ended up having seven more come through before night fall. At night fall we turned off all lights and had a strict silence code. We suspended the rotating sniper duty since we had no way to ID targets (I need to look into NVG as part of my preps.). We closed the storm shutters on the lower floors and moved to the upstairs to sleep.

July 1st

I awoke right at day break. I crept to the upstairs lookout window... there were six infected milling about amongst the trees.... this was bad. I woke up my dad and showed him the scene. We decided to wake up Mr. Wes and Daniel to decide what to do about this. We were sure they followed the army grunts from the other day here. We had to be able to get outside... we needed to kill them all.

We armed up... Daniel with the .308, Mr. Wes with the .300, me with the AR, dad with the AK. We took up positions and took aim on four different infected. When the first fired we all fired. Two heads exploded (thank you .308 and .300 magnum). My dad's target dropped and started crawling. I hit mine in the throat but must have missed the spine because it stumbled then started loping towards the house. I took aim and fired two shots. One hit its jaw, the other slightly higher... dropping it in its tracks. My dad fired another shot into his crawler and its headed fell limp onto the dirt.

We almost forgot about the other two. They were farther away. It got a little chaotic after that because we hadn't really planned what to do after we killed the closer four. Six shots ripped through one of the remainders, four through the other.

We all topped off our mags and got ready to eat breakfast... what a great way to start the day.

We kept the storm shutters up as a precaution... good thing we did. A few hours later we started hearing banging on the front of the house... the fuckers were really coming out of the wood work now. We checked the cameras. There were four more on the porch and two more were coming down the driveway. This was getting out of hand fast. I took the 870 and roped up. I was going to go out the window and onto the over-hang of the porch. We wrapped one end of the rope around the banister and my dad and brother held it in case I lost my footing on the roof. There was no way I wanted to end up on the ground with that many infected. I had the 870 slung up and my G21 in its serpa on my hip. I walked out onto the roof and laid down so I could look over the ledge at the porch. I saw the four zeds each mindlessly pounding on the shutters and front door. I took aim at the first one and blasted his head to bits with the 12 gauge buckshot. The other three spun around and I popped up to avoid their rotting grasp. The rest were easy to pick off because they just bunched up below me and extended their arms up. I took aim at each one and blew them all away. The two approaching the house were much closer now. I traded the shotgun for the more accurate AR and took them out before they made it to the concrete part of the driveway. Three more had were working their way over the fence. This was not good.

We fought off zeds until night fall when we turned in due to lack of visibility.

July 2nd

There must have been 20 of them outside this morning... this is getting worse every day. Morale is at an all time low for our group. We don't say it, but the thought of being trapped in here and having to listen to the moans and the banging is on everyone's mind. Even worse is the thought of them getting inside and getting to us. We have hard decisions to make.

It took a while to clear out the ones that had congregated over night.

Around 1600, four humvees, a bradley, a tanker, and a bull dozer went by the gate. We speculated about what the bull dozer was for. I thought it was to get through masses of infected... a scary thought.

After the troops went by we didn't see another infected... we hoped they led them away. We decided it was time to fortify the house more. We used bricks from the garage to brick up the front windows. The shutters would work for a couple of infected, but if we got a mass of them then they would surely break.

We have started running the generators periodically. We run them when they are needed but to save gas we try not to constantly run them. We haven't heard much news since we talked with the grunts a few days ago.

July 3rd

Today was a pretty good day. No zeds breached the fence. We cut down a bunch of trees and started on a sturdier, less passable wood fence to line the highway. We took a few of the cars and parked them as close as possible to the fence. Considering there were eight cars total parked in the driveway, we could spare a few to reinforce the fence. Tomorrow is independence day... hopefully there will NOT be fireworks. We can hear small explosions and automatic gunfire coming from the city... not surprising considering what the soldiers said about the city.

[stetson]

I really enjoyed this thread, thanks to the posters.

[0122358]

wow i know know im a year late...but this was AWSOME, i just spent two hours reading it...if we were ever to do this again...that would be cool lol

[Mr. Death]

this was a good story yeti registered just to post on it im thinking i might start my own. think u can help

[0122358]

this was a good story yeti registered just to post on it im thinking i might start my own. think u can help

oh hell yeah id love to help...if i can embelish on my preps a TINY bit lol Send me a PM if anyone starts another one

[Mr. Death]

by a little bit u mean?

