I have a friend who is in his mid 40’s. His father and mother are in their early 70’s and late 60’s respectively. They live a gated type suburban community of about 7o to 80 homes, with other people of retirement age.
The gentleman, we’ll call him Phil, believes there will be a collapse in his lifetime. He is mentally prepared and equipped with an M4 carbine and several handguns, a hunting rifle or two and a couple shotguns. In fact, I helped him select a scope (an EO Tech) for his carbine and we outfitted his gun with a picatinny rail and light. He is really focusing all his Urban Survival preparation efforts on firearms and is neglecting other vital areas such as food storage, Bug Out bags, a planned route to, and selection of a Safe Location. I have talked to him about packaging and storing his own survival food stocks in mylar bags and using oxygen absorbers to vacuum pack the supply.
Although dependent upon the County water supply, their home is located next to a year round pond that even has been stocked with Trout and Blue Gill. It is problematic that their gated community home is only one and a quarter miles from a state highway.
This couple owns a bumper pull 26 foot trailer, which is a God send as it gives them more viable opportunities to select Safe Locations. In fact, I have talked to them about re-locating the trailer ahead of time, to a Safe Location so the movement in their truck to the Safe Location would be much easier. Plus they could stock the trailer with additional supplies – sort of like an above ground cache.
Seniors, say people permanently retired from a linear income job, have several advantages when it comes to Urban Survival.
Advantages:
Experience, often have finished a second full career;
Don’t get exited easily;
Probably better at making decisions with an emotional detachment;
Better suited to live without all the bells and whistles of life (Television, Stereos, etc.)
Usually have extra resources, earned through a long working life, such as an RV or Camper and other equipment and material (tents, sleeping bags, firearms, etc.) that would enhance survival
Seniors also have several disadvantages:
They are older, very probably slower and maybe with a reduced personal health therefore less capable to endure physical punishment such as movements on foot over rough terrain; surviving bad weather out in the open, etc.
More likely to have a degenerative disease such as diabetes, heart condition, arthritis, osteoporosis, and/or other disease that would require medications. Medications, of course, have limited shelf life even if a Senior could overcome the problems with stocking a large enough supply of them.
I think Seniors would be much more likely to remain in their Urban location well past the point in time that a more reasonable (and younger) person would execute a Bug Out plan.
Probably the biggest advantage Senior’s have would be time. Time to plan and prepare ahead of the collapse. Time to shop and procure items that would augment and enhance their Urban Survival. Time to talk to other local seniors in order to gauge the extent of these other people accepting the possibility or probability of a collapse. Time to wargame possible solutions to reduce the disadvantages, especially in mobility, would increase their ability to rapidly withdrawal from their Urban location when necessary, and could be accomplished in a wide variety of means besides a car or truck. ATV’s, bicycles, boats and animals all can be used to create distance quickly from a threat.
I told Phil, maybe the first step is to start a Crime Watch type program in his community, bring in some key note speakers such as local police,…maybe even politicians (as distasteful as that sound) to attract local home owners. From the local Crime Watch group he would have an organization to build a survival group from. Starting small from a “check in with your neighbor” program; to a crime or threat notification system; or classes on personal protective measures; or firearms safety classes, or anything else that builds unity in the group. One last advantage is that Seniors are probably much more likely to get along, or shall we say “act like mature adults”, in larger diverse groups.
My final advice for Seniors is to minimize the disadvantages, use your advantages and, above all, prepare…..a collapse will likely happen in your lifetime.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Urban Survival Planning – Reconnaissance and Security Patrols
If the collapse hit and everything falls apart at the seams, and you are either held up in your Urban Home preparing to move to the your Safe Location, or you are on the move to your Safe Location, or, are at you Safe Location – what in the world does Reconnaissance and Security Patrols have to do with your Urban Survival?
Reconnaissance and Security Patrols are intended to find out what the threat’s capabilities and intentions are. They are used to gather information/intelligence concerning the area around your Urban Location or your Base Camp. It would be nice to know that a 300 person Motorcycle Group created an encampment six blocks from your house. Maybe a patrol to the nearest State highway could determine extent, if any, of motor vehicle traffic such as 18 wheelers on that roadway.
A Reconnaissance and Security Patrol may also be the best mechanism for placing Observation Post/Listening Posts (OP/LP’s) in place. As the Patrol moves throughout the area, the OP/LP team drops off, using the Patrol as cover, to make their way in a covered and concealed manner to their OP/LP.
