do zombies eat horses in this scenario?

crusaders for sure, I can't think of any reason why marines would have any practical advantages

In a world of modern technology I'm going to have to go with the people who know what electricity is. (and the concept of personal hygiene)

50 fully equiped US Marines.

Because the crusaders were crazed lunatics from the Dark Ages who slaughtered people too please some bearded dude in the skies.

Cusaders. They don't turn into winey kids when they run out of ammo.

>>4122

"crazed lunatics from the Dark Ages who slaughtered people too please some bearded dude in the skies."

That's the kind of blind fury you'll need in the apocalypse.

Definitely the marines.

1) They'll likely all have seen a zombie movie of some kind, Crusaders wouldn't have (seriously, knowing your enemy is a HUGE advantage in any situation)
2) Guns
3) More versatile in adapting to terrain
4) More physically capable (this is mostly due to nutrition, not training)
5) More resistant to diseases (from immunisations and such)
6) Better general knowledge in total; a radio guy in the marines could probably set up a generator or something, good luck getting a crusader to do that

Definitely the Crusaders
1. The ability to assert control over mindless peasants for their own purposes nearly everywhere they go thanks to "mission from got" is huge.
2. Armies > Guns
3. Each crusader coes with their own getaway car.
4. More mentally capable to handle dehumanization & mass slaughter.
5. As you go back in time, the human immune system is more and more robust, not less. It's generally accepted that if you transported a person today back a few hundred years, they'd be dead in under a week. if you brought someone from that time to iurs, they'd be fine, but infect us all with shit we have no cures for. The Marines would need a doc & to routinely track down medical supplies, putting them in harms way.
6. Better survival knowledge in general. When their support system runs out, Marines are essentially barely trained animals. Crusaders live on the warpath unsupported for years and thrive on raping & pillaging.

>>4123
>Implying highly trainer soldiers become winey kids when they run out of ammo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_Recruit_Training
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Corps_Martial_Arts_Program

>>4124
The blind fury that won't be equally useful when they decide to burn me alive because I obviously made a deal with Satan so that I could get a stick that conjures light.

>>4127
>The ability to assert control over mindless peasants for their own purposes nearly everywhere they go thanks to "mission from got" is huge.

I don't think zombies give a shit about some "mission from got".

Mmm, hard to say. While the marines have an immediate advantage with superior firearms, vehicles, and communications, their equipment and training can actually become a behavioral disadvantage. Thanks to the size of our standing army, not all marines are combat experienced and are prone to brash behavior due to overconfidence (and sometimes even those who are experienced can still be overconfident); throw in the possibility that many might come with preconceptions about zombies due to the prevalence of zombie movies, the risks of making fatal tactical decisions in engaging zombies (either to save civilians or accomplish some sort of objective) goes up.

On the other hand the knights' disadvantage in equipment and information can actually be an advantage, since they're more likely to perform some synchronized-shitting-of-leggings and turning their horses in the opposite direction of the legions of hellspawn; there's also the fact to consider that knights were almost always some sort of nobility, so there's a possibility most of them won't feel any sort of moral obligation to help civilians (unless there's a priest or king ordering them to do so, in which case the obligation is purely toward their superior).

So in a fight the marines will likely last longer, but in the long term the knights might just have a better chance at surviving because they're more likely to run.

Depends, on wide open rural areas the marines might have the advantage of range and tactics to deal with a situation like that.

On the other hand crusaders have no guns at all and their armor is designed to withstand trauma from sharp objects, implying a zombies teeth. If I had to make a final decision i'd say marines who know what they are doing.

actually, if both are informed about the basics about their enemy (deheading and destroying the brain, and a bitten one turns into a zombie) the crusaders would fare better.

That is, if we are talking about real insane ass crusaders slaughtering in the name of the LAAAAWWD... those guys would be a meat grinder

Guns run out of ammo, generators run out of fuel.

Long term, the Crusaers would do better because they would be in their element, the Dark Age.
Also, I don't believe marines are supplied with stab-proof vests or anything of the sort, while the crusaders would wear at least a mail shirt that would protect their arms, necks and head against bites.

i think knights for sure
better weapons and will fight until they die for god and the queen
disadvantages: if animals could get infected there horses risk infection
also technology isnt as advanced plus less weapons
still in my opinion the knights last longer

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>>4122

here we go again...

This shouldn't even be a question. Marines will be the superior choice. They're using modern weaponry, modern tactics, and modern technology. In running out of ammunition they could obviously just resort to different weapons or melee.

In the situation of WWZ style flood zeds, Marines would make the best stand. Crusaders are mentally trained from childhood and Marines at age 18 but it's still no contest.

