Hand-to-Hand Combat is a form of combat involving a person utilizing his/her fists as weapons. It also includes blunt or bladed weapons, such as baseball bats and brass knuckles.
Hazards[]
Hand-to-Hand is a good form of combat when it comes to humans, however as far as utilizing it against Zombies go, it's not really as effective. The main problem with utilizing this form of combat on a zombie is the fact that people are at an increase risk of getting infected. This is usually due to the fact that their flesh can possibly hit someplace where the zombie can infect the person such as the mouth. Also if one has open cuts or contusions, any infected DNA has the potential to enter the body and infect the person. It is advised to only use hand-to-hand combat if you are out of ammunition or have some sort of mask, whether it be a bandanna and sunglasses or a diving suit.
Requirements, Equipment, & Precautions[]
Despite the hazards hand-to-hand combat against the infected has, people can use it so long as they take some precautions and try to meet some requirements before proceeding. It is worth noting that these are simply "do if you can" things, if you have no choice whatsoever, such as you just ran out of ammo and, "look, a machete!", you can use hand-to-hand combat. Some of these will kill you if you don't take care.
- Gloves: Gloves are excellent when it comes to protecting one's self when using hand-to-hand against the infected. Gloves that are made of latex or rubber are not very suitable for such a task, however some gloves nowadays are made from hard rubbers or plastics so they can protect your hands from being bitten. Two more note-worthy mentions are sap gloves and steel gauntlets. Most steel gauntlets have attached gloves, which are absolutely amazing for smashing skull, and sap gloves are like punching someone with a shotgun shot. Blood.
- Face Covering: Face covering is a MUST if you plan on abstaining from firearms. No matter what you choose, you MUST have a face covering. You probably will have already had this. A face covering will protect your orifices (nose, eyes, mouth) from blood, and therefore likely infection. Without a face covering, the odds of your survival in hand-to-hand combat have just lowered dramatically.
- Armor: Armor is extremely important, because you're so close to the Z you don't want to get bit / scratched and get infected, do you? Please see the Armor page for more information.
- Weapon: You might be thinking, Oh, I've watched hundreds of Youtube videos of people breaking concrete and I can break a slab of wood, I'll go crack a few hundred skulls! The problem with that, however, is that the skull is harder than the hand, and there's a reason that when you smash a piece of wood, the wood breaks, not your hand. In other words, you're not gonna break the skull of a Z with your bare hands. A great list of potential melee weapons is mentioned in [1].
Where to Hit?[]
Obviously, the skull. Duh. But other than the skull, where should you hit?
- Head: Duh. Seriously. But where should you hit on the head? Well, depending on what weapon you have, some good places to hit are the temple, under the chin, through the eye socket (disgusting but sometimes necessary), and right on the tippity-top of the skull.
- Neck: If you're aiming for the neck, you probably have a bladed weapon that can slice the neck. However, if you can break the neck of the Z, it can't move it's head. If it can't move it's head, it can't bite you. You still have to deal with flailing limbs, but you don't have any worries from bites (as long as it doesn't fall on top of you, and if that happens you really don't know how to fight those zambies).
- Spine: If you have a blade, or really any melee weapon, you can break the spine of the zombie. This might be thought of as absolutely useless, because it won't kill the zombie. However, if you have a blade and manage to slice the back open, and sever the nerves, and the slice is above the legs of the zombie, it can't move it's legs. If it's above the arms of the zombie, it can't flail it's arms at you AND it will fall over with no use of it's legs. If you can break the spine, you're good.
- Limbs: This technique is usually used more against bandits, but it can be useful for disabling a ghoul. Multiple ideas have been given out about using the ghouls as a source of energy, for instance tying them to a wheel like they did with donkeys. These are extremely viable solutions, as long as they don't have lower jaws or limbs. De-limbing a ghoul makes them less harmful. Everyone knows a one-armed guy is less likely to rip your throat out with his arm than a two-armed guy is with his arms.\
- Brain Stem: More used to keep your recently-deceased friends from coming back to life. If you cut this then they hopefully won't be able to turn, depending on the virus. Best to do this with a small knife or bladed object rather than a blunt weapon.