Chapter 35-3 The End is Near

[Witch_Doctor]

From early statements we know that there were hundreds "or more" - mentioned at The War and especially at the hospital. And I guess it is a safe assumption that the ones from the hospital are the same as the ones attacking The Colony now, because in both cases the Behemoths were the same in number - just coincidence? I doubt it.
Liam

Awesome catch LiamKerrington!!! I can picture you sitting in a darkened room with diagrams, outlines, charts, and clippings from forum posts taped on the walls with tables covered with scale models of the show. Nothing gets past you.

[Cabbage Patch]

...and what about common sense shit like BUILDING A MOAT? There's a reason moats were used extensively in the middle ages: they freaking worked. Or a page could be taken from Leiningen Versus the Ants, in which the protagonist uses a variety of moats and ditches.

By "moat", I don't necessarily mean a water moat, but a big ditch filled with jagged things would be highly effective. By leaving one or two paths of ingress/egress, it creates a bottleneck for the zombies. In all this time, nobody at Irwin or the Colony considered this?

In the army these things are called anti-tank ditches, they would be an excellent addition to the defense of the base, and soldiers at Fort Irwin should have been masters at emplacing them. Here's a cross-section view of a common design

The design of the anti-tank ditch works exactly like a moat, putting a wide barrier in front of an enemy that is hard for them to cross, stops their forward momentum, and causes them to bunch up, making it easier to kill them. A couple of design refinements include the shear face on the far side of the ditch, usually topped with barbed wire, intended to make it hard for normal humans to climb up. The base of the ditch can be mined, and makes an excellent kill zone for hand grenades dropped from above or mortar fire. And it's SOP to site machineguns so that they can fire down the length of the trench.

When I was at Fort Irwin every training unit would have to construct anti-tank ditches, sometimes miles of them, in support of their operations. There were warehouses full of reinforcing and barrier materials on hand to support this work. When they finished their missions we made them fill them all back in again and turn in the supplies.

[Witch_Doctor]

I think that it is interesting that it is implied that an attack was mounted by the Zombies simply based on one following Pete and Glenn.

I thought the same thing initially but I've come to learn that unless there is a glaring hint that something else could be the case then I was just second guessing the obvious. One thought I had was that maybe Roman just returned to the Colony like Griggs returned to Bolder, but I believe Victor finished off Roman. It seems like too little time passed for them to follow a truck by walking unless the route took Pete and Glenn around countless trees and these zombies are refugees from Camp Crystal Lake. KC mentioned something about a false pause that may indicate an indeterminate length of passing time.

Kc

Quote:
Originally Posted by Litmaster
Lit's Criticism
Ok, it seems a bit of a stretch at this point that a whole zombie army would mobilize and chase after one fleeing car with a couple of guys in it, so I'm going to have to call bullshit on the rationale for the zombie attack unless Kc reveals a bit more feasible explanation (such as, that it was just a handful of stray zombies that followed and not a full, organized ZomArmy). Damn, is food really that scarce in LA nowadays?
One thing I'll throw out there- As I tread lightly in my responses. There is a delay of when the episode has the false ending. In other words a small amount of time has passed between the two scenes when Victor sees the things and when they first arrive.

Not much to give you, but, well, there it is.

Which lends itself all the more to the idea that Ink himself is the one reading all of these Diaries.

The problem I see with this is that ALL of the journal entries between Day #1 and the Tanya Snatching were scanned into a digital format. Ink had enough trouble with a keypad.


On a side note. The Inklings attacking Fort Irwin are likely slow turners OR Hitchhikers. 1000 miles is a long way to chase cars on foot from Boulder to Newbury to Ft. Irwin. I'm leaning towards slow turners. Unless of course, they're driving like the ambushing zombie that drove the car to trap CJ's convoy.

Also, do zombies turned by the Tall Inklings grown tall? Victor said that the one with the beard was too small to be a numbered zombie. More thoughts to ponder.

[Witch_Doctor]

Awesome catch LiamKerrington!!! I can picture you sitting in a darkened room with diagrams, outlines, charts, and clippings from forum posts taped on the walls with tables covered with scale models of the show. Nothing gets past you.

Of course, I know for a CERTAIN that CP does it...

