A Raider's Story ( a must watch)

[Doctorr Fabulous]

To a point we do agree.

But as soon as you send everyone out to the fields to work they are targets to the modern sniper.


The Burg style town is the best for a village. I do agree there. Larger populations would provide even better protection. And there is a lower limit to the needed numbers.
The main point I am trying to make is that for the majority of posters here, they just don't have the needed numbers in their plans. Even if they do not have the lone wolf plan they just don't have a large enough group to provide the needed protection after they settle down for a long term life style at their BOL.
Once you give up mobility for a defense style then you become a standing target.

Standing target for a sniper, maybe. Small security patrols and "Guardian Angel" elevated positions help. We deal with snipers all the time, even when doing seemingly mundane tasks, like filling sandbags and digging out trash pits. The vigilant overwatch makes all the difference.

As for non-snipers, defenders are generally believed to have a 3:1 advantage, meaning that a decently drilled defense will be able to hold off a force three times larger.

[MacAttack]

But your working with a trained group of solders and not grandma with a shotgun. In a closely controlled area.


And your working with more than 10 people at a time.



Would your overwatch work from a water tower in Iowa looking out over square miles of corn or wheat fields with woodlands interspersed?

[Doctorr Fabulous]

Not one single overwatch, and none of us are soldiers. Them's fightin' words...

I've done this several ways. Sometimes we send out a team to stand watch in support of civilian operations. The more spread out the area to be secured, the more we spread out. One guy on a water tower covering miles of turf is a Call of Duty fantasy. Consider instead having two man teams covering the immediate area being worked.

As far as the gramma with a shotgun quip, that's borderline trolling. If that's your idea of security, then you have a very basic flaw at work. If we can train farmers who can't read or write to do what we do, then you should be able to drill yourself a half decent security team.

Basically, if you eschew the entire concept of preparing now, then yes you will be at a disadvantage. That should have been obvious from step one. If you think that raiders/tree snipers are a threat, then it's time to go ahead and invest in some training time now.

ETA: It seems that you're trying to prove that everyone is fucked and there's nothing we can do about it. Do you have any suggestions to help, or are you just determined to shit on the entire idea of training people to protect themselves and others.

Also, in my understanding of the German burg or the American stockade ideal, you shouldn't be working with miles of foodstuffs. Two acres, properly planned, can support a family unit of four.

[sigboy40]

The very simple (and mostly overlooked) fact is that you have safety in numbers, prefferably town sized. Want to be a part of one when the PAW hits? Be a constructive member of one now.

[Bubba Enfield]

The very simple (and mostly overlooked) fact is that you have safety in numbers, prefferably town sized. Want to be a part of one when the PAW hits? Be a constructive member of one now.

Agree completely. There came a time when I dropped my "self-sufficient homestead" fantasy, and moved to a small rural community.

[bae]

The very simple (and mostly overlooked) fact is that you have safety in numbers, prefferably town sized. Want to be a part of one when the PAW hits? Be a constructive member of one now.

Exactly so!

[Einher]

It seems that you're trying to prove that everyone is fucked and there's nothing we can do about it. Do you have any suggestions to help, or are you just determined to shit on the entire idea of training people to protect themselves and others.

I agree, the longer this thread goes on the more it appears to be a 'Kobayashi Maru'; (ie: the no-win scenario).

A no-win situation, also called a "lose-lose" situation, is one where a person has choices, but no choice leads to a net gain. For example, if an executioner offers the condemned the choice of dying by being hanged, shot, or poisoned, since all choices lead to death, the condemned is in a no-win situation. This bleak situation gives the chooser little room: whatever choice is made, the person making it will lose their life.

Nerd4Life

[MacAttack]

And here I always though that people learned best when an idea was taken apart from all sides and examined in a fair light.

If you come up with a plan and NEVER try to think of the bad sides to it or the open holes in it how good do you think it will be when you finally implement it?

Not examining all sides to a plan is planning to let it fail. If your mad when someone points out the holes decide if its out of your own pride that your mad or have something personal against that person. In either case you need not be mad.


