spartan231490 said:
The Heik said:
Suki_ said:
I think its because of the sheer speed and efficiency of guns. Sure the bow is more silent but it requires more skill, has smaller range, and kills stuff a lot slower.
Bows actually don't require that much skill over guns (it really comes down to basic positioning and due practice). I'm experienced with both a .22 rifle and a compound recurve bow, and considering the zombie apocalypse as a weapons setting the bow just makes more sense in the long run. Guns may have more fire speed, but that's very rarely going to see use as just spraying rounds into your undead target will mean that you're just wasting bullets. Aimed shots are the only way to ensure your target goes down efficiently, and seeing as most people aren't accurate with most firearms past 50 feet, range doesn't really come into the equation either (unless of you have a sniper rifle, but that brings a whole other mess of factors into play). And lets face it, when the zombie apocalypse comes around, gun stores are going to be among the first places raided for supplies. Ammo WILL become scarce, and every round you miss with a gun is one you can't put into a zombie to save yourself. The simple fact that you can collect your arrows after combat (or easily build new ones if you can't recover the ones you've fired) means that you'll be able to fight your enemy from range long after a gun's ammo would run out.
I don't know where people get this illusion that guns are hard to use accurate. I can and have taught people how to hit a head sized target at 100 yards 7/10 times in less than 10 minutes. It's easy. Even free hand with iron sights your going to hit that same target just as often at 50 yards. Are you talking about handguns? those are kinda hard to learn to shoot, but it would still take less than an hour to learn how to hit a target reliably at 50 yards, probably half that time.
But here's the thing: How many people of the 6.7 billion on this planet are trained with firearms? A whole lot less than those who aren't. That means being able to find someone who can preperly teach is going to be a slim prospect depending on where you are in the world (so most people are going to half to self teach and we both know that's going to be rife with trial and error)
And while yes practice makes perfect, training with a gun unfortunately provides 2 major problems. 1) however much of the ammo you use for training is going to be ammo that you can't use on a legitimate target (and as I've already established, in the Zombpocalypse ammunition is going to become scarce as the factories that produce them stop functioning due to a high concentration of eaten brains) an 2) every shot expended has the potential to draw zombies towards you, and I'd rather not have the undead attack whilst I'm taking a nap after a long hard practice session.
However with a bow and arrow you can practice all day long with no worry for expending resources or that you'll draw distant zombies towards you. In the long run is just more practical.
spartan231490 said:
Also, arrows are harder to make than you think, especially if you're using a common compound bow. A compound bow won't fire a wooden arrow very well, the extra weight leads to a much slower arrow speed. Also, while making the shaft is easy, you still need a head sharp and hard enough to go through skull, which means stone(and very few types of stone make good points) or metal(which requires massive amounts of heat to shape). Also, putting fletching on an arrow is hard, very hard. There's a reason that back in the day, people were payed to make arrows instead of everyone just making their own. They are time consuming and difficult to make.
Compared to trying to making bullets they are a breeze. Making rounds requires that you know how to smith and at least have a good amount of knowledge in chemistry to be able to make gunpowder (Again asuming you can find the ingredients for it). Besides, I've made arrows before during my scout years, and while they don't hold a candle to modern arrows, they can at least hit the target with some degree of accuracy if you have experience with bows (and a crappy arrow is still better than no bullets). And most of the materials you need for them are pretty easy to find in most countries.
Again it really comes down to the long term. Would you rather have a really good weapon for the first few months, or a decently good weapon for the entire ordeal?
spartan231490 said:
Shaved Apple said:
I wouldn't want to get up close I'd be afraid of getting their blood on me and catching the disease after beating them with a bat or something. I'd just stay hidden somewhere with a sniper rifle. Probably make a game out of it.
Ever thought about using a mask from paint-balling? They would prevent virtually any amount of blood from getting in/around you eyes, nose, and mouth.
By the way, I can tell you right off that won't work. those masks are designed to allow the player to breathe whilst being able to take the primary force of a paintballball. I've taken way too many shots to the face and tasted way too much of the stuff inside to not know that those masks don't stop spray and splatter for shit.
Besides, paintball shops are pretty rare in comparison to more readily available equivalents. In both my hometown and the city I'm currently residing in there is only one paintball shop apiece, and one of them is smack dab downtown (a place no sane Z-survivor would want to go to).
Honestly the best bet for face protection against splatter is ski goggles and some fabric from a wind jacket (worn kinda like a scarf on your face from shoulders up as to prevent lower angle splatter). They don't let liquids seep through and they're light enough to wear for extended periods of time uninterrupted.
