One thing to consider with modern zombie settings is that the population density is orders of magnitude higher than in the past. A knight clearing out a zombified village on his own is more plausible than a small town from today.
not to mention that even if a horde managed to grow big enough to force soldiers inside a keep/castle it prob wouldnt end up being a drawn out siege as skall said. Rather just drop the portcullis have some people act as bait (on the safe side of the portcullis) to lure the horde in and then just dump burning oil on the zombies through murder holes. itd take care of a horde pretty quick. hell even some incendiary arrows shot down the murder hole once they all grouped up would likely deal with them.
@@zubbworks yeah spears through the portcullis would work too, until the bodies pile up too much that you cant see/stab the still moving ones. long torches would prob work aswell with the upside of burning up the zombies (probs not enough to cremate them though) and the downside of smelling like absolute hell
Necromancers be like: Hmmm if I choose a hamlet's graveyard I can start in obscurity. But if I'm megamind enough I can risk it all in a city cemetery. *presentation*
The Show "Kingdom" does a really good job showing organized feudal armies fighting zombies vs individuals. Solo you get that terrifying feeling of being overwhelmed but as a organized and competent force it leads to some really interesting scenarios.
Well yeah, once you upscale from a single knight to a small squad that can do formations the amount of zombies they can kill safely raises exponentially.
I've worn a full set of plate and maile on a battlefield. After 3 hours of wearing it, I was absolutely knackered. But then again, this was not something that I trained with from a young age.
Well even if you go safe and only give yourself an hour or two that would be a decent amount of zombies your could clear out before retreating back into your safehouse. Defeating a zombie horde, isn't a sprint, its a marathon that you can do in chunks. Let alone you don't have to kill all the zombies, just the ones in your area, at which point the population density of new zombies moving in will be far more manageable.
I've worn armor (heavier 16th century type) and I lasted for a whole day but at the end of the day I had to SLEEP hard, however I am trained to wear heavy stuff and it didn't take too long to train myself to be honest. So yes, I'd gladly wear plate armor in a zombie apocalypse over kevlar or something else that exposes my human bits! I genuinely don't think plate armor is as heavy as some people make it, if it is form fitted on you and tied and attached to you well and hard? No problem, I barely even feel it unless I videogame roll or something.
Having worn maille with both short and long sleeves, I can confirm that having that weight on your arms makes a world of difference. The coif and arming cap is also surprisingly stifling. When I first started reenacting, we were actively encouraged to "loot" helmets (particularly faceplates) off of the fallen to help them breathe a little easier. As for castles, I actually think it'd be ideal. Yes, you'd end up with a siege scenario if you let it, but you can also periodically lower the bridge, or open a gate. Basically create a killzone to whittle down the horde. A gatehouse usually had an inner and outer portcullis, so you could trap a number of zombies in there, cut them down, toss the bodies back over the walls, and repeat once everyone's had a rest. Siege assaults were incredibly costly even for an organised force, and a horde of zombies doesn't know better.
Good point. The sieging "army" wouldn't apply and tactics besides rushing head on, so clearing out an area, or staying quiet to make them slowly waddle away and leave a path to run raids for supplies.
Why not have archers just shoot them and avoid risking the Infection inside the gates someone has to clean or drag those bodies if they were to throw them and since the medicine back then wasn't too goo you just have a time bomb inside the castle
@@Assassin5671000 You can only do that for as long as you have arrows... Pretty sure that was covered in the video. Medicine's a moot point because even with modern medicine you're screwed if you get bitten. Starvation and disease are going to run rampant, the longer you're trapped inside the walls, the worse it'll get. You need to deal with the horde somehow. The gatehouse allows you to funnel the horde into a choke point, seperate groups of zombies from the rest of the horde, rain rocks and arrows on them through the muder-holes above - you can then retrieve those projectiles, spear them through the gaps in the portcullis, all sorts. I don't see where you'd find a better advantage.
@@Assassin5671000 Because killing something with an arrow from a distance that either needs to get completely incapacitated or get it's brains blown out is suprisingly difficult. Arrows work great vs people because we can die from bloodloss and nobody likes being shot at. Zombies kinda ignore the first bit and don't give a damn about the last bit.
@@charchadonto Doesn't really matter its still a viable tactic to shoot at them ,they can at the very least hit a leg or an arm or even hit the mouth if lucky a severely limit them. Then even if the knights have come out it would be easier for them to deal with what's left
@@michaelcorns1789 Heh. Good point. They certainly didn't seem thirsty for brains, nor did they infect/curse the living. They were simply the army of the dead. But, hey-reanimated dead, right? They've at least got that in common with zombies. Maybe these were medieval-era zombies.
Remember that the population in the middle ages was vastly smaller than today, so hordes of zombies in a given location might not even make it to a hundred.a small band of armed knights could fight their way through that. The issue would be on the large cities like London or Paris where you would still have a horde numbering on the dozens of thousands.
Also almost every man and most women knew some combat skills. It was an era they still had to worry about bandits attacking you on the road. So even if a whole village was taken out a good chunk of the potential zombies would have been destroyed in the process. You would get like half of population of 80 hording on the next town.
@@williamjenkins4913 "Bandits on the road" in medieval europe would have been poor (or just enemy-) knights and their men, nomad cavalrymen, Skandinavians or mercenaries. in bands of 50+ to several hundreds. I don't think a lone traveller's Kung Fu skills would have made that much of a difference...
@@ArifRWinandar They do when said enemies who have no fear of pain or death, also have no brains or skill whatsoever. Just climb a tree with a long pointy stick and have at them all with no fear of death. Zombies are on the low end of the totem pole of monster, one of the few that are actively weaker/less dangerous than the average person, like goblins or kobolds.
@UCs6YEu5vA0aCEQqbCI_JdzA You climb up to the next branch higher. Odds are there wouldn't be enough to even need that though. Eight bodies isn't going to give you a pile the height of a tree. Let alone the fact that this proves that there wouldn't even be that many because the average peasant would kill far more Zombies than a 1 for 1. Peasants are just the superior zombie for the noble if you will. Let alone the ones armed by blacksmiths with gambeson or hell even mail. They'd slaughter zombies like teenagers think they would in their day dreams.
That's a good point. I think the advantage of metal armor over a gambeson in this case is its resilience. A gambeson alone would get torn by zombie teeth and fingernails and eventually be less effective, but they couldn't really damage metal plate.
Gambeson, gauntlets and maybe a mail coif would be my thought. For the standard shamble zombies i agree a gambeson would be very effective, and far less tiring.
With the traditional zombie in mind, the average knight could easily get away with wearing just a gambeson, metal gauntlets, mail coif, good boots, and helmet. It would be much lighter which allows a knight to better manage their stamina while still protecting from bites and scratches.
I suppose a steel armor would be better against smaller groups, but yes i agree. If you face a big horde like lets say an actual city, you will face hundreds of them. You will need lighter gear to get away faster
In order for cloth armor to function correctly, it must be thick and heavy. Maybe it would weigh less than steel, but it is the resistance that is the issue. Very thick clothing resists movement. That would tire you faster than simply carrying the weight with much less resistance to movement.
so the best case would probably be a group of people with shield and Maces, armored in mail armor + good head, hand and foot protection. This setup allows for doing hit and run quick attacks to clear a section. However imo one thing that is rarely explored in movies is fire. If the zombies gather together in tight groups without much self preservation this means if you throw burning pots or arrows at them And run away they will all get burned as they are practically hugging each other and are dried rotting corpses which we know burn easily
Knights are akin to modern tanks. Their main weakness is visibility. They rely on other troops with better visibility for situational awareness. I'd imagine that knights were typically accompanied by their squires in battle who would guide them and cover their flank. Skall, if you're reading this, I'd love a video on how squires served their knights and protected them in battle.
That depends a lot on the precise time period. Late medieval to early renaissance armor was much heavier than late roman to early medieval armor. At the same time the weapons changed as well. From rather short swords in the beginning to more focus on polearms and blunt weapons like maces. So the late medieval fighter would have the best equipment to fight the zombie, but also the gear that would impact visibility and endurance the most.
No. Knights didnt just walk around with visors on their face, they often lifted visors up so they could see. Many knights suffered wounds on the face even in the late middle ages when visors were worn
@@Awesomeflame16 Henry V of England was gruesomely wounded at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403 when an arrow pierced the left side of his face. We are lucky enough to have access to the record of the surgical operation that saved him. No mention is made of having to remove the arrow from the visor as well as his face, which certainly would have been since that would further complicate an already complicated operation. Therefore it can be concluded that the injury occurred because Henry had raised his visor (or was not wearing a helmet with visor). It seems to have been a common practice, at least and especially among commanders and officers who would need to be able to shout to issue orders to their subordinates
In the books "Rot and Ruin" "Dust and Decay" and the rest by Jonathan Maberry they used old carpet worn inside-out as armor: light, well padded, relatively unrestrictive, can't bite through it, readily available in all the abandoned homes.
That's such an intuitive idea! Really good job by the author on coming up with that. I'd like to see some testing to see how viable it would be not just against hands/teeth but also blunt force and cuts. Thank you for bringing this up, it's really cool!
@@retroicdescent Yeah, the books are really good, and the worldbuilding takes a lot of minor things into account. Another example was that the zombies behaved like severely braindamaged individuals: they had a tendency of shambling in their prior routine if there was no living creature around and could regularly be found practically melded to the couch in their home or shambling around their back garden, or the fact that higher elevations are safer because without some living flesh to motivate them they kinda just followed the path of least resistance in their wanderings and would usually end up amassing in valleys and things.
That's something that always bothered me in The Walking Dead & other zombie movies/shows, when they have a safe place to call home, why aren't they working on making improvised armor? You wouldn't have to make much, just enough for the arms & legs since those are the most likely places to get her bit and maybe something for the neck, but torso protection would be secondary since your less likely to get but in the chest or stomach. I think that the only time I've seen a character make armor on a zombie film or show was Brad Pitt in World War Z where he strapped phone books to his arms.
was reading those back in middle school, and this kid who sat at my table in lunch fucking spoiled most of the deaths. im pretty sure i almost fought him over it lol. those books were so fucking good man.
In the medieval era, population was more spread out as well since there wasn't yet mass urbanization. So I think outside of cities you wouldn't see huge hordes, so small groups of knights could probably deal with most zombie sieges. Also the zombies would probably eventually wander away after a week or so of siege.
Yeah, if everybody stays inside then maybe the zombies would eventually forget and begin wandering. But honestly I think even that wouldn't be necessary. As long as you have something to break a rock down with like a pickaxe and the material to make slings, you have a very, VERY large supply of ammo. The zombies would never strategically retreat or try to dodge, so you'd be able to have men just constantly showering the zombies with stones. It's almost a guarantee you have more stones that there are zombies, so nearly every time you'll clear out the zombies before you run out of supplies. The only exception I'd see is if you are in or near a bigger city like London where there'd be millions of zombies instead of a couple hundred or even thousand on the country side.
unless you have warhammer style zombies where necromancers can reanimate the zombies as well as the long dead from thousands of years ago.... suddenly its not the recently dead you are facing its literaly generations!
@@birb2330 You cannot have zombies without some sort of magic or supernatural element as reanimating dead bodies is physically impossible. The only natural causes wouldn't result in true zombies. They would be infected, aggressive humans that could still die from more than just headshots. The only zombie-like quality besides aggression you would see is the lack of higher brain functions like strategizing or the ability to use doors or the conscious decision to use weapons.
This is why knights actually got their armor made for them occasionally. They understood that custom fitting armor is the best way to go and your body will change over time. So a lot of times they had armor created then months later would have it recreated and so on. There's also many different designs types, techniques, etc that go into armor. It really all depends on what you need. Not all knights were just full on plate armor tanks.. There were knights that wore leather armor as well because they didn't want to be as constricted or weren't exactly frontliners. There's a lot that goes into it really.
Not always, only the rich ones or professional soldiers, the less wealthy usually bought an used one and either get it smithed to fit a little bit better or kinda pret a porter and dealt with the problems associated to a bad fitting
Another Medival strategy is to take advantage of choke points. There are only so many zombies that can fit through a gate or a city ally at once, if you can lure the hard into a choke point, you can take advantage of force rotation, only having some of your knights fighting at any moment, ans the rest standing in reserve and resting. This is especially useful tactic if the zombies are all in the other side of a wall, as you can always drop the portculis and let your entire force to rest.
In such case i recommend not only steel armor, but also shields. Spiked tower or kiteshield would work to bash in zombie heads and keep them at distance. Have some peeps use crossbow/bows to shoot in between the shields and you create a corpse wall over time. Pretty much bodyblocking any zombies behind it. Then just use flammables to set them on fire
@@cherrydragon3120 Yeah, an army with a shield and spears should deal with a horde of zombies easily. You don't even need something as complicated as a bow or crossbow, even a sling would do the job
Don't forget murder holes, too. A medieval castle, even defended by a small force, could likely wear down a zombie horde pretty quickly if the fortification was well built and they used decent tactics. Plus, dropping the portcullis itself, if it was large enough, might kill a decent number of zombies! Heck, some castle gates even had two portcullises! Open the outer portcullis to let the zombies in, leave the inner portcullis down, and just slaughter the zombies with polearms and spears!
All I can imagine reading this is the scene from the Gladiator where the romans keep fighting for a limited time and then change the soldier to the next in line for a little rest..
One thing to consider is that even when zombies are depicted at their dumbest and slowest, they almost always still retain some abilities. They can grasp objects, pull things and sometimes even use tools. If a knight were knocked down and surrounded by dozens of zombies, it's very possible that one of the zombies would eventually pull off bits of the plate or the helmet, at which point it's game over.
I mean not much besides a fortress will survive dozens of zombies. I think what is interesting is that compared to military today which is incredibly good at ranged warfare, knights excel at close combat. So if you have a handful of modern infantry units they have a chance to suffer more causalities at close range if clearing out areas than knights would since a bite or scratch is not going to go through mail or steel
Thing Is almost every town and village, and every castle had some sort of protective wall around it and they had the supplies to last under siege for extended periods of time. Secondly, in the medieval times the cities were smaller and so we wouldn't have the same type of undead hordes we see in movies Thirdly, traveling between cities took a long time, which means the disease wouldn't take the world by surprise and would rather have been a local phenomenon of a couple small towns at max. Realistically considering these points and other factors we can conclude that any zombie outbreak would likely be dealt with quickly and effectively by the local Lords. What makes the modern world so vulnerable to a zombie outbreak is the lack of armor and weapons, complete lack of fighting experience of the general population, the existence of huge urban centres and fast global travel allowing the disease to be carried across different countries, none of which are existent in the medieval period.
