How many 5 year-olds.....

[herzog3]

Ok, time to get serious about these rules and the situation. We need some more details if we're ever going to figure out a DECENT estimate here.

Let's assume:
- You start in the middle of the basketball court area.
- The kids start randomly surrounding you.
- The kids have NORMAL 5-year-old intelligence, organization, and retention of information and training. The training they receive would give them broad tactical ability, like "swarm him" or "go for the legs", or "bite".
- The kids have ABNORMAL response to seeing you kick other kid asses. They simply don't fear you at all.
- The kids have an ABNORMAL threshhold for pain. I don't like "zombie kids" because I think that's giving them a little too much credit. I imagine a very determined 5-year-old, with NO super-strength or pain resistance - let's assume an adult-fighting-for-life pain threshhold.

Now to reiterate - everyone is wearing normal clothes. You get a cup. First, let's "know the enemy":

http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepub...Years/4251.htm

"By 5 years of age, an average child is 43 ½ inches tall and weighs about 41 pounds. At 5 years of age, height can range from 40 to 47 inches and weight can range from 34 to 52 pounds."

Now reading all these posts, I think 30 is low if you have a decent enough strategy. A basketball court is plenty big - think of little kids playing kickball indoors or dodgeball or something - they would be fairly spread out to start. You can probably take out 5 or so before they get tightly grouped, and run around plucking them off. The real limitation becomes the size of the room, followed by exhaustion, but seriously, in a life-or-death sort of situation, I think it'd be very hard to lose against 30 without making a big mistake. People that are thinking 10 or fewer are obviously thinking of wrestling with little kids which is always an unfair situation - you're not trying to keep your distance, and they're not necessary trying not to hurt you, so occasionally you take a hit to the face or get smooshed or something. Imagine ugly green aliens with the same strength, speed, height and intelligence of 5 year olds and it's easier to imagine mopping up.

I would predict 50-60 for me, limited by the size of the room (the grabbing the leg tactic would eventually let them tip me I think, and there wouldn't be enough room to run). I think exhaustion wouldn't be such an issue at this level - you'd be winded but how long would this really take? 10 minutes absolute tops? More like 5. It would go very quickly once the clock started.

BTW, found this from waxy.org. Great thread.

[nickey009]

This thread is famous...sorta'

http://www.improvisation.ws/mb/showthread.php?t=34561

[kurosh]

This is what the average zombie 5 year old looks like. Know your enemy.

[locomotivbreth]

Definitely at least 30. With the terms as they are for this battle royal (and assuming as another respondent said that my conscience would not get in the way of the repeated knocking 5 year olds unconscious) the 5 year olds would not have much of a chance to knock me out. I'm not saying it wouldn't get hairy at times, but the fact is that 5 year olds are like barely above toddlers and just simply would not recover quickly from a shot of any kind from a full grown adult fighting for his consciousness. Incidentally, whoever posted this should be commended for starting this thread. I have had similar debates on many occasions.

[SupaTuffDude]

Ever see The One, at the end where he is whoopin all the cons on the prison planet, That would be me whoopin Lil 5 year olds all day long. No 5 year old or group of 5 year olds would stand a chance against my Supa Powa Style Fighting skills.

[Jetcar]

I actually can say from having run Judo classes for 5-8 year olds, that an infinite number would be unrealistic. Classes ranged from 18-25 participants, and the warm-up would be for them to come at me all at once, and I would dispatch them as I saw fit. Our rules were different, obviously, the students had to practice their break falls and rolls once I sent them flying, and our area was about a quarter of the size of a basketball gym. I would say around 45-60 would be a realistic number, given the space (quite large in a gym) and the fitness level of the person delivering the knockouts. In my case, while doing the warm ups with the classes, I often projected the kids into other oncoming students as a measure of self defense. It would be pretty easy to do similarly as this thread suggests. You wouldn't necessarily have to knock them all out on the first shot, but just buy some time.

[Girchuck]

If the kids have clothes, some could be trained to take them off, manufacture ropes and nets out of their pants and shirts, and take you down, while others threaten you with charging en masse. If the training is differential, and the teams have labor division, it could get very interesting.
If you were in charge of training the kids and you knew how many you have, how would you do it?
How would you train 10 kids, 20, 30, 50?