Me and my longtime friends have always played this game and now its just to the point that if one of us comes up with an idea we automatically also start looking for the holes it. Eventually we propose the idea to the group and ask if anyone can find more holes. Nothing personal about it at all. Eventually a workable plan is formed even if part of it is the old idea of 'winging it' when that time comes.


Sorry if I pissing in someones Cheerios. I will try to not offer counter points in the future. But instead just cheer you all on.

[bae]

And here I always though that people learned best when an idea was taken apart from all sides and examined in a fair light.

OK, my plan, which is already implemented:

- temperate-climate island in Pacific, 10+ miles off the US mainland coast, where the living is easy
- rugged shoreline, tallest spots for 50 miles on island, visibility is huge, lots of nasty reefs and tides and currents on the way to getting here
- ~4000 residents, who are reasonably-self-sufficient, and cooperate with each other when there is trouble, and who are possessed of significant stocks of arms, and have an existing resilient communications network. 1/3 of them live in our small village, the rest dispersed on small farms/settlements.

I'm thinking these raiders are going to have to come from sea or air. How many will it take to pillage us, and where will they come from? And what kind of greeting will await them? And why would they bother, in the face of that resistance?

It's not like they get to ride into town like mutant zombie bikers...

[Einher]

And here I always though that people learned best when an idea was taken apart from all sides and examined in a fair light.

If you come up with a plan and NEVER try to think of the bad sides to it or the open holes in it how good do you think it will be when you finally implement it?

Not examining all sides to a plan is planning to let it fail. If your mad when someone points out the holes decide if its out of your own pride that your mad or have something personal against that person. In either case you need not be mad.

I wasn't disagreeing with your position or otherwise taking sides, I was merely pointing out the origin of this mental exercise (though somewhat indelicately).

After all, if the players aren't familiar with the game it can seem very hopeless and defeatist to attempt to play.

Me and my longtime friends have always played this game and now its just to the point that if one of us comes up with an idea we automatically also start looking for the holes it. Eventually we propose the idea to the group and ask if anyone can find more holes. Nothing personal about it at all. Eventually a workable plan is formed even if part of it is the old idea of 'winging it' when that time comes.

This has been an old hat among some of my friends as well, and is a valuable function when planning around potential problems for damn near anything, with the end results tending to be as good as any given individuals' imagination to prepare solutions for the most likely and the worst outcomes.

[Doctorr Fabulous]

There's a difference between looking for weak points, asking questions, and making suggestions, and just shooting down every plan with "you're going to die because this and that ideaEDIT: which has been proven for several centuries, but which I will ridicule by way of ignorance won't work because..."

Fact of the matter is people have made it past much worse scenarios, and they do it with the burg/stockaded community design, and by being armed and posting guards of some description. If you see holes in the plan, feel free to make suggestions, or feel free to take your toys and go home. Your move. Maybe your buddies like it better, but in most circles, shitting on the ideas of others without constructive suggestions is generally considered to be annoying in the very least.

[silversnake]

And here I always though that people learned best when an idea was taken apart from all sides and examined in a fair light.

If you come up with a plan and NEVER try to think of the bad sides to it or the open holes in it how good do you think it will be when you finally implement it?

OK, so what's your idea/plan for the contingency of the raiders described in the initial post?

To my mind, without the benefit of living on an island, I think Doc Torr's got the best plan. I would envision a walled village of maybe 100 families surrounded by very densely planted gardens (not miles of inefficient wheat fields, think acres of space planted with thick poly-culture). At any given time, about half the population is out tending the gardens or hunting, another 10-20% are on guard (watch towers or patrolling in pairs), and the rest are doing things like repairing infrastructure, tending children, preparing food, etc. This is all assuming some sort of "end of the world" that's completely destroyed all of advanced society across the globe.

If raiders come, we'll hopefully pick up on them from a distance and either go out the meet them in force from ambush or get behind the walls. If raiders come and we don't see them and some raider who fancies himself a "sniper" because he's got a rifle with a scope starts shooting people, it's going to suck to be that first person or two who dies without even knowing they were in the cross hairs, but everyone else legs it back behind the walls and we prepare for the siege just like "the good old days". My point being that living in communities of more than a family or two but less than a city is the best way to go for surviving this type of world and that if you go the "lone wolf" I agree that you better be prepared to either roll the rock shut on your bunker and stay underground forever or become the raider yourself if you want to live long. The settling of the American West is a pretty solid example of how the small town/large ranch can work well even in the reality of roving bad guys.