Curious question: Would a zombie actually recognize a knight in full plate armor as food? Because if all a zombie sees is a cold steel suit of armor, it might not actually realize there's a person in it
I guess it depends on how zombies in the setting detect the living. Are they just hostile towards anything moving? Do they sense heat? Is it smell? Do they hunt based on sight (an armored person still looks like a person, thus the pattern of a bipedal human is recognized and is considered food)? There's more questions we could ask as well, like whether these zombies hunt to eat or just to infect, etc. but that's it's own tangent.
The fact that they're person shaped might be enough, depending on what kinds of instincts are left, or if they just have the plot-derived ability to detect where living humans are hiding to build tension in the story
I think how well humanity could deal with zombies would depend on what type of outbreak/infection it is. If it's the kind where it's an airborne pathogen and everyone is assumed to be infected causing them to turn into a zombie upon death, then that would be a massive challenge to deal with. If it's a world where infection happens only upon getting bitten or scratched, then I think it would be relatively easy to deal with because zombies could theoretically be killed to extinction and life could resume.
Yup. As long as the infection needs bite's and scratches, all you need is a proper exterior defense and means to incapacitated them. Now, if you add the kind that transforms and develops means to breach armor, that's a bigger threat. But as long as they're effectively humans without a mind, they're vulnerable. Especially if their bodies are already decaying.
@@insertname3977 Then thats even harder to fix, since it would be looking for a single individual in a ocean of people If they are smart and hide in a secret location,that harders things If they are dumb then you would have for info on the guy/gal who is in charge of the undead and thats harder since where would you find that?? Let alone the fact that while you have to do that while the number of zombies rise per minute
I've noticed a lot of wrestlers in street fights show a pretty decent ability to stay on their feet. A lot of knights would likely have trained quite a bit in just plain wrestling to be able to keep from having to waste so much energy getting back on their feet.
@@jazzb97 I don't think so. Rebalancing yourself after being imbalanced is a matter of redistributing your body weight to regain a center of balance. Since armor is fairly evenly distributed over the body, rebalancing should be mostly the same. Unless you armor your torso while leaving your arms and legs unarmored, but against zombies it's more valuable to armor your arms and legs, since those are what's most likely to get scratched or bitten.
@@calsalitra4689 Depends on where the weight is - you can be great at keeping balance but if your weight is off then you'll eat shit the moment you lose balance.
If you're in the Medieval times stuck in castle with a horde of zombos, your best defense may be fire. If they're very clumped together in a horde type setting, then a few dozen barrels of burning pitch would be devastating, and because they're zombos, they probably don't know any better than to keep trying to siege this castle they'll never get into regardless that they're all slowly getting set ablaze. Burning pine tar would rinse through hordes, and the fires would kill off disease and such that dead bodies would have. Even if it doesn't get them all, it would get the vast majority of the herd and put their numbers at a much more manageable amount. Modern day (since you mentioned motorcycle stuff) the best weapon to use is probably still fire. Flamethrowers, molotovs, and napalm. I'm not a pyromaniac, but people are limited by their stamina, zombos aren't. Instead of spending all our stamina on fighting, light them up and then let them burn themselves out. Anything touched by the flammable gels would be charred to oblivion in a matter of about 30 seconds.
Something I always find funny about the "tireless" undead trope is that it doesn't really make sense. The reason our bodies get tired, muscles get sore etc is because we only have the energy to do so much, and with muscles it's because they get damaged with overuse and need to be healed back stronger. Zombies are dead, they don't heal. Get zombies to chase after you and they're going to just start falling apart, they'll still be working muscles but as those muscles burn they're also going to rip themselves apart. Every time a zombie stumbles awkwardly forward they're that much closer to ripping a tendon and now they have no structural support to walk. This is kinda a moot point though because zombies as a trope work off magic of "science" that's really just magic but isn't called that to fit into a non magic setting.
Zombie dont care they are basically rotting They will push their muscles to the point of injury, if you really want it's probably possible to defeat a zombie through pure exhaustion, but you yourself wont be able to, you'll succumb to pain/exhaustion farrrr far faster than them in the last of us, the show, in the first episode you can see a zombie flinging itself into table edges and stuff just to get to people, they do not care about pain or longevity
El wiwi that was the other guy's point, zombies don't have self preservation sense and a non trained human body is very very weak, even a stumble can kill you
@@elwiwi4638 sure, but that just goes to their point that zombies would be self destructive to the point of crippling themselves and not being threats anymore
@@callsignapollo_ yeah like i said if you just trail around a zombie eventually it'll wear itself down issue is it /will/ have more energy than you, to manage to get it to damage itself via exhaustion you will probably be exhausted first
@elwowi4638 If we've just established that zombies cannot physically be tireless and are subject to the same biology as us, why would they have more energy despite being in a state of decomposition? Is there any proper reason at all?
In theory, zombies can also be waited-out. They might not decay as much, but cold is going to get them slower and slower, till they are completely frozen. People generate heat(and know how retain it), and zombies either don't or they would need a food supply too.
They absolutely would decay. They're corpses. Corpses create gas and attract decomposers, not to mention the ones already in us. Within a month, every newly risen dead would be a bloated, soft, mushy mess held together by virions and whatever clothing managed to stay on. Imagine a hot summer. Imagine a dead deer. That deer, undead or dead dead, would rot before it could cause too much harm. I've seen a deer disappear in under a week thanks to a few crows, hot weather, and bacteria. All there was left by day 9 was a stinky stain.
don't forget water. the zombies aren't gonna be hydrating properly, since they are just shambling about. so they either need to stay right next to a river/lake, or they are gonna dehydrate and die within a few days.
@@SuprAmEnteM water is needed to function, That's why we drink it. No water means your muscles wont function properly because the meat is all dried out. Dried meat wont flex and pull, which means you cant move.
And lets not forget animals. If a predator isn't picky zombies would just be an easy snack for them. Their is no way a dozen zombies are going to overpower tigers or bears. Also flies.
Zombies used to be a neat idea of exploring the loss of humanity in apocalyptic conditions. But like most good things, Hollywood milked it past the point of it being ashes.
@@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514 you’re either stupid or in denial. We are better off today than we were centuries ago. Be thankful you were born in recent times than during the time of mongol invasions and incurable plagues/disease.
Depends on the odds*. Even with the best equipment, strenght and stamina, if you are surrounded and overwhelmed by sheer mass... * And zombie type. World world Z zombies are vastly different from walking dead ones. PS.: The pommel moment made me fall off the chair.
World war Z zombies are also vastly different than world war Z zombies. About the only thing the book and the film share is a title. I don't know the walking dead, but in the world war Z book zombies are slow shamblers.
the biggest difference between different zombies is usually the walk vs run options. Classic slow zombies are slow, but many and will eventually catch up. Fast zombies could easily outrun you without pain or fatigue. And then the question how it is transmitted. In most cases someone gets infected (in case of a zombie virus) by body fluids, and some demonstrate that removing the limb in time can save people. In others everyone is infected anyway, but it only turns them after death, no matter how they die. And then obviously the magical zombies, which are a whole different thing. In any case, a society with constant zombie thread (be it because everyone will turn or not) would probably move towards cremation instead of earth burials.
@@HappyBeezerStudios I figured mega corporations would use them to create a perpetual motion machine. Putting zombies in a treadmill and making them walk. The (un)dead don't need rest. Cremation would be terrifying, a corpse reanimating in the middle of the process.
Armoured combatants would be exceptionally useful when you're attempting to clear a location with help. Very little to fear on their part because if they fall or get dragged down they won't be stuck until they die. Otherwise you're probably better off just protecting vulnerable locations like your arms, lower legs and shoulders, bits of you that either stick out or a easy to grab, and keeping light enough to move for long periods of time.
I agree the armour is not the ultimate solution. This being said, I think medieval tactics would work extremely well. In most zombies movies, the zombies have soft skulls, you see it when some character just shove a knife into a zombies skull by just pushing on the knife. Based on that, any kind of funnel with an obstacle in front of it (a simple window) would make it really easy to just use spears to dispatch the zombies. Of course, this is only one idea. In general, military tactics before the 20th century were strongly focused on handling swarming.
To be fair, almost any military tactics from any period would work well. Which is why most zombie apocalypse stories skip the part where the army fails to deal with the problem
@@hrotha Yeah, I always found it weird how almost no tanks or military armoured vehicles appear in zombie stories. Sometimes the survivor make a makeshift armoured vehicle but it's not really the same as some mechanized infantry vehicle with machine guns and maybe even grenade launchers (which i imagine would be really effective at taking care of groups of zombies)
@@leterrierdinari2861 in the world war Z book they do deal with it, the zombies walk through the napalm, so now they had to deal with fiery zombies that just kept walking, HE tank rounds and missiles tear many into pieces but if the head isnt gone they kept on crawling also bullets pass through them (soldiers are trained to shoot at center of mass not heads) and they keep walking etc. also mankind does "win" in the end by essentially waiting them out
@@hrotha I feel like the solution to the world somehow managing to truly fall at the hands of zombies is easy. Make it so that they’re not stupid and can use strategy, or make it so that they’re very, very hard to truly kill permanently. Both would probably be the only real answer if they’re supposed to be defeating the entire world.
Yeah, that's one of the things I get mad at when watching them. The skull is one of the hardest parts of the skeleton. That is why it is often one of the only parts left to be found intact when ancient burials are unearthed. And you're not gonna just stomp on one's head and smush it like a melon, either.
I remember an internet forum years ago where I suggested biker gear, body armor, and melee weapons/tools were the way to go and you just thin enough of the zombies numbers to rebuild an restore basic infrastructure. I also remember people o. That forum arguing against that idea fervently. Thanks for validating my thought process.
I think another factor to consider is that there were much fewer populations in the middle age, so it would be unlikely that a knight would be overwhelmingly overrun by a massive number of zombies like survivors in modern urban area presented in most movies and games.
After watching this video, it makes me wonder how well soldiers in those days would handle a pair of XCOM Chrysalids. My estimation would be that they'd get wiped due to the low powered weaponry. It takes multiple bursts with an assault rifle to take down a Chrysalid, and that's assuming all the bursts hit. Perhaps they'd have something going for them with hard armour, but I'm not sure if that would make a difference.
The pommel joke was one of the funniest I've seen on your channel in a while. I have to say I prefer how it was seamlessly integrated into the script to the longer non-sequitur sketches. Good job!
Idk, but i think if he has been fighting for a while he would be pretty tired and that will llead to his death by being beated or crushed under a pile of zombies
When your legs inevitably give out, you'll fall down and get submerged in a sea of fists and teeth that WILL NOT STOP striking at you. Eventually things will break, be it joints or hinges or fastenings and that's when the armor will start falling apart and you'll die.
I think there was even a study about movement in plate armor. I was kinda dismissed by a lot of medieval nerds, because they thought it was some "plate armor is super heavy" shit without even really looking into it, but it was actually not that bad when I looked at it. They used armor around 30-50kg which is a bit much for "field armor", 25-35kg would've been more accurate, 50kg is really just tournament armor. But still. The result was basically that people in full plate need like 2.1-2.3 times the amount of energy for walking and around 1.9 times the amount for running, which is mostly caused by the leg and arm protection, because you just move your limbs a lot more and I don't know how much an arm usually weighs, but I imagine the armor does increase the weight of that part procentually quite a lot. So yeah, moving around the entire day in plate armor would be more draining, but I guess you could counter that with training. Still means you need more energy input, so more food and that's probably something you have to think about in a post-apocalyptic survival setting. And for people who want to tell me "I wear armor all the time and I don't have any endurance problems"... well, nice for you I guess.
20-30kg would be the ideal for a test of medieval field armor. 35 kg field armor tends to be later in the 16th and 17th centuries due to more powerful fire arms.
@@kevinkarlwurzelgaruti458 Depends on the type of zombie though. Some do get extremely strong through the virus/magic/whatever, I think at least maille would be helpful for those scenarios
One thing to consider is that in any combat, you want to hit without being hit. But zombies don't have self-preservation. They wouldn't mind losing a limb if that would score a grab or a bite.
If we're talking a castle siege, then I suppose it depends on how dumb the zombies are. A lot of castles had a murder room at the entrance, so it would be possible to just let some in at a time and take them out with rocks or poking spears or something ... repeat until the zombie hordes are eliminated.
@@LuxisAlukard You only let some in at a time, so you can remove the bodies before letting any more in. One way to dispose of the bodies is to launch them at other zombies with a trebuchet.
4:40 Really glad you addressed the aspect of going to the ground with multiple opponents. A lot of people read the (possibly very dubious) "real fight statistic" about how often fights end up on the ground and often come away with the wrong sentiment from it. Yes, you should definitely know how to fight on the ground and debatably more importantly, specifically how to fight back to your feet and stay there.
Important thing about necromantic zombies is its a ton of people immediately, because literally everyone who has ever died (but isn't too decomposed) is a zombie. Not just recently infected people
Plus if we go off classic necromancy, then that's unlimited revives, it doesn't matter how many you kill, if the necromancer can get on the field afterwards, then that's a fully replenished army
@@ntfoperative9432 The other advantage of necromantic zombies is that being controlled by a far more aware live human with some smarts, they can be pointed in the right direction. For the other kinds of zombie (Romero/TWD/WWZ book slowpokes and 28DL/WWZ movie fast infected's) they can only really attack you in numbers if they know where you are, usually by you and those living with you being dumb as all fuck. Those don't have a competent leader to guide them like a Necromancer ('don't just stumble past that building... go in and look, dammit!') would but generally tend to have human normal eyesight, hearing and smell. That's right, don't shoot them... you'll attract a lot more and then run simply out of ammo. Guns are damn loud. Just stay still, stay quiet and wait them out. The disadvantage of necromantic zombies of course is if you can kill the Necromancer... no more zombies. Then again, there's the chance they also (depends on lore) have bigger nasties to deal with than gribbly meat puppets so...
