Comment on Survive the zombie apocalypse
Adalast@lemmy.world 6 months agoKatana is too difficult to maintain, crossbow bolts can be fashioned by hand from found materials, first aid kit can be scavenged pretty easily. If this is starting gear, go for the stuff that is either rare or likely to be scavenged first, and that is easy for you to maintain by hand. Jeeps aren’t rare, real body armor is. The machete is the go-to blade for many parts of the world for a reason. It is heavy enough to cleave small brush and limbs alike, sturdy enough that it isn’t likely to break on you, and you can get a utility or survival version that has a saw on the back and other useful tools included in it. Only take the Jeep if you are proficient in maintaining it and know how to make biodiesel. If you have those skills, go for it. Your assessment is correct. If not, it is prioritizing short-term benefits over even medium-term. Even on a full tank, you have less than a day’s travel in it. Then it becomes a hard-walled tent or tiny home, take your pick of feel-good terminology. Depending on your starting location, that half-day of travel may not be enough to get you safely away from population centers. If you are in any major US East Coast city, you are fucked. You can barely make it into the Appalachians on one tank, and certainly not remote enough to be safe. As you move further and further west, that becomes less and less of an issue. If you are in the SW, a Jeep becomes top tier pick because it lets you navigate offroad to somewhere truly remote and provides adequate hauling capacity for scavenged materials for setting up a secure base of operations.
Sanyanov@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Now that’s a good assessment
Adalast@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Where are you, I’d love to analyze a different country?. Who knows, pigs may fly and I may be able to afford to be traveling abroad when Z-Day happens.
Sanyanov@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Russia
Adalast@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Looking at this population density map of Russia and the satellite map on Google, I feel like the Jeep would only be a viable take if you are somewhere in the medium-density band like the area around Neya. Looking further North, and correct me if I’m wrong, the terrain looks like it takes on a generally rough aspect. Looks like a decent amount of steep hills and mountains which lack infrastructure, so while the jeep could offroad it, the time it would take to traverse would be onerous and diminish the already abysmal fuel efficiency.
Exploring this forestry map I am seeing a lot of dense tall forests as you move north through the western part of the country, which is also looking like pretty rough terrain, so I am thinking the list I would go for in that region would be the fire axe, wrist rocket, winterized body armor, and climbing gear or a backpack. Clean water should not be as much of an issue given the number of lakes and accompanying tributaries in the region, plentiful wood supply for small fires for purifying water, and I’m pretty sure a lot of it is coniferous (correct?) which would mean that there should be ample tinder in dry needles so most fire kits would be overkill.
The real difficult decision is in the climbing gear, as being able fo ascend a cliff or tall tree and safely secure yourself would be ideal for Z-poc survival. Just ascend the tree, drive a piton in and fashion a sleeping harness from the climbing rope. Make sure you have a good amount of ammo for the wrist rocket and in the morning you can obliterate any Zs that have gathered around the bottom of the tree. Long term, I would totally go Ewok/Forest Elf with it and build a canopy encampment. Lots of space and easy-to-control access points, and with each additional platform it becomes easier and safer to build the next. The real issue with that is the ability to safely fell trees and hewn lumber, which would be nearly impossible solo unless you could adequately secure a perimeter so you didn’t have to focus on threat vigilance. Barring that, I would say a clifftop camp with a rapid descent escape route. Good sight lines, effective egress, and if it is tall enough, you could try to get them to chase you and have an effective way to clear the Zs without wasting ammo. You would just need to clear the corpses after using it.
The reason why the question is tough with the pack is because of the terrain traversal, you need to be able to appropriately distribute the weight if anything you carry into wilderness like that, and that is tough without a good pack, especially with the body armor. I contemplated swapping the armor for a pack, but I can’t justify being able to avoid bites and other injuries for traversal ease. If I could have 5, those would be the 5.
How’d I do?