Think of it, beasts that are infectious you want to stay as far away from them as possible. A sword limits that opportunity.

chain and plate armor would weigh the crusaders down and in hand to hand combat the zombies just have to pile on the crusaders. even if they cant bite through the armor the crusaders would not be able to move. If they take off their armor then they lose really the only thing that made them what they were. Marines would do better. they are trained to live off the land if need be. marines would do best

>>4196

While I agree Marines would do better with their modern tactics and weaponry. Crusaders also lived off the land. As a matter of fact their upbringing and training was exactly that. If they weren't able to forage, they would live off the land. That's how sugar ended up getting discovered in Europe.

Crusaders, no doubt.
The modern warfare for which the marines are trained and used is based on skirmishing in relatively short assignments. As mentioned, marines are also dependent on supplies that would surely run out within days in a zombie scenario.

Conversely, the crusaders were marching for months and stationed for years in a harsh environment. They were trained in formations designed for fending off hordes of enemies at a time, which would certainly prove valuable. Although their armor would weigh them down, they would offer essential protection which marines would have to do without.

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Looking at some of these posts I would have to go with crusader knights too, self reliant and efficient, however the whole religious thing might get me killed...

>>4202
No, Crusaders most definitely were not trained to forage or be self-reliant. Many of the foot soldiers were farmers or hunters, so that may be where you got that impression from, but the knights themselves were almost always nobles (exceptions being commoners who got accepted into knightly orders through exceptional performance in battles). A knight's training was exclusively in combat, fitness, horse handling, and tactics, anything beyond those skills would be from personal backgrounds.

So "50 fully equipped crusader knights" are actually unlikely to be able to survive through foraging because they lack the essential support personnel (cooks, washing women, foot soldiers who know how to hunt/farm, etc.) that traditionally made up the bulk of the Crusaders.

Also sugar was discovered by encountering merchants who were selling "sweet salt" during the crusade. It was discovered and refining techniques invented long before the Crusaders arrived.

But the Crusaders nor the Marines have rations like Twinkies that could last even through a nuclear holocaust.

Since Hostess went out and about, they're both screwed.

>>4236
Actually, most of these men would know how to hunt. It was a sport for the Nobility at those times, and im pretty certain that 50 of them working in concert would be able to easily round up several deer in no time.

>>4129
Wasn't talking about the Z's, was talking about all the mindless impressionable fucking hayseed christians they find in the lesser populated, lesser educated areas of the country, whom they can manipulate into fighting for them, so they can command safely from the rear and bail on when the time comes.

Nobody not also a marine can stand to listen to a bunch of goddamn jarheads bark commands for more than a few seconds before wanting to kill them instead.

>>4330
Being a hunter and hunting for sport are two very different things though. The current form of sport hunting done in England isn't much different than how it used to be, except they use guns instead of bows/crossbows. You basically have a /real/ hunter do all the legwork of tracking the game, the nobles run the game down using hunting dogs, shoot the game when it's too tired to be an unfairly hard target to hit, then have their cooks prepare a meal out of it.

Obviously I don't know any nobles, especially any from the bad ol' days, but tracking, food preparation, and cooking don't sound like things that a noble would be taught. That sort of defeats the point of owning servants.

anyone can break a branch off and hit things with sticks

the crusaders lack any understanding of germ theory

or hygiene, or containment

derpity doo this black death gonna be the black undeath +++

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As a US Marine, I'll have to choose my brothers, I've seen and done things that give me unfallable faith in my brothers (and sisters now) in arms to trust them enough to join me in a fight against the undead, of course we may have firearms, but we also are trained to use weapons of opportunity, I could use my Ka-Bar, a metal rod, or a piece of wood, some of us are trained to handle HAZMAT, biological, chemical, nuclear, and Radiological attacks, simply through SIDE training, like me, we have men trained for cold weather, hot weather, jungle terrain, desert terrain (those two are ALL basically trained Marines) and as for supplies we are trained to live off whatever we can get, whether it be MRE's or foraging, we can find it. Also we may be "frat boys in uniform" but we're also very ingenuitive, I've seen guys fuse PS3 controllers to a PSP and have it work in a playable fashion (ofcourse only the number of buttons he could rewire) and I've seen Marines shoot themselves in the foot on complete accident, we have our ups and downs, but god damn you get us in a situation where its needed we can be stealthy and tactical or we could be all-out war ridden savages, sure PTSD may be out there but in the zombie apocolypse I'm sure 98 out of 100 will have it, but I've also noticed from my friends in MARSOC that if you keep someone with PTSD in action they are the most effective knife in the entire city, let alone the drawer. SO. Even if the crusaders were vicious warriors, lived without tech, and could live off the land, their leadership lacks because its all led by ONE man, not many coordinating men who can react to a changing situation as they see fit. back then battles were done on a large scale, now they are like evolution itself, they learn from the opposition and adjust strategy, they do it on an individual level. Where as Dark Age warfare was simply "oh he has a wall, chuck dead bodies over it." or "oh he has more men than us, use the slender ocean ledge there as a choke point." I know this is a long one but I just want to make sure I get my point across. In all I'm saying that, yes, Marines may not be the most vicious warrior (unless its old-corps, those fuckers were crazy) but we adapt, we change plans, and we accomplish missions at ALL costs. Done. Enjoy tearing this post apart, gents. Continue to troll.

