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In the situation I set up in people's minds, pretend I had said I had a "1 to 3 foot long, metal stick, with a pointy end" instead of a katana. I don't see why it matters that it's a sword and I have no sword training. I wouldn't be swinging it in a doorway, I'd have held it with one hand on the actual handle part, and my other on the back of the blade near the tip, as a guide. Then when I'd lined it up with a zombie's head, thrust it through it's face, severing the spinal cord and rendering it a motionless sack of meat, in my door. At the distance you use a sword from, and using my forward arm to aim it, missing it would be impossible and having been in high adrenaline, potentially life threatening situations before, I think I'd do alright keeping my cool. Especially with the knowledge that keeping my cool would keep me alive and massively increase my survival chances. If swinging were required, so what if I dulled the blade or was shit at using it properly? It's a metal stick. It's going to fuck up whatever it smashed into, whether it hits sharp end first or otherwise.

My weapon requires a swinging motion....and it always put my wife on her back....even if it is in a small confines of the bedroom!!!....also if your wife finds you blow drying your penis after a shower and she asks "what are you doing!" the wrong reply is "heating your dinner"...

I could do Chuck Norris with my bare hands. I wonder if Chuck-Norris-Zombie would be any harder to kill than, say, Paris-Hilton-Zombie? Oh sod it...! @Longshot: as BD says, some very valid points, but the point of the doorway is to limit the zombie's potential movement - you literally couldn't miss. I agree that how much damage an untrained person could do with a sword is debatable, but taking me with my sword as the example - I am strong enough to swing it with enough force and it is heavy enough that no outstretched arms would deflect it significantly, if I was going for a downward chop, from my right to left, to the zombie's neck/shoulder interface. The resulting wound would kill a real person by shattering their vertebrae, severing the spinal column, and they would also exsanguinate. Dunno if merely separating the brain from connection to the nervous system would kill a zombie, but the force of the blow would stop it in the doorway, and, since there would be no significant suction from flesh to blade, recovery straight back before raising the blade straight up rather than swinging back (to save energy and time) would be a doddle - I would get a 2nd go which would sever the head, or leave it hanging by skin down the zombie's back or chest... How long could I keep it up for (ooh er missus)? Fear is a great motivator and yeah adrenaline can make a person tremble and initially feel weak, micturate, fill their boxers, and/or puke, all of which are unpleasant, but do not preclude them fighting when their lives are at stake. In my own case, I have had some experience fighting real 'angry men', so I expect that I wouldn't suffer more than a little piddle... Having met Ed on a number of occasions, I would expect him to do ok. He might well suffer some ignominious incontinence, but that would not stop him doing the business if his life were at stake.

Some very valid points in there pal, especially the adrenalin one. If anyone here has ever trained for combat and have had the opportunity to go up against 'the angry man' (man in a very well padded suit and helmet who literally feels no pain and just keeps coming back at you) you will appreciate how this goes down. The less experienced persons adrenalin kicks in and they go nuts attacking the angry man and are literally 'spent' (no energy left) in under a minute. Adrenaline is good for raising the body's power but crap for stamina (unless you know what your doing). I have done angry man sessions with a sword (rubber/wood/plastic of course) and its incredibly nakering. Swinging that heavy sword is a lot harder then you think and recovering it to the next swing able position is longer than you think as you are totally committed with every swing.. Considering in a zombie apoc you will be running, climbing, jumping, crawling a lot as as fighting of course you would be better off with something small and light but still potentially deadly (hence the knuckle dusters with knife ends). You can throw a lot more punches and be more accurate and last longer then swinging swords plus you still have your hands ready to climb, grab, hold etc. That said though if you punch like a girl this wont help very much lol I think it all comes down to training and experience. The average man would be pretty useless with most weapons, whereas chuck Norris could kill a whole heard of zombies with a tea spoon!

Sam, I'd get on to eBay/PayPal about that, certainly doesn't seem like the discription matches the product you recieved

Thank you, Ian. My faith in humanity has been restored. Well... A bit.

@Longshot: I'm hardly one to criticise anybody for essay writing on forums, or for taking essentially meaningless discussions in deadly earnest, because i do both and have very good reasons for why... however, in this thread i'm convinced you are being intentionally obtuse for the sake of 'winning' an argument, which is fine on a forum dedicated to, or with a predilection for, pure rhetoric, but feels unhelpful here, even in a daft thread... I think it's fairly obvious that Ed intended to use his katana/doorway combination in the only sensible way - while standing just inside the doorway, with enough room inside the room/hallway/etc to swing and/or maneuver a standard length 30" katana, he would use its length to either stab the only zombie that could get near him, through the doorway, through the brain, or slash if the stabbing proved impossible. Any defeated zombie would fall where it stood, right in front of and in the doorway, creating a trip hazard for those coming behind. I have reservations about an untrained person's ability to successfully stab a moving head sized target and recover a 30" flat sided blade, however taking the zombies' complete lack of self defence into consideration, I think that on balance that 1st zombie would not get through the door. Thereafter, due to the trip hazard, Ed would have sufficient time to use a foot to brace the body while he recovered the blade, but he would require good luck to bring it to bear on the 2nd zombie while still close enough to the doorway to pile the 2nd dead on top of the 1st... I think that stabbing through the mouth would be effective. It would allow the severance of the brainstem, either in the 1st thrust or, partially acting against the mandible as a pivot, during recovery. I have been attacked with a baseball bat twice in my life. Neither occasion went that well for me, but obviously I did not die, and, you'll have to take my word for it that, the only reasons I came out of either encounter without sufficiently grievous bodily harm to prevent me from taking up airsoft years later was because, despite the injuries I did receive, I remained enough of a threat to my attackers with my bare hands to decide that they had made their point... I don't feel that I could have done anywhere near so well against a sword.

Pair of brand new unissued CS95 DPM kecks £8 delivered from fleabay. <-another pair £9 delivered Viper DPM UBACS used £21 delivered from fleabay - shouldn't really have spent this money, but it's good stuff @ good prices so hey ho...