Hell in a Handbasket

I have posted a book review of World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War over at The Chicago Boyz.

Why did I post a review of a horror book on a political blog? Click on over and find out.

In related news, Ron of Reactuate fame has also read the book. He points out that the military issues silenced .22's to their pilots in case they have to bail out over zombie country. He is wondering if the little .22 could penetrate the skull.

It certainly could at short range, but it would be problematic if you were using the subsonic ammo that is required to keep the silenced .22 really quiet. I also don't think that it would have enough energy to punch through the bone if it was a glancing shot.

What you need is a big, heavy round that doesn't break the sound barrier. The perfect round for the purposes of silent zombie zapping is, in my opinion, the .45 ACP.

(That should make all you 1911 fans happy. "He finally said he liked the .45! He finally said he liked the .45!")

This isn't something I came up with on my own. There were a variety of extremely quiet arms that were developed during WWII to be used on commando raids. The most famous are probably the Delisle carbine and the Welrod pistol.

(Please click on all pictures to see if a larger image is available.)

The Delisle was a bolt operated carbine with a very efficient integral suppressor. As I understand it, the only noise you could hear upon firing was the slap of the firing pin hitting the primer. It certainly would be very quiet, as well as accurate enough to make some zombie-killin' headshots.

The Welrod pistol was also a bolt action weapon equipped with an integral suppressor, and it was also dead quiet. (More pictures of the Welrod can be found at this excellent webpage.)

But since we already have silenced 9mm handguns and carbines, as well as subsonic 9mm loads so prevalent that they can be found at your local gun store, I doubt either the .22 or the .45 would be used. I think that, come the zompocalypse, the Air Force would just equip their air crews with 9mm semiauto handguns that had been modified so attachments could be screwed on after reaching the ground.

What kind of attachments? Stuff like barrel extensions to increase range and accuracy, suppressors so the zombies wouldn't hear the shot and close in on the survivors, a wire stock to steady the gun for those tricky shots, and extended magazines to increase firepower. They might even include a 4X scope to make it easier to place the round into the forehead of any shambling zombie.

I figure the special Air Force issue would look something like this.