As a Crusader Knight, my valiance bears itself in the crusted blood and bone upon my breastplate. I have been witness to such brevity and daily acts of derring do that one would question the very mortality of my fellow Knights. With our cherished amulets of faith, endurance, strength, swiftness and sure footedness around our necks and in our hands, swords forged with the one true God's divine will as their core we never once err from our path of providence yet stand ever ready to flood the plains of the Earth with the blood of the unholy.
We may be warrior monks but I have witnessed ingenuity beyond compare in my men, one who wove the guts of a live kitten into a ukulele to provide music and entertainment on a quiet night.
On one occasion my band of merry men happened upon a cavalcade of wenches being driven through the desert sea of Rebiana by a troupe of degenerate sand pirates when it took our fancy to wound each pirate in a similar fashion by hitting their left knee with an arrow each and quickly rushing to subdue them further with a quick blow to the head, stripping them of their clothes, slaughtering their camels and gutting them, then carefully placing all of the unconscious pirates into the camel's cavities and sewing them shut with devil's wire. We rescued the wenches and took our fill of their comeliness before harvested their flesh for doner kebabs and partying while the slaver pirates writhed and gagged in a stew of fetid flesh and guts under the hot desert sun.
Enjoy tearing this post apart, gents. Continue with your persiflage.

>>4512
>their leadership lacks because its all led by ONE man, not many coordinating men who can react to a changing situation as they see fit. back then battles were done on a large scale, now they are like evolution itself, they learn from the opposition and adjust strategy, they do it on an individual level.

Yes. Things have changed...

I would have to go with the marines, eventhough i prefer the whole Knight in shiney armor aspect the marines of today are far more combat efficient and capable in a zombie apocalypse scenario and they are also survival trained on top of everything. Think about it.

US marines would be better at the survival part of the apocalypse, since they are trained to be able to survive in deserted areas and rifles are a bit easier to hunt with than longswords. Plus they don't have to carry around a 50 pound armor all the time which just by itself takes around 1000 calories an hour to just move around in. But the knights would make less sound, have better suited armor, they're stronger, and have better suited weapons.

US marines would be better at the survival part of the apocalypse, since they are trained to be able to survive in deserted areas and rifles are a bit easier to hunt with than long swords. Plus they don't have to carry around a 50 pound armor all the time which just by itself takes around 500-700 calories an hour to just move around in. But the knights would make less sound, have better suited armor, they're stronger, and have better suited weapons.

>>4530
>rifles are a bit easier to hunt with than long swords.
Hunting with a bow is a lot easier than hunting with a sword as well, it's probably why people preferred to hunt with bows rather than swords.

>Plus they don't have to carry around a 50 pound armor all the time which just by itself takes around 500-700 calories an hour to just move around in.
Standard modern infantry combat loads are 80 pounds. You're looking at a minimum of 30 pounds from the weapon, ammunition, armor, and other combat essentials, 50 if the soldier is the "heavy" of the squad, so modern soldiers don't actually carry lighter loads than Crusaders.

>they're stronger
Well, considering the modern soldier actually carries more than a knight would, and he fact that a soldier has the benefit of superior knowledge in nutrition and hygiene, it's not likely that a knight would actually be stronger than a marine.

>Well, considering the modern soldier actually carries more than a knight would
Should clarify that a modern soldier is trained to carry more than a knight would, and they regularly do; there are times and places where soldiers have to get to locations that cars can't reach and helicopters can't land.

>>4532
And that's why Knights have horses. They can go everywhere and carry their equipment for them.

>>4533
As with the marines, there's a limit to how much can be carried by transportation. A marine carries 30 to 50 pounds with just weapons, armor, ammunition, etc, and a knight carries a minimum of 50 pounds from weapons and armor. With transportation they're both carrying roughly the same minimum load.

The difference being that modern soldiers are trained to carry their own necessities when transportation isn't available, whereas knights typically had their squires take up the slack.

Now to be fair knights were expected to be much more active in combat than modern soldiers, so I wouldn't say they were necessarily weaker either.

>>4534
actually due to nutrition levels even amungst nobles it can be inferred that knights would be weaker than a modern soldier.