[0122358]

by a little bit u mean?

I dont have everything i plan to have but lets say adding one more gun, some more food and ammo...stuff like that, just stuff i plan to purchase but havent had the time to

[Mr. Death]

alright sounds reasonable

[IceWing]

I've contemplated starting another one of these, but right now, the load at work and home is a bit too high...

If I may make a suggestion, the rules I'll be playing by are 'as is'...

So, for example, me personally, I've depleted some of my supplies and haven't refreshed. I'd play it as our preps stand now... It's more realistic AND it will quickly illuminate your shortfalls...

Why not go buy a .22 rifle right now, and a couple of bags of rice and vac seal em so when we do have another one of these, you can play honestly and be able to make the same decisions in the practice run that you would have to make in real life? (Example, I'm draining our pool right now... I'm not going to claim its up if I start Outbreak III this weekend... I'm going to curse cause I just took it down and it's going to blow a day of time in the scenario getting it reassembled.)

Ice

[Mr. Death]

right now im thinking how im going to go about the beginning of the story for instance should i have a lone zombie dropped into a major city in a major travel hub,should i give em super speed or super strength

[0122358]

right now im thinking how im going to go about the beginning of the story for instance should i have a lone zombie dropped into a major city in a major travel hub,should i give em super speed or super strength

i was watching The Walking Dead today...we could start with the cliche government chastatrophy of a experiment gone worng but Z number one doeant realize until hes rushed to the hospital and declared dead...then all the people hes come in contact with will be infected much like the flu or somthing...say incubation period 36 hours and death at 72 hours with reanimation no more then 24 after death...just an idea...

Icewing....your right it would and will be more benificial to play as is...makes it more fair in the long run....it gives me more of an incentive to go buy more gear though.

Dad: Hey bud...whered you get that case of MREs and .223?
Me: oh i bought it ofline.
Dad: why?
Me: because im participating in an online zombie apocolyse senario and i want to be truthful.
Dad: ok, next time order some 7.62 for my AK would ya and ill pay you back...

BTW...if someone could PM when ya'll start it up...that would be so awsome so i dont arrive late to the party...i have a habit of not checking the forums for new threads for a few days at a time...

[Mr. Death]

hmmm cliche goverment messed the hell up story eh oooooohhhhhh just remembered something from a movie i watched if i add that to teh scenario humanity stands a slitly different chance at winning the war against the zeds

[IceWing]

Just a heads up, I'm working up a scenario right now in what little free time I have.

I'm expecting to start it in the next week or two...

PM me if you're interested.

I'll probably start a thread for Outbreak III soon.

Here are the rules I'm thinking.

1.) Play it real - Preps are what you've got when it starts. This is a training scenario to show short comings in your preps as well as to test your decision making capabilities and observation skills. Obviously this is an honor system.

2.) When you sign up\join in, I need to know your general area (Town would be nice, but I understand OPSec, so maybe something near by you. At the MINIMUM, I need to know, let's say TV viewing area... So, as an example. I'd like to get info that says 'The Bronx', but NYC is good enough).

3.) I also need to know what news sites you read on a regular basis as well as other information nets you're tied into. (I'm doing my world\timeline building now, and, for example, if there is nobody around Atlanta, GA who listens to a scanner, then some little snippet may be missed, even though I've got it written out. I may however report some fictional 'participants' who can feed information in.)

4.) Although yes, I am doing Zombies on this one (it was almost a pandemic instead, and there will be pandemic LIKE things occurring) I'm going to go for some 'realism' as well. Bad luck DOES happen but I'm not planning on screwing anybody over excessively, well, besides introducing zombies to the world.

Thoughts and comments are appreciated.

