building walls for your safe haven.

[DtMK]

Not bad. Another option to reinforce what they have would be razor wire on top, secure the fence below with the concrete to prevent easy digging under it, and electrify the sucker for frying zeds when they get too close.

[Gamer]

Chain Link is fine if they reinforce it with a thick earthen rampart as was done on the hill forts in England.
This then could be reinforced later with their concrete (or wooden) wall built directly in front of the chain link at their leisure.
The earthen rampart would also put them at a higher elevation for look out and prevent people and zombies from just seeing inside the compound.
For defensive purposes the earthen rampart is fire proof and will absorb any number of rounds (barring large ordnance) survivors could fire at them.
The zombies can't push the fence down and the defenders can use spears or polearms on those zombies below along the chain link safely.
The gate would then be their weakest defensive position to deal with and how it could be reinforced depends on their resources.

The noise idea we are using in our non DR zombie setting and works like a charm especially if you are using sirens, attracting more zombies then really wanted to that way.
To clear roads we used a compactor from a landfill, roads look like hell now but not hearing anyone complain about it.

[Rockwolf66]

Personally I prefer to build a Star fort with several tunnels leading away from the compounds. Should you build one correctly you can kill off a large number of Zombies who fall into the trenches.

[Gamer]

Then you either have to burn them in the trench or drop down and drag out the bodies.
Unless your gm is nice and dead bodies aren't disease breeding grounds.
The whole Vauban fortification works best against a large group of firearm equipped adversaries if you have a sizeable number of defenders as well, against hordes of zombies it's just too much work and too hard to properly cover and maintain with only 12 people.

[azazel1024]

2 months for a 6ft high, 2,000ft long chain link fence? I could probably install that much perimeter in 2 weeks with one person to help me. Well if I was working on it 10hrs a day.

With that many people they should dig an earthen berm and put up a wood pallisade. Wood pallisade with the earthen backing. I'd guess for 2,000ft with a 10ft high wood pallisade and 6ft earth heaped behind (excavated from the front to make it 16ft vertical) I'd guess would take a dozen people working on it 10hrs a day probably about 2-3 months if they don't have any power tools. Chain saws and/or trucks/ATVs to do some hauling, or better yet a skid steer and they could probably do it, with all that equipment, in a month.

16ft high and that kind of strength in no zed is getting through. If you get a thinker you might get them climbing on top of each other to get over, but that is still going to take awhile. If you've got some stuff around to disuade them, like molotovs, guns, etc your nice and safe.

500x500ft perimeter gives you 250,000sq-ft or about 6 1/4 acres. Not enough farm land to support that many survivors, but it'll go a long way. Nothing to say you can't cultivate a bunch of land outside of the fencing and just live inside (with gardens). You need about 1 acre of cultivated land (with good soil, fertilizer, farming methods, etc) to support 1 person for a year. Mix in hunting and scaveging and you could probably streach it to 1 acre per 3-5 people.
-Matt

[Gamer]

You'd just be wasting time and resources trying to enclose the entire farm right off and there isn't enough people to do it all anyways.
Two months is ok, it's not like everyone has that much chain link fabric, piping, cement for the footing just laying around on the farm and with all the post holes already dug or a tractor trailer to haul it all in at once.

Don't worry about the actual real time it would actually take to build things nobody in your game really cares do they and they are the only ones who matter, unless of course you have army engineers in your group like I do who rattle material and man hours off at moments notice.

Your group made do with what resources you let them find at the time and they should be happy with what they did.

They loaded 4 vehicles but forgot to take three of them.
I can't imagine anyone actually doing that
How did you keep a straight face when they left them.

[Gamer]

Yep, I'd go with wood first for the quick construction and make the change to stone later on after had other needs covered.
Can see such fortifications making a come back during such an event.
But then we are currently at a large ISO container depot so we have easy made walls already, so we're making our own castle of sorts.

[Ranger]

A prison would be pretty good place to hold up.

Already has the fence (with guard Towers) buile.

Only problem, the ZEDs inside it. BUT, they should all be contained in cells so it should be easy to clean out.

