Guns are very attractive and popular in the zombie apocalypse. The majority of our Walking Dead heroes are packing heat of some sort - the bigger, the badder it seems. Pistols were cool until Abraham ruined the dick-measuring contest for everyone with his M-16 assault rifle and its automatic fire.
People love automatic guns in the apocalypse, and while entirely useless against zombies, they were an effective part of the defense of the prison in TWD Season 4. But much like the principles of enfilade fire, there are some neglected machine-gun tactics in there that I can shed some light on.
I don't think most zompocalypse survivors truly understand the ballistic properties of automatic fire. And a picture's worth a thousand words so....
There is a long, elliptical "beaten zone" that emanates from every machine gun or automatic rifle. Keep in mind, we're talking about targets that are hundreds of meters away here. Even with a bipod, it is impossible to keep a weapon perfectly still. Your beaten zone will cover a long area, not a wide area, which is why the machine gun is most effective when fired in enfilade.
These illustrations show how your terrain affects the footprint of your beaten zone.
Maximize your beaten zone, and you will maximize your casualties on the Governor and company. It's just that easy :)
So to sum up my 3-part series on "How to Defend Your Prison", I want you to remember the following steps when, you too, find yourself defending a prison from an angry one-eyed monster:
1. Secure your perimeter with observation posts with interlocking arcs of fire
2. Make sure your OPs are in defilade
3. Set a machinegun on the flank(s), to provide enfilade fire
4. Remember your beaten zone so you can obtain a maximum ballistic footprint.
5. Gunfire in the defensive will attract the shit out of zombies. Be prepared to whip out your melee weapons when the smoke clears, because there will be a hell of a lot of Zulus coming your way.
Soldier, out.
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