A Reconnaissance Patrol is usually separate from a Security Patrol. The Reconnaissance Patrol is usually intended to go to observe and report on either a fixed site or a generally area.
Whereas a Security Patrol is intended to detect indicators that the threat has your Urban location or base camp under surveillance; indicators that the threat is preparing for an attack; indicators on refugees transiting the area.
An Urban Survival Group may also send out a patrol for a generally or specific procurement tasks like to collect brake light and backup light bulbs on vehicles; siphon fuel from stalled or dead vehicles; collect glass panes for a green house; or a thousand and one other tasks. No matter what the procurement tasks may be, the patrol should also be observant and collect information on what they see. They should be debriefed in a formal or semi-format process when they return in order to extract information they collected during their patrol.
Especially if you are a small Urban Survival Group, you may be pressing or utilizing women and teenagers into your patrols, not optimum, but it may be necessary.
The Patrol should have a plan; without burdening the reader's on a military style operations or patrol order format, the Urban Survivor would do okay to consider and use the 5 “W’s” as a minimum patrol plan:
Who (who’s in the patrol)
What (what the mission of the patrol is)
When (timeline for the patrol – when leaving, when coming back, when the base camp should consider the patrol compromised, lost, captured or dead
Where (where is the patrol going and what route(s), remember PACE, will the patrol take
Why (why is the patrol important enough to reduce combat power at the Urban Home or Base Camp in order to accomplish the patrol mission)
There should be standard procedures for the patrol that everyone knows well. Patrol inspection prior to the patrol moving out to ensure everyone has the required equipment, knows that day’s mission, is clothed and armed adequately and all shiny objects and noise makers taken off.
Common Arm and Hand signals should also be used to maintain control of the patrol and help maintain noise discipline. There should be an individual interval (distance) maintained between Patrol Members so that no two members present one target. Consider 5 to 20 meters as the high and low side interval suggestions.
Reaction drills for common events during the patrol need to be developed and rehearsed. Reaction drills for a sniper shooting at you, an attack from any direction, etc.
Contingency planning should be conducted to cover all imagined things that can go wrong. Here are common contingencies:
Where will the Urban Survivors go to if the base camp or the Urban home is attacked and over ran while the patrol is out of the base camp? This is called the Emergency Rally Point, should be at least a terrain feature away from the Urban Home or Base Camp, be somewhat defensible, and may be supported by a few small caches.
Where does the patrol exit and re-enter the Urban Home or Base Camp defensive perimeter?
What are the visual signal(s) and verbal challenge(s) and password(s) in order for the Urban Survivors defending the home to recognize the returning patrol as friendly?
Consider a duress word so that the other party will know that the first party is being forced by gun point or threats of death.
If the patrol hears a firefight at the Urban Home while they are on patrol, how should they return to the location and from which avenue or approach?
Running patrols from you Urban Home or Suburban/Rural Base Camp may not be possible if there are only 2 or 3 able bodied Survivor Group members. However, if you are in a Larger Urban Survivor Group, like a gated community or Neighborhood Watch program coming together, conducting Reconnaissance or Security Patrols as well as patrols to search, forage and procurement items will probably be a viable option if you follow the suggestions to have a Patrol Plan (5 W’s), train all members so they know the Standard Procedures and reaction drills.
Hope this helps, be safe.
Reconnaissance and Security Patrols are intended to find out what the threat’s capabilities and intentions are. They are used to gather information/intelligence concerning the area around your Urban Location or your Base Camp. It would be nice to know that a 300 person Motorcycle Group created an encampment six blocks from your house. Maybe a patrol to the nearest State highway could determine extent, if any, of motor vehicle traffic such as 18 wheelers on that roadway.
A Reconnaissance and Security Patrol may also be the best mechanism for placing Observation Post/Listening Posts (OP/LP’s) in place. As the Patrol moves throughout the area, the OP/LP team drops off, using the Patrol as cover, to make their way in a covered and concealed manner to their OP/LP.
A Reconnaissance Patrol is usually separate from a Security Patrol. The Reconnaissance Patrol is usually intended to go to observe and report on either a fixed site or a generally area.
Whereas a Security Patrol is intended to detect indicators that the threat has your Urban location or base camp under surveillance; indicators that the threat is preparing for an attack; indicators on refugees transiting the area.