Rather recently Lindybeige described reenacting some battle in his full plate suit. One thing he told is that the ground is awfully far away, either to pick up something or to get up.
Gambeson alone is still used for bite-proof armor, see k9 training suits. Dogs are much better at biting than us too, so if a dog can't get through, no way we are. Looks like the problem mostly comes down to numbers. The knight is all but invincible 1v1, and can ignore 1-2 others in a close fight, but the worse the outnumbering gets, the less likely survival is.
The K9 training suits are usually much thicker than gambesons mind you, but I'm curious about whether dogs have the same inhibitor behaviour our brain has to stop us using our full strength and destroying our joints, muscles, and bones in the process.
I like that you brought up how exhausting it can be to fight in armour, even just somewhat armoured. I do Buhurt and some of the guys I know who have fought in championships have talked how exhausting it can be to be in armour, especially for a long time. I’ve also seen them when they do their armoured training and, while they aren’t super slow, they definitely are more sluggish than how they are normally, so it does affect your speed somewhat, especially when fighting.
I always thought motorcycle gear, leathers, kevlar, boots, gloves and helmet would be more than enough to deal with zombies while staying light and nimble
For the most part, yes. But not all, I think the cheapest stuff would actually work better. Good motorcycle gear would restrict your movements a bit, mainly the jackets would since they're often designed to position your arms in such a way so that it's less fatiguing when riding. But, I don't have enough experience with riding jackets or HEMA to be able to say definitively whether or not it would affect your ability to fight or not. But this is textile gear that I'm thinking of, I've handled full racing leathers enough that I know that fighting while wearing that would suck. Your range of motion works suck & even if you could overcome that, you'd overheat really quick. That stuff is definitely not meant to be worn while doing anything but riding a motorcycle around a track as far as you can.
One of the main issues with fighting in full leathers is Hyperthermia, heatstroke and dehydration. What Skal mentionedbearly in the video about humans being suited for long distance pursuit, hunting down prey to the point of their exhaustion; That's specifically due to humans ability to sweat. Most other animals, especially those with fur, don't sweat like we do. They lack our innate ability for mobile core/internal thermal regulation. They usually require submerging themselves in water for a bit or something similar. With dog's, and other canines, their panting is their equivalent to us sweating in some regards. Sweating obviously come as a cost though, if we sweat too much we can dehydrate. If we are in a very cold area, we can make our clothes soaking wet then freeze to death. A tough, lightweight, tightfitting and breathable material would be ideal for protection against zombies.
@@AceDan-gc9po Walking Dead is set in Atlanta mostly isn't it? Granted I'm from further south in GA but it's hot as hell like 8 months a year in this part of the country, and the humidity makes it worse, which makes overheating a huge concern. Biker gear tends to assume you're at 60 or better. I get the point of course, obviously survival>comfort but it is something to consider in a zombie scenario.
@@soulsurvivor8293 I gree with most of your statements. However, it does not take full leather to cause heat problems.- I ride an ADV bike and use textile pants and jacket. Even on moderately warm days the gear is hot wthout the windchill factor of the ride. Sweating does not neccessarily help as the sweat does not evaporate properly. Riot gear may be the best bet.
Considering the amount of protection a suit of armor (even incomplete) gives against zombies (unless it is a horde), it always surprised me how underrepresented armor is in the context of zombie movies. Yeah, not a lot of people have things that are close to that, but as the time passes, survivors probably would retain pieces of good armor as treasures as they scavenge.
The problem with armour is that usually people wouldn't dress for battle. Like the problem with zombies is that you are under constant threat, 24/7, all seasons including 30C if not more summers. Sure it's protective but I highly doubt that you could live in armour.
one problem for zombies would be the fact that a lot less people lived there in the Middle Ages. A zombie apocalypse in the middle ages would be plausible (well, not plausible really, but you get the point) for example during 1320, with the Black Death knocking on everyone's door. In that fictional scenario, the Black Death wouldn't kill but would decompose people's bodies and make them go crazy (like rabies) and basically bite, scratch and beat people to death. Take into account that the Black Death killed 200M people aprox, and it was near 60% of the world's entire population at the time. So, the world's population would be something like 375M. In America (which wasn't discovered by europe yet), probably like 20% of the world's population lived there, so the rest is 300M for now. If we take into account the 200M original Black Death people infected, then 175M people would be alive by this point. The Black Death would still be spread by rats, so no one would be really safe. Places like Eastern Holy Roman Empire, Crimea, Poland, Western Russia, and the baltics weren't really affected by thje Black Death originally, so those would be safe zones (the safest place in all europe regarding the Black Death was Poland at the time, having little to no cases). Poland wasn't safe enough because now there are zombies walking around, then Finland would be the best choice due to its cold nature, because zombies wouldn't be prepared for winter and most if not all of them would freeze to death. An army of maybe 50 Plate-Armored knights with maybe 10 or 15 archers would be able to wipe out entire towns and villages. And taking into account places like Spain and France had thousands of them, then they'd be able to make a lot of these cleaning squads, and they'd be able to wipe out most if not all zombies. Now the problem would be the rats, but having realised by now that the rats are the problem, they'd slowly start regulating more the shipments and everything. TL;DR winter would be zombies' worst nightmare and countries with huge armies would be able to kill all zombies before they spread more
Genuine question that never came to mind before, as i seldom really gave serious thought to the idea of knights VS zombies...... do horses get zombified when bitten?
I'm currently in the fire academy and we wore our full gear yesterday for the first time, which I'd imagine would be similar, if not even lighter. They had us walk around for about an hour/hour and a half and it was *brutal*. That was at a brisk walk/light jog... it's really deceptive how much harder movement in general becomes when you're wearing that sort of stuff.
@@planescaped I have a skin condition that gets slightly worse under sunlight so I'm usually covered head-to-toe even midday. I'm pretty athletic but it's incredibly debilitating to walk under the sun with all my clothing. I imagine the weight and solid structure of armor (clothes still have larger holes after all) contribute to generating and trapping heat even worse.
@@burnttoast26 I am fully aware of this, however I"m sure it has more in common with waring a fitted harness that a Tshirt and jeans. They're both hot and heavy. I could probably also draw some parallels between wearing a gas mask and a medieval full faced helmet
The main thing I don't like about zombies is how Virus-based zombies are portrayed. They're always shown as 'enhanced' and somehow more durable than uninfected despite looking like they climbed through barbed wire. I feel like people need to realize that an infection based zombie virus would just make the person aggressive, kind of like rabies. Meaning they aren't enhanced and can be dispatched any way a regular human can.
Dispatched, yes that'd be the same as a regular human. Stopped on the other hand... That would be trickier due to the lack of pain (Like how drug fueled attackers can be VERY difficult to stop shrugging off tasers and bullet wounds). Even more so depending on how an infection presents (Something like the Zombie Ant Fungus that replaces nerves and tissue with fungus to directly manipulate muscles of the host like a puppet would be less concerned with certain injuries)
Usually the "enhanced" stuff comes from the fact that humans actually only use around 30% of the strength and speed their bodies are capable of performing in day to day life. When enough adrenaline is introduced to the body, or if certain parts of the brain dies/shuts off then a human is capable of performing feats of strength and speed that would otherwise be seen as abnormal. You can also use specialised training on your body to be able to access more strength from it, which is different than just making yourself stronger by building more muscle mass.
Here's a novel/movie/series idea; ~40 BC Europe zombie outbreak in Germania. Romans fortify and Roll a full legion to cull the outbreak and restore order. I would very much like to see a roman legion with its adaptability and discipline fighting against a zombie apocalypse. I reckon armor and weapons would change. Armor would get thinner and lighter but would cover the entire arm and legs. Weapons would be more like war hammers that would allow easier strikes to the head. I don't think scutum would change much. Legs and feet would definitely get armored due to crawling zombies... It'd be much fun to see.
Something I've noticed is that when people are talking about zombies and bring up the 28 Days Later type "Zombies" is that these things are left out when they could be very relevant... 1: They can puke blood to infect you if it gets on a scratch or in your eyes/mouth, which in this case would render a ton of knight's armor much less effective, even the ones with full face masks would barely be an improvement. 2: Anything that would kill a normal person will kill them (like getting shot in the chest or even starvation). Now, they are fast and can swarm you very easily, but this improves your odds way better than if they still needed the "destroy the brain" approach. Obviously with certain things like blunt weapons the head is still the way to go, but this makes much more weapon choices viable and in some cases might balance out their speed. Just an observation, and definitely not a jab at anyone. I'm aware people bring it up as the "sprinter" zombie movie example because it's well known, but they are different in many ways than just the speed they move and it seems like nothing beyond that is ever brought up.
@@reptiloidmitglied2930 the muscles built before zombification would still be there while the body is fresh. So it'd be able to strike harder, faster, and like cobra kai, these things show no mercy
I've thought about this idea for YEARS. I've always though a suit of armor would give you so much defensive capabilities in a zombie situation. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the pros and cons.
Gives protection at the cost of visibility and long term endurance. Full plate might not be the best option for a battle against the hordes, but surely helps against being surprised that the crying child wants to eat you
Well, what wasn't considered, is this: A castle, prepared for a siege, had not just knights in it, but also craftsmen and engineers. And the knights themselves were not just well trained soldiers, but professional warfare experts and used to adapt the tactics to the situation they had to face. Not every kind of enemy was fought the same way. And this also means, that armour and weaponery would be modified for the specific purpose of zombie warfare.
Been watching The Walking Dead recently and I thought for most of the show so far "Why do they walk around with SO much exposed skin? Get yourself some chainmail or biker stuff". Of course you might say that chainmail isn't exactly common to get, but then again..if they can manage to get weapons and ammo from stores and stuff, they can surely raid a reenactment shop. Or the local police station for some riot gear.
Hey Skall I've recently been obsessed with a weapon called the Wabanaki root club. They are spiked clubs made from immature birch roots that the Wabanaki of eastern North America used. They are both terrifying and impressive artistically
Depends on the type of armor and how much worn. Some armor like chain mail could help, armor would protect from bites or scratches. Really great video Skall very informative and you hit points really well
I was considering since I heard about it that zombies were scary only from a modern point of view. 1-There is no way zombies would be harmful to a castle. 2- the armor make 1vs 1 fight against zombie = autowin for the armored guy. 3- the horses ! avoid the fight where there are too many, charge those isolated. Even, mass mounted archers would never fear any zombies horde. Just imagine the turks or the mongols, they wouldn't need more than a year to clean all Europe from zombies.
All boils down to what kind of zombie we are talking about. Classic Romero-esque zombies - a knight or man-at-arms would have relatively easy time - as long as armour is bite-proof - and bodyparts that zombies often tend to target are also possible to protect, so... there we go. Sure, these zombies swarm, feel no pain but are slow, so as long as you have room to move, you should be reasonably safe - ironically, confined spaces would be the most dangerous - chokepoint would also "choke" you against slow, but persistent force - it is just a way to get yourself cornered. 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead remake fast zombies - this is where things get dicey - these things tend to swarm, are fast, feel no pain... All the dangers of regular zombie apply, and single zombies would be relatively easy to deal with. But in case of a horde - open field no longer provides any advantage and all the disadvantages of bunkered position remain. Necromantic zombies - so the ones that still retain some basic skill - can use weapons and move reasonably well, less coordinated and weaker. Would be like dealing with less trained opponents that somehow feel no pain. Dangerous at all times. Can get through armour, because they can use weapons.
Thanks a lot for bringing this game to my attention, Skall. I will definitely have to play it. Knights and zombies in one game? Awesome! The only thing thats missing is dinosaurs!
The limitations of armor would mostly disappear on a horse. Perfect height for head shots, wearing the armor wouldn't tire you as much. Harder to knock down or bury under a pile. As you are fast enough to get away, charge through some zombie ranks and get to a a fortification.
It would most certainly help to be mounted, unless the horse panicked. I saw a "Civil War" reenactment where one horse just went "nope" and ran like hell. Rider had NO control. Like all things in life, it depends...
@@arthurchadwell9267 True. Although knights typically trained with their horse for years with the intention of going into battle. A war horse might run, but it also might start kicking zombie heads in.
Personally I'd opt for skirmisher tactics on horseback. Take out a few on the flank with a spear then gtfo to a safe distance and repeat until the horde becomes a more manageable size
Even chainmail might be a bit better because if your main danger is being bitten and infected which I which say it is then even chainmail would give a great deal protect against that to the where you pretty much don't have to worry about.(Not that you'd most likely be invincible then either)
Chainmail might even be better than full plate. The gaps allow for better heat regulation. Modern chainmail seems to be fairly bite resistant. It is used by some divers to protect against shark bites. Footage shows that is works.
No matter if it's a reanimated corpse, or crazed berserker living person infected with a disease, they all share the same weakness. They cannot go forever. An undead kind of zombie would rot away, and once the muscles start breaking down they become quite literally sitting ducks. The infected but still alive kind of zombie would still require food. You could argue that eventually they eat each other or hunt for animals (rats e.g.) , they'd either reduce their own numbers or leave the horde in search of more accessible food. Though the latter is not likely considering they're picturised as mindless, flesh-craving monstrosities and would not be smart enough to try find other food when they can see you.
Skall has done plenty of modern day zombie questions. I'm pretty satisfied with this Semi-historical angle. One very through look, with well chosen reference footage. Awesome sauce sir.
My biggest issue with the game is that it shows the knight being able to sneak up on human opponents. No way in hell are you sneaking up on anything while wearing full plate lol.
as far as the riot armor goes, ive worn riot armor for my job and worn a plate rig as part of hobbies, the plate rig was much heavier but honestly more comfortable and less draining to wear
Swinging a sword 100s of times while maneuvering would be extremely exhausting. An exhausted knight could get dog piled so even if Zombies can’t penetrate the armor, you aren’t getting up.
If it's walking zombies you can easily make a path & dodge or push the zombies over to make a clear path so you can walk to safety. A person walks faster then a zombie shamble. The only way for walking zombies to dog pile a knight, would somehow the knight would have to be a idiot & let hundreds of zombies create a circle around them that's really dense of zombie bodies.