Ice

[Blood_Moon]

This was pretty neat to see, just sad I missed it (a year ago). I just gotta say one thing. I have in recent months had a startling and depressing realization regarding the Zombocalypse here in Omaha, NE. You see, there isn't a guy on the police department that hasn't made comments regarding their prepps for the zombies. While most of them are more concerned with the guns and ammo end of things (I can't say much... I have about 3k rnds for the AR, another 3k for the .40's, 100 for the 30-06, and about 5k for the .22's, but I also have food and essentials!) they are at least aware of the typical symptoms of the zombification process. They are also acutely aware of the "remedy", and wholly excited at the prospect.
Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that under the conditions provided in this thread the zombie apocalypse would go something like this...

Oct 1:
Outbreak starts in Lincoln, NE (capitol city of NE) and reports begin to come in regarding unusual attacks in the city.

Oct 3:
The attacks continue and become more frequent

Oct 5:
Several attacks reported in Omaha, guys at work start talking about the obvious conclusion when dealing with attackers who do not bleed and are relatively unaffected by body shots... they must be zombies.

Oct 7 at approx 1600 hrs:
1 week after initial attacks, FBI and DHS finally release bulletin to all LEO's regarding the strange attacks, whether they use the name zombies or not is irrenevant, everyone knows what it means. Those infected to the point of reanimation are declared a nuisance and an immediate threat to persons and or property. A SOS (shoot on site) order is declared. Those that have been infected but have not yet expired and reanimated are instructed to be transported to secured sites where pathologists will attempt to find a cure before they turn (one can be hopeful). Specific criteria for differentiating the walking un-dead from the walking dead (the cracked out, perpetually drunk hobo's that look like zombies) are specified, probably entailing their appearance, reaction to stimuli, and unusual body temperature.

Oct 7 1615 hrs:
On-duty officers have notified the off duty guys that the zombocalypse is officially ON! Officers across the city are jumping out of bed to get their anti-zombie gear.

Oct 7 1630 hrs:
At least 1/2 the police department is on the streets, either in cruisers or personal vehicles cruising the streets looking for confirmed Zeds, using whatever means they can possibly find to draw them out ranging from cruiser pa systems to chunks of raw meat.

Oct 7 1700 hrs: After a couple dozen sightings/shots fired, no more can be located. A special detail is organized to have officers patrol the city searching for possible outbreaks which are quickly dealt with. The patrols continue for some months beyond the last zombie sighting. Soon the zombie apocalypse is relegated to the most over told story of a single hour where the world almost came to an end.


Yes, I believe that in all likelyhood, the zombie apocalypse would only last about an hour from the first solid confirmation to the point where the infection was under control, and would likely involve 400 officers flying around the city trying to get a few Z's under their belt before it was entirely contained. This is assuming Lincoln (and every other capitol city) didn't immediately eliminate the threat themselves because I doubt that the Omaha Police Department's love for zombie lore is unique. This is also assuming a few good days for their numbers to get sufficiently strong that they may be able to sustain themselves, and possibly start a true spread. Now I will admit that there may be a few officers who won't be able to pull off head shots with a hand gun under the stress of an advancing zombie (we have one guy that just switched from his rusted out .38 revolver to a glock within the last 6 months, and yes, he was a horrible shot and never practiced, hence the rust), but here we have over 350 officers that carry ar-15's (in their cruiser, not on them sadly), and I have yet to meet one of them that does not want the "Zombie Hunter" patch that I wear on my tac vest!

[IceWing]

Because of course, the government will be right on top of whatever problems arise in a timely manner...

The scenario you describe, which sounds like a low level class 2 outbreak, sure the 450 cops on the force would be more than able to respond to it... Assuming that the public stays home and only infected are on the street, that there is no opportunity crime occurring that would require a police\first responder reaction like fires burning out of control, car wrecks, the Mayor's daughter is missing, etc.

Also, what happens if Omaha is NOT the initial source of the outbreak, but instead one morning finds the entire town besieged by thousands of undead from the surrounding countryside? Now your 450 cops are hosed in very short order.

