Chapter 8 picks up with Chris and his family in a settlement influenced by religious fundamentalists.
Well into the fourth month of the pandemic, news from around the country is sporadic and then only through transient people and amateur radio (short wave and Ham radio operators).
The commentators make a good point of local communities having to control the food supply and most likely instituting some sort of work for food program. In the town Chris is at, the food supply is consolidated. The summary execution of food thieves gives Chris pause on staying here so he and his family leave for Idaho.
The show picks up 18 months later in Idaho where Chris and his family are integrated into a local community. The commentator makes another good point about small towns. If small towns are vacated during the pandemic they will be re-populated as these areas will draw people. The small towns will have to have a constant natural water supply and land to grow crops as the commercial food supply will have all but disappeared a year or so after the collapse.
Watch the video and think about how pre-crisis preparation may have made life more sustainable or comfortable.
Lessons learned or thought on this Chapter of After Armageddon:
Unless you plan on living on someone else's good will, you will need to stock food supplies such as dehydrated foods and bulk grains as well as have non-hybrid seeds to grow you own food. The time to learn to grow crops is not after a collapse.
You will need to know how to preserve foods through dehydrating and pickling/canning - and the supplies or equipment to do it. A great source for food, seeds, and preservation equipment is earthwaveliving whose link is on the left side of this site.
The commentators talk about the possibilities of local currencies cropping up for commerce. UrbanSurvivalSkills.com believes that once paper money value has run out (within possibly a couple days to a couple weeks after the collapse), then after the value of gold and silver runs it course, then, bartering for items will be the main type of exchange. Perhaps gold and silver will regain some value once communities are established, but we see no rebound on paper money until society as we know it is re-stored, if it is restored. The lesson learned is to have cash on hand for immediate needs, gold and silver for short-mid term exchange and make sure you have all the Survival Gear, Equipment and Material you need.
The final lesson learned for this Chapter is medical needs, specifically anti-biotics. As this Chapter ends, Chris is starting to get an infection in his hand from a cut. All cuts and injuries need to be immediately treated. You are most likely going to be able to store any decent amount of anti-biotics, or medications for that matter. This will suck bad if you require medications like a diabetic. By the way, adult onset diabetes, even insulin dependent diabetes is highly treatable and even reversible.
The expiration date on medicines will preclude their long term value even if you can stockpile these. An immediate collapse source would be livestock feed stores that stock penicillin for animals. A decent medical reference book would help you convert dosages for human needs. A partial long range solution is to know home remedies and medicinal plants. A good site would be: http://www.homeremediesandnutrition.com
Ensuring your health is, prior to the collapse, as good as it can be through a general healthy lifestyle,....physical activity, good nutrition and taking advanced nutritional supplementation would be a good idea to ensure you come enter into a collapse with the best possible health. A good site for health information and nutritional supplements is: http://www.bobshehan.com
Be Ready; Plan well and Prepare now.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Urban Survival Planning - SF Base Camps Concepts II, for Home Defense
Continuing on with looking at Army Special Forces Base Camp Defensive concepts and how they may apply to your Urban Survival Location or final Safe Location when/ where you Bug Out to.
Army Special Forces Base Camp Principles:
“Desired size is such that the camp can be defended by one-fourth of the assigned strength.” UrbanSurvivalSkills.com has previously written about Survival being a team sport. You will need a group, with effort and contributions from all, in order to survive at anything resembling a life. Daily routines from food procurement, tending gardens, treating water, cooking, making repairs and getting rest will have to be planned and accomplished. The last thing you want to be forced to do is leave security to one lone lookout, as the brunt of defense on a surprise attack will be borne by this person. A fight, then a lapse in the fight, then another fight will sap your personnel strengths and resources. Plan your defense and protocols for defending your urban/suburban or safe location on the potential for a long term fight – think siege if you will.
