As with everything, nuclear war would be a question of scale. If you're talking about a nuclear exchange sufficient to effectively cripple public infrastructure, you'd be talking about dealing with all those health problems you mention combined with inadequate medical services, nutrition, mobility, and sanitation, and without the benefit of international aid and reconstruction, as Japan had after WWII.

What whack job has launch codes?

"What whack job has launch codes?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_jong_il

I stand corrected. What whack job has enough nuclear weapons at his disposal to any real damage?

It only takes one lobbed into Russia (why Russia? Why not Russia!) to provoke a reaction against N. Korea and China. Then China lobs one back at Russia and one at India for good measure. If India's going down you can bet it's taking Pakistan with it. Before you know it, everybody's playing.

Of course, if we're taking about infection rates in the 80-90% range, there's a very real likelihood that the people with the launch codes will be infected - or that 8/10 people with launch codes would be infected. In a stroke, Pakistan and North Korea - for example - could be left as the only two states with nuclear capacity. Now wouldn't *that* be a geopolitical game-changer?

I'm no expert in this area, but I'd also imagine that an 85% infection rate would wreck havoc on warhead delivery systems as well. What happens if 85% of the crew of a nuclear-armed submarine becomes zombified? 85% of the air force - pilots, ground crew, etc. - becomes zombified? And I don't know how missile siloes work, but could a zombie apocalypse infecting enough soldiers effect the effectiveness of the missile launch site even if the person with the launch codes was still healthy?

FlemGem, you make a solid case for North Korea needing to focus on the development of a zombie plague rather than nuclear weapons. The advantage they have is heavily controlled borders with relatively little visitors.

Of course it also depends on whether it is an airborne plague (such as in The Walking Dead) or whether it is only transmitted by contact (such as in most other zombie lore that I am familiar with at least.) I suggest the North Koreans focus on the contact version only.

I wish Putin33 was around more, he'd certainly have some great insight into North Korea's ability to withstand a zombie plague.

He pokes out from time to time, spews some communist propaganda, and disappears again. He's rarely seen anymore.

I'd like to throw out a counter-plan to all of this - survival at sea.

You'd be pretty safe from zombies out in the middle of a lake or something, or with a boat. Boats can be easily stocked with provisions, armament and are somewhat defensible. Additionally boats have the added advantage of mobility.

Personally, I think that most bunker-based survival strategies are self-defeating for the reason that, well...even if you are surviving in a bunker, who wants to be stuck in a siege environment? Maneuverability counts for a lot, especially if you need or want to achieve clandestine access to food/water or other resources.

A pirate's life for me!

An island has all of the advantages of a boat except for a lack of mobility, which it makes up for by being unsinkable. Remaining stationary could be bad for the overall long-term psychological health of the group, but keeping busy is a cure for this.

My Pre-Civil War fort has a dock, and there are four twin-masted schooners that work Portland Harbor. One of them even has a black hull. Avast ye!

It is interesting to note that there is an old Asian tribe of people who spend the majority of their lives on the sea with relative success:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moken_people

(And when I say dock, I mean, of course, a dredged deep-water berth with access to the Federal Channel)

@Gunfighter

Interesting - I tell you what - I think a boat would still be better. If you had a boat it wouldn't be that hard to find an abandoned island - hell, even pre-zombieapocaplyse it's not that hard to find an abandoned island.

I think mobility will be much more important in the event of a true disaster than firepower, defense and foodstock.

OK, so here are the revisions to my plan. You start out with a bug-out bag and a dirt bike. Even if the roads get bad, you can off-road to your boat. Hop on the sailboat and you can head a couple of miles out to sea (even the center of a river might do) and wait out the initial malarkey. The boat should be stocked with medicine, which I think people tend to underestimate. Finding food and water in the wild isn't *that* difficult if one knows what one is doing. Medicine is tough to make in a pinch.

Anyways, after stuff calms down a bit you can head inland and grab some tools. I think you'd probably want a few maps (maybe eight or nine, laminated) on your boat to tool factories (which will probably get abandoned, or you can barter with medicine). Once you've got a couple of boats, some crew, maybe an island and some tools you can work on sustainable housing, food procurement, communication gear, munitions and make more medicine.

Machining skill and field chemistry seem like the two most critical skills for my plan.

An island-based strategy could definitely incorporate some sort of naval or amphibious patrol if resources allow for it. Preferably with some sort of armored gunboat or patrol boat fitted with as many weapons as possible.

Your plan is risky but if it works the payoff would be near-ideal or ideal.

