When should you get nasty?
??
The title might suggest that I actually have an answer to that question. But I don't. If that surprises you, I apologize, but its simply a rhetorical question that can only be answered by you and your group, when the time and situation dictates. That being said.........
What will follow in this thread is controversial at best, and abhorrent at worst. The following scenarios are fictional. And should be considered as such. I am writing this from a worst case scenario point of view. Where decent people may be forced into hostile acts to protect their families and communities. The purpose is to provide a platform for personal reflection about what could be very real and very dangerous threats in a post collapse world. And some purely speculative ideas and concepts, a person or group could consider utilizing to counter act such threats. I expect this post will offend some. I apologize now for any discomfort this post will cause. It does not come from any desire to shock or sicken the members of this forum. It comes from a desire to recognize that we do not live in a perfect world, and to prepare ones-self for difficult times should they arise. The following should only be considered in a total collapse situation. Not civil unrest, financial melt down or any situation where a modicum of ROL still exists. Any actions similar to what is depicted, under any ROL circumstances would be HIGHLY CRIMINAL! And punishable to the full extent of whatever laws still exist. The following does not reflect the purpose or intent of
WWW.Straightprep.com its operators or its members. They are solely the fictional and fearful thoughts of WhiskeyJack. The responses however, are the responsibility of the respondent (So please think before you type). Shall we begin?
Situation
The world we know has collapsed, Pick your catastrophe. Nuclear wars, EMP, Coronal Mass Ejection, Plagues. It doesn't matter. What matters, is you and your community are now totally on your own. All government services have ceased. No Police, Fire or EMS services can be rendered. You and your people have begun to scrape an existence from the remains of the world we once lived in. Your community's time is spent growing food, raising livestock, raising children, relearning old techniques for survival, training, scavenging and many other tasks in an attempt to stay alive and safe. But not every one has chosen your path. Some have chosen to become predators in this new reality. Some places may have the benefit of the old military having a strong presence in the area, pre-collapse. They may have a better chance of forming alliances and relationships with these forces and fighting off or deterring such groups. But for the sake of argument lets say you are not among these lucky communities.
Lets discuss some options for defense.
Physical Security:
You have to take this very seriously. physical security is a combination of many diverse factors. Feel free to get creative. But do not forget the K.I.S.S. principal. Keep It Simple Stupid. The more complexity you add to just about any thing, the more opportunities there are for something to go wrong. Some examples of things that add to your physical security are.....
Early warning:
Anything that provides early warning is useful. this can be device, observation or advance intel.
For-warned is for-armed. Any hostile group that has targeted your community will undoubtedly want the element of surprise on their side. You want to negate that advantage with vigilance and preparation.
Information networks:
Simply talking with neighboring communities, traders, refugees and your own local populous, can generate leads. If you can foster relationships with neighbors, you can set up a agreement to gather and exchange any and all information pertaining to anything. Collect and catalogue rumors facts and speculations. by themselves they may be meaningless and random. but when compiled and analyzed you may be able to root out facts from fiction. This can be accomplished by asking simple questions in a ordinary conversation. People like to talk. And if all the gossip TV and papers are gone people will create their own outlets for the need to gossip. Its human nature, exploit it. In allot of instances you may simply have to ask, "So what's been going on?" Give someone a chance to talk and many times they will. Now you have to listen for what could be called Triggers. Some one says "I heard a farm two towns west of here got raided." You would want to start asking some more direct questions. Don't push it too hard at first. But try to draw out the details, remember the five W's and SALUTE. Try to find the Who's What's When's Where's and Whys and the SALUTE. You will most likely not get all these bases covered in one conversation but it may lead you to someone with another piece of the information. Or you can add it to information gathered previously. It is important to remember that in these types of conversations you do not want to add your own intel to it (Unless you have an preexisting agreement to do so). Your not trying to be stingy or anything like that. You just want the subject to give you their version. If you start adding your info or opinions you may inadvertently skew the subjects perception of their own info. This type of intelligence gathering is an ongoing operation. you will do it at every turn. Every conversation should have an element of information collection to it. Even talking about the weather, You may discover that a town 30 or 40 miles away got hit hard by spring flooding and will have a bad crop yield. Or that a towns live stock has been getting sick. You want to know these types of things. Perhaps you decline a offer to trade crops for livestock, or you can keep an eye on the community that lost their crops to see if they are getting "desperate". Or perhaps your community can take advantage of the calamity to assist the afflicted groups and help to stabilize the situation and gain good will in the process. In a post collapse situation any information is good information. You may be able to learn something that could save lives. Is there a outbreak of disease any where in your region? Crop failures, conflicts, raids, murders, has some community begun to manufacture weapons, ammo or medicine? Has any one seen refugees, or armed groups? Any information you can gather could be essential to your communities survival and success. Just remember 5 W's and SALUTE. Good intel can add to your physical security. And as a side note, You should try to remember that rumor precedes truth. Remember when gathering intel you must look for the overlapping facts of a story. i.e. If you speak to five people about the same subject and four have similarities like a farm got raided two weeks ago and people think its a biker gang. Then you might consider that a verified piece if information worth following up on.