An Urban Survival Group may also send out a patrol for a generally or specific procurement tasks like to collect brake light and backup light bulbs on vehicles; siphon fuel from stalled or dead vehicles; collect glass panes for a green house; or a thousand and one other tasks. No matter what the procurement tasks may be, the patrol should also be observant and collect information on what they see. They should be debriefed in a formal or semi-format process when they return in order to extract information they collected during their patrol.
Especially if you are a small Urban Survival Group, you may be pressing or utilizing women and teenagers into your patrols, not optimum, but it may be necessary.
The Patrol should have a plan; without burdening the reader's on a military style operations or patrol order format, the Urban Survivor would do okay to consider and use the 5 “W’s” as a minimum patrol plan:
Who (who’s in the patrol)
What (what the mission of the patrol is)
When (timeline for the patrol – when leaving, when coming back, when the base camp should consider the patrol compromised, lost, captured or dead
Where (where is the patrol going and what route(s), remember PACE, will the patrol take
Why (why is the patrol important enough to reduce combat power at the Urban Home or Base Camp in order to accomplish the patrol mission)
There should be standard procedures for the patrol that everyone knows well. Patrol inspection prior to the patrol moving out to ensure everyone has the required equipment, knows that day’s mission, is clothed and armed adequately and all shiny objects and noise makers taken off.
Common Arm and Hand signals should also be used to maintain control of the patrol and help maintain noise discipline. There should be an individual interval (distance) maintained between Patrol Members so that no two members present one target. Consider 5 to 20 meters as the high and low side interval suggestions.
Reaction drills for common events during the patrol need to be developed and rehearsed. Reaction drills for a sniper shooting at you, an attack from any direction, etc.
Contingency planning should be conducted to cover all imagined things that can go wrong. Here are common contingencies:
Where will the Urban Survivors go to if the base camp or the Urban home is attacked and over ran while the patrol is out of the base camp? This is called the Emergency Rally Point, should be at least a terrain feature away from the Urban Home or Base Camp, be somewhat defensible, and may be supported by a few small caches.
Where does the patrol exit and re-enter the Urban Home or Base Camp defensive perimeter?
What are the visual signal(s) and verbal challenge(s) and password(s) in order for the Urban Survivors defending the home to recognize the returning patrol as friendly?
Consider a duress word so that the other party will know that the first party is being forced by gun point or threats of death.
If the patrol hears a firefight at the Urban Home while they are on patrol, how should they return to the location and from which avenue or approach?
Running patrols from you Urban Home or Suburban/Rural Base Camp may not be possible if there are only 2 or 3 able bodied Survivor Group members. However, if you are in a Larger Urban Survivor Group, like a gated community or Neighborhood Watch program coming together, conducting Reconnaissance or Security Patrols as well as patrols to search, forage and procurement items will probably be a viable option if you follow the suggestions to have a Patrol Plan (5 W’s), train all members so they know the Standard Procedures and reaction drills.
Hope this helps, be safe.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Urban Survival Preparation – Convincing Someone to Prepare
This post is actually a response from a reader comment on trying to get his wife on board with Urban Survival preparation.
This reader is in a mid-sized city close to the Atlantic coast. He said he lived in a townhouse about 8 miles from center mass of the city, whose population was between 100,000 to 500,000.
He says he doesn’t have a whole lot of room to stock Survival Gear, Equipment or Material and his wife would not support a lot of his time or money spent in Urban Survival preparation.
My response to him is: I don’t have too much advice for you other than to work on your wife understanding the need. If you can get her attention for 20-30 minutes, take her to the Economic Collapse videos and have her watch them.
Let her read my comments on how the political and economic environment are stacked against us having a normal life into the mid-term or even near future.
Tell her that Nazi Germany built and ran concentration-torture-murder camps very close to German cities without the main stream German civilian population realizing what was going on. Some of that was, for sure, people’s general disinclination not to believe things they don’t want to believe,…things too horrible to imagine…like an ostrich with it’s head in the sand.
Glenn Beck on his television program the other was talking about a probable collapse, as he believes this country has very little opportunity to avert an enormous chaotic collapse. He, like me, still hopes for the best but prepares for the worst.....like you should.
Take your wife to this site: http://thesurvivalmom.com so she can get another perspective on being prepared. Lots of females postingh survival and preparedness info on this site.