I've been working on a plan to re-take and secure the cities of Portland and South Portland, Maine within two years after the Zombie apocalypse. It assumes survival and ooperation on 1% of the population of the metro area (2,500 people) on the three main harbor islands. The plan begins with a scavenging trip up Long Creek to the National Guard armory at Clark's Pond (about 3 mi from the mouth of the harbor) then progresses with a beachhead at the Spring Point jetty in South Portland. From there, a sweep and secure operation of the campus of Southern Maine Community College, especially the metal shop, the greenhouses, and the biomass boiler with its electric cogeneration plant. Working our way up the point, we establish a defensible perimeter at the narrowest part of Spring point, which is only about 500 yards wide, surrounded by ocean on three sides, and leaves the college and the local Coast Guard base in our defended territory. When this is complete, we cross the harbor, making landfall at Fort Allen, and begin securing Downtown Portland. Since the downtown area is located on a peninsula and connected to the mainland only by a strip of land about 1500 meters and four bridges Two of them Drawbridges, I'm relatively certain that a force of 500, given no more that 24 months, could take and secure the area.

Assuming the cooperation of those survivors is ridiculously optimistic but other than that your plan is strategically and tactically feasible.

My ideal zombie survival plan would involve using a boat because of the geography of my area here in Annapolis, Maryland. There are a bazillion small sailboats/motorboats (most small sailboats have a motor as well for those less knowledgeable on the subject) in the area and the northern part of the Chesapeake Bay being so long and narrow with heavily indented shoreline of numerous rivers feeding into it makes for almost limitless opportunities to find areas to scavenge without going far from shore. I especially would rather take a boat than go further inland because that would mean moving closer to 2 roughly equidistant (both about 45min away from here) major cities: Baltimore and Washington, DC. Besides Baltimore the western shore is mostly suburbs so probably better for scavenging if more dangerous, while the eastern shore is heavily rural which provides benefits as well (probably more guns, farmland, less zombies). The US Naval Academy is right in town so that should be promising. Other major locations nearby include Fort McHenry of Star Spangled Banner fame, and even though that is on a narrow peninsula it is basically in downtown Baltimore so maybe not the best idea to set up there in the beginning at least. Also there is the Aberdeen Proving Ground along the coast north of Baltimore which is a large military weapons testing area.

In general I think using a boat would be a pretty good strategy in addition to the ability to scavenge the coast and not have to worry as much about zombies boarding you. Yes it could be sunk and you don't have much room to run if there is a zombie on the boat, but it would also be easy to just push the zombie off or defend a narrow section. Assuming many people in the area get the idea to use a boat (they are so numerous in my area after all), it should still be fine, because you would have enough room to avoid bumping into a stranded boat with zombies on it, and a naval battle between hostile groups of survivors would probably not be pleasant but would be easier to avoid and be ready for since you you have easy line of sight to give the entire crew enough warning if another boat comes into view.

Well, I'm estimating, given the large number of islands, the high gun ownership rate, and the relatively diffuse population, that the survival rate in Maine will be somewhat above the national average... say 5%. Then I'm assuming that 20% of that 5% will cooperate. I think that's not excessively optimistic. And assuming we see relative success, I think we can expect recruitment from among the remaining 4%.

It also commits only 20% of the estimated surviving population as a fighting force, with the remaining 80% dedicated to farming, fishing, maintenance, weapons production once the metal shop is taken and operational, distribution, and administration.

After all, Peaks Island alone has a year-round population of about 850, Long Island has 230, Chebeague has 341, Great Diamond has 71, and Cliff Island has 60. That's 3/5 of the estimated total survivors right there.

@ hecks I misunderstood your numbers. I didn't know you already figured for a 20% cooperation rate.

@ RampantLion Aberdeen Proving Ground would be extremely promising. If you're lucky, you might get your hands on some experimental weaponry. The US Naval Academy would be a little less promising. It's a school first, military installation second.

Yeah I know the Naval Academy wouldn't have as much in the way of weapons being primarily a school, but it is essentially a walled in area that can house many people, that also has a potentially higher chance of having a survivor community so that's something.

Yeah. The population of the metro area is 250,000, so I figure 5% would survive (12,500), including most of the year-round island-dwellers. More, if the zombie plague hit during the summer, when the island populations balloon. Of that 12,500, I think we could marshal 2,500 under the banner of re-taking the city.

2,500 ragtag untrained "militia" versus 200,000+ ravenous zombies that only die if you shoot them in the head or cut/burn them up. I think retaking the city would be unlikely.

I'm just talking about the downtown area, which sits on an isolated peninsula. The metro area is 250,000, but the city itself is 65,000, with fewer than half of those being on the peninsula. Presuming that most people attempt to flee the city when the plague hits, you're talking about 2,500 armed volunteers against maybe 25,000-30,000 zombies acting on instinct alone. You'd have to average 41 kills a day to kill off the estimated zombie population within two years. If you buy into the theory that the zombies will freeze solid during a Maine winter, I think that should be easily doable, especially once you control the four bridges onto the peninsula.

And if you added in the entire population of South Portland (which you wouldn't; the vast majority of the population lives well outside the Spring Point neighborhood I've outlined about), that's another 25,000, so you'd have to average about 80 kpd. Still very doable for a fighting force of 500, with the other 2,000 working behind the lines on infrastructure maintenance and food and weapons production.