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?
Security Responses:
Any group or community needs to have Standard Operating Procedures in place for security. Its the only way to get every one on the same page and doing the same thing. These must be planned and practiced. And then practiced and then practiced some more. You will never be done with the training. when every one knows their jobs you may not have to practice as much but you will continue to practice them. Now I cant tell you what your community Security responses should be. First off I?m not in your community, I don?t know what is going to be important to you and yours. Second they don't even exist yet. But you will need to have them so the different teams and groups all know what?s expected of them during an attack. For instance Where will non combatants be holding up? Where will on duty teams respond to and in what manner? Where will Command and control be? What will medical types do to prepare? Who among the non combatants will be litter bearers? Who are the runners and who will they report to? Where do I bring the ammo cans? the list can go on and on and these are questions that need to be answered, planned for and practiced. And yes this training will take some time so you would want to get at it ASAP post collapse.
On the bright side, this type of training is good for moral. It keeps people busy and not thinking about how shity things have gotten. And when every one has a task they tend to feel useful, and that helps combat depression and despair.
Now the other people who would be interested in your security responses would be raiders. So try to keep in mind that not every attempt on your lines might be a real attack. They may just be probes. An attempt to learn the capabilities and numbers of your defensive line. I would suggest that you keep this in mind. You don?t always have to throw all your men at a defensive line every time a deer trips your flares. You can keep a reserve in hiding. A number of fighters that can respond to different parts of your perimeter. And if you have a larger town to protect you may need more than one reserve unit on hand. You can have your reserves report to different locations in preparation for a defense.
Now if your getting into this level of organization you are most likely in a good sized town with allot of area to cover. You may have to break your land mass into defensive quadrants and assign specific teams to train and defend those particular areas Under the supervision of a Quadrant or Section Officer. This allows your people to specialize in a certain area, making them a little more effective than having to spread ones resources thin in a defense. Keep in mind this does not mean that a team from another part of town would not be able to effectively assist the teams from another part of town. Quite the opposite, your teams will be well versed in defensive techniques and could fall in with and follow the lead of the team they are assigned to support.
You can also hide some of your capabilities by having secondary and tertiary lines of defense. These would be positions and preparations set back from your primary perimeter lines. this could make it far more difficult to observe from the outside, to fully gauge your capabilities ( scouts are going to learn things regardless, you can limit some of that intel ) Effectively keeping your full potential masked from prying eyes.
These fall back positions could also serve as spots to set up small re-supply cashes. Not much mind you, some mags, water and bandages, some of your improvised munitions. Enough to keep your people in the fight. Having fall back positions can be very useful to any community defense as they provide more security, and a place to seek some shelter in the event your people must abandon the first lines of defense. these fall back positions should be considered part of the main defense as they my become just that. and in some cases they may be part of the main defense plan when trying to defend against a large force of aggressors. I will get into a little of that with ambushes and withdrawals.
Beware the draw out and probes. Two of the tactics a determined and smart enemy may attempt, is a probe or false attack. the enemy may try to draw out your people so they can be engaged without the benefit of prepared cover. A smart enemy may offer you a juicy morsel in the shape of a small team that harasses you from a respectively safe distance for several days and even weeks. They may be keeping their main force in reserve, just waiting for you to send out a group to deal with that pesky team of raiders that has been harassing you for all that time. The object is to take a big bite out of your defensive teams in one shot. And then exploit the loss to try to overrun your defenses. Probes generally take place along your defensive lines at different times and locations. the object is to use hostile actions to gauge the exact location and strength of your defense. This is why I suggest not committing every thing you've got to every action that occurs along your lines. If a enemy sees everything you've got then they can formulate an effective plan of attack. And don't for get to rotate and rest your people. sometimes the idea is to exhaust your teams to a point where they are no longer effective. And the psychological effect of this kind of tactic could make some people do something rash. Like rush out of a solid defensive position into an ambush. If you have a good defensive position you should use it. If you have real knowledge on the size and capabilities of the enemy then yes you may want to go on the attack. But there are other options for that as well.
Offensive measures in a defensive situation. Yep its an oxymoron kind of statement. but it sums it up. If you are dealing with a serious attacker. You may be able to slip a few teams or squads out side your perimeter with the intention of reconnaissance, disruption and harassment. These teams need to be mobile and fast. They can locate the enemies command and control elements and perform hit and run attacks. Or attack elements that are attempting to engage you lines. Nothing throws a monkey in the wrench like getting shot in the back while trying to attack a superior defensive position. several small teams running around the flanks and rear of an enemy can be a major distraction for an attacker. They don't even have to a great deal of damage to be effective in their mission. And just whittling away numbers from the flanks and rear can turn the tables in a fight. it gives the enemy more shit to worry about and takes away valuable resources and man power to chase of these fast mobile teams. And don't forget the fact that if a fight is going to take several days, your teams can keep the enemy from getting any real rest.
Withdrawals'
So as I mentioned earlier the use of secondary and tertiary lines of defense. I mention them because lines can fail. In this event you need to have a place to go. Your secondary and tertiary lines are those places. Now I know that this seems like a common sense type of thing, and some of you are now saying. "No duh WhiskeyJack" . Well I feel its important to bring this subject up due to the fact that a tactical withdrawal, under fire is one of the most difficult things to do right. What starts as a movement to a new location can quickly become a general route. It takes allot of training and discipline to perform these maneuvers correctly. And the difficulty gets higher the more people you add to the equation. Here are a few things to keep in mind when looking at this concept.
Bounding Over watch and Base of Fire: When in a line formation, you cannot move all your people at once. You have to have your teams move in a staggered manner i.e. 1/3 to 1/2 of your teams displace and move a short distance back (25 to 50 m are good distances ) while the other half or 2/3 remain in place and provide a base of suppressive fire to cover the retreating teams movement. Once the moving team sets up, they must turn and take up the task of providing that base of fire so the other teams can begin their withdrawal. This is a general tactic for breaking contact under fire. It can be applied to small teams or battalion sized elements.
