Posted on 08/05/2011 6:43:44 PM PDT by Noumenon
Economic Collapse & Security: I Am Your Worst Nightmare
By Jeff T.
I am the leader of a band of 8-to-12 looters. I have some basic military training. We move from place to place like locusts devouring everything in our path. My group is armed with light weapons and can develop and follow simple plans of attack. We take what we want by force of arms. We prefer none of our victims survive because that could cause problems for us in the future. It has been six months since the grid went down. You and the other five members of your party have settled into what may be a long grinding existence. The every day tasks of growing and gathering have now become routine. The news from the outside is extremely limited but you don’t really miss it much. Life is simple but physically demanding.
Although things may seem stable you will need to keep your team focused and alert. This is your first and most important layer of defense. You should hold an immediate reaction drill once per week. Keep things simple. Practice a specific response to such threats as injury, fire, attack and evacuation. Despite the challenges you must maintain contact with those around you such as neighbors for vital clues that trouble is brewing. Regular monitoring the radio will be critical in providing an early warning of trouble. You may be able to safely interview refugees with risking your party. Keep in mind the information you get from them may not always be reliable.
While you have been farming I have been learning the best tactics to employ to seize your property and your goods. I have been refining them since we hit the road right after the lights went out. I have conducted eight “hits” so far and have been successful seven times. Here are some of my “lessons learned”.
Intelligence gathering and target selection is critical to my success. Targets include those who have large quantities of fuel, food and other valuable supplies. My posse is constantly questioning anyone and everyone we contact searching for this our next victim. Anyone who has ever had knowledge, even second hand, of your preparations is someone of interest to me. I may approach them directly or indirectly. If anyone knows something I will find out about it. Who seems well-fed? Who still has transportation? Who has lights? Who was prepared? Where are they exactly? Somebody talks, either in person or on the radio. They always do.
We search for victims night and day. During the day we are listening for the sounds of machinery, cars, tractors, gunfire or generators. Day or night without a lot of wind those sounds can carry for miles. At night I look for any sort of light. Even a small flash indicates somebody with electricity and that means a rich target. I always have somebody listing to the scanner for any news, leads or insecure chatter. Operational Security (OPSEC) is an important concept for your entire group to understand and maintain. If somebody outside your circle doesn’t have a real need to know about your plans, preparations or procedures then they shouldn’t know period. Develop a cover story and live it like was a bulletproof vest. It is no less important to your protection and survival. During an event you need to blend in with the surrounding environment. Carefully observe noise (such as generators and other engines) and light discipline especially at night. If you need to test fire weapons do it in one sequence to avoid a prolonged noise signature.
Once I find and target you reconnaissance of your retreat is my next step. Only a fool would try to rush in and try to overwhelm a group of “survivalists”. We had a bad experience with that during our second hit. Now we spend at least a day or two trying to size up a large opportunity and the best way to take it down. I will observe retreat activity from a nearby-concealed position. I will get an idea of your numbers, weapons, routines and so much more by careful surreptitious observation. If your group seems alert, I will try and trigger a false alarm with a dog or child to watch your reaction to a threat. That helps me know how you respond, where you are strong and how to attack. I may also obtain a topographical map of the area to identify likely avenues of approach and potential escapes routes you will try to use. I may coerce your neighbors into uncovering a weak spot or access point or other important intelligence. I also have a Bearcat handheld scanner. I will be listening for any insecure chatter from your radios.
Regular patrols at irregular intervals focused on likely observation points and avenues of approach could keep me at bay. You could put down sand or other soft soil in key choke points as a way of “recording” if anyone has recently traveled through the land. Dogs, with their advanced sense of hearing and smell are able to detect and alert you to intruders well in advance of any human. Motion sensing infrared video cameras as a part of a security plan could play a part in your layered defense as long as you have power. A 24 hour manned observation point equipped with high quality optical tools is a must. It should be fortified and if possible concealed. It should have a weapon capable of reaching to the edges of your vision. Seismic intrusion devices, night vision and thermal imaging are phenomenal force multiplying tools. They can give you critical intelligence and warning. You should use them if you have them. Understand they are not fool proof and I can often neutralize them if I know you have them.
These tools and techniques provide you reaction time. Time to plan your response and time to execute that plan. Recognize that a “defender” is always at a disadvantage. By definition a defender will be reacting to my attack. Modern warfare has emphasized the ability of the attacker to operate faster than opponents can react. This can be explained by the OODA loop. Below are the four steps of the classic OODA loop. These are the steps a defender goes through when under attack.