[Gamer]

Problem with that is unless you keep power going to all wings and you absolutely know how to operate the security systems and have all the passwords to operate them your movement will be limited, you might get lucky and find one that wasn't as upgraded when the government was giving money to the states for such upgrades.

[Gamer]

Old prisons would be sweet if you knew the condition of them.
Could also take over those old forts like Fort Gaines, Fort McHenry and so on but chances are other people are already there.

[azazel1024]

If I had to hold up on the mainland I would go for a Mot & Bailey style defense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey

Exactly what I was thinking.

I would start off small, just outside of the building(s). Once that was done I would do a second ring further out from that and then a final third ring further out from that.

Depending on resources if we are talking a group under 20 I'd do a ring maybe 50ft out from the house and/or buildings (if a farm, maybe farm house, barn, silo, sheds, etc). Then I'd do one about the distance discussed in this, around 250ft out (About 500ft in diameter). That would give plenty of room for future buildings, gardens, vehicle parking, live stock, etc. Then I'd try to do one about 1,000ft out to enclose at least some limited grazing room, farming, large scale construction if you ever get to it, scrap heaps, firing ranges, drilling room, maybe even a short runway strip, etc.

With 20 the first with hand tools probably wouldn't take more then a week, the 2nd probably a couple of months and the third a couple of years. A long time, but if this is a 'permenant' living situation, why not.

Also as soon as the first ring was done I'd harvest trees/lumber from as far as was feasible to construct the future rings. That way if I needed ready access to wood for something else I hadn't deforested everything within a resonable distance.
-Matt

[azazel1024]

Idealy if I was going to take on an existing structure, I'd go for some of the cliff dwellings in New Mexico. Some of them are up 100ft above a canyon floor with no access except a ladder.

That or if I really wanted some space, there are a few island 'fortresses' that aren't in use anymore. The UK has a few where it is literally a 16-19th century stone fort with sheer cliff walls 20-60ft high with a fort perched on top with its own 20-40ft high stone walls covering basically all of a 1-5 acre island.

Now THAT would be perfect.

Heck, I'd just go for alcatraz with a few hundred survivors. Enough material to really ring the island with a good wall, easy access to lots of scavenge (if you can make quick raids in force), etc.
-Matt

[azazel1024]

Heck, I'd just go for alcatraz with a few hundred survivors. Enough material to really ring the island with a good wall, easy access to lots of scavenge (if you can make quick raids in force), etc.
-Matt

I have to weigh in on your wanting to use Alcatraz. First, the pros:

• Highly defensible position
• Minimal contact with Zeds, if any
• Plenty of leftover resources to use
• Low potential for outsiders to come and try to take it over

And now for the cons:

• Not easy to make raids from
• Takes too long to get to the mainland
• Takes too long to get off the boat, as well as getting back on, once at the mainland
• Completely cut off from any form of help if you get in trouble

These are just the pros and cons I can think off the top of my head. I have to say that, IMHO, Alcatraz would NOT be a good place. Think of the potential problems with raids. You have to:

1. Get from the island back to the mainland;
2. Dock the boat;
3. Get off the boat;
4. Go inland to find supplies;
5. Get back to the boat;
6. Launch the boat;
7. Make your way back to the island;
8. Dock the boat and unload supplies.

And please note that nowhere in that did I account for fighting zeds OR gasoline needs to power the boat. Too much can go wrong on a simple raid to make Alcatraz an effective base of survivor operations. Don't get me wrong - I like the idea of being safe and away from zed issues. But when supplies are needed you are going to have to jump through a boatload of proverbial hoops just to get anything. And even in the best of circumstances you're going to be screwed.

Doesn't take that long to dock/un-dock or get on/off the boat. Now if you have to load/unload a lot of supplies that could take awhile, but you could setup the boat to make it easy. A larger boat/ferry you could litterally drive the car/truck directly on/off the ship.

For a smaller ship you probably aren't hauling all that much. A bicycle with panniers on it doesn't take to long to load/unload (a few seconds) and is nice and quite to drive around and much faster then a Zed, even a runner (make sure you have a good mountain/hybrid bike).