The only other way I could see it working is some sort of "personal castle" for your family where you grow your vegetables and raise your livestock inside a walled courtyard and never leave.

Curious to hear your solution to this situation, MacAttack.

[sigboy40]

I also am curious, the ideas we have outlined and have brainstormed do a good job of overcoming the obstacles presented in the video.

Another, albeit fictional example of this would be the community set up in Lights Out, by Halffast. In it, a small texas housing community bands together and does many of the same things we have talked about.

[MacAttack]

To a point we do agree.

But as soon as you send everyone out to the fields to work they are targets to the modern sniper.


The Burg style town is the best for a village. I do agree there. Larger populations would provide even better protection. And there is a lower limit to the needed numbers.
The main point I am trying to make is that for the majority of posters here, they just don't have the needed numbers in their plans. Even if they do not have the lone wolf plan they just don't have a large enough group to provide the needed protection after they settle down for a long term life style at their BOL.
Once you give up mobility for a defense style then you become a standing target.

The burg plan offers the best results.


12 people on a walled farm is just sniper bait.
Counter to a village style plan, a few families just don't have the numbers to do a good job of keeping back the wolves. The loss of just one member to a sniper is catastrophic for the group, whereas a single loss to a village of 200 people is not that bad.
I'm sorry if this goes against your personal plans but.....

And sorry but sometimes there are NO better suggestions.




And as for the miles of farm land statement. Maybe its not all yours. Its just left over and you have to deal with it. Your only cultivating enough to get yourself by. That's fine. But that doesn't mean the bad guys are not going to use the wild field as a point of entrance to the edge of your lands.

[MacAttack]

I also am curious, the ideas we have outlined and have brainstormed do a good job of overcoming the obstacles presented in the video.

Another, albeit fictional example of this would be the community set up in Lights Out, by Halffast. In it, a small texas housing community bands together and does many of the same things we have talked about.

I have often wondered about this idea with the Burg plan. Which the Texas housing community fits in somewhat.
You harvest grain just as it turns a nice brown. The same as gathering hay. Wait a few extra days to get it all in and its flammable. What if the bad guys wait until then and just light your fields on fire? A couple of modifies cheap model rockets could be used for this.


Anyone have plans to stop this or is it one of this things we just have to deal with because their are no better plans or ideas.

[phil_in_cs]

An age old problem:




full story:
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/compounds.htm

[sigboy40]

An age old problem:

An age old problem indeed. Lets not forget the lessons learned from the farmers during the Rhodesian bush war. They didnt have a trumped up you tube video to argue over, they lived the real thing.
http://www.rhodesia.nl/farmeratwar.html

[Tetra Grammaton Cleric]

An age old problem:

An age old problem indeed. Lets not forget the lessons learned from the farmers during the Rhodesian bush war. They didnt have a trumped up you tube video to argue over, they lived the real thing.
http://www.rhodesia.nl/farmeratwar.html

As old as civillization itself if truth be told.

And as for Rhodesia/Zimbabwae? Yeah I have friends, associates and ex-clients who were there living through all that and I've heard some stories- a lot of those guys settled here in Western Australia when all was said and done. Truth be told they moved here because in the end it just became untenable trying to farm in that situation.

On the subject of smaller more effective plots (ala Permaculture ideas or the Cuban Urban Farms model) I agree that's a far better proposition defensively in most regards but consider where people are running livestock like cattle. Grazing cattle takes up room and growing fodder crops (even when not done in a monoculture) requires decent expanses of area. The Range Wars of the Old West might have some revelance for discussion on this point as the "Cowhands" were always available to double as mounted security.

Let's not shit up a perfectly good thread with teh hatin' guys... Everytime we've discussed this subject maturely the ZS hivemind has learned a lot - it's how we got to the burg model we've pretty much settled on so far. Awesome input from combat veterans like Molon Labe, TheGunslinger and Doc Torr, etc, etc combined with historical examples and personal experiences like FerFAL and Selco and lateral outside the box thinking from the rest of us have driven good discussion on this subject in the past, let's keep that up, eh?

