And you are prepared, great, but what about your neighbors? They will be VERY hungry.
Alas, Brave New Babylon
(link to the Free Republic thread)
Posted on 10/14/2013 3:13:03 PM PDT by The Working Man
Good thoughts on the various firearms and situations they are good for.
But think about this situation, The Feds have done their homework and have done their best to confiscate as many weapons and ammunition as possible. What do you do if you have managed to scrounge up a 12 gauge shotgun and you find in a closet in an abandoned home some .303. But no 12 gauge shells of any type. Do you leave the .303 behind or hope you find someone who needs that and has shotgun shells you can use?
In a SHTF situation there are so many decisions to make and a bad one might prove fatal.
Skepticism is good, as I said before it’s a thought experiment written as a story.
On the Power Front I used to work on Submarine Power Cables. I saw quite a few things that would make me go ‘Huh?’ There was always a good scientific reason for what occurred but the effects were... Hmmmm... sometimes ‘very interesting’. Especially when I would see an insulator being arced over due to salt deposition from the ocean air.
I remember working on a tower one time and the insulator turned to powder when we started to work on it. Just too many electrical strikes over time was the determination but still it made me wonder.
Or they can turn on their "minders".
Many more people have whole house generators now. 2% of the population and growing as the price comes down. So in reality, more and more people are self sufficient when it comes to power.
The electrical grid only stay up as long as the rural folks permit it. I’m not sure about the probability of this scenario, but for sure, the cities depend on the outside infrastructure for everything from food to fuel to electricity.
For how long?
After Sandy, we were out of power for 6 days and calculated that if we meted out power and conserved (stayed in 1 room instead of heating the entire house) we could easily last 3 1/2 weeks on the propane we have.
And you are prepared, great, but what about your neighbors? They will be VERY hungry.
Alas, Brave New Babylon
(link to the Free Republic thread)
This was a disaster zone after Sandy. Trees down everywhere, and we were concerned it would be weeks until we could get a propane refill. Amazingly, the cleanup took place very quickly and routes were open, power restored in a mere week. And it was truly a disaster zone.
We could last a month on the propane we have, and I have little doubt we would be able to get a refill within that time, barring a nuclear bomb going off or something equivalent.
But in that case, we would all be dead anyway. There is no way to prepare for everything. I have prepared as best as I can and can sleep at night knowing I took the steps i did.
When the SHTF, a generator running will be a signal for miles around that there's food, women and other stuff available at the origin of the sound.
Ditto, cooking ribs (or anything else) in the open air.
Just sayin'.
And those with generators might as well mount a beacon on their flagpole...and better live in a castle keep...
Or they can turn on their “minders”.
Fear and terror can have some very interesting effects. Witness the Russian Army with their ‘encouragement’ squads that would follow behind the front-line troops and execute anyone who tried to run or didn’t show enough ‘enthusiasm’ for the glorious revolution.
I read you, TWM.
Nobody should write here what you’re asking.
Don’t be frustrated by the comments; I think most are hip.
Nicely written; well done.
I don’t think the scenario has a chance in a ‘blue moon’ of coming true. But some elements... yeah, there is the possibility there.
yeah- ammo storage is a huge consideration
I know 410 is not a cheap as you would expect it because it is so much smaller, but I have not had a hard time finding it (yet) there always seems to be a full shelf
I may be the only one here who like a shotgun that small, but I originally got it with the intention of teaching my little daughters to shoot.
A 12 gauge would have knocked them right over
yeah- ammo storage is a huge consideration
I know 410 is not a cheap as you would expect it because it is so much smaller, but I have not had a hard time finding it (yet) there always seems to be a full shelf
I may be the only one here who likes a shotgun that small, but I originally got it with the intention of teaching my little daughters to shoot.
A 12 gauge would have knocked them right over
Loads of ammo and know how to reload and cast my own bullets so any hungry bellies had better think twice. what is the solution? Get rid of the generator and live in a cave?
bfl
Thank you, You are probably right. I was hoping for some more thoughts on ‘What if’s’ in such a scenario.
I pretty much went with the “us vs. them’ scenario. But I can see the ‘everyman for himself’ one and if that one was the case then the ‘Plan’ would have been a success as the death toll outside of the cities would have been near complete.
Human psychology in stressful situations can be quite terrible as the ‘lizard brain’ takes over and only short-term survival becomes dominant.
Regardless of the technical inaccuracies, your short story is an interesting thought exercise for a SHTF scenario indeed. As far as taking a section of the electrical grid offline, that would require insider knowledge of which plants are connected in the region, where and the number of feeder lines are, and the number of them you would have to disable to overload the rest to force the remaining feeders to fault out. Or, if you really wanted to diabolical, identify the baseload plants, and target the step up transformers that feed the transmission circuits. Take those out, and that plant won’t be delivering any power for a long time. And a .30-.30 might just pull that off, if
You can get close enough.
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