I think it probably takes me something like 60 seconds if I was in a hurry to fire up an outboard diesel/gas engine and take in/cast off the lines from the dock and be beyond jumping distance from it if in a hurry, possibly less. All told with a bicycle with loaded panniers might be 90 seconds from getting to the boat to being to far for a zed to reach and probably less.

If you have a few people then leave 1-3 on the boat and have it at 'standby' to shove off and you could probably cut the whole process down to maybe 15s to get a loaded bike(s) and person(s) onboard and be off.

Unloading at Alcatraz also wouldn't be particularly odious. Now if you were trying to move some serious salvage it would take longer, but you'd also be using a bigger ship for that instead of maybe a powerboat/sailboat.

On balance I'd probably look at one of the pacific northwest islands that is un-populated/under-populated that or one of the ones by Maine/Nova Scotia and just build it up. That way I was near sparsely popuplated part of the mainland. Easier/safer salvage.
-Matt

[Gamer]

And now for the cons:


Not easy to make raids from
Takes too long to get to the mainland
Takes too long to get off the boat, as well as getting back on, once at the mainland
Completely cut off from any form of help if you get in trouble

These are just the pros and cons I can think off the top of my head. I have to say that, IMHO, Alcatraz would NOT be a good place. Think of the potential problems with raids. You have to:

1. Get from the island back to the mainland;
2. Dock the boat;
3. Get off the boat;
4. Go inland to find supplies;
5. Get back to the boat;
6. Launch the boat;
7. Make your way back to the island;
8. Dock the boat and unload supplies.

Those are your Alcatraz wouldn't be a good place cons?

Taking a small amount of time to get to and from a very secure area is an infinitesimal price to pay for such security and one that you don't even have to try to build yourself.
It's incredibly easy to make raids from Alcatraz, you have an entire bay area to choose from to make sorties on, not to mention it's easy to fish on the bay.
It's right off fisherman's wharf for gods sake, and marinas with lots of smaller boats (including sailboats) and fueling stations, it has a current that no zombie is going to handle, so none of this zombies walking to the island b.s.
Look outs can see people coming from a long ways away.
Then there's angel Island state park nearby that can be used for even more space for farming, living and what not when/if your community gets bigger.
Plenty of ferries in the area as Azazel was mentioning using with plenty of areas all over the bay for staging areas for sorties.
It's not that far from the Oakland naval supply center, the old Alameda naval complex with the USS Hornet carrier musem, and Point Molate fuel depot.
You are going to need some immensely better thought out cons to convince me it's not a good place to be if all you can really come up with is some simple inconveniencing time issues with going back and forth for supplies.
Simple time inconvenience over security is for the lazy and soon to be zombies.
Alcatraz would be the first place I'd head for if I was in the area.

[Gamer]

hehe one of the players just emailed me they have a local phone book and he found a company that has spray on concrete equipment. well i know what they are going ot be looking for next time we meet.

Don't really see why spraycrete would be of immediate importance at the moment.
The phone book is one of the best finds if they are not very familiar with the area.

[Gamer]

It would be better used in creating a means of clean water collection if sprayed.
as a means of fortification you'd have to get it sprayed on rather thick to make it worth using and then it would be better to not spray it.
Unless they are living in a log cabin and need some insulation spraying it has no real immediate use for them IMHO.

capturing zombies?
why, Is the farm stocked as a full virology lab?
Do they think they will have a remote chance of figuring it out compared to the other nasty viruses we have had for many years that are uncureable like AIDS and the various ebolas?

[Roscoe Del'Tane]

My new group did a one-off game in Dead Reign a few weeks ago, and we came across a safe town that had an ingenious wall. It was a sea-side trading and fishing town before the Wave hit, and there were several industrial ferries that had just docked and unloaded their goods. The survivors took advantage of this and used the CONEX containers to form a barricade three deep and two tall. That by itself would likely do the trick, but they also used their generators to run the industrial strength water pumps on one of the boats to fill them full of water, raising their already impressive weight to nigh-unmovable, as well as giving the sentries an excellent place to patrol and snipe from.