“Plan for a Defense in Depth.” A proper Defense in Depth creates as long as observation fields as possible allowing the Urban Survival defenders to detect and engage attackers as far out as possible; makes use of natural and man made obstacles to force attackers into areas where they can be more effectively engaged by the defenders; develops defense positions that are mutually supporting and can be collapsed inward as necessary to consolidate the defense or in a response to success or partial success on the attack.
“Use primary, alternate, and supplementary defense lines.” Look at organizing your defense in belts (lines or rings if you prefer this terminology). This will allow a defensive withdrawal to consolidate your defense and resources if you are faced with a large attack force and they become successful at closing the distance.
“Plan for alternate and secondary positions.” Primary positions should cover the most likely avenues of attack. Secondary positions allow for the same coverage albeit from a different position, and Supplementary positions can be fall back positions or positions and allow for additional coverage or engage on likely avenues of attack or the identified direction of the attack.
“Develop the ability to limit and seal off penetrations.” I’m sure everyone has heard about the safe room concept, where home owners have a hardened room to retreat to if attackers get into the house. This is the same concept, but expanded to fit a larger site.
“Plan for Reserve forces (on call and positioned to respond to perimeter breaches or the main focus area of the attack.)” Develop a plan and procedures for communicating to and moving defenders from original positions to where they are needed which is probably to defend against the main focus area of the attack.
“Coordinate your fires; use interlocking fields of fire that are mutually supporting.” See previous posts on Sat May 8th and Weds May 12th on Home Defense. These posts outline determining dead zones, areas of responsibility and fields of fire. The smart Urban Survivalist ensures all areas that an attacker can use for cover and approach to your Urban/Suburban or Safe location can be observed and engaged. Ensure positions mutually support each and do not position anyone where they have an uncovered blind spot.
“Consider compartmentalizing the interior of your base camp in case a certain area of the camp is penetrated or over run.” Really not a viable option for most urban homes, but what you should consider is communications and procedures to conduct an emergency withdrawal in case defending the site is no longer viable or you are overrun. This would consist of various escape routes, routes to a rally point, what equipment to take with you, what equipment you have cached at the Rally Point to further an escape (food, water, clothing, ammunition, etc.).
“Plan for supply/resupply (primarily water, food, ammunition and medical supplies) of all positions.” Your defense positions should have access to food and water, plus more ammunition. If people vacate these positions to locate food, water and more ammunition then you have a gap in your defense. How are you going to resupply defenders during the fight?
Lastly, “Consider the ability to have a reaction force available to maneuver in support of another base camp.” If you are part of a larger Survival Neighborhood and multiple sites, do you have procedures including communications and routes to maneuver and come to the aid of another house or series of houses that are being attacked?
Hopefully, this post and part I gave you some ideas and concepts to consider in your plan and preparation in making you Urban/Suburban or Safe location better suited to defend against an attack. In a collapse practically everyone is going to be armed to some level. Benign people, when faced with starvation, will band into groups and be capable of unimaginable things in order to survival – don’t let them do this at your expense.
Army Special Forces Base Camp Principles:
“Desired size is such that the camp can be defended by one-fourth of the assigned strength.” UrbanSurvivalSkills.com has previously written about Survival being a team sport. You will need a group, with effort and contributions from all, in order to survive at anything resembling a life. Daily routines from food procurement, tending gardens, treating water, cooking, making repairs and getting rest will have to be planned and accomplished. The last thing you want to be forced to do is leave security to one lone lookout, as the brunt of defense on a surprise attack will be borne by this person. A fight, then a lapse in the fight, then another fight will sap your personnel strengths and resources. Plan your defense and protocols for defending your urban/suburban or safe location on the potential for a long term fight – think siege if you will.
“Plan for a Defense in Depth.” A proper Defense in Depth creates as long as observation fields as possible allowing the Urban Survival defenders to detect and engage attackers as far out as possible; makes use of natural and man made obstacles to force attackers into areas where they can be more effectively engaged by the defenders; develops defense positions that are mutually supporting and can be collapsed inward as necessary to consolidate the defense or in a response to success or partial success on the attack.