Ultimately it depends on the quantity and types of zombies really. That being said there is one notable point that deducts points from the whole medieval armor versus zombies things, and that's noise. For a lot of zombie scenarios, a big thing that helps one stay alive is stealth, with different sources having different notions of how far the zombies can hear versus smell you, but in full plate you are basically a walking dinner bell to them, even if you could dispatch them, if there was a horde your odds of avoiding them would be in extremely unlikely territory. Another point against suits of armor is based on another trope, mainly from The Walking Dead and Zomboid: Where having that heavy plate helmet (Or anything on your head really) reduces *your* senses and ability to listen and hear if there are zombies nearby. Getting surprise grabbed from behind could easily lead to the aforementioned getting buried and suffocating scenario a lot easier. But at the end of the day, I do think its a good option, and you would fare well, especially if don't play the role of edgelord main protagonist and slay zombies with fellow knights, people to watch your back and pull you out from under a dogpile or to take turns taking watch as you rest would mitigate a lot of the issues armor has.
I always thought those dreglings from Demon's Souls game were zombies. I remember fighting them one on one was easy,but if there were several of them,they could be a problem as it was harder to dodge multiple attacks at the same time.
The tactic in the movie 300 (pause for groans) where they back up after a wave of enemies to force each new wave to step over increasing waves, is a form of tactical retreat that may be useful against some theoretical zombies.
My only issue there is now you trapped behind a wall of meat. If you can get out a Zombie can get in. If you can open a door or window enough Zombies could break it. Unless you get to a stair let them pile up at the bottom and then leave via a second floor window.
@@Kakuretaka Reminds me of the end of Connecticut Yanky in King Arthurs Court. He builds a gatling gun and holds a cave against a whole army just to get trapped in the cave by the bodies and die of starvation.
I always thought that plate armor would make for pretty good defense against unarmed enemies that try to bite you. And swords should do good to remove the head from the body. But at the same time, the heavier the armor, the faster exhaustion sets in. So padded gambeson plus mail should give enough defense while keeping weight down. Add some armored gauntlets to keep the hands safe, and the fighter should work well. And it doesn't even have to be swords, maces and spikes aren't only good at piercing and denting plate, but also do the same to skulls. And polearms for reach, if they don't get into biting distance, they can't bite you. Population density also was lower in those times, and in most media zombies without anything to hunt would just slowly walk around. So a knit who knows the village is full of zombies might just go around, move to the next castle, and offer services to the local lord in clearing out the undead. Because a village without people is a village that doesn't produce.
A lot of the anti armour stuff among zombie fans comes from the Zombie Survival Guide, which was written by a man whose military knowledge is perhaps best summed up by his belief that a tank would be useless against zombies because you can't get headshots with it.
While I have not read Zombie Survival Guide, it sounds like you are referencing World War Z. In that universe zombies were still "living" even when they were just heads. I believe there were two or three stories of people who were in a tank. It mentions how they would pop the heads with the machine gun and eventually just run over the zombies to get to safe zones. Tanks would be difficult to supply during an apocalypse. I remember there also being a microwave laser that they used during the fog and the laser glowed. It supposedly made a good motivational poster. They used an experimental weapon once then dismantled it because it sucked so much power and took a few seconds to kill.
@@baileycastro6060 Same author. And it's nonsense in both works. He consistently fails to understand the effects of not only tanks, but modern artillery, aerial attack, etc on a shambling horde of undead that lack everything that makes human beings dangerous. There's a reason why most zombie apocalypse scenarios skip the actual apocalypse and move straight to trying to survive after the fact: there is no realistic way to depict a modern army failing to handle cinema's least threatening monster. Hell, in a point more relevant to what's under discussion in the video, he claims in the survival guide that medieval armour would provide no defense because the zombies will just tear it off you. His stuff is fun to read, but man oh man does it have no basis in reality.
@@KartarNighthawk I agree that there is no realistic way to show the military failing. You reminded me how the author said the US military dug trenches and had hazmat suits-- even though news reporters had no protection-- to fight the zombies in New York City. He really did make all the militaries a bunch of brainless, incompetent a-holes. I thought it was just satire. It was a great book to read for me in 2012 but recalling stuff now is making me think a bit more critically about the book now. The author really has no knowledge about the military. Definitely no basis in reality.
depends on the specific lore of the zombies. For example in project zomboid, you can be covered from head to toes in zombie blood, but if they didn;t bite you, you're fine
Depends on the weapon a lot too. A blunt weapon won't cause much mess because its damage is mostly beneath the skin without breaking it. Thrusting weapons also wouldn't make much mess unless you nicked an artery and even then that's only if the zombie's heart is still pumping. A slashing weapon could make more mess, especially if you make some deep cuts and then get grappled, but if its reach is long enough to prevent things getting close it'd be fine.
@@_bulgus_6831 The Indie Stone probably took that liberty with the lore since the game would be next to impossible if you could get infected just by having a zombie's blood splatter either in your eyes, mouth, etc. The game would be an absolute nightmare. 😅
I loved that trailer, not only it's an amazing (and surprisingly untapped) concept of zombie vs knight game, but also because this game didn't fell into the way too common trope of "armor = clunky, slow, and noisy".
When you were talking about medieval battles and falling down being a common cause of death, it brought to mind modern concerts for metal bands. Common advice to people attending their first concert is "no matter what happens, keep your feet under you". Anyone that's ever been to a concert knows that the crowd can move suddenly and unpredictably, if you fall down during such a surge it's almost guaranteed you're going to get trampled and there's every little anyone around you can do to prevent it. A knight in armor would be protected to a degree, but it's no surprise it would be common for them to die if they fell... whether from being trampled or bodies piling up on them.
To be fair a zombie siege would probably be less problematic in a castle than a normal one. At least if there aren't millions of zombies there. They don't try to take cover so your projectiles will more easily hit, and with some strategically placed small openings for spears you can also make quick work of them I guess
You almost DEFINITELY would break a zombie seige on a castle seeing as they was designed to keep, sometimes, huge armies of people armed even with seige engines an diverse missile, Calvery an infantry forces out.. which is hella of alot harder. Literally with Z's ALL they got is aggression and numbers. As long as it's not one the VERY FEW movies, games or shows where a zombie had some sorta reasoning ability to operate heavy modern artillery of any kind.. which even most humans teams STILL need extensive training as gun crews to learn to work as a howitzer or mortar crew effectively.. you ought to be alright so long as supplies hold out an they don't luck out with an overlooked way in somehow
@@robertagu5533 The zombies would just not lift the siege due to lack of supply. They'd have all the time. Eventually that would kill you, because you could only have so much food in the castle.
@@anttileivo2065 Open gate a little, slay one at a time, close gate when tired/bored, all the while poke from on high with a spear. Is there an unlimited supply of zombies? I don't think it will take too much time to depopulate an area. Zombies aren't known for superb logistics so assembling a horde large enough the castle's defenders cannot kill them all before running out of supplies sounds like a bit of a stretch.
You don't even really need full metal armor. I remember reading a book in highschool once where the people trapped in a house cut up the carpet and made armor out of it.
For knights vs zombies, see: Dwarf Fortress. The undead in that game do not bleed, do not have vital organs, and if you cut off a limb, that limb and the rest of the body just get resurrected into two separate zombies. The only way to effectively fight the undead is to beat them so hard using blunt weapons that they turn into a pulp and cannot reanimate anymore.
Wow your channel has really blown the fuck up brother! I’ve been off of UA-cam for quite a while so I’m just checking in on some of my favorite channels and I’m pleased to see the massive success you’ve had! You deserve every sub my good man, keep up the good work! 😎👍
But now imagine your dear friend sir Diesalot becoming infected in full plate with a very neat sturdy helmet protecting that zombified brain, how'd you deal with that? Trying to shank the zomknight would just piss it off.
@@krzysztofkolodziejczyk4335 i'd argue that in modern settings it would make sense because of how concentrated the population is nowadays. sure the area would be quarantined fairly quickly but it would still spread very fast. project zomboid does a good job with this imo
Funny little coincidence. I was watching your scale armor video and was at the noise part when a friend send me the trailer. I had to laugh at the stealth presentation.
I'd argue that armor is better than not. Looking at the extremes, if you get 'caught' by a zombie with no armor, your doomed. With armor, your probability of living goes up alot. as for exhaustion well, if zombies don't tire, then running is pointless anyway. They will always eventually catch up. Its a matter of minutes or seconds with or without armor. So if you can't blockade yourself, then you must fight. and if you must fight, then armor is better than not. If a horde comes for you, then your probably done for regardless.
One thing to consider is the maintenance of the armors. Dealing with zombies while being in mail would eventually destroy it due to all the goo that will accumulate in the rings. (Assuming the knight/soldier would be fighting and surviving for weeks with little to no time) same goes for plate armored knights
One thing to consider with modern zombie settings is that the population density is orders of magnitude higher than in the past. A knight clearing out a zombified village on his own is more plausible than a small town from today.
I was going to point that out. A medieval zombie plague would spread much slower and have less people to infect. Making it easier to put down.
not to mention that even if a horde managed to grow big enough to force soldiers inside a keep/castle it prob wouldnt end up being a drawn out siege as skall said. Rather just drop the portcullis have some people act as bait (on the safe side of the portcullis) to lure the horde in and then just dump burning oil on the zombies through murder holes. itd take care of a horde pretty quick. hell even some incendiary arrows shot down the murder hole once they all grouped up would likely deal with them.
@@dom7899 POINTY STICKS!!
@@zubbworks yeah spears through the portcullis would work too, until the bodies pile up too much that you cant see/stab the still moving ones. long torches would prob work aswell with the upside of burning up the zombies (probs not enough to cremate them though) and the downside of smelling like absolute hell
Necromancers be like: Hmmm if I choose a hamlet's graveyard I can start in obscurity. But if I'm megamind enough I can risk it all in a city cemetery. *presentation*
The Show "Kingdom" does a really good job showing organized feudal armies fighting zombies vs individuals. Solo you get that terrifying feeling of being overwhelmed but as a organized and competent force it leads to some really interesting scenarios.
It misses some elements (eg, ditches would have massively improved their fortifications), although it is a massive step up.
@@NevisYsbryd yeah, but they had really little time to prepare. Like less than a day, sometimes.
Yeah, makes sense. Trained spearmen would halt cavalry charges, they could take the undead too, probably.
i imagine a wall of winged spears would be sufficient to stop any mindless horde charge.
Well yeah, once you upscale from a single knight to a small squad that can do formations the amount of zombies they can kill safely raises exponentially.
I've worn a full set of plate and maile on a battlefield. After 3 hours of wearing it, I was absolutely knackered. But then again, this was not something that I trained with from a young age.
the zombie horde chasing you might give you untapped reserves too.
Well even if you go safe and only give yourself an hour or two that would be a decent amount of zombies your could clear out before retreating back into your safehouse. Defeating a zombie horde, isn't a sprint, its a marathon that you can do in chunks. Let alone you don't have to kill all the zombies, just the ones in your area, at which point the population density of new zombies moving in will be far more manageable.
@@anvos658 my man knows a thing or two about killing zombies
@@anvos658 or you can call an airstrike.
I've worn armor (heavier 16th century type) and I lasted for a whole day but at the end of the day I had to SLEEP hard, however I am trained to wear heavy stuff and it didn't take too long to train myself to be honest.
So yes, I'd gladly wear plate armor in a zombie apocalypse over kevlar or something else that exposes my human bits! I genuinely don't think plate armor is as heavy as some people make it, if it is form fitted on you and tied and attached to you well and hard? No problem, I barely even feel it unless I videogame roll or something.
Having worn maille with both short and long sleeves, I can confirm that having that weight on your arms makes a world of difference. The coif and arming cap is also surprisingly stifling. When I first started reenacting, we were actively encouraged to "loot" helmets (particularly faceplates) off of the fallen to help them breathe a little easier.
As for castles, I actually think it'd be ideal. Yes, you'd end up with a siege scenario if you let it, but you can also periodically lower the bridge, or open a gate. Basically create a killzone to whittle down the horde. A gatehouse usually had an inner and outer portcullis, so you could trap a number of zombies in there, cut them down, toss the bodies back over the walls, and repeat once everyone's had a rest. Siege assaults were incredibly costly even for an organised force, and a horde of zombies doesn't know better.
Good point. The sieging "army" wouldn't apply and tactics besides rushing head on, so clearing out an area, or staying quiet to make them slowly waddle away and leave a path to run raids for supplies.
Why not have archers just shoot them and avoid risking the Infection inside the gates someone has to clean or drag those bodies if they were to throw them and since the medicine back then wasn't too goo you just have a time bomb inside the castle
@@Assassin5671000 You can only do that for as long as you have arrows... Pretty sure that was covered in the video. Medicine's a moot point because even with modern medicine you're screwed if you get bitten.
Starvation and disease are going to run rampant, the longer you're trapped inside the walls, the worse it'll get. You need to deal with the horde somehow.
The gatehouse allows you to funnel the horde into a choke point, seperate groups of zombies from the rest of the horde, rain rocks and arrows on them through the muder-holes above - you can then retrieve those projectiles, spear them through the gaps in the portcullis, all sorts. I don't see where you'd find a better advantage.
@@Assassin5671000 Because killing something with an arrow from a distance that either needs to get completely incapacitated or get it's brains blown out is suprisingly difficult.
Arrows work great vs people because we can die from bloodloss and nobody likes being shot at.
Zombies kinda ignore the first bit and don't give a damn about the last bit.
@@charchadonto Doesn't really matter its still a viable tactic to shoot at them ,they can at the very least hit a leg or an arm or even hit the mouth if lucky a severely limit them. Then even if the knights have come out it would be easier for them to deal with what's left
The thing I loved about the Blight trailer is that I could instantly recognize the period based on the armour. It makes me really excited.
Agree.
It looks like late 14th century to me, because I saw the cloth and the arm armor
Also man that bascinet was sexy
Knights versus zombies is the basic premise for "Army of Darkness." Ash comes up with with some inventively anachronistic ways to fight the dead.
Nothing beats a zombie like the good old boomstick 👌
Yeah but they some eldritch ass zombies with superpowers only Bruce Campbell can defeat
@@reptiloidmitglied2930 Shop smart. Shop S-mart.