1. Observing or noticing the attack.
2. Orient to the direction, method and type of attack.
3. Deciding what the appropriate response will be.
4. Acting on that decision.
As an attacker I will try and operate at a pace faster than you as a defender can adjust to. I will change my direction, pace, timing and method to force you to continue to process through the OODA loop. This creates confusion and wastes your precious reaction time. As a defender you will need to disrupt or reset your attackers timing with a counter-attack. When you are successful you become the attacker. Your defensive plans should utilize and exploit this concept. Here are a few scenarios:
1. Snipe & Siege
I will begin the attack when I can engage at least half of your party’s military age personnel in one coordinated effort. I will infiltrate my team into concealed positions around your retreat within 50 to 75 yards. I will target any identified leadership with the first volley. Two thirds of my people will be engaging personnel. The other group will target communications antennas, surveillance cameras and any visible lighting assets. I want your group unable to see, communicate or call for help. The members of my band will each fire two magazines in the initial exchange. Two thirds of my group will change to new concealed positions and wait. One third will fall back into an ambush of the most likely avenue of escape. We will stay concealed and wait until you come out to attend to your wounded and dead. We repeat the attack as necessary until any resistance is crushed.
Ensure you adjust the landscape around your retreat so that I don’t have anyplace offering cover or concealment within 100 yards of your residence. You can create decorative masonry walls that can be used to offer cover for personnel close to your residence. Fighting positions can be built now and used as raised planting beds and then excavated for use in the future. These can be extended or reinforced after any significant event. These structures or other measures such as trenching must be sited carefully to avoid allowing them to be used effectively by an attacker if they are overrun.
2. Trojan Horse
For one hit we used an old truck. We forced a refugee to drive it to the retreat gate. We concealed half our group inside the truck. The truck was hardened on the inside with some sandbags around the edges. The other half of our group formed an ambush concealed inside the tree line along the driveway. We killed the driver to make it look good and had one person run away. Those preppers almost waited us out. After nearly three hours they all walked slowly down the driveway. They were bunched up in a group intent on checking out the truck and driver. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
They could have worked together as group to sweep the area 360 degrees around the truck and they would have surely found us. A dog would have also alerted the residents to our presence. They could have taken measures to eliminate the vegetation offering us concealment on the road near the gate. They could have used CS gas or something similar to “deny” any suspicious areas. Lastly they could have done a “reconnaissance by fire”. Shooting into likely hiding spots, including the truck, trying to evoke a response. They should have established an over watch position with the majority of their group. This over watch group would have provided visual security and an immediate response if there were an attack. They were not expecting any additional threats. They didn’t consider that there might be additional danger lurking nearby aside from the truck and they died.
3. Kidnap & Surrender
A few weeks ago we surprised and captured a couple of women out tending a garden. It was totally by chance. We were traveling through a very rural area on our way to another town when somebody heard a tractor backfire. We immediately stopped and I sent a small team to recon the noise. They bumped into a small party tending a field at the edge of their retreat. They seized two women and immediately dragged them back to our vehicles. We began negotiations by sending a finger from each one back to the retreat under a white flag. The rest was easy.
This didn’t need to happen. Better noise discipline would have kept us from discovering their retreat. Some simple boundary fencing or tangle foot could have delayed us. The women should have been armed and aware of such a threat. If they has established an over watch for the garden they could have engaged us before we took our hostages or at least alerted the others that there was a problem. They also could have had a quick reaction Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)developed prior to this incident. That Quick Reaction (QR) force could have followed the kidnappers back to our vehicles and set up an ambush of their own. Rural retreat security is a full time job. If you snooze you may lose everything.
4. Fire and Maneuver
I don’t like this option but sometimes the prize is just too tempting. We typically infiltrate quietly at night to prearranged start points. We begin our attack just before dawn when your senses are dulled by a long night watch or from sleep. Based on our reconnaissance we divided your retreat into positions or zones that need specific attention. We prepare for battle by using an air rifle to target any lights or cameras. Our first priority is to engage any site and destroy or degrade them as much as possible. I split my forces into two supporting groups. One group keeps the target position under constant fire. The other group also fires and maneuvers, closing on the target and destroying it with gunfire or improvised weapons. Many times these positions only have one occupant and the task is relatively easy. Often these positions are easy to spot and are too far from each other to provide any effective mutual support. We will work from one position to the next. In the darkness and confusion most of the defenders are disoriented and ineffective. They fall like dominos. We have also used motorcycles to negotiate obstacles and speed through cuts in the perimeter fence. Then throw Molotov Cocktails into any defensive position as they roar past. If you fall back into your residence we will set up a siege. If we can maneuver close enough, perhaps by using a distraction, we will pump concentrated insecticide into your building or we may introduce liquid Propane gas from a portable tank into the house and ignite it with tracer fire.
