The Ultimate War Of The Apocalypse
Chapter 514 - 507: The Previous Lesson

Chapter 514: Chapter 507: The Previous Lesson

Those who have never experienced a zombie tide often have immense confidence in the weapons they’re familiar with, thinking that even with just a knife, zombies can be easily taken down.

But those who have experienced a zombie tide often lose all confidence in their weaponry; they feel that even with rifles and artillery, and even adding tanks, it would still be impossible to stop the tsunami-like onslaught of zombies.

This kind of sentiment is common, and Gao Yuan has also gone through such changes of emotions, but now, he knows the kind of offense, or rather defense, that can deal with zombies, and he knows what attacks are futile.

Don’t underestimate this experience; it was bought with human lives.

Any experience bought with human lives is not so easily disseminated, this is a laughable fact, but a fact nonetheless, just like knowing that wearing a seat belt can significantly reduce the fatality rate in car accidents, yet there are many who stubbornly refuse to buckle up.

Misplaced confidence is a common ailment of humanity.

Now, Ram wants to capture Malakal and has made full mental preparations for it, but even if Ram believes he has taken the zombies’ combat power seriously, he still hasn’t given it enough consideration.

Why is Gao Yuan so sure? It’s evident from Ram’s attitude.

Ram says he wants to capture Malakal, not that he hopes to. This slight difference in words indicates that Ram believes capturing Malakal is guaranteed, which suggests he considers Malakal to be easily conquerable.

So, Gao Yuan had to ask Ram clearly whether he intended to use nuclear weapons or not; if Ram planned to use nukes, then Gao Yuan would have nothing to say, but if Ram intended to capture Malakal without nukes, then Gao Yuan could only conclude that he underestimated the difficulty of attacking Malakal.

"I don’t plan to use nuclear weapons because it’s hard to estimate the consequences of using them. Do you think it’s impossible to capture Malakal using conventional forces?"

Ram was a bit puzzled; after pondering for a moment, he said to Gao Yuan, "I will send a lot of people, at least five thousand, along with tanks and armored vehicles. Isn’t that enough?"

Gao Yuan guessed it would be like this.

"It’s possible, but how much loss can you bear? A thousand men? Two thousand? Or three thousand?"

Ram frowned, surprisingly asking, "Such high casualties? You’re joking; I can’t tolerate even a hundred deaths."

Gao Yuan sighed and said, "Then let the Sanitation Workers go first. If they use nuclear weapons, the effect will be the same as ours. If they don’t, I doubt they can capture Malakal. Even if they do, they will have to pay a very, very high price in casualties."

Ram seriously asked, "Why?"

Gao Yuan wanted to give a simple explanation, but he found that he truly had no way to summarize in just a few sentences, because the zombies’ fast speed, great strength, and inability to die from non-fatal shots didn’t seem sufficient to make them a formidable enemy to humanity.

"It’s hard to explain in just a few sentences," he said. "I think you just need to witness it for yourself, but the problem is that if you decide to do that, there will certainly be casualties. We have footage of the operation, which I can use to explain in detail the characteristics and tactics of fighting zombies."

Ram appeared to be very pleased, he nodded repeatedly and said, "That’s exactly what we need. In fact, we wanted to watch it live, but there are some issues with long-distance live signal transmission right now. Let’s go to the war room, and please give our strategists a thorough briefing."

The war room was ready; it was an unremarkable building with not very big inner space. Its only notable feature was that the security measures were especially thorough.

As Gao Yuan followed Ram into the war room where combat strategies were formulated, many people were already waiting there. If Gao Yuan said an attack was feasible, the Solar System Company would draft a plan to clear out zombies and take over Malakal. If Gao Yuan advised against it, the war room would still have to come up with a plan, which would be to prevent the Sanitation Workers from capturing Malakal.

Gao Yuan had a combat recorder on his chest, and the drones of Big Bird and Harry had sent back and recorded footage, which was precious material for those who had never fought against a large number of zombies.

Gao Yuan stood in front of the projector with about forty people sitting in front of him. Ailin’s father was sitting in the front row, together with Ram.

As the projector came on, Gao Yuan took a laser pointer, and as soon as the drone’s camera first captured zombies, he exclaimed loudly, "These are the first zombies we found on the outskirts of Malakal, a dozen or so in total. To take down zombies of this scale, just three soldiers could handle it with ease. Please watch what happens when the zombies notice me..."

As Gao Yuan spoke, Ram listened intently, even quietly translating his words for his father-in-law. However, when Gao Yuan spoke about the combat characteristics of small-scale zombies, it did not cause any particularly big reaction.

Until Gao Yuan fired a shot.

As soon as the zombies within the range of the high-angle drone footage leaped up and then ran crazily towards Gao Yuan’s position at an extremely fast speed, accompanied by various monsters, the expressions of the professional military personnel immediately changed.

"This is the consequence of a large number of zombies gathering together, a typical reaction where quantity changes lead to quality changes," Gao Yuan explained. "The Shenzhou Army has conducted extensive research for a long time and came up with a comparison between firepower density and the number of zombies. If you want to eliminate zombies without any casualties, you need a firepower density ten times greater than that used on human targets."

Turning around, he addressed the audience, "Zombies have no intelligence; neither do monsters. Therefore, finding a way to lure zombies and monsters out of the city to destroy them in favorable terrain can effectively reduce casualties. But there’s a problem - do we have such terrain, such as valleys, depressions, or giant pits that can accommodate tens of thousands of people at least?

"But do you have enough manpower and sufficient firepower density? Because rifles have a very poor effect on zombies; a shot in a human’s stomach might not kill them, but it definitely incapacitates them, but a shot in a zombie’s stomach will only make it run faster and bite more ferociously. Even if it’s going to die eventually, it’s a long way off. So, you need to think carefully about how much firepower you need to lure tens of thousands of zombies into favorable terrain and then eliminate them completely in a short time, before they can disperse. That’s for you to consider."

Ram began to shake his head, looking towards his father-in-law and remarked resignedly, "If the effectiveness of light weapons is greatly reduced, then a proactive attack becomes unrealistic. And luring zombies into favorable terrain to eliminate them... We don’t have suitable terrain unless we construct it artificially."

"What about luring out zombies in small batches... No, that involves many issues. How many zombies can be lured out at a time? How many people are responsible for eliminating the lured-out zombies, a hundred or a thousand? What if too many zombies are lured out? Constructing favorable terrain artificially takes too much time and resources."

Ram nodded, agreeing with his father-in-law’s judgment, and then he whispered, "There are a lot of troubles, but, if we pretend to attack Malakal, forcing the Sanitation Workers to attack Malakal before us, what do you think?"