Skeletons ain't zombies! Like maybe Evil Ash is a zombie.... but deadites are only MOSTLY zombies 😅
@@michaelcorns1789 Heh. Good point. They certainly didn't seem thirsty for brains, nor did they infect/curse the living. They were simply the army of the dead. But, hey-reanimated dead, right? They've at least got that in common with zombies. Maybe these were medieval-era zombies.
Remember that the population in the middle ages was vastly smaller than today, so hordes of zombies in a given location might not even make it to a hundred.a small band of armed knights could fight their way through that. The issue would be on the large cities like London or Paris where you would still have a horde numbering on the dozens of thousands.
Also almost every man and most women knew some combat skills. It was an era they still had to worry about bandits attacking you on the road. So even if a whole village was taken out a good chunk of the potential zombies would have been destroyed in the process. You would get like half of population of 80 hording on the next town.
@@williamjenkins4913 "Bandits on the road" in medieval europe would have been poor (or just enemy-) knights and their men, nomad cavalrymen, Skandinavians or mercenaries. in bands of 50+ to several hundreds.
I don't think a lone traveller's Kung Fu skills would have made that much of a difference...
@@williamjenkins4913 combat skills are not so useful when fighting numerous enemies that don't fear pain or death.
@@ArifRWinandar They do when said enemies who have no fear of pain or death, also have no brains or skill whatsoever. Just climb a tree with a long pointy stick and have at them all with no fear of death. Zombies are on the low end of the totem pole of monster, one of the few that are actively weaker/less dangerous than the average person, like goblins or kobolds.
@UCs6YEu5vA0aCEQqbCI_JdzA You climb up to the next branch higher. Odds are there wouldn't be enough to even need that though. Eight bodies isn't going to give you a pile the height of a tree. Let alone the fact that this proves that there wouldn't even be that many because the average peasant would kill far more Zombies than a 1 for 1. Peasants are just the superior zombie for the noble if you will.
Let alone the ones armed by blacksmiths with gambeson or hell even mail. They'd slaughter zombies like teenagers think they would in their day dreams.
As far as armour goes, I feel like a gambeson alone would do the trick to protect against the occasional bite, and would fatigue you much less.
That's pretty much all a k9 training suit is, and those things will protect you from a German Shepherd trained to eat faces going all out
I think the real issue there is that one zombie getting ahold of you would slow you down immensely, letting others close the distance.
That's a good point. I think the advantage of metal armor over a gambeson in this case is its resilience. A gambeson alone would get torn by zombie teeth and fingernails and eventually be less effective, but they couldn't really damage metal plate.
@@youremakingprogress144 they could damage the straps and strings. Gambeson might actually hold better.
Gambeson, gauntlets and maybe a mail coif would be my thought. For the standard shamble zombies i agree a gambeson would be very effective, and far less tiring.
With the traditional zombie in mind, the average knight could easily get away with wearing just a gambeson, metal gauntlets, mail coif, good boots, and helmet. It would be much lighter which allows a knight to better manage their stamina while still protecting from bites and scratches.
I suppose a steel armor would be better against smaller groups, but yes i agree.
If you face a big horde like lets say an actual city, you will face hundreds of them. You will need lighter gear to get away faster
In order for cloth armor to function correctly, it must be thick and heavy. Maybe it would weigh less than steel, but it is the resistance that is the issue. Very thick clothing resists movement. That would tire you faster than simply carrying the weight with much less resistance to movement.
depends on the zombie's thearetical bite strength. Eg: Walking Dead zombies biting and scratching thru a horses side like it was cake.
Knights sharp sword gonna get thru zombies easy.
Being fast is important to not get surrounded
so the best case would probably be a group of people with shield and Maces, armored in mail armor + good head, hand and foot protection. This setup allows for doing hit and run quick attacks to clear a section. However imo one thing that is rarely explored in movies is fire. If the zombies gather together in tight groups without much self preservation this means if you throw burning pots or arrows at them And run away they will all get burned as they are practically hugging each other and are dried rotting corpses which we know burn easily
Knights are akin to modern tanks. Their main weakness is visibility. They rely on other troops with better visibility for situational awareness. I'd imagine that knights were typically accompanied by their squires in battle who would guide them and cover their flank. Skall, if you're reading this, I'd love a video on how squires served their knights and protected them in battle.
That depends a lot on the precise time period. Late medieval to early renaissance armor was much heavier than late roman to early medieval armor. At the same time the weapons changed as well. From rather short swords in the beginning to more focus on polearms and blunt weapons like maces. So the late medieval fighter would have the best equipment to fight the zombie, but also the gear that would impact visibility and endurance the most.
No.
Knights didnt just walk around with visors on their face, they often lifted visors up so they could see. Many knights suffered wounds on the face even in the late middle ages when visors were worn
@@DieNibelungenliad probably because visors weren't thick enough or something?
@@Awesomeflame16 visors were thin but I'm certain wearing one is better than not wearing anything
@@Awesomeflame16 Henry V of England was gruesomely wounded at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403 when an arrow pierced the left side of his face. We are lucky enough to have access to the record of the surgical operation that saved him. No mention is made of having to remove the arrow from the visor as well as his face, which certainly would have been since that would further complicate an already complicated operation. Therefore it can be concluded that the injury occurred because Henry had raised his visor (or was not wearing a helmet with visor). It seems to have been a common practice, at least and especially among commanders and officers who would need to be able to shout to issue orders to their subordinates
In the books "Rot and Ruin" "Dust and Decay" and the rest by Jonathan Maberry they used old carpet worn inside-out as armor: light, well padded, relatively unrestrictive, can't bite through it, readily available in all the abandoned homes.
That's such an intuitive idea! Really good job by the author on coming up with that. I'd like to see some testing to see how viable it would be not just against hands/teeth but also blunt force and cuts. Thank you for bringing this up, it's really cool!
@@retroicdescent Yeah, the books are really good, and the worldbuilding takes a lot of minor things into account. Another example was that the zombies behaved like severely braindamaged individuals: they had a tendency of shambling in their prior routine if there was no living creature around and could regularly be found practically melded to the couch in their home or shambling around their back garden, or the fact that higher elevations are safer because without some living flesh to motivate them they kinda just followed the path of least resistance in their wanderings and would usually end up amassing in valleys and things.
So basically a home made arming jacket? Neat.
That's something that always bothered me in The Walking Dead & other zombie movies/shows, when they have a safe place to call home, why aren't they working on making improvised armor? You wouldn't have to make much, just enough for the arms & legs since those are the most likely places to get her bit and maybe something for the neck, but torso protection would be secondary since your less likely to get but in the chest or stomach. I think that the only time I've seen a character make armor on a zombie film or show was Brad Pitt in World War Z where he strapped phone books to his arms.
was reading those back in middle school, and this kid who sat at my table in lunch fucking spoiled most of the deaths. im pretty sure i almost fought him over it lol. those books were so fucking good man.
In the medieval era, population was more spread out as well since there wasn't yet mass urbanization.
So I think outside of cities you wouldn't see huge hordes, so small groups of knights could probably deal with most zombie sieges.
Also the zombies would probably eventually wander away after a week or so of siege.
Yeah, if everybody stays inside then maybe the zombies would eventually forget and begin wandering. But honestly I think even that wouldn't be necessary. As long as you have something to break a rock down with like a pickaxe and the material to make slings, you have a very, VERY large supply of ammo. The zombies would never strategically retreat or try to dodge, so you'd be able to have men just constantly showering the zombies with stones. It's almost a guarantee you have more stones that there are zombies, so nearly every time you'll clear out the zombies before you run out of supplies. The only exception I'd see is if you are in or near a bigger city like London where there'd be millions of zombies instead of a couple hundred or even thousand on the country side.
unless you have warhammer style zombies where necromancers can reanimate the zombies as well as the long dead from thousands of years ago.... suddenly its not the recently dead you are facing its literaly generations!
@@UCUCUC27 Bones don't walk, And we're not talking about Magic Zombies
@@UCUCUC27 still not scary about the purple orks. What's that? Never seen a purple (stealth) ork? Exactly
@@birb2330 You cannot have zombies without some sort of magic or supernatural element as reanimating dead bodies is physically impossible. The only natural causes wouldn't result in true zombies. They would be infected, aggressive humans that could still die from more than just headshots. The only zombie-like quality besides aggression you would see is the lack of higher brain functions like strategizing or the ability to use doors or the conscious decision to use weapons.
Also, armor that is specifically made for you will fit so much better than someone else's armor.
This is why knights actually got their armor made for them occasionally. They understood that custom fitting armor is the best way to go and your body will change over time. So a lot of times they had armor created then months later would have it recreated and so on. There's also many different designs types, techniques, etc that go into armor. It really all depends on what you need. Not all knights were just full on plate armor tanks.. There were knights that wore leather armor as well because they didn't want to be as constricted or weren't exactly frontliners. There's a lot that goes into it really.
Not always, only the rich ones or professional soldiers, the less wealthy usually bought an used one and either get it smithed to fit a little bit better or kinda pret a porter and dealt with the problems associated to a bad fitting
Personally I think chainmail will work too.
@@Hivedragon they already use it for sharks.
@@Roboticus_Prime_RC So perfect for zombies
Another Medival strategy is to take advantage of choke points. There are only so many zombies that can fit through a gate or a city ally at once, if you can lure the hard into a choke point, you can take advantage of force rotation, only having some of your knights fighting at any moment, ans the rest standing in reserve and resting. This is especially useful tactic if the zombies are all in the other side of a wall, as you can always drop the portculis and let your entire force to rest.
In such case i recommend not only steel armor, but also shields. Spiked tower or kiteshield would work to bash in zombie heads and keep them at distance.
Have some peeps use crossbow/bows to shoot in between the shields and you create a corpse wall over time. Pretty much bodyblocking any zombies behind it.
Then just use flammables to set them on fire
@@cherrydragon3120 Yeah, an army with a shield and spears should deal with a horde of zombies easily.
You don't even need something as complicated as a bow or crossbow, even a sling would do the job
Don't forget murder holes, too. A medieval castle, even defended by a small force, could likely wear down a zombie horde pretty quickly if the fortification was well built and they used decent tactics.
Plus, dropping the portcullis itself, if it was large enough, might kill a decent number of zombies! Heck, some castle gates even had two portcullises! Open the outer portcullis to let the zombies in, leave the inner portcullis down, and just slaughter the zombies with polearms and spears!
Think of that story from Korea that just happened on Halloween where all those people got stuck in a street
All I can imagine reading this is the scene from the Gladiator where the romans keep fighting for a limited time and then change the soldier to the next in line for a little rest..
One thing to consider is that even when zombies are depicted at their dumbest and slowest, they almost always still retain some abilities. They can grasp objects, pull things and sometimes even use tools. If a knight were knocked down and surrounded by dozens of zombies, it's very possible that one of the zombies would eventually pull off bits of the plate or the helmet, at which point it's game over.
I mean not much besides a fortress will survive dozens of zombies. I think what is interesting is that compared to military today which is incredibly good at ranged warfare, knights excel at close combat.
So if you have a handful of modern infantry units they have a chance to suffer more causalities at close range if clearing out areas than knights would since a bite or scratch is not going to go through mail or steel
Thing Is almost every town and village, and every castle had some sort of protective wall around it and they had the supplies to last under siege for extended periods of time.
Secondly, in the medieval times the cities were smaller and so we wouldn't have the same type of undead hordes we see in movies
Thirdly, traveling between cities took a long time, which means the disease wouldn't take the world by surprise and would rather have been a local phenomenon of a couple small towns at max.
Realistically considering these points and other factors we can conclude that any zombie outbreak would likely be dealt with quickly and effectively by the local Lords.
What makes the modern world so vulnerable to a zombie outbreak is the lack of armor and weapons, complete lack of fighting experience of the general population, the existence of huge urban centres and fast global travel allowing the disease to be carried across different countries, none of which are existent in the medieval period.
Curious question: Would a zombie actually recognize a knight in full plate armor as food? Because if all a zombie sees is a cold steel suit of armor, it might not actually realize there's a person in it
they'd still smell the person inside
I guess it depends on how zombies in the setting detect the living. Are they just hostile towards anything moving? Do they sense heat? Is it smell? Do they hunt based on sight (an armored person still looks like a person, thus the pattern of a bipedal human is recognized and is considered food)?
There's more questions we could ask as well, like whether these zombies hunt to eat or just to infect, etc. but that's it's own tangent.
The fact that they're person shaped might be enough, depending on what kinds of instincts are left, or if they just have the plot-derived ability to detect where living humans are hiding to build tension in the story
@@terrydavis5924 that being the case would they go after say mannequins?
@@firestorm165 That'd make sense and be kinda funny.
I think how well humanity could deal with zombies would depend on what type of outbreak/infection it is. If it's the kind where it's an airborne pathogen and everyone is assumed to be infected causing them to turn into a zombie upon death, then that would be a massive challenge to deal with. If it's a world where infection happens only upon getting bitten or scratched, then I think it would be relatively easy to deal with because zombies could theoretically be killed to extinction and life could resume.
Yup. As long as the infection needs bite's and scratches, all you need is a proper exterior defense and means to incapacitated them.
Now, if you add the kind that transforms and develops means to breach armor, that's a bigger threat. But as long as they're effectively humans without a mind, they're vulnerable. Especially if their bodies are already decaying.
And then you had that one dickhead that gets bitten/scratched and denies it, endagering everyone as a result.^^
What about if we went the magical route and they're the puppets of evil magic users who may or may not be obvious about being evil magic users?
@@insertname3977
Then thats even harder to fix, since it would be looking for a single individual in a ocean of people
If they are smart and hide in a secret location,that harders things
If they are dumb then you would have for info on the guy/gal who is in charge of the undead and thats harder since where would you find that??
Let alone the fact that while you have to do that while the number of zombies rise per minute
@@FoxyGrandmeowmmy5598 And to think this use to be the more common zombie scenario at a certain point in zombie media history.
I've noticed a lot of wrestlers in street fights show a pretty decent ability to stay on their feet. A lot of knights would likely have trained quite a bit in just plain wrestling to be able to keep from having to waste so much energy getting back on their feet.