In one instance they had well over a thousand Z's attack the walls and get nowhere, due to the sturdy construction and weight. The townspeople were able to take their time in exterminating the invaders without a single loss of life. When we left, they had drawn up plans for fortified positions on top of the wall, and cranes that could lower cages out above the zombie swarms. That way, the people in the cage could attract any zombies while being safely out of harms reach, and the men on the wall could kill the zeds, all without putting anybody in any danger.

The problem with this marvelous defense was that it encircled the entire town (more along the lines of a large village). That meant that it was rather difficult to get OUT as well as in, the town was running low on food (besides fish) and other essential supplies, so they hired my team to go out and raid some other towns that had been totally taken over by the Z's.

[asajosh]

My players have decided to make their safe haven at a large farm outside of town (apppr. 5 miles away from our town)
so they first wanted to make and pour 10' high 3' thick walls. then i did the calculations and told them it would be approximately 11.11 cubic yards per 10 foot section they where thrilled. until i told them how many premixed bags of mix that was.(about 500 80# bags) now they are weighing their options. hate to mess up a good idea but until the get more survivors that kind of construction is beyond them to do in a timely manner.currently they have 20 survivors only 12 are 15+.
her eis the calculator i used http://www.concretenetwork.com/concrete/howmuch/calculator.htm
now they are leaning towards concrete block.
they have taken two months to install a 6 foot high chain link fence with a perimeter of 2000 ft.(500 ft.per side.) now htey are settled in for the winter. they have enough food and fuel to last not to mention enough feed for the animals they have "saved".

good plans. I was thinking for smaller enclosures using oldtires. get some wooden 4x4x16 posts. Dig a perimeter trench
and sink the posts 2-4 feet in the trench. Stack old car tires around your posts and fill in the tires with irt and small rocks. once completed, u can always spray some concrete over the whole wall. What u end up with is a pretty solid wall with a lot less materials used

[Anthar]

It would be quite an undertaking just to build these structures. You have to take into consideration that the Zeds are not just lying around, a lot of them are wandering and when they hear noise, it is going to attract them and when they see food well they will start wailing and attract more Zeds. What is needed is an immediately defensible structure with room to expand, preferably with supplies and materials immediately accessible. The best place is a shopping district where you have retail, hardware and grocery stores. These buildings have loads of interior space an only a few entrances that can be easily fortified. Combine that with solid brick walls and large open exterior parking lots that can easily be watched for Zeds and they make a good starting point. Depending on the size of the city that you're in there may even be large enough undergound sewer/storm drains that can be accessed and modified/fortified to make easy access to neighboring buildings where materials and supplies can be stored. They can make good escape tunnels if things go bad and a building has to be evacuated also.
From there, survivors then can start to think about fortifying a larger area first by building quick make-shift barriers to block/limit Zed access to your community, then more permanent fortification/barriers can be constructed. By this time the PCs will have learned a thing or two about the Zeds and their limitations and will be able to construct more effective barriers to keep them out.

[Smlawrence8]

Ok I was going to let it go...but I cannot....

Given the amount of resources and the age we live in I could have a concrete wall built within 2 weeks....

For some reason you are all talking as if they have to build this thing by hand... They dont.

Given the resources of a small to medium town and twenty people this should be a relatively easy project... First you open a phone book and mark the location of the nearest lumber yard. I know of a few on the out skirts of our town that would work perfectly. If no one is capable of driving a semi then you would also need to know the nearest location of a moving company of some kind (to get a flat bed truck). Or even a major lawn company for that matter.

Step 1. Go out steal flat bed moving truck.
Step 2. Go to lumber yard and use forklifts on site to load lumber... Many are propane powered and would have their fuel preserved. You could easily be out in 1 hour if you know how to use the forklift... If not stretch that to MAYBE 2.

Ok so after getting the lumber (preferably 2x4 and 2x6) you return to your base (make sure you grabbed some nails). When you get back to base you (step 3)create two 8ft highx8ft wide squares. Then you figure out where the nearest construction company keeps its equipment or where the nearest equipment renter is at.
Step 4 Steal a concrete truck.... and with the moving truck steal the tons of concrete needed.... (can be either gotten their or at another site) Also for added ease of use steal either a backhoe(if someone in group knows how to use it) or a ditch witch ( most of the time they have trailers available)

Step 5 Use ditch witch to dig trench for wall... For the entire length this should take no more than one day.