Improvised Defensive Measures:
An IDM is anything that can Stop, Impede or Blunt an attack. These are not necessarily traps, as they may be very visible. But they look and function much the same way. An example of such items can be barricades, trenches, picket lines, razor or barbed wire, chain linked fences. These are all barriers that can force an attacker to have to slow down to negotiate, destroy, breach or avoid if they choose to attack.
A few more ideas to shore up your defenses. Many roads have drainage ditches beside them. These ditches can provide cover and concealment to an enemy. they may be able to advance down these ditches in an attack. or use them to quietly move as close as possible to your position (Closing distance is a critical aspect of assaulting an objective). You can line these ditches with pungy stakes. Or razor or barbed wire. You may not kill your enemy with them but you may deny them the use the ditch. And if your lucky they may try to use the ditch in a hurry and jump right in.
Spiked boards. You can lay down a sheet of ply wood ,boards or even rubber roofing materials. Pound nails through and then lay them down in potential avenues of approach. Lay them in roads to puncture tires. you may not totally stop a vehicle but you will slow it down. These types of IDM's can be removed by a determined attacker. you can stake them down to increase the difficulty of this move and you should try to have them within clear lines of fire.
Staggered speed bumps. If you want to maintain use of a road but prevent a fast attack from rolling right up it, you can stagger logs along a stretch of it. Lay single logs along the left and right of the road. Extending into the road, stagger them out so a vehicle that wants to negotiate it has to slow way down (10mph is a good speed) and slalom through the logs. Any friendly vehicles you want to pass will have no issues but a vehicle with bad intentions will not be able to maintain control or momentum. Add to the logs metal spikes and you can significantly increase the amount of damage done to the offending vehicle. You may want to consider a DM in an elevated position to provide additional security to this type of IDM as the logs can be used as cover for personnel attempting to attack. The logs should not exceed 12 inches in thickness as to provide your elevated DM a really clear angle at any one attempting to lay prone to fire from them.
Bottle necks natural or other wise:
The bottle neck Is any place natural or otherwise that constricts the movement of anyone trying to move through it. The bottle neck is a great spot to put a defensive position as it forces your aggressor to bunch up and not bring the full force of their numbers to bear upon you. Do a little research on bottlenecks and it will pay off for your community as a defensive position. Good examples of bottlenecks could be bridges, tunnels, buildings, rubble, Roads cut into the sides of mountains or even the parts of a road where the state blasted away a shit ton of rock to create an artificial grade leaving very high and very steep sides.