Plus, the additional weight of the armor is beneficial in this case, since more force is required to knock you down.
@@calsalitra4689 Surely that goes both ways though with more weight once you do become imbalanced it's harder to rebalance yourself
@@jazzb97 I don't think so. Rebalancing yourself after being imbalanced is a matter of redistributing your body weight to regain a center of balance. Since armor is fairly evenly distributed over the body, rebalancing should be mostly the same.
Unless you armor your torso while leaving your arms and legs unarmored, but against zombies it's more valuable to armor your arms and legs, since those are what's most likely to get scratched or bitten.
@@calsalitra4689 Depends on where the weight is - you can be great at keeping balance but if your weight is off then you'll eat shit the moment you lose balance.
If you're in the Medieval times stuck in castle with a horde of zombos, your best defense may be fire. If they're very clumped together in a horde type setting, then a few dozen barrels of burning pitch would be devastating, and because they're zombos, they probably don't know any better than to keep trying to siege this castle they'll never get into regardless that they're all slowly getting set ablaze. Burning pine tar would rinse through hordes, and the fires would kill off disease and such that dead bodies would have. Even if it doesn't get them all, it would get the vast majority of the herd and put their numbers at a much more manageable amount. Modern day (since you mentioned motorcycle stuff) the best weapon to use is probably still fire. Flamethrowers, molotovs, and napalm. I'm not a pyromaniac, but people are limited by their stamina, zombos aren't. Instead of spending all our stamina on fighting, light them up and then let them burn themselves out. Anything touched by the flammable gels would be charred to oblivion in a matter of about 30 seconds.
Something I always find funny about the "tireless" undead trope is that it doesn't really make sense. The reason our bodies get tired, muscles get sore etc is because we only have the energy to do so much, and with muscles it's because they get damaged with overuse and need to be healed back stronger. Zombies are dead, they don't heal. Get zombies to chase after you and they're going to just start falling apart, they'll still be working muscles but as those muscles burn they're also going to rip themselves apart. Every time a zombie stumbles awkwardly forward they're that much closer to ripping a tendon and now they have no structural support to walk. This is kinda a moot point though because zombies as a trope work off magic of "science" that's really just magic but isn't called that to fit into a non magic setting.
Zombie dont care
they are basically rotting
They will push their muscles to the point of injury, if you really want it's probably possible to defeat a zombie through pure exhaustion, but you yourself wont be able to, you'll succumb to pain/exhaustion farrrr far faster than them
in the last of us, the show, in the first episode you can see a zombie flinging itself into table edges and stuff just to get to people, they do not care about pain or longevity
El wiwi that was the other guy's point, zombies don't have self preservation sense and a non trained human body is very very weak, even a stumble can kill you
@@elwiwi4638 sure, but that just goes to their point that zombies would be self destructive to the point of crippling themselves and not being threats anymore
@@callsignapollo_ yeah like i said if you just trail around a zombie eventually it'll wear itself down
issue is it /will/ have more energy than you, to manage to get it to damage itself via exhaustion you will probably be exhausted first
@elwowi4638
If we've just established that zombies cannot physically be tireless and are subject to the same biology as us, why would they have more energy despite being in a state of decomposition? Is there any proper reason at all?
In theory, zombies can also be waited-out. They might not decay as much, but cold is going to get them slower and slower, till they are completely frozen. People generate heat(and know how retain it), and zombies either don't or they would need a food supply too.
They absolutely would decay. They're corpses. Corpses create gas and attract decomposers, not to mention the ones already in us. Within a month, every newly risen dead would be a bloated, soft, mushy mess held together by virions and whatever clothing managed to stay on. Imagine a hot summer. Imagine a dead deer. That deer, undead or dead dead, would rot before it could cause too much harm. I've seen a deer disappear in under a week thanks to a few crows, hot weather, and bacteria. All there was left by day 9 was a stinky stain.
don't forget water. the zombies aren't gonna be hydrating properly, since they are just shambling about. so they either need to stay right next to a river/lake, or they are gonna dehydrate and die within a few days.
@@Thejigholeman they dont need water because they are already dead
@@SuprAmEnteM water is needed to function, That's why we drink it.
No water means your muscles wont function properly because the meat is all dried out.
Dried meat wont flex and pull, which means you cant move.
And lets not forget animals. If a predator isn't picky zombies would just be an easy snack for them. Their is no way a dozen zombies are going to overpower tigers or bears. Also flies.
Zombies used to be a neat idea of exploring the loss of humanity in apocalyptic conditions.
But like most good things, Hollywood milked it past the point of it being ashes.
And most people realized it would actually be great for everyone's chronic stress levels.
@@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514
More stressful than 3rd center AD?
Oh please.
@@AncestorEmpire1 no......but less stressful than today!
@@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514 you’re either stupid or in denial.
We are better off today than we were centuries ago.
Be thankful you were born in recent times than during the time of mongol invasions and incurable plagues/disease.
@@AncestorEmpire1 but a zombie apocalypse is less stressful. all you need to do is kill zombies and live life.
Depends on the odds*. Even with the best equipment, strenght and stamina, if you are surrounded and overwhelmed by sheer mass...
* And zombie type. World world Z zombies are vastly different from walking dead ones.
PS.: The pommel moment made me fall off the chair.
World war Z zombies are also vastly different than world war Z zombies. About the only thing the book and the film share is a title. I don't know the walking dead, but in the world war Z book zombies are slow shamblers.
the biggest difference between different zombies is usually the walk vs run options. Classic slow zombies are slow, but many and will eventually catch up. Fast zombies could easily outrun you without pain or fatigue.
And then the question how it is transmitted. In most cases someone gets infected (in case of a zombie virus) by body fluids, and some demonstrate that removing the limb in time can save people. In others everyone is infected anyway, but it only turns them after death, no matter how they die. And then obviously the magical zombies, which are a whole different thing.
In any case, a society with constant zombie thread (be it because everyone will turn or not) would probably move towards cremation instead of earth burials.
@@alistairsmith4297 walking dead zombies in the show act however the plot wants them to act. They can use tools like bricks to break through glass.
@@HappyBeezerStudios I figured mega corporations would use them to create a perpetual motion machine. Putting zombies in a treadmill and making them walk. The (un)dead don't need rest. Cremation would be terrifying, a corpse reanimating in the middle of the process.
and does the zombies mutate ?
armour would only slow you down when fighting tank
heck how the hell a sword can defeat that things
Armoured combatants would be exceptionally useful when you're attempting to clear a location with help. Very little to fear on their part because if they fall or get dragged down they won't be stuck until they die. Otherwise you're probably better off just protecting vulnerable locations like your arms, lower legs and shoulders, bits of you that either stick out or a easy to grab, and keeping light enough to move for long periods of time.
I loved the "end him rightly" bit with zombie Skall. That was great!
I agree the armour is not the ultimate solution. This being said, I think medieval tactics would work extremely well. In most zombies movies, the zombies have soft skulls, you see it when some character just shove a knife into a zombies skull by just pushing on the knife. Based on that, any kind of funnel with an obstacle in front of it (a simple window) would make it really easy to just use spears to dispatch the zombies. Of course, this is only one idea. In general, military tactics before the 20th century were strongly focused on handling swarming.
To be fair, almost any military tactics from any period would work well. Which is why most zombie apocalypse stories skip the part where the army fails to deal with the problem
@@hrotha Yeah, I always found it weird how almost no tanks or military armoured vehicles appear in zombie stories. Sometimes the survivor make a makeshift armoured vehicle but it's not really the same as some mechanized infantry vehicle with machine guns and maybe even grenade launchers (which i imagine would be really effective at taking care of groups of zombies)
@@leterrierdinari2861 in the world war Z book they do deal with it, the zombies walk through the napalm, so now they had to deal with fiery zombies that just kept walking, HE tank rounds and missiles tear many into pieces but if the head isnt gone they kept on crawling also bullets pass through them (soldiers are trained to shoot at center of mass not heads) and they keep walking etc. also mankind does "win" in the end by essentially waiting them out
@@hrotha I feel like the solution to the world somehow managing to truly fall at the hands of zombies is easy. Make it so that they’re not stupid and can use strategy, or make it so that they’re very, very hard to truly kill permanently. Both would probably be the only real answer if they’re supposed to be defeating the entire world.
Yeah, that's one of the things I get mad at when watching them. The skull is one of the hardest parts of the skeleton. That is why it is often one of the only parts left to be found intact when ancient burials are unearthed. And you're not gonna just stomp on one's head and smush it like a melon, either.
I remember an internet forum years ago where I suggested biker gear, body armor, and melee weapons/tools were the way to go and you just thin enough of the zombies numbers to rebuild an restore basic infrastructure. I also remember people o. That forum arguing against that idea fervently. Thanks for validating my thought process.
9 years of watching your videos, and you still manage to find new topics to discuss. Few youtubers have your longevity!
It gets harder, but I'm too stubborn to give up. :)
@@Skallagrim Your subscribers are all behind you. UA-cam is making a mistake trying to muscle-out its high-quality content creators with reels
@@Skallagrim do not go gently into that night. Hack and slash
I always wanted to see knights fighting zombies or a hero wearing medieval equipment in TWD but finally, this game realised my fantasies.
I think another factor to consider is that there were much fewer populations in the middle age, so it would be unlikely that a knight would be overwhelmingly overrun by a massive number of zombies like survivors in modern urban area presented in most movies and games.
After watching this video, it makes me wonder how well soldiers in those days would handle a pair of XCOM Chrysalids.
My estimation would be that they'd get wiped due to the low powered weaponry. It takes multiple bursts with an assault rifle to take down a Chrysalid, and that's assuming all the bursts hit.
Perhaps they'd have something going for them with hard armour, but I'm not sure if that would make a difference.
@semajniomet981 I've never played XCOM but after searched the character that you said, I think, yep, Mediaeval guys would be just like pests to them.
The pommel joke was one of the funniest I've seen on your channel in a while. I have to say I prefer how it was seamlessly integrated into the script to the longer non-sequitur sketches. Good job!
Thought he casually held up a grenade at first tbh 👀
@@A_Black_Sheep94 i thought it was a doorknob
@@prettyradhandle Doorknob, a.k.a. the poor man's pommel.
If greatly equipped... Who's gonna bite you trough plate armor and chain male?
A werewolf 😂
Idk, but i think if he has been fighting for a while he would be pretty tired and that will llead to his death by being beated or crushed under a pile of zombies
A troll
When your legs inevitably give out, you'll fall down and get submerged in a sea of fists and teeth that WILL NOT STOP striking at you. Eventually things will break, be it joints or hinges or fastenings and that's when the armor will start falling apart and you'll die.
I thought we were talking about zombies though 😅
I think there was even a study about movement in plate armor. I was kinda dismissed by a lot of medieval nerds, because they thought it was some "plate armor is super heavy" shit without even really looking into it, but it was actually not that bad when I looked at it. They used armor around 30-50kg which is a bit much for "field armor", 25-35kg would've been more accurate, 50kg is really just tournament armor. But still. The result was basically that people in full plate need like 2.1-2.3 times the amount of energy for walking and around 1.9 times the amount for running, which is mostly caused by the leg and arm protection, because you just move your limbs a lot more and I don't know how much an arm usually weighs, but I imagine the armor does increase the weight of that part procentually quite a lot. So yeah, moving around the entire day in plate armor would be more draining, but I guess you could counter that with training. Still means you need more energy input, so more food and that's probably something you have to think about in a post-apocalyptic survival setting.
And for people who want to tell me "I wear armor all the time and I don't have any endurance problems"... well, nice for you I guess.
20-30kg would be the ideal for a test of medieval field armor. 35 kg field armor tends to be later in the 16th and 17th centuries due to more powerful fire arms.
moo 🛠
25-35kg actually seems rather light for plate armour. That's roughly the weight of the gear a modern soldier would carry.
Imo, hard plastic gear is much better than metal gear in the context of zombie apocalypse, due to the aforementioned weight issue.
@@kevinkarlwurzelgaruti458 Depends on the type of zombie though. Some do get extremely strong through the virus/magic/whatever, I think at least maille would be helpful for those scenarios
One thing to consider is that in any combat, you want to hit without being hit. But zombies don't have self-preservation. They wouldn't mind losing a limb if that would score a grab or a bite.
New fear unlocked: being trapped and suffocating to death under a mountain of bodies.
If we're talking a castle siege, then I suppose it depends on how dumb the zombies are. A lot of castles had a murder room at the entrance, so it would be possible to just let some in at a time and take them out with rocks or poking spears or something ... repeat until the zombie hordes are eliminated.
Bad idea. They would pile up soon, and then you have your only way out cut off, and hundreds of dead, decomposing bodies...
@@LuxisAlukard You only let some in at a time, so you can remove the bodies before letting any more in. One way to dispose of the bodies is to launch them at other zombies with a trebuchet.
@@IsaacKuo jesus that'd be grotesque but effective. imagine being the rescue party and you just see bodies being launched from the castle.
@@IsaacKuo Zombies, castle siege, trebuchets, stupidity; I think I've seen this movie.
would make a great game!
I've always imagined what knights vs zombies would be like, I am so unbelievably hyped for this game
4:40 Really glad you addressed the aspect of going to the ground with multiple opponents. A lot of people read the (possibly very dubious) "real fight statistic" about how often fights end up on the ground and often come away with the wrong sentiment from it. Yes, you should definitely know how to fight on the ground and debatably more importantly, specifically how to fight back to your feet and stay there.
Important thing about necromantic zombies is its a ton of people immediately, because literally everyone who has ever died (but isn't too decomposed) is a zombie. Not just recently infected people
Plus if we go off classic necromancy, then that's unlimited revives, it doesn't matter how many you kill, if the necromancer can get on the field afterwards, then that's a fully replenished army
@@ntfoperative9432 The other advantage of necromantic zombies is that being controlled by a far more aware live human with some smarts, they can be pointed in the right direction. For the other kinds of zombie (Romero/TWD/WWZ book slowpokes and 28DL/WWZ movie fast infected's) they can only really attack you in numbers if they know where you are, usually by you and those living with you being dumb as all fuck. Those don't have a competent leader to guide them like a Necromancer ('don't just stumble past that building... go in and look, dammit!') would but generally tend to have human normal eyesight, hearing and smell.