Ice

[Blood_Moon]

See the problem with this line of thinking is that it forgets the part where I mentioned that I am sure that Omaha is not the only police department with this kind of mindset. You think that we are the only people that joke about zombies? I am pretty sure that almost anywhere that a viral zombie infection starts, the locals would pretty much take care of it themselves. The whole zombie thing has been played out so much by the media that pretty much EVERYONE knows what they look like, and how to deal with them. Additionally, that 450 number was assuming that half the department was not made aware of it in due time, there are actually somewhere around 800-900 street cops in Omaha, plus several hundred more for Douglas County Sheriff's Dept (the county in which Omaha resides). So lets still assume some of them are still sleeping or taking care of the various other issues you mentioned (the city is staffed by about 150 patrol officers each night, so lets say they upped that to 200 to account for the increased call load) and say that there are 1000 officers that are out there actively participating in the zombie hunt. How many zombies do you think one officer with an AR-15 and a couple hundred rounds could dispatch on average? I am talking average here, so that we can account for a couple that get stupid and get ambushed, so bring down the numbers. I am thinking at LEAST 10. That is 10,000 dead zeds. Now lets also include all the forum crawlers and fanboys in the city that have a gun and are waiting for the zombies, you know, guys like you and me. I am pretty sure that you can find a few thousand gun owners per city that have the means and general knowledge to get a few zeds on average. You see where I am going? The numbers are looking pretty good in favor of my scenario because most people realize that zombies are really the greatest threat as a swarm. Why? Because one on one, zombies will lose to an appropriately armed human 90% of the time, even if all they have is a bludgeon. Really, zombies popularity has become their undoing. Everyone knows to go for the head. Plus we haven't even gotten into the active duty and reserves.

Sure, say what you want about the government having their heads up their collective asses or whatever, but remember that at the base level, it is staffed by normal people like me and you. Only the upper echelons are really too far removed from reality to see what is happening. To think that you and your little internet buddies are the only people that know what to do is just egocentric and foolish.

Now were this infection to be airborne, or worse yet, a "hell is full so suddenly there are millions across the landscape" kind of thing, then I would be worried, but that isn't the scenario that was being run here, now is it...

[IceWing]

First, cops (and military) are NOT taught to make headshots... They are trained to shoot at center mass.

Secondly, do you REALLY think that a cop is going to think 'hey, this guy shambling at me is a zombie!' ?

No, he's going to think it's a drunk. And you know what? It probably is.

Cops are not the TV stereotypes. They don't want to have to draw their weapons (by and large) and if they do, they know that IF they pull the trigger, they're probably going to be up before IA within 72 hours.

Edit: Oh, BTW, the first cop that says there is a zombie invasion is going to be on unpaid leave pending psyche eval. There's a great story in the fiction section which I think would be a good example of the cover up that would occur in the opening days IF a small town sheriff's office were amongst the first to have hints... (can't find the link though)

Bottom line is, I think you're wrong. And, since I'm going to be running Outbreak III, in that scenario, you're wrong.

Rule #2. The DM is always right.
Rule #2a If the DM is not right, the next dice roll will ensure that he is.

Ice

[Blood_Moon]

I didn't say that a few would not be lost in the initial confusion as the infection spread, but when the first few start turning they will probably catch on pretty quick. Yeah, they are going to assume something other than zombie at first, but when presented with the evidence in front of them, they can put the pieces together. They are not mindless automatons as you seem to think they are. And what they are trained to do by their department and what they train to do on their own are entirely different things. They are still human and able to adapt to the situation that they are presented with. If body shots are doing nothing, they transition to other targets... kinda like when dealing with someone on PCP.

Believe me, I know that cops are not the TV stereotype, but as far as drawing weapons, that is not a big deal and happens almost nightly in parts of the city. It's actually shooting that happens far less often, and there is a great deal of training that goes into preparing them for that. You shoot to eliminate the threat, which means doing what you have to in order to end the attack.

Really, I have to wonder what your local PD must be like for you to have this image of them as being unable to cope with unusual circumstances. How many officers have you spoken with regarding their plans for the Zombie Apocalypse? Because all of them that I know joke about it all the time! I actually know quite a few since I happen to be one of them.

You can believe what you want about how it would go down because hey, it's all a joke anyway, but really your perception of cops is pretty shallow.

Additionally, pulling the "I'm right and your wrong because I make the rules!" is pretty immature. I had no intention of posting my real opinions in Outbreak III, because it is after all, a game. That is why I posted here after it was all said and done, and not during the next run. If you are just pissed because I rained on your zombocalypse dreams, then I apologize, I will leave logic out of fanciful things in future.