“Use primary, alternate, and supplementary defense lines.” Look at organizing your defense in belts (lines or rings if you prefer this terminology). This will allow a defensive withdrawal to consolidate your defense and resources if you are faced with a large attack force and they become successful at closing the distance.
“Plan for alternate and secondary positions.” Primary positions should cover the most likely avenues of attack. Secondary positions allow for the same coverage albeit from a different position, and Supplementary positions can be fall back positions or positions and allow for additional coverage or engage on likely avenues of attack or the identified direction of the attack.
“Develop the ability to limit and seal off penetrations.” I’m sure everyone has heard about the safe room concept, where home owners have a hardened room to retreat to if attackers get into the house. This is the same concept, but expanded to fit a larger site.
“Plan for Reserve forces (on call and positioned to respond to perimeter breaches or the main focus area of the attack.)” Develop a plan and procedures for communicating to and moving defenders from original positions to where they are needed which is probably to defend against the main focus area of the attack.
“Coordinate your fires; use interlocking fields of fire that are mutually supporting.” See previous posts on Sat May 8th and Weds May 12th on Home Defense. These posts outline determining dead zones, areas of responsibility and fields of fire. The smart Urban Survivalist ensures all areas that an attacker can use for cover and approach to your Urban/Suburban or Safe location can be observed and engaged. Ensure positions mutually support each and do not position anyone where they have an uncovered blind spot.
“Consider compartmentalizing the interior of your base camp in case a certain area of the camp is penetrated or over run.” Really not a viable option for most urban homes, but what you should consider is communications and procedures to conduct an emergency withdrawal in case defending the site is no longer viable or you are overrun. This would consist of various escape routes, routes to a rally point, what equipment to take with you, what equipment you have cached at the Rally Point to further an escape (food, water, clothing, ammunition, etc.).
“Plan for supply/resupply (primarily water, food, ammunition and medical supplies) of all positions.” Your defense positions should have access to food and water, plus more ammunition. If people vacate these positions to locate food, water and more ammunition then you have a gap in your defense. How are you going to resupply defenders during the fight?
Lastly, “Consider the ability to have a reaction force available to maneuver in support of another base camp.” If you are part of a larger Survival Neighborhood and multiple sites, do you have procedures including communications and routes to maneuver and come to the aid of another house or series of houses that are being attacked?
Hopefully, this post and part I gave you some ideas and concepts to consider in your plan and preparation in making you Urban/Suburban or Safe location better suited to defend against an attack. In a collapse practically everyone is going to be armed to some level. Benign people, when faced with starvation, will band into groups and be capable of unimaginable things in order to survival – don’t let them do this at your expense.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Urban Survival Planning - SF Base Camps Concepts I, for Home Defense
I have been getting e-mails, at urbanman@urbansurvivalskills.com, in reference to home defense. When I reply back or otherwise discuss some terminology and verbiage associated with defensive positions and base camp defense it confuses some people. So I thought I would list some selected concepts for Army Special Forces Base Camp Defense and explain what they mean or how we can use these concepts for Urban Survival Planning be it at your Urban home, transitional defense at temporary locations, or, defense at your final safe location.
BASE CAMP DEFENSE. The overall defense posture of a base camp is enhanced by continuous aggressive operations conducted by the base camp personnel. These are: Patrolling; Ambushes; Observation; Area intelligence nets; CA and PSYOP campaign plans; and, Use of ground surveillance radar and night observation devices.
Surviving in your Urban location during a collapse would probably NOT be enhanced by aggressive Patrolling or setting up Ambushes in your area. To do so may draw unwanted attention from well armed gangs. The exception would be if you had predictive information (intelligence) that a armed gang was going to attack your home or neighborhood then a harassing type of ambush on the gang may serve to demoralize them, diminish their fighting power and may make them re-think their attack and call it off.