That's right, don't shoot them... you'll attract a lot more and then run simply out of ammo. Guns are damn loud. Just stay still, stay quiet and wait them out.
The disadvantage of necromantic zombies of course is if you can kill the Necromancer... no more zombies.
Then again, there's the chance they also (depends on lore) have bigger nasties to deal with than gribbly meat puppets so...
120B zombies?
I've been daydreaming about writing a "the black plague but it makes zombies" story, so having this pop up on my feed is good luck 👍
Never though about crowd crush. I imagine many have told you but you are a very smart man.
Rather recently Lindybeige described reenacting some battle in his full plate suit. One thing he told is that the ground is awfully far away, either to pick up something or to get up.
Gambeson alone is still used for bite-proof armor, see k9 training suits. Dogs are much better at biting than us too, so if a dog can't get through, no way we are.
Looks like the problem mostly comes down to numbers. The knight is all but invincible 1v1, and can ignore 1-2 others in a close fight, but the worse the outnumbering gets, the less likely survival is.
The K9 training suits are usually much thicker than gambesons mind you, but I'm curious about whether dogs have the same inhibitor behaviour our brain has to stop us using our full strength and destroying our joints, muscles, and bones in the process.
A well trained Knight is capable enough for multiple attackers.
Chain shark suit: Lightweight. Covers almost everything. Can wash infectious drool off.
I like that you brought up how exhausting it can be to fight in armour, even just somewhat armoured. I do Buhurt and some of the guys I know who have fought in championships have talked how exhausting it can be to be in armour, especially for a long time. I’ve also seen them when they do their armoured training and, while they aren’t super slow, they definitely are more sluggish than how they are normally, so it does affect your speed somewhat, especially when fighting.
I always thought motorcycle gear, leathers, kevlar, boots, gloves and helmet would be more than enough to deal with zombies while staying light and nimble
For the most part, yes. But not all, I think the cheapest stuff would actually work better. Good motorcycle gear would restrict your movements a bit, mainly the jackets would since they're often designed to position your arms in such a way so that it's less fatiguing when riding. But, I don't have enough experience with riding jackets or HEMA to be able to say definitively whether or not it would affect your ability to fight or not. But this is textile gear that I'm thinking of, I've handled full racing leathers enough that I know that fighting while wearing that would suck. Your range of motion works suck & even if you could overcome that, you'd overheat really quick. That stuff is definitely not meant to be worn while doing anything but riding a motorcycle around a track as far as you can.
Biggest killer in walking dead is there love of short sleeve shirts like seriously put a biker jacket on and half of me would still be alive
One of the main issues with fighting in full leathers is Hyperthermia, heatstroke and dehydration.
What Skal mentionedbearly in the video about humans being suited for long distance pursuit, hunting down prey to the point of their exhaustion; That's specifically due to humans ability to sweat.
Most other animals, especially those with fur, don't sweat like we do. They lack our innate ability for mobile core/internal thermal regulation.
They usually require submerging themselves in water for a bit or something similar. With dog's, and other canines, their panting is their equivalent to us sweating in some regards.
Sweating obviously come as a cost though, if we sweat too much we can dehydrate. If we are in a very cold area, we can make our clothes soaking wet then freeze to death.
A tough, lightweight, tightfitting and breathable material would be ideal for protection against zombies.
@@AceDan-gc9po Walking Dead is set in Atlanta mostly isn't it? Granted I'm from further south in GA but it's hot as hell like 8 months a year in this part of the country, and the humidity makes it worse, which makes overheating a huge concern. Biker gear tends to assume you're at 60 or better. I get the point of course, obviously survival>comfort but it is something to consider in a zombie scenario.
@@soulsurvivor8293 I gree with most of your statements.
However, it does not take full leather to cause heat problems.- I ride an ADV bike and use textile pants and jacket. Even on moderately warm days the gear is hot wthout the windchill factor of the ride. Sweating does not neccessarily help as the sweat does not evaporate properly.
Riot gear may be the best bet.
Yes finally, I was waiting for Skal to review this. Since it is both medieval and a zombie apocalypse 😁
Considering the amount of protection a suit of armor (even incomplete) gives against zombies (unless it is a horde), it always surprised me how underrepresented armor is in the context of zombie movies. Yeah, not a lot of people have things that are close to that, but as the time passes, survivors probably would retain pieces of good armor as treasures as they scavenge.
The best i've seen was wrapping your arms in duct tape in Train to Busan.
Because armor is overpowered against zombies so no one would die
The problem with armour is that usually people wouldn't dress for battle. Like the problem with zombies is that you are under constant threat, 24/7, all seasons including 30C if not more summers.
Sure it's protective but I highly doubt that you could live in armour.
The Royal Amouries in Leeds is really close to me. I'd be there in a heart beat. I've thought about it loads 😅
one problem for zombies would be the fact that a lot less people lived there in the Middle Ages.
A zombie apocalypse in the middle ages would be plausible (well, not plausible really, but you get the point) for example during 1320, with the Black Death knocking on everyone's door.
In that fictional scenario, the Black Death wouldn't kill but would decompose people's bodies and make them go crazy (like rabies) and basically bite, scratch and beat people to death.
Take into account that the Black Death killed 200M people aprox, and it was near 60% of the world's entire population at the time. So, the world's population would be something like 375M.
In America (which wasn't discovered by europe yet), probably like 20% of the world's population lived there, so the rest is 300M for now.
If we take into account the 200M original Black Death people infected, then 175M people would be alive by this point.
The Black Death would still be spread by rats, so no one would be really safe.
Places like Eastern Holy Roman Empire, Crimea, Poland, Western Russia, and the baltics weren't really affected by thje Black Death originally, so those would be safe zones (the safest place in all europe regarding the Black Death was Poland at the time, having little to no cases). Poland wasn't safe enough because now there are zombies walking around, then Finland would be the best choice due to its cold nature, because zombies wouldn't be prepared for winter and most if not all of them would freeze to death.
An army of maybe 50 Plate-Armored knights with maybe 10 or 15 archers would be able to wipe out entire towns and villages. And taking into account places like Spain and France had thousands of them, then they'd be able to make a lot of these cleaning squads, and they'd be able to wipe out most if not all zombies.
Now the problem would be the rats, but having realised by now that the rats are the problem, they'd slowly start regulating more the shipments and everything.
TL;DR winter would be zombies' worst nightmare and countries with huge armies would be able to kill all zombies before they spread more
the hand-zombie with the googly eye cracked me up XD
Genuine question that never came to mind before, as i seldom really gave serious thought to the idea of knights VS zombies...... do horses get zombified when bitten?
Dude, if animals get zombified you're just fucked.
Like, imagine a Bear infinite stamina...
Depends on the zombie type. Some do, most don't.
@@schmibbly3180 indeed! Part of why I'm asking 😁
The biting kind usually don't turn animals.
@@schmibbly3180 Hippo.
As a former soldier, I know first hand just how tiring wearing armor can be. It does also slow you down a bit and traps in a good deal of heat
I'm currently in the fire academy and we wore our full gear yesterday for the first time, which I'd imagine would be similar, if not even lighter. They had us walk around for about an hour/hour and a half and it was *brutal*. That was at a brisk walk/light jog... it's really deceptive how much harder movement in general becomes when you're wearing that sort of stuff.
That last bit is someone a lot of people tend to not think of.
Full armor gets really hot inside it when you're active.
@@planescaped I have a skin condition that gets slightly worse under sunlight so I'm usually covered head-to-toe even midday. I'm pretty athletic but it's incredibly debilitating to walk under the sun with all my clothing. I imagine the weight and solid structure of armor (clothes still have larger holes after all) contribute to generating and trapping heat even worse.
There is a BIG difference between wearing a modern soldier's load, and wearing fitted full plate harness.
@@burnttoast26 I am fully aware of this, however I"m sure it has more in common with waring a fitted harness that a Tshirt and jeans. They're both hot and heavy. I could probably also draw some parallels between wearing a gas mask and a medieval full faced helmet
The main thing I don't like about zombies is how Virus-based zombies are portrayed. They're always shown as 'enhanced' and somehow more durable than uninfected despite looking like they climbed through barbed wire. I feel like people need to realize that an infection based zombie virus would just make the person aggressive, kind of like rabies. Meaning they aren't enhanced and can be dispatched any way a regular human can.
Dispatched, yes that'd be the same as a regular human.
Stopped on the other hand... That would be trickier due to the lack of pain (Like how drug fueled attackers can be VERY difficult to stop shrugging off tasers and bullet wounds). Even more so depending on how an infection presents (Something like the Zombie Ant Fungus that replaces nerves and tissue with fungus to directly manipulate muscles of the host like a puppet would be less concerned with certain injuries)
Usually the "enhanced" stuff comes from the fact that humans actually only use around 30% of the strength and speed their bodies are capable of performing in day to day life. When enough adrenaline is introduced to the body, or if certain parts of the brain dies/shuts off then a human is capable of performing feats of strength and speed that would otherwise be seen as abnormal.
You can also use specialised training on your body to be able to access more strength from it, which is different than just making yourself stronger by building more muscle mass.
Here's a novel/movie/series idea;
~40 BC Europe zombie outbreak in Germania.
Romans fortify and Roll a full legion to cull the outbreak and restore order.
I would very much like to see a roman legion with its adaptability and discipline fighting against a zombie apocalypse.
I reckon armor and weapons would change. Armor would get thinner and lighter but would cover the entire arm and legs. Weapons would be more like war hammers that would allow easier strikes to the head.
I don't think scutum would change much. Legs and feet would definitely get armored due to crawling zombies...
It'd be much fun to see.
Something I've noticed is that when people are talking about zombies and bring up the 28 Days Later type "Zombies" is that these things are left out when they could be very relevant...
1: They can puke blood to infect you if it gets on a scratch or in your eyes/mouth, which in this case would render a ton of knight's armor much less effective, even the ones with full face masks would barely be an improvement.
2: Anything that would kill a normal person will kill them (like getting shot in the chest or even starvation). Now, they are fast and can swarm you very easily, but this improves your odds way better than if they still needed the "destroy the brain" approach. Obviously with certain things like blunt weapons the head is still the way to go, but this makes much more weapon choices viable and in some cases might balance out their speed.
Just an observation, and definitely not a jab at anyone. I'm aware people bring it up as the "sprinter" zombie movie example because it's well known, but they are different in many ways than just the speed they move and it seems like nothing beyond that is ever brought up.
A zombie virus outbreak starts out in an MMA gym, how many dojo zombies could a knight take out? Yes the knight has a weapon.
Love it, great scenario
Does the dojo really matter? In the majority of scenarios even fresh zombies have already forgotten how to walk properly :D
@@reptiloidmitglied2930 the muscles built before zombification would still be there while the body is fresh. So it'd be able to strike harder, faster, and like cobra kai, these things show no mercy
@@rocksnrolls And if they still have muscle memory, they could perhaps throw some mad kicks and punches
@@balkmindobro3313 Muscle memory doesn't work like that...
I've thought about this idea for YEARS. I've always though a suit of armor would give you so much defensive capabilities in a zombie situation. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the pros and cons.
Gives protection at the cost of visibility and long term endurance. Full plate might not be the best option for a battle against the hordes, but surely helps against being surprised that the crying child wants to eat you
@@HappyBeezerStudios visibility? They're dead, they probably can't even see.
@@vyor8837 I think he meant the knight’s visibility. Having a lot of metal covering your face limits your field of vision
Well, what wasn't considered, is this: A castle, prepared for a siege, had not just knights in it, but also craftsmen and engineers. And the knights themselves were not just well trained soldiers, but professional warfare experts and used to adapt the tactics to the situation they had to face. Not every kind of enemy was fought the same way. And this also means, that armour and weaponery would be modified for the specific purpose of zombie warfare.
Been watching The Walking Dead recently and I thought for most of the show so far "Why do they walk around with SO much exposed skin? Get yourself some chainmail or biker stuff". Of course you might say that chainmail isn't exactly common to get, but then again..if they can manage to get weapons and ammo from stores and stuff, they can surely raid a reenactment shop. Or the local police station for some riot gear.
'Zombie' Skall actually spoked me for a bit there 😅
Hey Skall I've recently been obsessed with a weapon called the Wabanaki root club. They are spiked clubs made from immature birch roots that the Wabanaki of eastern North America used. They are both terrifying and impressive artistically
Depends on the type of armor and how much worn. Some armor like chain mail could help, armor would protect from bites or scratches. Really great video Skall very informative and you hit points really well
mail is actually more tiring to wear than plate just because of how the weight hangs on you
Looking at things through the Zombie Apocolypse lense is really quite a thing now. It's really quite interesting.
I was considering since I heard about it that zombies were scary only from a modern point of view.
1-There is no way zombies would be harmful to a castle.
2- the armor make 1vs 1 fight against zombie = autowin for the armored guy.
3- the horses ! avoid the fight where there are too many, charge those isolated.
Even, mass mounted archers would never fear any zombies horde.
Just imagine the turks or the mongols, they wouldn't need more than a year to clean all Europe from zombies.
All boils down to what kind of zombie we are talking about.
Classic Romero-esque zombies - a knight or man-at-arms would have relatively easy time - as long as armour is bite-proof - and bodyparts that zombies often tend to target are also possible to protect, so... there we go. Sure, these zombies swarm, feel no pain but are slow, so as long as you have room to move, you should be reasonably safe - ironically, confined spaces would be the most dangerous - chokepoint would also "choke" you against slow, but persistent force - it is just a way to get yourself cornered.
28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead remake fast zombies - this is where things get dicey - these things tend to swarm, are fast, feel no pain... All the dangers of regular zombie apply, and single zombies would be relatively easy to deal with.
But in case of a horde - open field no longer provides any advantage and all the disadvantages of bunkered position remain.
Necromantic zombies - so the ones that still retain some basic skill - can use weapons and move reasonably well, less coordinated and weaker. Would be like dealing with less trained opponents that somehow feel no pain. Dangerous at all times. Can get through armour, because they can use weapons.
Thanks a lot for bringing this game to my attention, Skall. I will definitely have to play it. Knights and zombies in one game? Awesome! The only thing thats missing is dinosaurs!