If there was enough warning time from your OP you could execute a pre-planned response. Your planned response should be simple, easy to understand and execute. Half your group occupies your fighting positions, two to a position. The rest of your party establishes an over watch and concentrate its fire at the enemies trying to fix your positions. If you had more than enough prepared positions the enemy might not know where to attack. It would also provide more flexibility in your defense based on the direction of attack. I would use Night Vision if available or illumination from flares or lights as a last resort. Rats hate light.
Usually people keep main access points blocked from high-speed approach. Likely avenues of approach should also be blocked or choked and kept under observation. Remember though what keeps me out keeps you in. Typically the common techniques of parking vehicles in roadways will only delay my approach not stop it altogether. An ordinary 12-gauge shotgun, shooting slugs, can stop most types of non-military vehicles at close range.
Don’t forget the threat of fire or other non-traditional weapons in your defensive plans.
You could create the illusion of a “dead end” for your main access road by positioning a burned out trailer home or a couple of burned out cars at the false “end” of the road. Concealing the fact that the road actually continues to your residence.
Lastly, develop a plan to evacuate and evade capture. When faced with a significantly superior force it may be the only viable option. This should include simple, reliable communications or signals such as three blasts on a dog whistle. Your fighting positions and barriers need to be constructed to allow coordinated withdrawal in an emergency. You should establish a rally point and time limit to assemble. I believe this should be a priority in your practice drills. During a real emergency you may be able to rally, rearm and plan your own version of the “snipe and siege” to retake your retreat.
Key messages:
Your rural retreat defense can be visualized as a set of concentric rings:
Location – Location – Location: High and remote are best OPSEC – Think of it as a form of armor or shield: Practice it and protect it. Observation Post / Listening Post: Your first best chance to counter attack Gates / Fences / other barriers: May slow me down. Might keep you in. Fighting positions: Must provide mutual support and allow for evacuation. Residence: Last line. Don’t become trapped People, Planning and Practice
Remember:
An aggressive and unexpected counter strike can win the battle. Stay alert for multiple threats or diversionary tactics. Criminals excel at feigning weakness to lower your guard.
Don’t underestimate me.
My reason for posting this is obvious but should be a reminder survival is always best done as a community. During difficult times there are always things to be done and no one can do everything and still sleep. Everyone can bring something that aids the group. Just a little friendly reminder. - NewAmericaNow
I think you would be better off at your pal’s place than trying to strike out overland to the West. I think ground travel will be a worse and more dangerous option than any but the worst city situations.
I think you would be better off at your pal’s place than trying to strike out overland to the West. I think ground travel will be a worse and more dangerous option than any but the worst city situations.
To counter the counter with my own counter. Katrina was an example but only of a small segment of society. Most people with resources and motivation had already left before the storm. The areas further east from New Orleans were harder hit and very successfully fended for themselves.
IMO the areas east of the Mississippi river simply have too much population to survive the mad max scenario. There are very few places which are more than one tank of gas away from a major population center. Sure some people will stay in the city until they lack resources to go anywhere else, and some will run out of gas half-way. There are so many people that if a small percentage reaches out 200 miles it will still overwhelm a small homestead or even a small town. All they need to keep going is a full tank of gas and a few more bullets, which they take from the small homestead.
The other poster who said he was preparing as best he could and trusting God for the rest has it right IMO. The best place to be depends on what happens. Remote homesteads in Idaho could be targets by other survivalists. They could also be targeted by the Govt when hoarders are outlawed. Or they could be the perfect place to be. You just don’t know until TSHTF and can see which way its flying.
I think trip wires, flares etc are all great. A few more ideas off the top of my head:
Instead of making the easy route appear too hard for them, make the easy route appear even easier. What you don’t want is an obviously impregnable driveway, so that the enemy could hop the fence and come in from 360* that you cannot guard effectively. So make the ingress appear easy. OTOH, the driveway might appear “too easy,” (suggesting an ambush ahead) so also think of the 2nd and 3rd and 4th easiest infil routes. That’s where you set your dead falls, steel bear traps, pungi pits etc. With shotgun and flare warning devices, etc. Of course, somebody with their leg in a bear trap will do a lot of screaming, so the audible alarm is redundant! Bear traps are pretty cheap, require no electricity etc. Buy them now: they are much more effective than home-made “survival” type snares etc. that you will have to make once the stores are all closed.