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[Tetra Grammaton Cleric]

Another thread where this stuff came up...

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=90221&p=2004128&hilit=Howling+Wilderness#p2004128

I also am curious, the ideas we have outlined and have brainstormed do a good job of overcoming the obstacles presented in the video.

Another, albeit fictional example of this would be the community set up in Lights Out, by Halffast. In it, a small texas housing community bands together and does many of the same things we have talked about.

I have often wondered about this idea with the Burg plan. Which the Texas housing community fits in somewhat.
You harvest grain just as it turns a nice brown. The same as gathering hay. Wait a few extra days to get it all in and its flammable. What if the bad guys wait until then and just light your fields on fire? A couple of modifies cheap model rockets could be used for this.

Anyone have plans to stop this or is it one of this things we just have to deal with because their are no better plans or ideas.

We kinda touched on it when it was discussed in this thread ----> viewtopic.php?f=6&t=43169&p=895166&hilit=Mounted+Patrols#p895166 with more time to think about it in the interval since basically I believe that during times when you are more exposed than normal (ie; surrounded by fuel as per your flammable crop scenario) all you can do is increase watchfulness, up scale the watches, put more people on the LP/OPs and increase the tempo and volume of your mounted patrols (especially if it's large areas of cropland you are trying to cover as per your example) - in that regard it would be no different to current situations in the wheatbelt and fodder country here in my home state of Western Australia (moreso the fodder country as the farms are smaller and the population density is higher) when the hay fields are tinder dry everybody is in a state of extra watchfulness, looking out for spot fires in their own and in neighbour's fields, extra aware of strangers on remote roads (arson, stray careless cigarette butts, etc) and everybody is prepped and ready at a moment's notice to respond with the local bush fire brigade or a local co-ordinated fire fighting response to go to the aid of themselves and neighbours in the event of a fire. It's been ingrained in these people for generations. Combine that sort of watchfulness, preparation and community resolve to the layered defence burg model vs the added threat of "semi/professional raiders" attempting the burning/burning out and I think there's some kind of solution there.

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[Tetra Grammaton Cleric]

Without me spamming this thread too much...

Recently I've been revisiting the situation that existed/exists in South Armagh aka Bandit Country to some people.


I haven't really come up with a way to discuss it here without the inevitable political fall out or offending/upsetting/inflaming people (definitely not my intention) but I'll just say quickly that if you look at South Armagh in the light of a collapse like the Balkans there are some community defence lessons to be learned.

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[mariposa]

The very simple (and mostly overlooked) fact is that you have safety in numbers, prefferably town sized. Want to be a part of one when the PAW hits? Be a constructive member of one now.

I agree.

[Manimal2878]

That seems to be working out real well in certain parts of Africa and Mexico now don't it?

You should read FerFAL and Selco's blogs - they are actual historical descriptions of when civillisation collapsed in Argentina and the Balkans and stuff like this actually went down, neither of which can be called 'third world' countries.

Gangs like MS-13 have already infiltrated the US Military to 'steal' training, the Zetas in Mexico are ex-special forces types - in a severe economic downturn or other "slow motion apocalypse" it is not unlikely to believe that roving groups of "bandits" would do exactly as covered in the video. The "civillization" you talk about might be twenty years away - the American Cowboy Wild West lasted that long before "civillization" took.

Hell, American ranchers near the Mexican border are already on edge for this sort of thing.

edit: I agree with you on the need for strong, resilient communtys which is why I said the German burg model is possibly the best way to go in the face of such threats.

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Having read as much as I can of the two blogs you recommended over the last couple days I have to say it was eye opening. I am surprised at Selco stating that those in rural areas fared so much better than those in the city areas, but I guess that makes sense, when you think about where food comes from and the city was under siege.

The thing is, it does confirm the ridiculousness of the YouTube video in my opinion as a Call of Duty Player's fantasy. The raiders described on Selco's site are extremely dangerous and brutal, not because of their highly trained and militaristic tactics, but because of their willingness to use plain naked violence in the face of desperation and starvation. They appeared to me to be just one step down the notch from everyone else, just everyday people a little hungrier and less moral. They are not as the video describes, a highly trained and well equipped group of "operators" moving through the countryside like Seal Team Six.