Zombified dinosaur knights! 😱🤯
The limitations of armor would mostly disappear on a horse. Perfect height for head shots, wearing the armor wouldn't tire you as much. Harder to knock down or bury under a pile. As you are fast enough to get away, charge through some zombie ranks and get to a a fortification.
It would most certainly help to be mounted, unless the horse panicked. I saw a "Civil War" reenactment where one horse just went "nope" and ran like hell. Rider had NO control. Like all things in life, it depends...
@@arthurchadwell9267 True. Although knights typically trained with their horse for years with the intention of going into battle. A war horse might run, but it also might start kicking zombie heads in.
Personally I'd opt for skirmisher tactics on horseback. Take out a few on the flank with a spear then gtfo to a safe distance and repeat until the horde becomes a more manageable size
@@firestorm165 If I was defending anyone sure. Otherwise I'd just flee to a more defensible location.
@@WhatIfBrigade fair, but then again the more I take out now the less I'll have to deal with at said defensive position
Even chainmail might be a bit better because if your main danger is being bitten and infected which I which say it is then even chainmail would give a great deal protect against that to the where you pretty much don't have to worry about.(Not that you'd most likely be invincible then either)
Chainmail might even be better than full plate. The gaps allow for better heat regulation. Modern chainmail seems to be fairly bite resistant. It is used by some divers to protect against shark bites. Footage shows that is works.
Plastic plates with chainmail between them. Good against bites. A bit of padding under it, good agains getting pummled.
@@Seelenschmiede But is it good against getting pommeled?
No matter if it's a reanimated corpse, or crazed berserker living person infected with a disease, they all share the same weakness. They cannot go forever. An undead kind of zombie would rot away, and once the muscles start breaking down they become quite literally sitting ducks. The infected but still alive kind of zombie would still require food. You could argue that eventually they eat each other or hunt for animals (rats e.g.) , they'd either reduce their own numbers or leave the horde in search of more accessible food. Though the latter is not likely considering they're picturised as mindless, flesh-craving monstrosities and would not be smart enough to try find other food when they can see you.
Skall has done plenty of modern day zombie questions. I'm pretty satisfied with this Semi-historical angle. One very through look, with well chosen reference footage. Awesome sauce sir.
My biggest issue with the game is that it shows the knight being able to sneak up on human opponents. No way in hell are you sneaking up on anything while wearing full plate lol.
He's really really good at holding his breath is all.
Sneak LvL 999?
if you know ahead of time you need stealth, there are ways to silence your plate harness...just no point in it in 99.99 percent of scenarios
as far as the riot armor goes, ive worn riot armor for my job and worn a plate rig as part of hobbies, the plate rig was much heavier but honestly more comfortable and less draining to wear
Swinging a sword 100s of times while maneuvering would be extremely exhausting. An exhausted knight could get dog piled so even if Zombies can’t penetrate the armor, you aren’t getting up.
If it's walking zombies you can easily make a path & dodge or push the zombies over to make a clear path so you can walk to safety.
A person walks faster then a zombie shamble.
The only way for walking zombies to dog pile a knight, would somehow the knight would have to be a idiot & let hundreds of zombies create a circle around them that's really dense of zombie bodies.
@@creaturetransylvania8943 I dunno, it's very easy to get tunnel vision during a fight and those helmets are already hell on your peripheral vision
@@firestorm165 As long as you aren't a idiot,that shouldn't be a issue.
@@firestorm165 Also hell on your hearing.
Ultimately it depends on the quantity and types of zombies really. That being said there is one notable point that deducts points from the whole medieval armor versus zombies things, and that's noise. For a lot of zombie scenarios, a big thing that helps one stay alive is stealth, with different sources having different notions of how far the zombies can hear versus smell you, but in full plate you are basically a walking dinner bell to them, even if you could dispatch them, if there was a horde your odds of avoiding them would be in extremely unlikely territory.
Another point against suits of armor is based on another trope, mainly from The Walking Dead and Zomboid: Where having that heavy plate helmet (Or anything on your head really) reduces *your* senses and ability to listen and hear if there are zombies nearby. Getting surprise grabbed from behind could easily lead to the aforementioned getting buried and suffocating scenario a lot easier.
But at the end of the day, I do think its a good option, and you would fare well, especially if don't play the role of edgelord main protagonist and slay zombies with fellow knights, people to watch your back and pull you out from under a dogpile or to take turns taking watch as you rest would mitigate a lot of the issues armor has.
We do Buhurt and duels, profights. When your armor fits right it won’t handicap your movement much.
You're a treasure Skallagrim, never change.
Edit: and somehow this video made me want to play more Elden Ring.
I always thought those dreglings from Demon's Souls game were zombies. I remember fighting them one on one was easy,but if there were several of them,they could be a problem as it was harder to dodge multiple attacks at the same time.
The tactic in the movie 300 (pause for groans) where they back up after a wave of enemies to force each new wave to step over increasing waves, is a form of tactical retreat that may be useful against some theoretical zombies.
My only issue there is now you trapped behind a wall of meat. If you can get out a Zombie can get in. If you can open a door or window enough Zombies could break it. Unless you get to a stair let them pile up at the bottom and then leave via a second floor window.
@@Kakuretaka Reminds me of the end of Connecticut Yanky in King Arthurs Court. He builds a gatling gun and holds a cave against a whole army just to get trapped in the cave by the bodies and die of starvation.
@@williamjenkins4913 *goes to look this up* Thanks for that reference friend
@@Kakuretaka A small book by Mark Twain. I definitely recommend it.
In my opinion, the best weapon for a knight to use against a zombie would be a mace, smash limbs a d crush a skull like a pumpkin
I always thought that plate armor would make for pretty good defense against unarmed enemies that try to bite you. And swords should do good to remove the head from the body.
But at the same time, the heavier the armor, the faster exhaustion sets in. So padded gambeson plus mail should give enough defense while keeping weight down. Add some armored gauntlets to keep the hands safe, and the fighter should work well. And it doesn't even have to be swords, maces and spikes aren't only good at piercing and denting plate, but also do the same to skulls. And polearms for reach, if they don't get into biting distance, they can't bite you.
Population density also was lower in those times, and in most media zombies without anything to hunt would just slowly walk around. So a knit who knows the village is full of zombies might just go around, move to the next castle, and offer services to the local lord in clearing out the undead. Because a village without people is a village that doesn't produce.
A lot of the anti armour stuff among zombie fans comes from the Zombie Survival Guide, which was written by a man whose military knowledge is perhaps best summed up by his belief that a tank would be useless against zombies because you can't get headshots with it.
Unless they are already in clinbing distance, turning a zombie into red paste should be equal to turning brains into puree
While I have not read Zombie Survival Guide, it sounds like you are referencing World War Z. In that universe zombies were still "living" even when they were just heads. I believe there were two or three stories of people who were in a tank. It mentions how they would pop the heads with the machine gun and eventually just run over the zombies to get to safe zones. Tanks would be difficult to supply during an apocalypse.
I remember there also being a microwave laser that they used during the fog and the laser glowed. It supposedly made a good motivational poster. They used an experimental weapon once then dismantled it because it sucked so much power and took a few seconds to kill.
@@baileycastro6060 Same author. And it's nonsense in both works. He consistently fails to understand the effects of not only tanks, but modern artillery, aerial attack, etc on a shambling horde of undead that lack everything that makes human beings dangerous. There's a reason why most zombie apocalypse scenarios skip the actual apocalypse and move straight to trying to survive after the fact: there is no realistic way to depict a modern army failing to handle cinema's least threatening monster.
Hell, in a point more relevant to what's under discussion in the video, he claims in the survival guide that medieval armour would provide no defense because the zombies will just tear it off you. His stuff is fun to read, but man oh man does it have no basis in reality.
@@KartarNighthawk I agree that there is no realistic way to show the military failing. You reminded me how the author said the US military dug trenches and had hazmat suits-- even though news reporters had no protection-- to fight the zombies in New York City. He really did make all the militaries a bunch of brainless, incompetent a-holes. I thought it was just satire.
It was a great book to read for me in 2012 but recalling stuff now is making me think a bit more critically about the book now. The author really has no knowledge about the military. Definitely no basis in reality.
Killing zombies in melee seems like you’d be left covered in infectious bodily fluids
depends on the specific lore of the zombies. For example in project zomboid, you can be covered from head to toes in zombie blood, but if they didn;t bite you, you're fine
Also, armour can have only a few slits for breathing and seeing.
So it's much less bad then usual "anti zombie survivalists".
@@_bulgus_6831 True but zombie virus aside that still kills you via normal ass disease and infections.
Depends on the weapon a lot too. A blunt weapon won't cause much mess because its damage is mostly beneath the skin without breaking it.
Thrusting weapons also wouldn't make much mess unless you nicked an artery and even then that's only if the zombie's heart is still pumping.
A slashing weapon could make more mess, especially if you make some deep cuts and then get grappled, but if its reach is long enough to prevent things getting close it'd be fine.
@@_bulgus_6831 The Indie Stone probably took that liberty with the lore since the game would be next to impossible if you could get infected just by having a zombie's blood splatter either in your eyes, mouth, etc. The game would be an absolute nightmare. 😅
The part about knights falling to the ground and suffocating, wouldn’t it hold true for anyone no matter the armor they’re wearing?
Well, with an armor it will take longer, which in this case would mean you would suffer longer
If you don't have armor you wouldn't suffocate, you'd be dead.
Yes, but the point is that it's a weakness knights _share_ with unarmoured people - armour doesn't make them immune to it.
I loved that trailer, not only it's an amazing (and surprisingly untapped) concept of zombie vs knight game, but also because this game didn't fell into the way too common trope of "armor = clunky, slow, and noisy".
When you were talking about medieval battles and falling down being a common cause of death, it brought to mind modern concerts for metal bands. Common advice to people attending their first concert is "no matter what happens, keep your feet under you". Anyone that's ever been to a concert knows that the crowd can move suddenly and unpredictably, if you fall down during such a surge it's almost guaranteed you're going to get trampled and there's every little anyone around you can do to prevent it. A knight in armor would be protected to a degree, but it's no surprise it would be common for them to die if they fell... whether from being trampled or bodies piling up on them.
To be fair a zombie siege would probably be less problematic in a castle than a normal one. At least if there aren't millions of zombies there. They don't try to take cover so your projectiles will more easily hit, and with some strategically placed small openings for spears you can also make quick work of them I guess
You almost DEFINITELY would break a zombie seige on a castle seeing as they was designed to keep, sometimes, huge armies of people armed even with seige engines an diverse missile, Calvery an infantry forces out.. which is hella of alot harder. Literally with Z's ALL they got is aggression and numbers. As long as it's not one the VERY FEW movies, games or shows where a zombie had some sorta reasoning ability to operate heavy modern artillery of any kind.. which even most humans teams STILL need extensive training as gun crews to learn to work as a howitzer or mortar crew effectively.. you ought to be alright so long as supplies hold out an they don't luck out with an overlooked way in somehow
@@robertagu5533 The zombies would just not lift the siege due to lack of supply. They'd have all the time. Eventually that would kill you, because you could only have so much food in the castle.
hmmm. unless they found easier preys elsewhere, that is.
@@anttileivo2065 Open gate a little, slay one at a time, close gate when tired/bored, all the while poke from on high with a spear. Is there an unlimited supply of zombies? I don't think it will take too much time to depopulate an area. Zombies aren't known for superb logistics so assembling a horde large enough the castle's defenders cannot kill them all before running out of supplies sounds like a bit of a stretch.
You don't even really need full metal armor.
I remember reading a book in highschool once where the people trapped in a house cut up the carpet and made armor out of it.
NICE
3:11 Chad.
For knights vs zombies, see: Dwarf Fortress.
The undead in that game do not bleed, do not have vital organs, and if you cut off a limb, that limb and the rest of the body just get resurrected into two separate zombies.
The only way to effectively fight the undead is to beat them so hard using blunt weapons that they turn into a pulp and cannot reanimate anymore.
I know why your are one of my most favorite youtubers
Wow your channel has really blown the fuck up brother! I’ve been off of UA-cam for quite a while so I’m just checking in on some of my favorite channels and I’m pleased to see the massive success you’ve had! You deserve every sub my good man, keep up the good work!
😎👍
Thanks!
But now imagine your dear friend sir Diesalot becoming infected in full plate with a very neat sturdy helmet protecting that zombified brain, how'd you deal with that? Trying to shank the zomknight would just piss it off.
Can't bite you at the same time so I guess push it in a ditch a jog off?
@@zhain0 LOL yup
If it's covered in a suit of armor it can't really infect you, and it's even slower than an average zombie, so just shove him off
Just get something blunt and start swinging at the head. Enough hits will cause some brain damage
@@M4x_P0w3r but it also never tires in its armor with the possibility it would just grapple you into perpetuity, or when his buddies meet up.
would the napoleonic forces stand a chance against a zombie horde or a soldier in that era would they be able to survive? also great video
any proper army, even from ancient times would not have any problems dealing with zombies. this whole trope of zombie apocalypse never made any sense
@@krzysztofkolodziejczyk4335 i'd argue that in modern settings it would make sense because of how concentrated the population is nowadays. sure the area would be quarantined fairly quickly but it would still spread very fast. project zomboid does a good job with this imo
Funny little coincidence. I was watching your scale armor video and was at the noise part when a friend send me the trailer. I had to laugh at the stealth presentation.
It was a bit rambly, but you delivered what you promised. Thumbs up.
Ahhh, truely my favorite videos !
I'd argue that armor is better than not. Looking at the extremes, if you get 'caught' by a zombie with no armor, your doomed. With armor, your probability of living goes up alot. as for exhaustion well, if zombies don't tire, then running is pointless anyway. They will always eventually catch up. Its a matter of minutes or seconds with or without armor. So if you can't blockade yourself, then you must fight. and if you must fight, then armor is better than not. If a horde comes for you, then your probably done for regardless.
I have been wanting a game like this forever. Bring it on
One thing to consider is the maintenance of the armors. Dealing with zombies while being in mail would eventually destroy it due to all the goo that will accumulate in the rings. (Assuming the knight/soldier would be fighting and surviving for weeks with little to no time) same goes for plate armored knights
I know a black knight who claims to be invincible, he's broken up about people telling them he isn't