Contact! Page 10

  You will preferably have a medic with a trauma bag.

  You do not want to ever run out of ammunition, so make sure you have as much as you can reasonably purchase. Like tactics, ammunition quantities are a subjective argument with many solutions. I recommend a personal load of six to eight thirty round magazines on the person, with at least as many full magazines for resupply. And once you have used that, you need another resupply! In a real life contact you will likely use less ammunition than you may during training and you must concentrate on effective accurate fire rather than simple quantity.

  Train your team to engage positively identified enemy, or suppress known enemy positions. A rapid rate of fire is 30 rounds per minute; a deliberate rate is 10 rounds per minute.

  Practice and rehearse the command and fire control procedures at your location, including the communication of enemy locations and actions. Use range cards to tie in sectors for mutual support and to prevent ‘friendly fire’. Run ‘stand to’ drills like a fire drill by day and by night and be able to call out which direction the enemy threat comes from. Be aware of diversions and demonstrations intended to distract you from the main direction of attack. Always cover all sectors, even with just one observer looking to the flanks and rear in a manpower crisis. Keep unnecessary noise and shouting down, allowing orders and target indications to be passed around the position. Every team member is a sensor and a ‘link man’ to pass on information.

  Having said all that, you are not going to open fire on just anyone coming to your location. Any actions that you take should be justifiable as self-defense. Do be mindful of tricks and the potential for snipers. However, don’t give up on morality and charity and don’t illegally open fire on anyone that comes near your defended location. You need to agree on rules of engagement for your sentries and you should apply escalation of force protocols to meet a threat with the proportionate and appropriate force necessary to stop that threat.

  Have the ability to warn anyone approaching, whether you have permanent warning signs or something like a bullhorn that you use as part of your escalation procedures through warning to non-lethal then lethal force as you begin to identify them as posing a threat. Remember that escalation of force is a continuum and you can bypass the early stages and go directly to lethal force if taken by surprise and faced with a lethal threat that must be stopped.

  Versus: Bugging Out

  Unless you have no choice but to move to escape a threat, such as the reason for the event i.e. a virus, dirty bomb attack, or civil disorder, then you should only move if you have a safe place to go to, or your home is untenable. Getting out for getting outs sake, perhaps with nothing but a camper or a tent and heading to a National Forest like all the other millions, will simply leave you out there at great threat. You will likely not have enough stores, unless you planned for it, had maintained a store or cache, and packed up a trailer to take it all with you. You won’t be able to live off the land and your security measures, unless you really can find a hole to hide in, may be worse out there in a tent than they would have been in your house.

  It all depends on the situation. Remember that all the desperate people with no preparations will be evacuating too, as far as their fuel tank will take them, along the obvious lines of drift. They will become a mobile threat. The threat will not just be in your old neighborhood, but in all the neighborhoods and campsites that people are evacuating to. So there is a risk of looters and raiders in your old neighborhood, to be balanced against the possible network of all your neighbors who have an interest in defending it. On the evacuation routes, there will be a risk of banditry, ambush, robbery, rape and murder.

  Timing

  Consider when you are going to move, if you decide to move. If you live in a year round survival retreat, then you already bugged out, job done. If your plan is to get out early and beat the rush, then you need to have an eye on the situation to be able to make that judgment. Depending on the nature of the event you will get varying degrees of notice. For a slide down to a financial collapse, you may give yourself a trigger point at which you will move out and set up at your alternate location. If it is a sudden event, then given that you have gear to pack up versus the panicked mob that just gets in the car and goes, you may not beat the rush.

  The problem with not beating the rush is that in a mass evacuation situation the main routes, and the alternates, will be blocked with traffic in gridlock. Once the vehicles run out of fuel, the roads will be blocked with broken down vehicles, probably with the occupants still camped at the roadside. That is a civil disorder situation waiting to happen. So there is a decision about timing and when to move. If you don’t get out ahead of the crowds, you may be better off waiting. To be trapped in gridlock obviously prepared with desperate people around you, many of them armed, is to put your team at too much risk.

  Route Selection

  This has a close relation to timing. If you have an alternative location to go to post-event, then you should carefully map out and plan a route to that place that takes side and back roads, as well as alternatives. Remember that many people trapped by gridlock will also try and take those back roads, but if they have not looked into it so well then they may not be on the smaller roads that you can take away from the main lines of drift (Interstates) that will take you to your secondary location.

  Your secondary location should of course be somewhere remote that hopefully not many other people will be headed in the direction of. If you decide to wait until the rush is over, then you may find that routes have cleared more, but they are likely to be blocked by broken down and damaged cars, and there will likely be much desperation and criminality along these main routes and pushing off to the side routes that parallel them. Choose routes carefully to ‘cross-grain’ the main lines of drift.