Also you would want to study the Peal. It is another useful tool that would be better explained in a small unit tactics manual. Don?t forget those DM's. In a defensive situation your DM's may not be on that front line. You have to make sure you do not bound so far or fast that you leave them without any protection.
In-fact this is where I would say you should displace them as soon as you come on line with them. Get them back from the lines and back into the fight quickly because they are going to be one of your primary casualty producing weapons as an enemy advances. Use the DM wisely in this type of defense and they will pay big dividends in the final outcome.
Now in a defensive situation you can utilize a retreat as a method of drawing your enemy into a position of your choosing (A Kill Box). The Kill Box is exactly what it sounds like. A nasty place that you don't ever want to find yourself in. But it is the center of ambush tactics. The kill box is the area you will concentrate your fire and battle field preparations for casualty producing effect, from a superior position.
So if you were to contemplate a maneuver such as this. You would have to do allot of study and training. But for a quick reference hear are some ideas you could contemplate.
Your lines have been engaged! You perform a assessment of the enemies strength and conclude that they outnumber you and have the ability and weapons to overrun your initial defensive lines. But your prepared for this. You could collapse a pre determined portion of you defensive line, in an attempt to make your aggressors move in and mass into a prepared kill box. Now you have set up this little area ahead of time. If your using a urban or suburban environment you have to barricaded doors and windows from the inside to prevent enemy from using the interiors of the structures as cover But you also have to have a few holes pre-selected for your people to retreat and escape through before you close and barricade them. This will require some pre planning and construction. And you've blocked off the areas in-between your structures to prevent your enemy from breaking out into the rest of your community. and you've bottlenecked the area and removed or placed potential cover to your advantage. A few ideas on shoring up those spaces in between buildings. Scavenge some chain link fencing and place it 8 to 10 feet around the corners of the buildings. You can sink a few long poles into the ground and bolt chain link fencing between buildings. Make it high. You can stack it 10 to 15 feet high using wire to secure the seams. Place it far enough back to conceal it from view of a group rushing in. But close enough to the chosen avenue to prevent the enemy from effectively hiding large numbers from your groups fire. Now you can also use logs and strong sticks to build a barrier or wall, vans filled with dirt or anything that you have available. It doesn't have to contain tanks or APC's just men and women. Your outer defenses and marksmen should have disabled as many if not all the enemies vehicles by this point. Now you've done a great job of improvising your barriers, lets get back to those structures. You have barricaded the first floor access points that the enemy has access to. But you may consider leaving egress points for the small teams or individuals that you've placed on the second floor or roofs of those structures. Now remember they may have a good position but that position may need to abandoned on the quick, so leave a way out. The average home in America is far from bullet proof (Just ask the residents of South Central LA). But you can fortify internally in some fairly simple manners. You can place sand bags along walls, Stack cordwood, even secure some steel plates to the wall. Whatever you decide. Now you can have rifle men equipped with a range of guns and improvised munitions in an elevated defensive position to rain bullets down on those enemy that have taken refuge behind the cover you purposely left in the middle of your kill box and drop Improvised munitions on the heads of anyone that occupies the base of the structures they are posted in. (Note) if you go with the chain link option you can set up some shooters behind heavy cover with a firing angles into those dead ends. Now any one entering the kill box has to decide weather they want to get shot in the bottle neck or your cage. either option will be bad for them, good for you.
So that's a few basics of a set up. But now you would have to deal with a enemy force that could potentially flood the Kill Box you've so painstakingly prepared, with fighters and overrun those defenses. Unless, You devise a way to cut off the approach. Hello Improvised Incendiaries. Remember all that brush, shrubs and other debris you removed earlier? Well with a little forethought you could build burnable barriers in such a manner that once your Kill Box reaches a capacity that you feel is acceptable, you could detonate Something to close the door to the Box with a wall of fire. Effectively cutting off retreat and support for the aggressors. You then have a little more time to destroy the more manageable number of attackers Whilst their friends are busy dealing with your now reinforced primary line(Remember those hidden reserves?). After dealing with those aggressors in your kill box you may have taken enough of the enemy out of the fight to mop up the rest with little difficulty. I personally suggest that if you find yourself in a situation where you are using a large defense against a large enemy, you should think about an obliteration policy. If you successfully keep the enemy out that?s great, but did they loose enough people to make them run away for good? Or will they spend days or weeks trying to wear you down and find a weakness to exploit? Or will they go and find even more people to come back with. If you wipe them out you may save yourself allot of issues later on. That?s your choice of course but I wouldn?t risk leaving a large number of aggressive people wandering around my AO or going off to tell others about my town. And im sure many of you have noticed that I don?t really talk to much about full auto weapon systems or modern military ordinance. The reason is I myself do not have any access to these types of systems and I?m guessing that?s true for most regular folk. You have to take what ive put down and apply it to what you have. Make whatever changes you see fit and apply it to your communities individual situation.
I would like to say that I have barley scratched the surface when it comes to area defenses. But I would like to point you to a few concepts you should really get familiar with if you are contemplating a community based plan of survival im WROL.
Cover
Overlapping fields of fire.
Defilade & Enfilade
Movement under fire
Bounding over-watch (Breaking or moving to contact)
Peal?s
I suggest you go and check out Currahee?s website as some of the concepts I?ve talked about are listed there in a far better format than me explaining them in black and white. His use of green army men and Lincoln logs is what we used in the army when making sand tables for training and rehearsals.
http://www.everycitizenasoldier.org/index.htmlLook under Tactical Principals
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 3. Part 4 forth coming.
