"A friend of mine sent me a link to what essentially turns an aluminum arrow shaft into a mid to long range explosive, knowing my fascination with methods for destroying the undead. Anyone every heard of such a thing?"

"Assuming it even went off upon hitting a zombie, it probably wouldn't do much. Black powder is a low explosive, and I don't think that a hollow aluminum arrow will have the same effect as a pipe bomb would at increasing the detonating ability. Should this go off, it really wouldn't do much at all. A head hit would obviously kill it, but so would a non-explosive arrow.

Hell, this is a purely psychological weapon. It doesn't even seem to have the fragmentation power or detonation to really cause that much damage in battle."

"yep, and the major advantage of a bow/crossbow over a firearm is the fact that its silent and that you can re-use your ammunitions. exploding arrows would cancel both these advantage.
"

"It actually wouldn't really cancel the advantage of silence, but it would work differently.

While a normal crossbow or arrow allows you to pick off targets without others knowing what's happening, with an explosive arrow they only know that something is exploding in their midst. They don't know where it's coming from or even if it's a projectile or a time bomb.

This fits into the psychological aspect by keeping them from knowing where the shooter is or making them think that someone snuck into their base and left a bunch of pipe bombs around. The arrows disintegrate in the explosion and leave no trace of their origin or even what kind of weapon they were. You still have the problem of low fragmentation, translating to a low kill ratio."

"It actually wouldn't really cancel the advantage of silence, but it would work differently.

While a normal crossbow or arrow allows you to pick off targets without others knowing what's happening, with an explosive arrow they only know that something is exploding in their midst. They don't know where it's coming from or even if it's a projectile or a time bomb.

This fits into the psychological aspect by keeping them from knowing where the shooter is or making them think that someone snuck into their base and left a bunch of pipe bombs around. The arrows disintegrate in the explosion and leave no trace of their origin or even what kind of weapon they were. You still have the problem of low fragmentation, translating to a low kill ratio."

"Those who are hardened against it, i.e. those who have served in the military or those in a pyrotechnics field, are more likely to look for the source. Others, teens or those who are not mentally prepared for the rigors of combat have the chance to get a little jumpy on the trigger. My cousin is one of those people for instance. Heard a noise in his kitchen and put ten rounds into a wall for what turned out to be a mouse.

I'm not saying everyone will react that waybut there is a chance in a world where most people probably wont use the safety and chaos can be sparked by the slightest noise."