  Location

  There is an implication here that a secondary location must not be too far away to make it unrealistic to get there in an emergency. Don’t try to cross multiple states, keep it preferably close, maybe within fifty miles or as close as feasible. You don’t want to be going to obvious locations, such as the main national parks and forests. A secondary location would hopefully be one that you have planned and prepared for, but worst case if you had to get out, get out to somewhere remote but non-obvious and defensible, with anticipated low population density after the event. Areas of forgotten or bypassed wilderness or forest are ideal.

  Conduct an area map assessment followed by reconnaissance and look for areas such as smaller parks or forest areas that will likely be bypassed by the mob as they head out. Look for these little non-obvious pockets that are away from the natural ‘grain’ of the land and the lines of drift as people travel out. If you are planning on bugging out, preferably buy some land in advance to turn into a BOL and put a structure and cache some stores on it. Worst case is having to bug out to another location and simply camp there, but if you have done some reconnaissance and are familiar with the area, perhaps as a camping or hiking spot, then you stand a better chance.

  Access & Concealment

  If you do have to bug out to a secondary location, try and conceal this location from others. Make it look non-inviting or simply not there. Preferably you will have stand-off distance from the nearest road and concealment from view/observation and preferably cover from enemy fire as well, along with observation of the approaches to your position. Unless you are a large capable group, you don’t want to present an obvious defended location to potential raiders. Make sure that any defenses you have around the property are positioned well back from (stand-off), and concealed from the road.

  Think about making it look derelict and non-inviting, but in a way that does not make it look like an idyllic deserted retreat for occupation by any group that comes past. Use your imagination. If you are bugging out simply to a campsite somewhere, because your home location became untenable for some reason, then you want to be as covert as possible. Find somewhere such as a wooded area that is not an obvio
us National Park or forest. Find a little used access road and camouflage your exit from the trail. Move all vehicles off the road and have the campsite somewhere back in the woods concealed by vegetation or ground. Remember that everywhere has locals, even (or especially) the backwoods and make sure you are not moving into an area where your presence will be viewed with hostility, and don’t move into someone’s backyard. Beware of the boondocks if they are populated by the sort that will want to take your stuff and infringe on your liberty and property, particularly if they are the sort that may be ‘partying in’ the apocalypse on meth and PCP. There is a detailed instruction on defense below.

  Numbers

  For any kind of location that you wish to remain in, whether it be your neighborhood, your retreat, holiday home, cabin or camper/tent in the woods, there is an advantage in numbers balanced against available resources. However, getting together with others post-event can be risky (who do you trust/include/exclude and how to go about it) and you don’t want to be a part of the problem; the great refugee mass. Conversely, a single family will have trouble subsisting while providing adequate watch and defense and would be vulnerable to fatigue followed by surprise and being overwhelmed.

  This leads us back to preparation: it makes sense to organize with a group prior to the event, of a decent workable size of trustworthy people who can collectively look after each other. That’s what prepping is all about. There may also be ancillary problems to this that you need to consider: who stays at the retreat or moves to the retreat with you? Who will want to bring their girl/boyfriend, lay-about best buddies, grandma etc.? Where do you draw the line? Have a plan and have an inner group of people who are part of it. Draw the line somewhere.

  Does your teenage child have a girl/boyfriend who they are very close to and will they want to leave them when the SHTF? Will you want to include them, perhaps also because they could form a useful part of the group? But what about their parents – will they let their ‘almost adult’ child go, will they want to be included, and are they suitable people to have as part of the team? All these outcomes need to be considered in advance, to make those hard decisions easier.

  Vehicles

  This is not a detailed discussion about the best or ideal type of bug-out vehicle. Many people will simply have whatever they own at the time. It would be useful to have a vehicle that is powerful to be able to haul loads and potentially push other broken down vehicles out of the way and large enough for carrying the people and equipment that you need. Give consideration to a trailer that you can haul your stores in. A trailer will reduce the mobility of the vehicle but it may be necessary to carry all your equipment and stores if you have not already pre-placed these items at a secondary location. A trailer makes reversing in an emergency not a practical proposition.

  A way to mitigate this would be to take more vehicles, if you had the drivers and access to them, so that you have more vehicles to carry stores inside of. This will also give you redundancy if one vehicle breaks down. Pick-up trucks are great for carrying stores. Mini-vans are maybe even better! Reason: if you stow all the seats in the back you have a huge cargo space that is not only covered but is low profile, so if you have to transit it is not so obvious that you have a whole bunch of gear with you. You can only use a mini-van in this way if you have other vehicles to carry the personnel, but of course a mini-van is not 4-wheel drive.

  The number of vehicles and personnel in your convoy will also have a knock on effect to tactical potential, which will be discussed in more detail below. However, to introduce the concept here: one vehicle gives you limited load carrying ability and no redundancy. If you are a standard type family you likely have a couple of cars. Take both. If you have the ability to take three cars and have a driver and security in each, then take them because you will:

  1) Spread out your personnel so that there is less risk with the destruction of one vehicle.

  2) Increase redundancy if one vehicle breaks down or is immobilized.

  3) Increase your tactical options.

  4) Greatly increase your load carrying ability, perhaps without having to use a trailer which will benefit mobility.