Exhibit A:

In the army these things are called anti-tank ditches, they would be an excellent addition to the defense of the base, and soldiers at Fort Irwin should have been masters at emplacing them. Here's a cross-section view of a common design

The design of the anti-tank ditch works exactly like a moat, putting a wide barrier in front of an enemy that is hard for them to cross, stops their forward momentum, and causes them to bunch up, making it easier to kill them. A couple of design refinements include the shear face on the far side of the ditch, usually topped with barbed wire, intended to make it hard for normal humans to climb up. The base of the ditch can be mined, and makes an excellent kill zone for hand grenades dropped from above or mortar fire. And it's SOP to site machineguns so that they can fire down the length of the trench.

When I was at Fort Irwin every training unit would have to construct anti-tank ditches, sometimes miles of them, in support of their operations. There were warehouses full of reinforcing and barrier materials on hand to support this work. When they finished their missions we made them fill them all back in again and turn in the supplies.

[SmokeyZombified]

So whose to say that Irwin doesn't already have the tank ditch? It seems plausible, maybe it just hasn't been mentioned yet? Also excuse my ignorance but can some one explain to me whats going on at Irwin? I always invisioned a fort like setting. As in a huge fort surrounded by walls, and yet they say their front line is being overrun, and all of the check points are being overrun. So I'm assuming the front line is outside of the defenses and the check points are sitting outside of the fort? It seemed like they were being completely overrun, but if they are inside of a defended fort with walls shouldn't they be relatively safe?

[scbubba]

So whose to say that Irwin doesn't already have the tank ditch? It seems plausible, maybe it just hasn't been mentioned yet? Also excuse my ignorance but can some one explain to me whats going on at Irwin? I always invisioned a fort like setting. As in a huge fort surrounded by walls, and yet they say their front line is being overrun, and all of the check points are being overrun. So I'm assuming the front line is outside of the defenses and the check points are sitting outside of the fort? It seemed like they were being completely overrun, but if they are inside of a defended fort with walls shouldn't they be relatively safe?

Of the domestic US military bases I've worked on (former DoD contractor), none of them fit the "castle wall" kind of setup. They have controlled vehicle access gates and several ways to defend against attack. But most have very large perimeters and expect ground assaults to be mainly vehicle based.

All that to say, very large numbers of hard to kill individuals would be hard to defend against, me thinks.

But I've never been in the military nor actually defended a base, so I may be mistaken.

[Cabbage Patch]

...when The Colony was described the first time, it had the size of what area again? A whole block?
Anyone here has an idea about how huge this place actually is?
And therefore how many zeehs would you need to surround the place ... ?

The Colony is based on a place called Liberty Park in Westminster, CA. Here's an aerial view:


Figure the Colony consists of the park and the rows of buildings along the perimeter on each side. My guess is maybe sixteen blocks enclosed by the walls.

[Cabbage Patch]

Of the domestic US military bases I've worked on (former DoD contractor), none of them fit the "castle wall" kind of setup. They have controlled vehicle access gates and several ways to defend against attack. But most have very large perimeters and expect ground assaults to be mainly vehicle based.

All that to say, very large numbers of hard to kill individuals would be hard to defend against, me thinks.

But I've never been in the military nor actually defended a base, so I may be mistaken.

There aren't any walls around the main base at Fort Irwin, just a barbed wire fence with cattle grates at the crossing points. But there are very effective choke points on every access route to the base that could be turned into giant kill zones, and enough space to conduct an effective defense in depth.

[LiamKerrington]

Hi there,

The Colony is based on a place called Liberty Park in Westminster, CA. Here's an aerial view:
http://www.zombiepodcast.com/forum/a...4&d=1342467691

Figure the Colony consists of the park and the rows of buildings along the perimeter on each side. My guess is maybe sixteen blocks enclosed by the walls.

thank you. Mh ... 16 Blocks ... That's a lot ... Zombies all around ... Would something in the 'early' thousands then ... o_O!

[love bump]

Hi there,



thank you. Mh ... 16 Blocks ... That's a lot ... Zombies all around ... Would something in the 'early' thousands then ... o_O!

i don't think they fortified all 16 blocks look at the pic of the colony



but then again that picture only shows one side so maybe