Misdirection:
This one may require some extra resources And some out of the box thinking on the part of your community. Now we have to make an assumption here,( I know, you don?t need to say it). But one of the main reason a raiding party will target you is supplies. Yes I am sure that rape and murder will also play a part in that motivation. But even thugs, rapist and psychos need to eat. and remember not every one out there will a hardened criminal. Many so called normal people may take to some form of ( I?ll call it Wolfisim) just to survive. So you may consider setting up decoys. Any half way competent group or individuals will recon your community as much as possible. If you so choose, you can designate a few buildings, sheds, empty fuel tankers or anything that looks valuable as a decoy site. The objective is to attempt to get an attacker to commit men and resources at a very low value target and expose themselves to your real defenses and keep them as far away from the real supplies as possible. Now you would have to do some acting to get this one to work. A decoy must be guarded. If its a building you may want to have people carry empty boxes or stuffed sacks into and out of them a few times a day. If its a fuel decoy it has to be movable. A tanker would need a truck or you can have allot of water filled gas cans. Either way the decoy needs to look real juicy. You will need to look as if you are actively using this fake resource regularly. Like I said your going to have to do some acting. Now you don?t want to loose men on this but it has to look real. You would however need your forces to put up a token fight and then abandon the position. If all goes well the raiders would move in to grab whatever they could and at that point you would spring your trap( your going to have to get creative as to what type of surprise you want to set up). This may not be the type of plan you want to have go down in the middle of your community. The decoy has to be semi accessible to raiders but still with in your lines. As I said earlier this type of plan would require manpower and resources you may not have. I personally would not jump right into this type of plan, but it is a viable option That has been used many times throughout history, that you may consider if you have the time and manpower to pull it off. Oh yeah one hole in the illusion could spook a potential attacker. And then you loose the element of surprise. A decoy could be turned against your community. They may just make a feint for the decoy to draw your attention away from a real attack. Or simply ignore it. So if you decide to attempt this type of plan do it really well.
Shoot to wound:
Yes shooting to wound is as dirty as it gets. But the effect it can have in a fight can be devastating. Now I know some of you are saying. ?But WhiskeyJack these are raiders! They don?t have morals or consciences. They will simply carry on without their comrade?. I will get to that momentarily. While intentionally wounding someone in a fight is difficult people get wounded any way if you find you have wounded an attacker, You may not want to end that person straight away with another shot, despite the fact he or she is now an easy target. You may want to assess the wounded individuals combat effectiveness before making that decision. If they can still fight and be a threat. Do what you have to do! But if they are pretty much out of the fight, you may decide that exploiting the situation works to your advantage.
A wounded comrade is not just a physical attack upon an individual it is a physiological attack on the group. Even the most horrible people in this world have relationships with others. Any group that comes together no matter the reasons are going to form bonds. Also consider the simple fact that these groups may have familial bond within them. Brothers, sisters, cousins or perhaps life long friends would have joined a group out of desperation, or the simple act of making a friend within the group. While banded together no matter what the reasons people will come to rely upon those around them. While some of these bonds may not be as strong as say Marines or Army Rangers in combat or families banded together for protection. They are bonds none the less and you may be able to exploit them. Another thing to consider is the effect on the group dynamic. Any group that forms is going to do so under some sort of leadership. Any successes or failures fall at the feet of these leaders. If you force a group to leave any of its number behind or even worse put them down themselves this may cause some dissention within their ranks. perhaps not immediately but it may upset an operation none the less. If a leader is forced to answer for a failed operation they may be forced to take drastic measures to maintain discipline or even be removed by the group (Law of the Pack).
Wounding an enemy opponent has also served the purpose of baiting a healthy team member to attempt a rescue of their comrade. You could potentially turn one wound into a second or third target.
And the general demoralizing effect of having your buddy screaming in pain while covered in his or her own blood and excrement can bring into sharp relief, ones own mortality. This may lead to indecision and second guessing, a benefit for those defending. As I said before, as dirty a trick as any ever used. But its effectiveness has been proven in warfare time and time again. It is a tactic that has been covered by the Geneva convention as illegal. But it still happens on battlefields around the globe. Lets hope it never comes to such an act. But when faced with life or death situations, one must decide how badly you want to survive.www.straightprep.com does not condone or suggest in any way shape or form the making or use of any types of devises or actions listed herein. This is a fictional and hypothetical exercise designed to make the readers think of their options for personal and community defense in the event of TEOTWAWKI. As stated above the use of anything listed in this article is HIGHLY ILLEAGAL!!!!!
This ends part ONE.
Part TWO will discuss Traps Denial Technuiqwes and defensive responses.