  Equipment

  Full prepping equipment (i.e. ‘list of lists’) for a post-event scenario is beyond the scope of this book and is covered in detail in many other publications. Best case you will have acquired the necessary gear and food to survive in your location of choice in a post-event scenario. If you have not, or your preparations are in the early stages, then you should at least concentrate on the following basics to allow you to survive initially, before taking whatever measures you deem appropriate to secure longer term security, shelter, food and water. Effectively, you need to be prepared for an extended, armed, camping trip with bad guys added:

   Suitable weapons for tactical self-defense.

   Ammunition. You can never have enough.

   Combat load carrying equipment for weapons, ammo and equipment.

   Appropriate clothing and footwear for the outdoors.

   Rucksack & daypack.

   Camping equipment: shelter, cooking, sleeping.

   Vehicles, spare fuel (treated with Sta-bil), spare wheels (be able to change a flat!).

   Food: as much as you can store and move if necessary.

   Water: as much as you can store and move if necessary.

   Water purification chemicals and equipment.

   Medical kit and prescription drugs.

   Trauma kit.

   Health & Hygiene items: baby wipes to hit the hotspots when you can’t wash. Hand sanitizer. Lip balm. Pink Eye (Conjunctivitis) eye drops. Female items.

   Gear plus chemicals to keep the bugs away.

   Antibiotics if you can get a supply, or get them post-event.

   Navigation equipment and maps / compass.

   N95 masks/respirators. Non-latex gloves.

   Legal documents: passports, IDs, birth certificates, mortgage type documents etc.

   Cash/credit cards.

   Tools: machete, axe, knives, shovel, pick-axe, saw (chainsaw if possible as well) etc. Handyman tool kit. ‘Break and enter’ tools for ‘foraging’.

   550 cord plus duct tape!

   Flashlights

   Batteries

   Candles

   Disposable lighters

   Items to barter.

   Morale stuff, such as music, books, games, DVD’s. An in-car DVD system can be used as a treat for kids, assuming you have the fuel/battery power, because you can play a DVD and they can sit in the comfort of the vehicle. Works while travelling and while static.

   Anything else you think you will need and either can have at home, at your retreat, or take with you.

   Any equipment for skills that will be useful for post-event, such as building or repairing stuff.

  Blog Post

  Gear, Rucks & Living in the Field:

  There have been some recent very useful articles about packing rucks and living in the field on the blogosphere. They spurred me to write a post of my own on the subject, and I have also been asked for my own comments. So here you go:

  The first thing to say is that you must remain flexible and do what is appropriate to the circumstances. The assumption for this post is that you are looking to conduct some form of light infantry style/ resistance light-fighter operations out in the boonies. This is not exactly the same as packing ‘bug out bags’ for you family, where you have to make sure you don’t forget the diapers etc. So we are thinking about ‘living in the field’ as an infantryman/resistance fighter. I will attempt to cram in some tips that you can take away and adapt to your own use as circumstances dictate. So yes, this will be heavily based on soldiering experience and will allow you to take away what you will.

  There are really two levels of training and experience to put in a post such as this. The first is the training/school experience about ‘how we trained’ and the
second is how that gets adapted on operations. Just so you know where I am coming from, a good example is British Infantry training: when conducted on many of the training areas in the UK, many patrol bases tend to be set up in pine style forestry blocks. The history of these blocks is that they were often planted or at least had been cut and managed in the upland training areas to mimic the similar forestry blocks on the German plain, to train for Soviet invasion. So, they are ideal for FTX style infantry triangular patrol bases in the woods. If you find yourself in Iraq or Afghanistan you will likely be setting up in a compound or building, so you have to adapt. That’s my point, just adapt and be flexible.

  Personal Gear for dismounted light infantry operations:

  The basic load will be your rifle with some form of ‘load out’ gear. This can be any form that you are comfortable with, and may also be adapted to allow you to adopt various profiles from an overt fighter to someone who has to transit areas where you may be seen. Adapt accordingly. You will need to consider your basic load being made up of options such as: battle belt (this can be suspenders (harness)/belt like the old ALICE style), some kind of tactical vest and/or plate carrier (PC)/body armor; whatever combination works for you.

  Within this load you will need basic fighting and survival gear such that if you are separated from your ruck/patrol pack you will have enough to fight out, break contact, and navigate back to a safe area while being able to purify drinking water, lubricate your weapon, treat basic wounds and eat high energy emergency rations.

  Note that for light infantry operations, dismounted, it is advantageous to go ‘old school’ by using a full ‘battle belt’ with harness /suspenders. If you have a battle belt rigged up in such a way with pouches running from hip to hip around your butt, well lashed together so they don’t flap about, you will be able to carry ammo, weapon cleaning kit, canteens, emergency rations, change of socks, paracord and all that. If you have a tactical vest style rig or PC you may have less load carrying ability. Anything that does not go on this first line of equipment close to your body will have to go in your patrol pack/ruck. More to follow on that!