Step 6 Stand up wood and enclose sides (for more elaborate walls create a tongue and groove system in the ends of the walls)

Step 7 support sides of wooden "wall"

Step 8 pour concrete and allow to dry (this may be the most time consuming part and you may want to make several sections of wooden "wall" to go ahead and begin the pouring for larger sections of the wall.

Remember people we have access to many many modern day supplies and equipment. The biggest issue would be fuel.


The more difficult part is figuring out how to get in and out because i didnt mention gates......


Edit: Remember that while we may buy concrete in single bags it is actually shipped on pallets and will make for a much faster loading and unloading process

[Anthar]

What do you plan to do when all this heavy construction and noise attracts thousands of Zeds?

[azazel1024]

What do you plan to do when all this heavy construction and noise attracts thousands of Zeds?

+1

This would be my concern.

That aside, building by hand, within reason doesn't make that much noise. I know in a good solid week of digging and erecting I could build a perimeter fence 10ft high about 20ft out from the average single family home. This is with some materials on hand, such as posts from a lumber yard.

Heck with nothing available I could probably erect at ditch 4ft deep with a 4ft high earth wall behind it around the same permimeter in a weeks time. Have half a dozen people and I could easily extend this to 5ft deep with a 6-7ft earth wall behind it and stronger/better with the right materials.

If you are pretty far out in the middle of nowhere you likely would have the time to do all this construction so long as you were relatively quite about it and didn't draw attention to yourselves. If you had a good location to start with that is already hard to access, all the better. Find an area with a good sized chasm that you have to cross and just fortify the side you are going to be on, then just a movable bridge to cross to the other side. A fast moving river would work as a good barrier as well. Zeds might be able to walk along the bottom to get to the otherside of a stream, but a river that moves at a good clip would prevent this (you can't walk along the bottom of a 3mph river, not without getting swept away).
-Matt

[rat_bastard]

The Town we where building our wall in had a parking lot for greyhound and two public schools, we parked buses end to end to end then piled dirt on the outer side and top of them, it let use use the walls as living quarters as well as defensive walls.

[Smlawrence8]

What do you plan to do when all this heavy construction and noise attracts thousands of Zeds?

+1

This would be my concern.

That aside, building by hand, within reason doesn't make that much noise. I know in a good solid week of digging and erecting I could build a perimeter fence 10ft high about 20ft out from the average single family home. This is with some materials on hand, such as posts from a lumber yard.

Heck with nothing available I could probably erect at ditch 4ft deep with a 4ft high earth wall behind it around the same permimeter in a weeks time. Have half a dozen people and I could easily extend this to 5ft deep with a 6-7ft earth wall behind it and stronger/better with the right materials.

If you are pretty far out in the middle of nowhere you likely would have the time to do all this construction so long as you were relatively quite about it and didn't draw attention to yourselves. If you had a good location to start with that is already hard to access, all the better. Find an area with a good sized chasm that you have to cross and just fortify the side you are going to be on, then just a movable bridge to cross to the other side. A fast moving river would work as a good barrier as well. Zeds might be able to walk along the bottom to get to the otherside of a stream, but a river that moves at a good clip would prevent this (you can't walk along the bottom of a 3mph river, not without getting swept away).
-Matt

in all honesty my expectation of a safe haven is somewhere far enough off that I can fire a weapon and not attract a ton of zeds.... therefore IMO it is reasonable to me that construction equipment would have about the same effect...not attracting a ton of zeds....

[Smlawrence8]

yes but then how far away is far enough and still reasonably close to resupply. you don'treally want to burnto much daylight traveling to your resupply area.

Agreed but at the same time.... how far does the sound of a backhoe travel? 10 miles-20??? this is the initial phases of building a settlement we are talking abouit... going 50-100 miles out into the "hills" wouldnt be so bad to be safe long term... The most dangerous part would be the moving of vehicles during the gathering phase and that could be handled in many way... one being the decoy plan OR simply trying to risk it and if the danger becomes to great to haul it out of there. The other thing to note is that there are many builders out side of city limits in moderate sized cities... that would minimize your contact with the denizens of the city itself...

