Quote:
Originally Posted by rjyoungdos
The title says it all. I've noticed that sites for prepping and SHTF scenarios are for mainly personal who have houses and got me thinking.
How can one really prep for a SHTF type scenario when space is limited? Living from check to check?
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Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail.
Note that prepping and planning are not the same thing.
It's really unfortunate, but most preppers conflate prepping with planning, and what will happen is that preppers will spend lots of money and then die horribly.
I rent a rehabbed apartment that is now a condo in the 12th Level of Hell. I'm about 150 ft from what used to be the most dangerous street in the US. I was at 13th and Vine and guy was shot in killed at 14th and Vine (I live at 12th and Race one block south and one block west). I guy was shot over a beer just 35 feet from my front door. Ten years ago, a guy was shot and killed by police in any alley (that runs behind my condo), and that sparked 3 days of riots, so I have no illusions about what will happen if there is a break-down of law and order.
I have three things, a mountain bike, a Beretta 92F (with a few hundred rounds) and a strong box with important documents and film negatives, plus some data CDs/DVDs.
That's it.
I'll survive Armageddon while nearly all of the preppers will die, because I have a plan, and they don't.
The map isn't the best, but for illustrative purposes it works (and it was the best I could find on the fly).
A veteran I met at the VA hospital has a farm near Harrison, Ohio, and so does his son who is a veteran, and they have a friend and the three of them are, I guess, Armageddon Survivalists (as opposed to the idiot "preppers").
I'll be the OPS Officer when Armageddon comes.
The reason I want you to look at the map is that it is bounded by three rivers, the Whitewater, Great Miami and Ohio, and rivers are natural defensive barriers. There's also a 4,500 acre county park in the middle of it. It's semi-rural/rural.
I'll walk/bike to the three farms (which are adjacent to each other). It'll take me less than 8 hours, because I've already walked/biked it. When "it" happens, I'll grab the strong-box, my weapon, some things and head on out.
They have "pre-invited" families to come to the farms if "it" happens.
The rally point is the state park. I'll be making regular trips to the park to get people and escort them safely back to the farms, until I can get enough able-bodied people armed to do that.
See, that's what's so sad. Mom and Dad are at work, the kids are at their schools, and about 9:35 AM a big 750 kt nuclear warhead is detonated about 60 miles above the Earth's surface, or an X7-X9 Class Solar Flare hits and the EMP ruins everything.
That family will probably never see each other again.
Oh, they spent thousands and thousands of dollars prepping, but not one second planning.
They didn't plan a Rally Point and didn't cache weapons and water. They're stuck where ever they are, and depending on where, exactly, it'll be 20 minutes to an hour before discipline is right out the window and total chaos sets in.
I figure I got 20-30 minutes before the ghetto pukes figure out no one can communicate with anyone, and that includes the police, and then the looting, pillaging, robbing and raping will start. I just have to pedal to Central Parkway and get on I-74, and I'll be safe for the most part.
Now, at the farms, he has a pre-EMP backhoe, so he can start constructing fighting positions and building a blast berm from the house to the barn, and then around the house. I've managed to locate 2 pre-EMP bulldozers that will come in handy. I just have to get them (or send others to get them) and bring them to the farms.
We'll have 21-30 days to get ready for The Horde.
We figure we can save 3,000 to 5,000 people, and if we can, that will be a miracle. Unfortunately, the county has 1 Million people, and 300,000+ live in the city limits. The people who live paycheck-to-paycheck will run out of food in 2-3 weeks and then they'll start migrating in search of food. They'll be taking it by force from others. Since the city is bounded by the Ohio River and crossing the river only leads to more urban areas, they'll be moving east or west to the rural areas where the farms and orchards are.
Here's where it's "location, location, location." There's only 3 bridges that cross the Great Miami. We have access to plastic explosives (from gravel pit operations mostly) and will destroy one of the bridges. I don't believe we can destroy the bridges at US Route 50/52 (unless we have a demolitions engineer), and we for sure won't be able to destroy the I-74 bridge, but that's okay. We can take the bulldozers and build fighting positions and obstacles (like razor wire) on the bridges to keep The Horde away. Some anti-personnel grenades and napalm grenades command detonated using car batteries, plus napalm mortars and home-made flame throwers will do the trick. Good target practice. I figure they'll come in groups of 100 to 1,000, because they know there are farms and orchards with food, plus the 4,500 acre park is chock full of deer herds, boar, fox, chipmunks, squirrels, birds, turkeys, pheasant, badgers, nut trees, wild asparagus, wild onions, wild celery, polk, wild strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and other good things to eat. For that reason we'll patrol it heavily to keep people out until the area is secure.
There's a small town of about 25,000 nearby. I'll try to leave them alone, but if they get stupid, I'll eliminate them. The forest and the three farms should be able to take care of us, but there's no way we can feed 10,000 people until the next planting season (and in the case of a nuclear winter caused by an asteroid strike or Toba-like volcanic event, who knows when that will be -- 1 to 2 years or even longer).
As we get settled in, I'll start clearing routes. The traditional "Red Route 1," "Red Route 2" etc.