Observation refers to having the ability to foresee armed gang approaches or other problems and give early warning to the main group. This is accomplished using Observation/Listening Posts (OP/LP’s) to observe, detect and report suspect activity or activity and events that may threaten your safety. You would want to set OP/LP’s as far away from your home or safe location as they can safely be or you can safely support them. Consider line of sight with natural avenues of approach to your home or safe location, consider covered and concealed routes from your home or safe location to the OP/LP’s or multiple OP/LP’s. You have to have a method, or multiple methods to communicate what the OP/LP’s sees or hears to the main camp. This may be simple FRS radios, a landline phone or field telephone system, and/or a horn to sound an alarm.
Area Intelligence Nets would refer to your ability to get information from outside sources. Could be refugees transiting the area, could be people you accept into your survival group or anybody and anything that gives you a picture of your outside environment. Information could and should be obtained from reconnaissance patrols outside and away from the urban/suburban home or safe location. We’ll do a post just on reconnaissance patrols, in the meantime just think how recon patrols can be conducted safely, using terrain and buildings to your advantage, in order to more with minimum chances of detection and safe routes back the main site.
CA and PSYOP pertain to Civil Affairs and Psychological operations. Civil Affairs are operations or actions that support rapport building with people around the area and PSYOPS are themes, ruses and disinformation that are used to your advantage, such as making your urban home or safe location appear a much harder target than it really is in order to deter potential attackers.
Ground Surveillance Radar and Night Observation Devices are probably much past the capabilities and resources of the average Urban Survivalist, unless you are dedicated to being prepared enough that you purchase Night Vision equipment to add to your Urban Survival gear and Equipment kit. A great idea is you can afford it, the cheaper end of the night vision devices (called NOD’s) would be generation II Russian stuff which isn’t really bad, just bad compared to the current U.S. generation III and III+ devices.
We continue this in greater detail with a SF Base Camps Concept II post in the near future. Be safe, be prepared.
BASE CAMP DEFENSE. The overall defense posture of a base camp is enhanced by continuous aggressive operations conducted by the base camp personnel. These are: Patrolling; Ambushes; Observation; Area intelligence nets; CA and PSYOP campaign plans; and, Use of ground surveillance radar and night observation devices.
Surviving in your Urban location during a collapse would probably NOT be enhanced by aggressive Patrolling or setting up Ambushes in your area. To do so may draw unwanted attention from well armed gangs. The exception would be if you had predictive information (intelligence) that a armed gang was going to attack your home or neighborhood then a harassing type of ambush on the gang may serve to demoralize them, diminish their fighting power and may make them re-think their attack and call it off.
Observation refers to having the ability to foresee armed gang approaches or other problems and give early warning to the main group. This is accomplished using Observation/Listening Posts (OP/LP’s) to observe, detect and report suspect activity or activity and events that may threaten your safety. You would want to set OP/LP’s as far away from your home or safe location as they can safely be or you can safely support them. Consider line of sight with natural avenues of approach to your home or safe location, consider covered and concealed routes from your home or safe location to the OP/LP’s or multiple OP/LP’s. You have to have a method, or multiple methods to communicate what the OP/LP’s sees or hears to the main camp. This may be simple FRS radios, a landline phone or field telephone system, and/or a horn to sound an alarm.
Area Intelligence Nets would refer to your ability to get information from outside sources. Could be refugees transiting the area, could be people you accept into your survival group or anybody and anything that gives you a picture of your outside environment. Information could and should be obtained from reconnaissance patrols outside and away from the urban/suburban home or safe location. We’ll do a post just on reconnaissance patrols, in the meantime just think how recon patrols can be conducted safely, using terrain and buildings to your advantage, in order to more with minimum chances of detection and safe routes back the main site.
CA and PSYOP pertain to Civil Affairs and Psychological operations. Civil Affairs are operations or actions that support rapport building with people around the area and PSYOPS are themes, ruses and disinformation that are used to your advantage, such as making your urban home or safe location appear a much harder target than it really is in order to deter potential attackers.