I have no doubt that there will be gangs of people willing to do bad things to other people in bad situations, they do it now even in the good times. But that video struck me as more fantasy than reality. It might help lend credibility if the video used less graphics from obvious fantasy sources like video games.

[phil_in_cs]

Having read as much as I can of the two blogs you recommended over the last couple days I have to say it was eye opening. I am surprised at Selco stating that those in rural areas fared so much better than those in the city areas, but I guess that makes sense, when you think about where food comes from and the city was under siege.

In contrast, FerFAL often says rural folks have it more difficult there. A big chunk of that is isolation - the bad guys can raid a family farm pretty easily, and if your neighbor is a mile or two away they might not know you have a problem to come help. They are trying to hold onto the family farm model, but as the folks in Rhodesia and elsewhere have found out, that is not an easy thing to do in times of bandits.

In many places you also have the problem on family farms of hiring help, only to discover too late the hireling was a scout for the bad guys.

[Tetra Grammaton Cleric]

That seems to be working out real well in certain parts of Africa and Mexico now don't it?

You should read FerFAL and Selco's blogs - they are actual historical descriptions of when civillisation collapsed in Argentina and the Balkans and stuff like this actually went down, neither of which can be called 'third world' countries.

Gangs like MS-13 have already infiltrated the US Military to 'steal' training, the Zetas in Mexico are ex-special forces types - in a severe economic downturn or other "slow motion apocalypse" it is not unlikely to believe that roving groups of "bandits" would do exactly as covered in the video. The "civillization" you talk about might be twenty years away - the American Cowboy Wild West lasted that long before "civillization" took.

Hell, American ranchers near the Mexican border are already on edge for this sort of thing.

edit: I agree with you on the need for strong, resilient communitys which is why I said the German burg model is possibly the best way to go in the face of such threats.

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Having read as much as I can of the two blogs you recommended over the last couple days I have to say it was eye opening. I am surprised at Selco stating that those in rural areas fared so much better than those in the city areas, but I guess that makes sense, when you think about where food comes from and the city was under siege.

The thing is, it does confirm the ridiculousness of the YouTube video in my opinion as a Call of Duty Player's fantasy. The raiders described on Selco's site are extremely dangerous and brutal, not because of their highly trained and militaristic tactics, but because of their willingness to use plain naked violence in the face of desperation and starvation. They appeared to me to be just one step down the notch from everyone else, just everyday people a little hungrier and less moral. They are not as the video describes, a highly trained and well equipped group of "operators" moving through the countryside like Seal Team Six.

I have no doubt that there will be gangs of people willing to do bad things to other people in bad situations, they do it now even in the good times. But that video struck me as more fantasy than reality. It might help lend credibility if the video used less graphics from obvious fantasy sources like video games.

That's cool that you looked up that material, it's always gratifying when people do that - in fact some of the best discussions here on ZS always seemed to go off the boil suddenly and you'd notice the participants were still listed in the "Users browsing this forum:" thingy and then realise that everybody had simultaneously clicked on the most recently linked article in the thread and was studiously going over it (the Big Africa thread in it's early days was a good example).

Without defending the video at all because I agree with you, some of the accompanying graphics were definitely "over the top", "unneccessary" and even "ill-advised" - I don't think they were really attempting to paint a picture (going on the audio alone) of a "Seal Team Six" type group of "Operators" - the tactics described, monitoring comms; sniping survivors to draw out other survivors, ambushes and questioning/torturing neighbours for leads are well within the scope of someone with a gang history and basic non commisioned type small unit leadership infantry tactics under their belt... imho.

Actually similar tactics could be attributed to drug fuelled teenagers if you look closely enough at some of the stratagems of Liberia/Monrovia/Sierra Leone examples like General Butt Naked's Butt Naked Brigade.

And unfortunately for the occassional Mexican village as referenced in some of the linked threads they are going up against "Seal Team Six" or rather the Zetas - US trained ex Mexican Special Forces guys turned criminal.

Good discussion.

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