"How hard is it to crack a zombie's skull?" Topic

I clocked myself pretty hard today loading groceries into the car – banged my head into the car door hard enough to need stitches! And that got me thinking about how in zombie shows (ok, in Walking Dead) that zombie skulls can be mashed by baseball bats, bits of stick, kicks from not-very-large women in trainers, or lp records (as seen in Shawn of the Dead).

So just how easy is it to crush a skull? Bullets, Daryl's crossbow, iron bars I can see but some of the skull crushing from zombie media seems too easy.

Maybe the zombie-fication process softens the skull and makes it more vulnerable?

Its probable, that Zombies, like people, suffering blunt force trauma to the head, may suffer from the fact that the skull is, essentially, a closed box, and that the brain can be broken up by being shaken around in said closed box!

But Z's being Z's, I think its possible that they might just get eggshell heads as part of the process!!! – as you said!

Let's be honest, media tend to make actions possible which make a good story, and don't worry too much about 'realistic' strengths and vulnerabilities of combat protagonists?!

I suppose as well Will, that a zombie is likely to have suffered a weakening of its bone structure depending on how long its been wandering around rotting which would probably make skull bashing easier ?

zombies do not consume calcium supplements.
re-animation uses up all their reserves starting with the brain box.
Its like a heated M&M

That is why it is best to use rifles, large caliber pistols, etc., powerful ranged weapons. Even an ACW musket would do. If you had a higher ROF. That is why I don't watch TWD and Zombie movies in general. They are slow, not very bright and SA are readily available.

Not to mention you could stop a zombie horde with big trenches easily dug by backhoes. Filled with long stakes. Or, again like the pickets used in the ACW and even before that to protect against cav charges.

Or even look at how a Roman Legion set up it's layered defenses.

Zombies … Bah !!!! You'd kill a couple of zombies on your way to work everyday !

Herky's nailed it: you need to cause BRAIN trauma to stop a zombie, not skull trauma.
And brain trauma can – and usually is – accomplished without damaging the skull at all.

What you see in TWD isn't so much about the anatomy and physiology of the undead.

It's just that television is a visual medium. They have to make it visibly obvious to the audience that major head injury just took place.

They can't have a zed just fell down after blunt force trauma with no outwardly apparent injury.

A small percentage of viewers might understand that they just saw catastrophic cerebral contrecoup.

The vast majority would be thinking; "What the heck… Zombies can be knocked out now?!"

So movie shorthand for making clear the brain has been destroyed involves showing hugely exaggerated skull injury.

Hey, a good head shot will usually take out any target. Human, zombie, animal, alien, etc. …

Somehow, I am reminded if the arguments "Orcs wouldn't do that!"

LOL !!!!

Easier than you think if you step back, get a bit of wind up, lean into it – - -

Wait a minute – I may be giving too much away here

So while brain trauma can happen, the real damaging effects of most closed head injuries come from the fact that the brain swells up thanks to the immune response to the injury.

When this happens it can move the brain around in the head, pushing it to one side or the other and if enough swelling happens the brain stem will herniate through the foramem magnum, essentially like toothpaste coming out of a tube.

When this happens the subject becomes brain dead.

Now absent that immune response the injury to the part of the brain without the skull being cracked could be pretty superficial.

Without knowing exactly what part of the brain the zombie virus, or whatever, takes over it is difficult to know how much of the brain would have to be destroyed to cause the zombie to cease to function.

Likely, since all of the brain tissue would be dead when the person dies, or most of it, however they die, you would have to sever the connection between the brain and the body as the virus (or whatever) is just activating nerve somehow.

If the virus somehow does keep nervous tissue alive then the zombies wouldn't actually be dead as they would have some brain activity left and wouldn't meet the clinical and legal definitions of brain dead, although their heart may not be beating, which would mean they would meet that legal criteria for death.

An open head injury would be different. If you took a knife or ice pick and managed to penetrate the skull with it, not an easy task depending on where you hit, then you may be able to destroy enough tissue inside to destroy the whole brain.

If you inflicted blunt force trauma that cause an open head injury, i.e. cracking the skull then pieces of the skull would end up inside the brain causing the same kind of damage too.

As far as weakening the skull is concerned you may have some as the zombie leaches calcium out of its bones to continue a variety of metabolic processes. That would only really start degrading the skull after a long period of time and I'd think their long bones would start to break prior to their skull becoming weak enough to be damaged by someone stabbing a knife through the top of it.

I've been thinking of this before I saw the thread, on TWD they make it to easy to stab through a skull and then to pull the blade out.

Well … TWD is not really … ah … "realistic" … per say …

Easier than you think if you step back, get a bit of wind up, lean into it – – -

Wait a minute – I may be giving too much away here

Watch it Fred !!!! I've said similar here and some said I was making a threat and being violent ! Even if they were zombies or close to it ! LOL !

Well when one becomes a Zombie the bone in your skull become softer so when you get hit in the head with a baseball bat it explodes.