Just food for thought

[AMProducts]

Since it doesn't seem to have been brought up yet... Lets look at WW1.

In WW1, there were essentially two sides locked in a perpetual mutual siege, there were ramparts, and fortifications, and all they did was sit there and trade artillery and make each other miserable and then dead for a number of years.

From what I can tell, WW1 is the worst thing humanity has ever done to itself, from wounds inflicted by shells, shell shock, poison gas, etc. While some survivors of the holocaust may disagree, I have talked to people who served in WW1 and holocaust survivors, it sounds like WW1 veterans had it worse. The guy I met had suffered a lifetime from wounds inflicted inside and out from mustard gas.

After that war, a conscious decision was made to never again engage in trench warfare, blitzkrieg was the result. This doctrine promoted mobility over fixed defenses, and when SHTF this is the preferable mode to setting up a fixed defense bullwork where a determined adversary will do anything in their power to remove you. Even in the mining industry, they can turn a whole mountain into powder mainly because the mountain can't get away.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

That assumes your enemy has munitions capable of taking out your defenses.. in a Mad Max scenario, post world war... maybe not

 

[Steve06]

How do you know you won't face fire? Or armored vehicles? Or Drones with incendiary devices?

 

[CoastRange57]

How do you know you won't face fire? Or armored vehicles? Or Drones with incendiary devices?

Then you are pretty much completely f****d any way you look at it. Running is pretty much the only option there, and with a drone, well anyway.....

 

[Steve06]

That's what the cops bring plus sniper teams, power outages, night vision and CS/CN Tear gas to start the fire. They did with Patty Hurst; Ruby Ridge(no drones but overhead imagery) and Waco(more overhead imagery)and, more recently at the Boston Marathon so I would conclude that others would bring some of the same winning devices

 

[Brutus57]

Fade away. Disappear. Wait until months go by and they are no longer so gung go nor well supplied....1,000 cuts....

 

[Steve06]

that guy, Eric something, who was the abortion bomber in Atlanta hid out in a National Park for over a year and evaded Federal Agencies, local and State Police, dog teams, Army Special Forces, the FBI HRT team, thermal and other imagery and aggressive patrolling right up to the end when he was caught by a rookie cop while dumpster diving at a McDonalds in the middle of the local town. They never even found his hiding places.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Then you are pretty much completely f****d any way you look at it. Running is pretty much the only option there, and with a drone, well anyway.....

This

 

[mrblond]

Fade away. Disappear. Wait until months go by and they are no longer so gung go nor well supplied....1,000 cuts....

+1,000. find yourself some bad *** bush and dig in like an Alabama tick. There are parts of the PNW that is totally inaccessible except for on foot.

 

[Sgt Nambu]

Eric Rudolph hid in tough terrain laced with hundreds of limestone caves and old mines. He also had at least some "popular support". I'm just too old and busted up to run and gun anymore! I'll let you young bucks take care of that!

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Who you callin young?

 

[erudne]

There's too many openings in today's homes for them to be very defensible. I've actually given this a great deal of thought as we live on our BOL. Other than building a dedicated combination blockhouse/home, the best that can be done is to add mass to the walls. I've been thinking of sheathing our place with river rock since we're awash in the stuff. However, firing ports in the walls wouldn't let in much light and drones, rockets and other ordnance would defeat even a rock wall. So realistically, there's other strong points on our property to rely on if worse comes to worst and I pray it doesn't.

"Awash in river rock"? LOL!

 

[erudne]

Everyone's home is different, if you can re-enforce the floor joists and footings of your home you can stack a sand bag wall along the inside of exterior walls, even build a panic room from a bedroom. one can install a sprinkler system that encompasses the home, heavy wooden shutters and a lot more. Obviously these are things that would be situation dependent but if one re-enforced one's floor and laid the water pipe now it might pay off later, sand and bags being a common item.

 

[raynerhenrik]

without law, gangs running around big areas (like LA) or a foreign army invasion, no ones house is safe from anything, in that instance though I would not fight where I sleep.

Ultimately, if it came to my doorstep, I would rather use IED's. Remote controlled in the cars on the side of the street in front of my house to thin out their numbers first before I used my guns in a last ditch effort to take out a couple more of them before I died.

If a-holes come to your neighborhood with torches systematically burning down the houses on your street, you have little choice. Either leave fast by fighting your way out and have almost nothing, or stay and defend your property, and likely die. If an invasion force comes they will not forget about you if you shoot one of them. They will do their best to hunt you down and kill you. So any engagement could likely be a "last stand" for you.

I feel that if they are going to kill you anyways, might as well make it worth your while.

That's also assuming I had another option to use besides firearms, IED's would be a game-changer for invading north Koreans or whoever. But skilled snipers can do a lot of damage and delay troop movement, that could be a cost effective skill that could really help.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

without law, gangs running around big areas (like LA) or a foreign army invasion, no ones house is safe from anything, in that instance though I would not fight where I sleep.