There are some fast-growing thorn bushes that are almost as good as triple-rolled concertina, but appear totally natural. You can even take cuttings of thorny “pest plants” that nobody will miss. The thorn hedges can be arranged to channel infiltrators into your kill zones. They won’t know they’re in a kill zone, until they are.
You can even erect a razor-wire fence, and THEN plant the thorny hedge over it. The razor wire won’t even be visible. (A visible security fence can mean, “something valuable over there!” So hide it inside of natural-appearing thorny hedges.) Natural-appearing thorny hedges can be grown in Y-shaped channels, to guide the bad guys right into your traps or ambush zones. Since they appear to be natural growth, nobody will suspect they are being guided into your killing ground.
Old tech can be very effective. Pressure pads under the driveways hooked to a silent alarm are undetectable and can run on just a little solar juice. Anybody driving a vehicle up will announce his coming in advance. You probably already have something for a vehicle alarm. It’s just a question of matching it to solar power. Ditto motion-detectors, but they have a much higher false alarm rate. You don’t want one that will go off for every deer, stray dog and waving tree branch, or you will soon learn to ignore it. A pressure pad will only go off for one thing: a vehicle.
There are tons of more ideas like these, but these came right to my mind.
After six months on near starvation diets, fat old white guys won’t be fat.
They’ll be lean, mean fighting and THINKING machines. (If they are alive.)
My point is: a fat guy can get thin and fit, but a dummy will still be a dummy. No matter how buff he was on Day One.
“My point is: a fat guy can get thin and fit, but a dummy will still be a dummy. No matter how buff he was on Day One.”
I’ll take that.
“My point is: a fat guy can get thin and fit, but a dummy will still be a dummy. No matter how buff he was on Day One.”
I’ll take that.
The evolutionary purpose of fat is to provide a buffer through the lean times. We may get back to that! In fact, in some circumstances, a chubby person might outlive the one that goes into the hungry times already thin.
Until hard manual labor is required and the fat guy sweats himself to death.
You must not be married.
Okay....I get it...I effed up....this happens...again, there should have been quotation marks around the “fat old white guys”...HEEEEEELLLLLLLP!!!!!!!
“...Behold our tummies and despair......”
Man, I don’t even want to BEGIN to think about that imagery...!!!!!! Hahaha!!!
Maybe I should have said “Caucasian Buddhas of Rather Portly Stature Dressed in Environmentally-friendly, blending Fabrics”
I’m feeling like this person right now!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYiv76qRCkA
You’re feeling like a cute blonde?
ahh, crap...This is going from bad to worse... Hahah!!
It’s sad that you feel unfortunate to be married.
This thread has only served to remind me how thankful I am to be married. I see my husband as a helpmate. Not just when it comes to TEOTWAWKI, but also for every waking moment. If I wasn’t married to a Christian man, I don’t know that I would have a good reason to get up in the morning.
Ok. I do a lot of genealogy. I’ve spent a good deal of time researching family during the revolution. I found one ‘old white guy’ who probably wasn’t exactly skinny. He was a 62 yr old German farmer who also owned a bakery in town (in 1776). He was one of about 12 kids, mostly boys. He was the only one who lived to be older than 70. When the revolution broke out he joined a militia with one of his grown sons and spent most of the revolution in the mountains of north carolina. You don’t really have to try hard to imagine the privation from his viewpoint. Not only from a culinary perspective. Sleeping outdoors, hiking it over hill and dale. All of his brothers died at or before 70. He lived to be 94. NINETY FOUR. I have to believe it’s because he got active and spent the next 6 years on a ‘health camp’ regimen.
YMMV.
My husband calls blackberry brambles ‘redneck concertina wire’. Raspberries and possibly dewberries would work too. As long as they had thorns and were suited to whatever climate you particularly have. Check the local extension office. Disease resistance is a big plus. If TSHTF you don’t want to run out of spray one year and have a giant dead wad of stuff in the yard.
Added bonus, brambles are idea hidey places for snakes. Like the castles of old had moats with alligators, redneck castles can have thorny brambles with snakes! So, don’t put them close to where your kids play.
Oh, and if you order something from a nursery (or even if you don’t), once a year for several weeks you can put on your anti-snake-clothes and pick gallons and gallons of fresh fruit. Yummy. Delicious AND devious.
Thanks after all, for letting us know the plans of suburbanites, should we see the TEOTWAWKI. Botulism happens in improper canning for food preservation, and such treats will be waiting for criminal invaders.
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