>>4512
The question of who would do better is really vague first off
I think crusaders would be great in a final stand situation they were experienced in fighting the light infantry armies of Saladin and being on the front lines all day battling in the middle eastern heat was pretty normal at that point for them as for their armor they wore it all the time so the weight would be negligible.
I feel like marines would last longer overall even more so if they are the smart kinda marines and if they split into groups and stay in the same area if they can figure a way to signal for help if it is needed its hard to feed 50 people from a small area i dont care how well they know how to hunt and forage

it would be really cool if they hunted together

Y'all are forgetting something real important, the crusaders have done something that the marines never did, they traveled on horse and foot across a continent and CONQUERED the middle east. Reclaimed the holy land from the muslims.

They were far outnumbered by enemy combatants, not shambling dead, had full body metal armor(chain mail would be highly effective against zeds), never ran out of ammo, they were better logistically trained, had no fire support, and were battle hardened soldiers. If it was just 50 vs. 50 the crusaders would without doubt win.
While the marines are excellent combat troops and have accomplished amazing feats against impossible odds, by and large they have come to rely on gear that would only protect them in a modern firefight. Their body armor would do no good against multiple zeds nor would their combat fatigues. I'm not saying they wouldn't put a dent in a zombie horde. They are just not as well equipped for this theatre of war.

>>4555
You're forgetting the marines also never padded their numbers with tens of thousands of conscripted farmers to soak up enemy bullets over the course of four years just to take a few cities.

Comparing results in this case is very much comparing apples and oranges. Crusaders and Marines have different operational rules, objectives, and hazards to deal with. That the Marines haven't "conquered" the Middle East isn't an indicator of their abilities, it's a result of political and social constraints, the reduced roles of infantry in siege warfare, and the current nature of the standing army (that is to say, most soldiers would rather come home than settle in conquered land, particularly since modern armies can't local assets and use it to entice soldiers to stay like Crusaders could).

*can't seize local assets

>>4515
I was half expecting someone to do something short like that, but that was just well played, I commend you good sir XD anyways I still gotta side with my Brothers of the Corps

A crusader would certainly be more hardy than a marine, they marched hundreds of miles in 80-100 pounds of armor, when they weren't marching they were swinging their swords in practice or in combat building muscle, they committed cannibalism to survive and thought nothing of it, they are zealots and will fight to their last breath because they believe death in battle will get them into heaven and deserting will land them in hell, they will probably think they are literally fighting the devil assuming zombies are devil spawn giving them more of a will to fight, one third of marines come back with mental problems however crusaders thought nothing of killing. without a doubt there is no debating the crusaders were tougher, but lacked technology, but remember swords dont run out of ammo, and a lot of swords from their era survived until today, and crusaders were teached to fight their enemy face to face, not shoot them from 100 yards away

>>4567
But zombies are especially good in close quarters, a gun would no doubt perform better against zombies than a sword

>>4567
80-100 pound armors did not exist on the battlefield. Those were jousting suits that were three times as thick as armor meant for battle because knights didn't want to accidentally die while ramming into each other with lances during festivals. Jousting armor was so heavy knights needed several people to help them get on their horses, offered no protection to the back, and limited mobility because it was meant to only do one thing: joust.

Also, nothing "survived" over the centuries, everything you see in museums that look like they're still useable are only in that state because someone took care of them. They're usually family heirlooms that have been passed down the generations, carefully cleaned and stored to prevent deterioration... but if you put that same kind of care into a gun and it'll "survive" the centuries too. Swords that didn't get that kind of attention wind up as sword-shaped lumps of rust (which they have in museums too).

Of course we have more records of marines suffering from PTSD than knights, it's kind of the advantage of living in the modern world. Knights didn't have that convenience, the closest thing to mental care they had back then was the confessionals (assuming they'd even want to confess, they might have just kept shut to avoid accusations of being possessed by the devil), which the priests didn't exactly keep a good record of. Lack of records doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Youtube - Toggle Video
  people wouldn't make combat armor that gets you killed so obviously - knights in full plate (maybe minus helmet) can do cartwheels - where is your god now?

The armour was articulated and was covering a man's entire body completely from neck to toe. In addition it was much more easy to move, run and fight in a suit of plate armour than commonly believed, since it weighted 15-20 kg. and the weight was spread evenly on the body so a man wearing it was not an easy target for agile footmen. In fact many men wearing full plate were usually fighting on foot, especially in the 15th century.

Youtube - Toggle Video
  chain mail works too naturally

but let's not go there

>people wouldn't make combat armor that gets you killed so obviously
Is that in reference to the previous post? If so, note the topic was about jousting armor, not combat armor; if not, who was it directed at? Nobody has claimed a knight's armor would get them "killed so obviously".

consider what the videos are displaying

are you telling me an immobilized opponent isn't obviously easily killed? if not then who else is referring to immobility?

>>4593
Ah, my apologies then, never bothered putting 7chan back on the noscript safe list since /zom/ was temporarily rolled into /x/ and kept trying to run some ridiculous script every time I visited the page. Have developed a habit of ignoring anything I can't just copy and paste into the address bar.