Ultimately, if it came to my doorstep, I would rather use IED's. Remote controlled in the cars on the side of the street in front of my house to thin out their numbers first before I used my guns in a last ditch effort to take out a couple more of them before I died.

If a-holes come to your neighborhood with torches systematically burning down the houses on your street, you have little choice. Either leave fast by fighting your way out and have almost nothing, or stay and defend your property, and likely die. If an invasion force comes they will not forget about you if you shoot one of them. They will do their best to hunt you down and kill you. So any engagement could likely be a "last stand" for you.

I feel that if they are going to kill you anyways, might as well make it worth your while.

That's also assuming I had another option to use besides firearms, IED's would be a game-changer for invading north Koreans or whoever. But skilled snipers can do a lot of damage and delay troop movement, that could be a cost effective skill that could really help.

Did you even bother to google ICF construction?

 

[erudne]

Google Cultural Revolution

 

[raynerhenrik]

I just googled it and read on Wikipedia what it is. Honestly for commonplace homes I like the idea. Unfortunately I don't even think there's one person where I live that has a house built like that. I see that it's cost effective but I just don't see it anywhere.

I literally just found out about concrete insulated forms, and i'm kind of surprised I hear no one talking about this, it's apparently stronger than regular homes, and more cost effective to build. Why is this not being used?

I'll keep this in mind when I move to Oklahoma and build a house, I'd like to flip off a tornado as it tries to tear my house from the foundation.

Unless your house is built underground, and you provide your own air food and water, a group of people can easily kill you if they find out where you live, and if there's and air vent for them to gas you with. All they have to do is take a rubber tube connected to a truck and leave it there running. If there's a group of people looking to kill you they will find a way if you stay where they know where you are.

Does anyone know of an instance where hunkering down and defending has worked? I've never personally looked into this. It seems excessively dangerous to me.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

I'm about to build an ICF home.. out in the boonies with a very defensible well. There are easy counters to anything you might mention, including simply shooting anyone who tries an attack

 

[Sgt Nambu]

I just googled it and read on Wikipedia what it is. Honestly for commonplace homes I like the idea. Unfortunately I don't even think there's one person where I live that has a house built like that. I see that it's cost effective but I just don't see it anywhere.

I literally just found out about concrete insulated forms, and i'm kind of surprised I hear no one talking about this, it's apparently stronger than regular homes, and more cost effective to build. Why is this not being used?

I'll keep this in mind when I move to Oklahoma and build a house, I'd like to flip off a tornado as it tries to tear my house from the foundation.

Unless your house is built underground, and you provide your own air food and water, a group of people can easily kill you if they find out where you live, and if there's and air vent for them to gas you with. All they have to do is take a rubber tube connected to a truck and leave it there running. If there's a group of people looking to kill you they will find a way if you stay where they know where you are.

Does anyone know of an instance where hunkering down and defending has worked? I've never personally looked into this. It seems excessively dangerous to me.

Porkchop Hill! The Alamo! Oh wait! Not that one!

I spent the better part of a year on a guard post (GP Jane if anyone is familiar) 50 meters from the MDL with North Korea. Four days on, four days off/patrolling, etc. Jane was built in 1953 and had been improved constantly through the fifteen years till my lucky turn. She was dug into the top of a small hill, only the command bunker showing. The CP bunker had about three feet of steel reinforced concrete, as did the roof of the bunk hooch, the fighting positions had about one foot. The viewing slits in the CP held four inch glass and gave us a 360 view. Jane was about 50m across and as best I remember this was her TO&E.
A. 2 50cal
B. 3 M-60 machine guns (7.62N)
C. 90mm rocket launcher
D. 3 M-79 grenade launchers
E. 1 M-1 sniper rifle
F. 1 Model 12 trench gun
G. Several cases of hand grenades
H. A huge supply of Claymore mines
I. 3-4 command detonated 55gal fougasse mines/w shrapnel
J. Concertina wire, LOTS of it and well maintained!
K. Plus the organic weapons of the Infantry troops M-16 etc
and yours truly and my RTO (M-14)
L. Two PRC-25 radios, one on the Infantry net and the other on Arty with 20ft masts
Also we were backed up by 4.2 mortors and 175mm, 155mm, 105mm howitzers and 8 inch guns
The jets were in Japan, 15 way too long minutes away!

The point of this long winded saga is that the best estimate by 2nd Inf Div and 8th Army was that one company of NKPA troops would overrun us in approximately 15 min. All of that firepower, in a position designed for defence, was simply futile! So, in the unhappy event that we are discussing, I will be engaging out of doors.

 

[Burt Gummer]

Fun times ahead that is for sure. Life is boring. As for living free in the coming tyrannical gov/police state it isn't going to happen. If you are within the borders of this giant cage you will either be on your knees or dead. So, don't stress it. Just get some knee pads. You arm yourself to defend against other slaves, not the state. Decades of apathy have made the state an invincible opponent. We earned this situation so now it is time to pay the Piper.