Ground Surveillance Radar and Night Observation Devices are probably much past the capabilities and resources of the average Urban Survivalist, unless you are dedicated to being prepared enough that you purchase Night Vision equipment to add to your Urban Survival gear and Equipment kit. A great idea is you can afford it, the cheaper end of the night vision devices (called NOD’s) would be generation II Russian stuff which isn’t really bad, just bad compared to the current U.S. generation III and III+ devices.
We continue this in greater detail with a SF Base Camps Concept II post in the near future. Be safe, be prepared.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
After Armageddon 7 of 9 - A History Channel Program and Lessons Learned
After Armageddon continues in Week 19 with Chris, wife Ellen and son Casey continuing to walk through the hot Mojave desert - in daytime, rather than holing up during the day and walking at night.
When dehydrated, as Chris and his family are, decision making is impaired. A person can go two maybe three days without water but certainly the last 24 to 36 hours that person's physical and mental capabilities are greatly reduced.
When Chris approached the house and encountered the girl with the shotgun and took the shotgun away - he should have kept it, as well as searched the house for more ammunition. If there was no water, then he may have decided to take the girls with him and his family, they would die anyway - his wife may have been the best person to approach the children. I don't know - tough call. What would you have done? Certainly keep the shotgun I would.
Chris' argument with, then explosive behavior over his son not eating the snake meat is a result of extreme stress. If you can't keep cool, bad decisions will be made, and, in a survival group with people bearing firearms people very well may kill each other. Oh by the way, did you see how Chris killed the snake? Cutting his head off between the forked stick and the head - bad idea,,...once separated from the body the head could have flipped around and bite Chris. The head will remain dangerous for maybe several hours. Pin the head and cut behind the forked stick is much safer.
Chris finds luck where/when he could have least expected it with encountering the gentlemen he stopped to help days back, and ended up with a ride to a small community, where he and his family found shelter.
Small communities have the best chance of surviving extreme scale collapses of the economic, infrastructure and/or of a pandemic nature. Maintaining order may be hard unless entities such as governmental organizations, such as the elected community council and law enforcement, remain intact.
Religious organizations may become powerful enough to be the key decision making cog in small communities. If you end up at one, RUN AWAY if they have mandatory religious meetings. Our founders never intended our clergy to run the government, only provide religious and moral direction to those who desire it.
However, if a community if going to survive, mandatory meetings and decision making power will have to accepted and respected.
When dehydrated, as Chris and his family are, decision making is impaired. A person can go two maybe three days without water but certainly the last 24 to 36 hours that person's physical and mental capabilities are greatly reduced.
When Chris approached the house and encountered the girl with the shotgun and took the shotgun away - he should have kept it, as well as searched the house for more ammunition. If there was no water, then he may have decided to take the girls with him and his family, they would die anyway - his wife may have been the best person to approach the children. I don't know - tough call. What would you have done? Certainly keep the shotgun I would.
Chris' argument with, then explosive behavior over his son not eating the snake meat is a result of extreme stress. If you can't keep cool, bad decisions will be made, and, in a survival group with people bearing firearms people very well may kill each other. Oh by the way, did you see how Chris killed the snake? Cutting his head off between the forked stick and the head - bad idea,,...once separated from the body the head could have flipped around and bite Chris. The head will remain dangerous for maybe several hours. Pin the head and cut behind the forked stick is much safer.
Chris finds luck where/when he could have least expected it with encountering the gentlemen he stopped to help days back, and ended up with a ride to a small community, where he and his family found shelter.
Small communities have the best chance of surviving extreme scale collapses of the economic, infrastructure and/or of a pandemic nature. Maintaining order may be hard unless entities such as governmental organizations, such as the elected community council and law enforcement, remain intact.
Religious organizations may become powerful enough to be the key decision making cog in small communities. If you end up at one, RUN AWAY if they have mandatory religious meetings. Our founders never intended our clergy to run the government, only provide religious and moral direction to those who desire it.
However, if a community if going to survive, mandatory meetings and decision making power will have to accepted and respected.
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