[CyCo]

Prefab. You guys are forgetting prefab.

You know, how a new small shopping centre seems to suddenly appear over night? Prefab.

Granted, you'd need know know where there are some prefab slabs ready to go. And also know how to use the heavy lifting equipment needed to lift them into place.

Also, they typically fit/bolt onto concrete slabs. If you feel you have the time to do this, go for it. But those things (huge slabs) take ages to set.

But, if you can get (and use) a backhoe, dig a trench a meter or so deep and drop the prefab walls into the trench, then fill in the sides with the excavated dirt (or concrete).

Still, you'd have to deal with the noise from the heavy vehicles attracting the zeds.

[azazel1024]

It depends on the materials you have at hand. I could put up a good 10ft chainlink fence with handtools in a couple of days with a 200ft perimeter. I could put up a 1/2" plywood wall with the same perimeter that was 12ft high using wooden posts (4x4" maybe) in probably 2-3 days. With 1-3 people helping in probably a day for either one.

Using nothing but scratch materials such as chopping down trees top make a pallisade wall probably would take 20 odd people a couple of weeks to make a similar 200ft perimeter fence.

For a really slick wall that is concrete/wood I'd do 4x4 pressure treated posts every 8ft on center with 1/2" plywood on one side 12ft high. I'd use 16ft 4x4 posts so that I could bury them 4 1/2ft down using concrete footers. I'd then have the plywood walls buried 6 inches below grade to make digging under the wall harder. Once completed I'd use single layer rebar tied through-out in the center of the wall. Plywood up the backside and then pour concrete between the plywood forms.

Except in this case I'd leave the forms in place and paint the outside some suitable dull tone to give them a little weather resistance from rotting.

Given more time and resources I'd do away with the hybrid wall and simply pour a concrete wall 12 inches thick with rebar in it all the way around the perimeter. That or cinderblock filled with concrete for a faster, if slightly more delicate wall.

Construction equipment could get it done fast, especially for a rammed earth wall, but you can do one by hand with some materials pretty fast. I'd do the quick and dirty chainlink around as large a perimeter as I had materials for and then do a stronger/higher/light proof wall either inside or outside the chainlink perimeter depending on what I had materials and equipment for.
-Matt

[azazel1024]

Sure, but you'd need sufficient food and water supplies even if you weren't working on fortifications. Caloric and hydration requirements go up as you have to work more, but it isn't like you won't be burning anything just sitting around in your fortifications.

A single person or a small group could put up sufficient fortifications with hand tools in a week or two to easily make their small compound or where pretty safe from most zombies (at least with no thinkers) and certainly enough to slow them down significantly. Unless they were pretty ill equipped with food and water to begin with they could probably at least manage that and then divide their time between scavaging, farming and improving/expanding their fortifications.

It may or may not be safe than using power equipment to speed the process of fortification.
-Matt

[azazel1024]

Hi All,

First time posting here on the Palladium Boards.

I have just a few comments here: Great ideas all, with most being pretty good. I thought about the prisons idea as well. Since I have worked as a Correctional Officer before, I know what it would take to get them usable. The problem is, some of the inmates use the weight lifting equipment, so they are very strong (some look bigger than some Mr Universe). So my GM said that there would be quite a few of the really strong zombies inside (I don't remember the names of them). I can live with that I think.

Most American prisons, though loaded with lots of technology, still uses old key systems developed over one hundred years ago. If the power goes out, the doors remain closed, they do not open. Some prisons still use the lock bar system, along with modern electronics. All of those inmates, both living and not, would usually be stuck in their cells for a while. No officer in his right mind would let them out, not even a "humanitarian" officer would let them loose.

Now, there are quite a few choke points throughout a prison, some just a small room connecting the different sections of the prison, and some almost like an airlock. The key to any prison is the main control room. Once there, you have the ability to open gates, to utilize cameras, and start up the huge diesel generator that can run the doors and lights.

Now, as far as the fence line goes, contrary to popular belief, most are not electrified. They do however, have sensors entwined amongst the chain link and razor wire.