We'll move down the street, if a house or apartment is vacant, the women, children and elderly will scavenge it, then we'll burn it, then we'll take the wiring and copper tubing, PVC pipes etc (good for napalm and HE mortar rounds), then bulldoze it.
If it is occupied, the residents can abandon it, or be burnt to death.
Then it will be scavenged and bulldozed. I don't have time to play games. I need secure routes of travel for my fire teams, security patrols, ambush/counter-ambush patrols, recon and intelligence patrols, scavenging parties, communications runners and diplomatic teams.
I can't spare able-bodied people to guard those routes. They have to be free and clear, and that means burning down and demolishing all houses and buildings to keep squatters, hostiles, threat forces, enemy troops or whatever from using them against us.
Once an operating sector is secure, I'll send out diplomatic teams. To the west is rural farmland Indiana. We'll form coalitions and mutual defense and trade pacts, plus make an assessment of food potential to see if we can save more people.
To the east is the suburban and urban areas. It might take a few months to kill a Million people, but disease, starvation, water deprivation, and violence will wipe out the vast majority. We'll run ambush/counter-ambush patrols and reduce them by attrition. I operate on a "scorched-Earth" policy, so I'll burn everything to the ground to deny future use buy renegades, hostiles, threat forces, enemy troops whether foreign or domestic or whatever the case may be.
Then we'll start rebuilding and planning for the future.
If you want to prep, learn ambush/counter-ambush patrols, how to make homemade mortars, napalm, and flame-throwers, how to build fighting positions, how to make maps and make over-lays for fields of fire and your mortar artillery. Study chemical weapons. You can burn chlorine and do a number on people. You can also make chlorine mortars and smoke mortars.
Study medieval farming techniques. You may or may not have access to a limited supply of chemical fertilizer. Look at crop yields for corn and emmers, especially medieval crop yields, and also note labor requirements to farm a single acre of land. Early American colonial life is another good read on agriculture, crop yields and labor.
Curing meat and fish using a variety of methods like drying, smoke, salt and sugar/honey, and also learning how to make sausages/salamis will come in handy. You can also pickle certain meats and fish, as well as vegetables.
Locate useful things like pre-EMP backhoes, bulldozers, trucks and cars. Horses, cows, sheep and goats. Renewable food sources like ducks, geese, chickens, turkeys, dogs, cats and rabbits. If you're starving you'll eat a cat or dog. You're not going to have the 5,000 calorie per day Extravagant American Life-Styleâ„¢. If you can feed your people 1,200 to 1,500 calories per day, you'll be doing damn good.
Study fluid mechanics, like pumps and siphons. Try to learn something about dynamos, batteries, wind turbines and electric power generation. HAM radio communications and crystal radios are good to know. Hydrology maps of aquifers in your area.
The real key to survival is surrounding yourself with knowledgeable people, like a farmer, a surgeon, an homeopathic doctor, a veterinarian, a mechanical engineer, hydraulic engineer, electrical engineer, boiler operator etc, and then protect them. You don't need to know everything, but you do need to specialize in one or two things, and then have at least basic knowledge of other things.
So you don't know any farmers. You don't have to. All you need is GoogleEarth or some maps of your area. Find a good place that is strategically and tactically situated (similar to the map I showed you). If you can bike an average speed of 20 mph, then you should be able to go 100 miles in 5 hours. If your life depended on it, how far could you go in 8-12 hours walking, biking and resting periodically?
Just go.
"I won't know anyone." Again, you don't have to. Negotiate. If someone is going to feed and house you, then you'll have to bring something to the table in return. You'll defend and protect them. Sell your skill-set, whatever it is that you can do.
The farmer I know is a Vietnam vet. The only thing in this world that he cares about is his grandchildren. So I will protect them, make sure they are safe, and have food and water. I can do that because I can train people and lead them in combat, plan and organize operations and logistics, and a few other things. I will protect the families who come to the farms and make sure they have food and water. That's what I do.
This SHTF stuff, I don't know what that is. If people are expecting some kind of chaos from "economic collapse" that is just not going to happen. If the first place, economies don't collapse. They can certainly decline, and yours is and will be for some time, but that will never approach SHTF stuff.
If your country turns into a dictatorship, well, you aren't going anywhere unless you happened to erase every single piece of evidence of your existence out of government computer systems. I think we can rule that one out. So if people are planning on "bugging out" to the mountains or something, well, they'll hang out there until security forces come looking for them and drag them back to the re-education camps.
People are spending thousands of dollars for "civil unrest?" Whatever. You people might want to study the history of riots and civil unrest in the US and around the world. It never travels outside the core zone where it originated, and the core zone is usually a small area, like 8 blocks by 4 blocks or something like that.
Now if you mean Armageddon when you say "SHTF," you have two core scenarios, the EMP Event, and the Nuclear Winter Event.