[odellthurman]

Now, we have a suggestion that 5 year olds be "trained" to take their clothes off. Is Michael Jackson a brown trout? Sup bro?

[kalwein]

Not so... a never ending amount CAN be accomplished... as follows:

No group of five-year-olds is going to out-stamina a normal adult male fighting for his life. I’d keep running around until they run out of breath chasing me or until they fall asleep, then stomp on their windpipes as fast as I could get around to them...a rate of at least 2 per minute after I get into the swing of things.

With this in mind... I see wiping out about 30-60 of these guys initially (depending on the dispersion probabilities), enough to clear some terrain to maneuver in. Then, I’d wait until they tire of chasing me (remember, my legs cover four times or more the distance of their legs).

While they rest, I’d first build cover by piling the dead bodies into a rough fort configuration and improvise a weapon or two from the same, perhaps a leg bone or two with a head tied on via some gut. I'll need this fort and weaponry later.... With enough opponents taken down, I should be able to build at least a full four-sided fort around myself. I’d try to slow their advance by use of bodily fluids and squishy parts to create a slick on the field. This would give enough cover and time advantage to negate arguments based on the swarm, overbear and take down approach they might employ.

I’d begin the out-maneuvering and tiring them again phase after I’ve made the makeshift fort. After tiring them out, I’d begin killing them off at the rate of 2 per minute, once they pass out or lay down to rest (crush windpipes, snap necks, etc). Build up the mound around the fort while I do so... it's my future defense...Not to mention, it will likely be my primary source of future nutrition. I suspect their blood content may well also be the only source of water I’ll encounter in this absurd scenario.

Since exhaustion is now my primary gating factor... I would rest in the fort of dead bodies I created. No 5-year-old is going to be able to climb through the squishy pile of his former 'friends' when they are piled ten high. Just in case, I’d spend some of down time fashioning 8” caltrops made from rib bones tied together with gut, handily supplied by the now dead bodies. These would be strewn around the entrance.

I half suspect a few more kids will die trying to get in. Somewhere along the line, I’d capture a few kids and tie them near the opening of the fort (with my clothes initially then eventually with rope made from gut). Doubtless they will give warning, albeit unintentionally, when the swarm starts trying to get in again.

I should be able to rest for 5-6 hours per night and still be functional, since I do this already...Five year olds need 8-10 hours per night...that give me three hours per day, at least, during which I can kill them at a rate of 2 per minute, or at least 180 per night.

I’d be pretty tired for the first week or so of this. Fortunately, however, my high protein diet, coupled with pretty of lifting exercise and the aerobic exercise of running around, would soon have me in tiptop shape. Over time, I’d be able to improve my standard of living somewhat, by fashioning bone knives from the remains. This would help me skin the dead bodies, as time permitted. This skin could be used for clothing, decorative rug, rope, to make nets with, and to cover pits with (a future project). First I’d have to thoroughly wet them down and cure them with human urine. There’d be no lack of that.

I’d have to rebuild my fort every couple of days. The stench would make it not inhabitable, eventually. Fortunately, there’s no lack of raw materials…

Having now accomplished the food, water and shelter requirements of Maslowe’s pyramid, I’d now begin my longer-term project of reconciling my bleak existence dealing with the endless swarm of human five-year-olds and my understanding of natural law…

BR

[jaztheclown]

I actually have a little experience in this weird though it seems. From my login name you can guess a previous occupation. I used to do hospital visit and play with the children on wards on the weekends when the play rooms were closed.

On the day in question a young lad named Myles (Yes he was 5) organised the other kids (Mixed ages but none over 10) to grab my ankles and lower legs. Once they were latched on they pushed until I toppled over. They then sat on me (It takes surprisingly few to weigh you down) and Myles stood on my head cracking it off the floor. Then in his excitement he dropped a turd on my face and the smell almost knocked me out.

I wouldn't go for the toughest kids or the biggest kids but the smartest kids. They are the ones that'll get you.

Back to the question at hand though. Presuming I am not hindered by big shoes, floppy hat, fake wig, bag full of balloons and being limited in my retaliation of pretending to cry then I reckon 20 - 30 is reasonable if they don't get co-ordinated. Half of that sitting on your chest is enough to stop you breathing and blacking out so does that count as a win for them?

Much more than 30 and you should expect to get crapped on [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Jaz