If you look at a California prison from overhead, you will see the yards for the inmates. Each "yard" can support 1000 inmates. So if you look at the overhead, and see 5 yards, that prison has around 5000 inmates. This might take some time to empty. But the yards are sometimes surrounded by walls, so they could be used as places to raise cattle and grain (and other types of plants).

If I think of more, I will post more.

Good info. Never thought about some of that, such as using prison yards for raising crops or coralling cattle.

Another thought, at least most of the state prisons I have seen have a good distance between the fences and any surrounding trees/woods. Gives you a good sight line out to any raiders/bandits/zombies for plenty of warning. There may be some nearby ancillary buildings that aren't part of the secured complex though.
-Matt

[Roscoe Del'Tane]

Even if the building is surrounded by zombies, you might not have to worry too much about being in the gun towers. Rig up some grating to cover the windows, pull up the ladders (or destroy the stairs) and make accessing it only possible via a walkway you can swing around, and you've got a decent enough little castle. Stock it with food, water, and ammo, and you could hold out for a long time.

Put a couple of people out there, and they could act as bait for the zombies, while being in little to no danger to themselves. Zeds see them, go after them and hang around, letting the people in the prison snipe them. Or you could put some home-made claymores out there at head height, let the zeds die that way. Heck, you could even put the claymores on the ceiling inside the prisons, that way each time one was set off, it would be essentially a guaranteed dead-zed.

If your characters are skilled enough and have the right materials, they could probably electrify the fences themselves, giving them an additional layer of defense. Ditto with making the camers sniping instruments; mount a semi-auto rifle or pistol underneath, rig a device to pull the trigger, and you could pick off zeds and encroachers without endangering yourself. With the right software, you could even have the PA systems announce that trespassers aren't allowed, making people think its all automated defences.

Oh, and Enforcer of 1964, were you thinking of the Juggernaughts, as the bigger, stronger zombies? Hope all this helps!

[Roscoe Del'Tane]

The stairs on the inside are part of the support, so that might be unwise. Some states use concrete towers (the best usually), and some use something like modified thin gage metal (ala grain silos). Some states have the best towers, they are either part of the walls (with catwalks mounted to the wall), or inside the fence.Enforcer

Ah, did not know that, never seen a real prison with my own eyes, had to go with what Hollywood has shown me, and we all know how trustworthy Hollywood is! You could still set up some kind of barricade or fence to keep the zeds at bay. There is no such thing as being too prepared, and you will want several lines of defense, as opposed to just one ( and compatmentalized as well). That way, if the enemy gets through one layer or area, you still have options; if you've just got the one wall, you're dead if they break through.

And the zeds might be able to see you thorugh the glass, but that would be a GM call, and be affected by if you've got the lights on, if your making noise, etc. Depending on how high up you are, and how thick the glass is, you might be protected. I would still rig up some metal sheeting that could be slid into place, just in case banditos or smart zeds came at me. Instead of having normal stairs, you could put down a bunch of ply-wood, and make a long ramp. When zeds come at you, dump several buckets of grease on the ramp. They can't get you if they can't climb up.

Watch out with electrifying the fence, those sensors I mentioned don't like that much electricity. Also, remember, the generator only has around 5,000 to 10,000 gallons of fuel. Use with caution.
Enforcer

True, but as a last ditch delaying tactic, it might work out ok. You get everything set up, but not activated; that way when the zeds (or bandits, or whatever) break down the gate and come in after you, you can lock them in place while you eat feet away from there. I don't think there is anything that prevents the zeds from being affected by electricity, it might not hurt them, but they still have muscles, and those should react similarly to a humans if zapped.

The sensors, well if your setting off you GO-To-Hell plan, I don't think your going to be worried about things you can't take with you. And if your in some of the Mid-west and southern states, you might be able to rig up some wind-turbines to provide power, or scavenge some solar cells. That way you have a constant supply of juice without needing to burn gas. Just remember, everytime you go into a building, or do anything in this game, you need a GOTH plan, even if its just running like hell (also, you don't have to run faster than the zombies, just the other party members).