The great first danger is not to prepare. The second big danger is not to be ready to execute contingencies like when to vacate your Urban home and move to a safe location. Oh,..you don’t have safe location? Better find one and figure out how you are going to get there.
Get ready, get more ready and stay on the edge.
This reader is in a mid-sized city close to the Atlantic coast. He said he lived in a townhouse about 8 miles from center mass of the city, whose population was between 100,000 to 500,000.
He says he doesn’t have a whole lot of room to stock Survival Gear, Equipment or Material and his wife would not support a lot of his time or money spent in Urban Survival preparation.
My response to him is: I don’t have too much advice for you other than to work on your wife understanding the need. If you can get her attention for 20-30 minutes, take her to the Economic Collapse videos and have her watch them.
Let her read my comments on how the political and economic environment are stacked against us having a normal life into the mid-term or even near future.
Tell her that Nazi Germany built and ran concentration-torture-murder camps very close to German cities without the main stream German civilian population realizing what was going on. Some of that was, for sure, people’s general disinclination not to believe things they don’t want to believe,…things too horrible to imagine…like an ostrich with it’s head in the sand.
Glenn Beck on his television program the other was talking about a probable collapse, as he believes this country has very little opportunity to avert an enormous chaotic collapse. He, like me, still hopes for the best but prepares for the worst.....like you should.
Take your wife to this site: http://thesurvivalmom.com so she can get another perspective on being prepared. Lots of females postingh survival and preparedness info on this site.
The great first danger is not to prepare. The second big danger is not to be ready to execute contingencies like when to vacate your Urban home and move to a safe location. Oh,..you don’t have safe location? Better find one and figure out how you are going to get there.
Get ready, get more ready and stay on the edge.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Responding to Reader Comment - Firearms
Thanks to the Anonymous Reader, a former PSYOPS soldier, who sent a comment regarding his recommendation of the Mini-14 as a good Urban Survival - self defense weapon. You had to have served at Fort Bragg. I know Fort Bragg well and thank you for your service to the Army Special Operations Community.
I concur that the Ruger Mini-14 is an excellent firearms. Very reliable. I have always thought of it as like a reduced scale M-14 or M1A1. The sights are kind of rudementary, but there are after market iron sights and scopes that can reduce this shortcoming. Plus, the magazines are not nearly as readily available as the AR-15 series. However, if all I had was an Mini-14, I would not feel under armed. It's the man using it and you make sense when you mention you do not plan to get involved in any protracted firefights, only to use the weapon to get you out of trouble and break contact.
I wish I still had the three Mini-14's that I have owned over my life, but I have since settled on the AR-15 design in an M-4 platform for my main carry Urban Survival weapon. Using and teaching this weapon for 30+ years makes me familiar with it. Plus there are lots of accessories, some necessary - some not, on the market.
The baseline model of Mini-14 is still around $500 to $600, whereas a baseline model AR-15/M-4 runs about $900.
UrbanSurvivalSkills.com believes that in any successful Urban Survival plan, the key is going to be your survival group. You simply cannot survival well, without at least a small team of like minded, skilled survival oriented individuals. Commonality among weapons is a good idea if it can be achieved.
Good luck to you and thanks for your comment. Urban Man.
I concur that the Ruger Mini-14 is an excellent firearms. Very reliable. I have always thought of it as like a reduced scale M-14 or M1A1. The sights are kind of rudementary, but there are after market iron sights and scopes that can reduce this shortcoming. Plus, the magazines are not nearly as readily available as the AR-15 series. However, if all I had was an Mini-14, I would not feel under armed. It's the man using it and you make sense when you mention you do not plan to get involved in any protracted firefights, only to use the weapon to get you out of trouble and break contact.
I wish I still had the three Mini-14's that I have owned over my life, but I have since settled on the AR-15 design in an M-4 platform for my main carry Urban Survival weapon. Using and teaching this weapon for 30+ years makes me familiar with it. Plus there are lots of accessories, some necessary - some not, on the market.
The baseline model of Mini-14 is still around $500 to $600, whereas a baseline model AR-15/M-4 runs about $900.
UrbanSurvivalSkills.com believes that in any successful Urban Survival plan, the key is going to be your survival group. You simply cannot survival well, without at least a small team of like minded, skilled survival oriented individuals. Commonality among weapons is a good idea if it can be achieved.
Good luck to you and thanks for your comment. Urban Man.
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