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Originally Posted by 1717Guy
We live out in the country and have some acres. How would you suggest we defend ourselves and our property in case of the SHTF scenario?
Some people here say you must have a large group to defend anything but what if that is not possible? There are four grownups in my family that live close.
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That's a great question.
The first step is to calculate the carrying capacity for the county in which you live.
To do that, you'll need pull some data about your county from City-Data. For god's sake, don't ask me how to get there, because I don't know how. I have to use a search engine and type "
county state 'city-data'" in order to pull it up.
The carrying capacity will determine how many people your county can sustain. I'll use my county as an example. From the City-Data info, we want this information:
Quote:
Hamilton County, Ohio (OH)
County population in July 2009: 855,062 (98% urban, 2% rural)
County owner-occupied houses and condos: 207,533
Renter-occupied apartments: 139,257
Land area: 407 sq. mi.
Water area: 5.4 sq. mi.
Population density: 2099 people per square mile (very high).
[Note: The following info will be near the bottom of the file so you'll have to scroll down]
Agriculture in Hamilton County:
Average size of farms: 74 acres
Irrigated harvested cropland as a percentage of land in farms: 5.57%
Average number of cattle and calves per 100 acres of all land in farms: 6.07
Milk cows as a percentage of all cattle and calves: 20.76%
Corn for grain: 3347 harvested acres
All wheat for grain: 660 harvested acres
Soybeans for beans: 5267 harvested acres
Vegetables: 418 harvested acres
Land in orchards: 138 acres
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This is the data I will use for the calculations:
Corn for grain: 3347 harvested acres
All wheat for grain: 660 harvested acres
Soybeans for beans: 5267 harvested acres
Vegetables: 418 harvested acres
Orchards are nice, but I ignore them. We have a total of 9,692 acres of cropland.
It takes 2.5 acres of land to sustain one person at Subsistence Level. Subsistence Level is the minimum basic calorie requirements that will allow people to function and perform manual labor tasks (like farming). Our carrying capacity is the number of acres divided by 2.5:
9,692 / 2.5 = 3876.8 or 3,900 rounded up.
Unfortunately there are 855,062 people in Hamilton County so that means 851,162 people are going to die in the Die-Off.
If the population of you county is less than the carrying capacity, then you probably do not need to worry about defense. Since you live in a rural county, let's look at some rural counties for comparison. We'll start with Bullock County, Alabama. From the City-Data info, we get this:
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County population in July 2009: 10,985 (35% urban, 65% rural) County owner-occupied houses and condos: 2,967
Renter-occupied apartments: 1,019
Land area: 625 sq. mi.
Water area: 1.0 sq. mi.
Population density: 18 people per square mile (low).
Agriculture in Bullock County:
Average number of cattle and calves per 100 acres of all land in farms: 7.06
Corn for grain: 492 harvested acres
All wheat for grain: 35 harvested acres
Vegetables: 67 harvested acres
Land in orchards: 980 acres
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The total farm land is 594 acres.
594 / 2.5 = 240 people
Ooops.
The carrying capacity for this county is only 240 people. Note that you do have a lot of orchards. You might be able to carry 500 people here, but that is unfortunate because the population is 10,985 people.
There's going to be intense competition for food resources, and much of that will come from the 35% urban area or about 4,000 people or so. About 50% will die of violence in the first two weeks or so, leaving 2,000 in the city, which in this instance is the centrally located Union Springs. People normally follow natural corridors such as Interstates and US Routes, or walk along rivers. Here, the urban scum will move in all directions along US 82 and US 29 in search of food.
As far as defenders, maybe 12-20 would be sufficient. At most you'd have a handful of stragglers. You should be able to coordinate mutual defense with neighbors and deal with it effectively.
Let's look at rural Switzerland County, Indiana. City-Data says:
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County population in July 2009: 9,675 (all rural) County owner-occupied houses and condos: 2,674
Renter-occupied apartments: 761
Land area: 221 sq. mi.
Water area: 2.3 sq. mi.
Population density: 44 people per square mile (average).
Agriculture in Switzerland County:
Average size of farms: 130 acres
Average number of cattle and calves per 100 acres of all land in farms: 9.23
Milk cows as a percentage of all cattle and calves: 5.13%
Corn for grain: 3230 harvested acres
All wheat for grain: 535 harvested acres
Soybeans for beans: 7722 harvested acres
Vegetables: 23 harvested acres
Land in orchards: 34 acres
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Our total farmland here is 11,510 acres.
11,510 / 2.5 = 4,604 people
Given the initial die-off of the elderly, those on medication, suicides etc, the population would be reduced to about 7,500 very quickly. According this, they have about 1,000 head of cattle, and if the people work together and manage their resources well, give full rations to defenders and laborers, and famine rations to all others, they might be able to survive fairly well. I happen to know this area fairly well, and they do have a lot of fallow farmland that they can bring back into play and increase the natural carrying capacity.
Defense here would not be the primary issue.
I hope that clarifies things for you.
You'll see that in my case, I have 855,062 welfare pukes, ghetto pukes and *******s who have lived their whole lives getting hand-outs or hand-holding from the government. Having to think for themselves, and take care of themselves, well, they just won't be able to do that, and they'll be after those who can think to take care of them. I don't have the time (or the inclination) to hold their hands through the rest of their lives.
Because of the very high population density in this county, the initial die-off will be very high. The violence will begin almost immediately, and then expand in both scope and intensity within 7-10 days as their food runs out.
Fortunately, all of the farmland is concentrated in a small part of the county. Unfortunately, everyone knows that. Fortunately, there is a natural barrier in the form of a river that separates the farmland from the thugs. They can only cross at US 50, I-74 and at Harrison Road in Miamitown. Also of note, armored vehicles can only cross at I-74 (yes, know and learn your route/road classifications and vehicle weights).
I'll have to deal with 100,000 to 500,000 people, so, yes, I'll something akin to a light infantry battalion with about 75-100 in each line company.
Which brings us to the next issue of geography. Maybe you live in a rural area, but if you are on a corridor to or adjacent to an high density population area, you will have problems. People, just like animals, will migrate from high density populations to lower density populations in a crisis. Maybe you live in a rural county in Illinois, but that is of no comfort if you're 40-90 miles from Chicago. There's 7 Million people in Chicago/Cook County, and they'll come swarming out to the west, southwest, south and southeast like locusts in search of food.
For example, Montgomery County, Ohio has 700,000 people and they'll come swarming down I-75 into Butler County and wreck havoc there. They'll also come down Ohio State Route 128 into my territory, and I'll have something special planned for them.
So, while I need 250-300 people to defend what we have, you might not, and you'll best make that determination by looking at the carrying capacity for your county, it's population density, and then look at the geography and consider the potential for people to migrate into your area from high density population areas.
If you have problems, but few defenders, consider chemical and biological warfare. If a group of 200 people descends upon you making demands and you cannot take them out, then feed them poison food so they die, and then you can burn their bodies and won't have to put up with their crap anymore.
You might be able to rig up make-shift gas chambers. Tell them "
food's in the barn" then lock them in and gas them to death with chlorine or something.
Surviving...
Mircea
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) should be in an area nobody would think of going on a raid, or nobody would want to bother with when going on a raid. Try to make it so everyone else is easier pickings with larger rewards. That probably means life is going to be tougher for you, but that's the way it's going to have to be to make life tougher for them. Make yourself not worth the trouble.