There are two possibilities for EMP. A country, let's say France, gets teed off, and a French submarine launches an SLBM. So the MIRV bus separates from 2nd stage and the MIRV bus cruises over the US dumping six 450 kt warheads which detonate about 60 miles up. The other would be an X7-X9 Class Solar Flare, like the Carrington Event in 1859. The US is toast. About 300 Million Americans will be dead within 12 months from disease, starvation, dehydration, and violence (or suicide). Your government won't be able to do anything and neither will the rest of the world. In a Carrington Event, most of the northern hemisphere will be wiped out, and without food from the US, Russia and Central and Southern Europe, it will be every country for themselves.
You won't live long in your apartment. When The Horde starts searching for food, they'll burn shower curtains in the HVAC system and the poisonous fumes will kill you or drive you out. Or they'll burn chlorine tablets (like for a swimming pool) in the HVAC system. Or diesel. Or they'll get into an adjacent apartment, take a sledgehammer, punch a hole through the wall the toss in a Molotov Cocktail. You're dead one way or another.
Same thing with a house. They'll ransack the house for food and items and if they find you, they'll kill you. You can't defend your home. I'll come in through the back while you're defending the front. Or the sides. You can't defend all 360°, and especially not against someone like me. I'll burn you out. You can hide in your bunker if you want, but I'll just pour gasoline down the air vent and light it. That'll be the end of that.
They only way you can possibly survive is if you are with a large group that has a secure and defensible area, and access to food and water. And by large group, I mean a minimum of 100 able-bodied people who can shoot a weapon. I can go 32 against 750 and win (I've actually done that and it was ugly, actually fugly, but we won), but most people can't.
A Nuclear Winter is going to be a little different.
The primary difference is continuity-of-government. You don't have that in an EMP scenario, but you will for a Nuclear Winter. You'll also have advanced warning, but you'll have to play it by ear as to when you actually "bug out."
Once possibility is a Toba-like volcanic event that would destroy the world's food supply for 1 or more years, and the other is an asteroid strike. An asteroid of 2 km to 4 km in diameter would destroy the food supply for about 1-2 years, maybe 3 years. We aren't talking extinction level event in the case of a small asteroid strike, rather just a general "die-off."
You'll have advance warning. You'll know when the asteroid will hit, but perhaps not exactly where until it does, and then you'll be able to see the effects of the ejecta. You won't have advance warning of a Toba-like event. Here we're talking about a volcano like Mt Saint Helens, or Pinatubo in the Philippines that blows up. However, within a month or two, you'll know how badly you've been hit.
Your government cannot feed 308 Million people for a year. Your government cannot even feed 308 Million people for a day.
What will happen here is government will confiscate all food for The Great and the Good, who will be moved to a secure location. Since people like you and I are not part of the Beautiful People Crowd, we'll be left to fend for ourselves. The same principles apply, but it will be much more difficult. I doubt I could save more than 500 to 1,500 people. Depending on the time of year, it might be possible to harvest crops before they are destroyed, assuming government doesn't confiscate them for The Great and The Good first. You'll be relying heavily on meat and fish, and that will be in short supply very quickly.
Your best bet is probably to hijack trucks and trains, or raid grocery warehouses before the government does.
In all scenarios, cannibalism will be rampant. Here's where it would pay off to know a little bit about electricity and refrigeration, plus how to make sausages and salamis. Handing people a sausage and saying its blood sausage, summer sausage or hard salami will go over better than saying it was the crew of thugs you ambushed and killed 2 months ago, or the recently dead bodies you found while scavenging last year (and yes sausages and salamis made properly will last up to a year or more).
Quote:
Originally Posted by rjyoungdos
I see the world going to Hell in a hand basket and don't want to be left behind the power curve, so to speak.
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That is not a valid reason to "prep."
The world has been on a slow road to Hell for 6,000 years. No need to panic now.
Like I said, I don't think people really grasp the concept of this SHTF stuff. If you're expecting some kind of economic collapse or civil unrest that is so severe there is a total and complete long term break-down of law and order, that just isn't going to happen in your life-time.
You will be nuked, get blasted with goo from an X7-X9 Class Solar Flare, or be hit by an asteroid before there's any kind of civil unrest that severe.
As best as I can tell from the research that others have done, and from my own personal research of astrology, astronomy and history texts, these X7-X9 Class Solar Flares happen about once every 150 to 250 years. It's really hard to pin down, because electric/electronic technology did not exist in earlier periods in history. We have to rely on the observations of astrologers, astronomers and ancient historians from about the time of the Roman Empire through the Medieval Period, then up to the Colonial Period. The 1859 Carrington Event was the first where technology was involved. They appear to occur in the first or second Solar Period following a Solar Minimum (and the evidence is that we are in a Solar Minimum now).
So let's call it about 20 years from now, and for the 80-100 years following, there's a good chance it will happen.
I hope that helps. Seriously, I don't want to see you waste your money on stupid stuff. If you want to know why I only have a 9 mm, it's because when the time comes, there will be plenty of weapons lying around, and if not, I can just shoot some thug and take theirs. People who don't have the confidence or experience should probably invest in a nice shotgun with a folding stock, or something in the 7.62 mm category.
Planning to win instead of prepping to fail...
Mircea
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