Not bad Info for an Insurance Co:
Safe Room: The Ultimate Secure Shelter [INFOGRAPHIC]
Safety is a significant issue for every homeowner and eliminating
unsafe situations inside the home should be a top priority. Proper
installation and usage of electrical and gas lines, carbon dioxide and
fire alarms, and window and door locks are all important for day-to-day
home safety. But what about extreme conditions?
Tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes and even home invasion
are all examples of severe situations in which families may benefit from
a safe room. Simply put, a safe room is a secure, reinforced,
well-stocked room where individuals can go to avoid the risks and
potential dangers that may arise in other parts of a home. But how do
you create a safe room in your house? Our infographic provides some
ideas:
Article written by Max Velocity of www.MaxVelocityTactical.com
Max Velocity has been kind enough to dedicate his time and professional insights to our preparedness community. He has an extensive military background, having served in both the British and the U.S. armies and also as a high threat security contractor. He has served on six military operational deployments, including to Afghanistan immediately post-9/11, and additionally he spent five years serving as a security contractor in both Iraq and Afghanistan. During his career in the British Army he served with British SOF (The Parachute Regiment), to include a role training and selecting recruits for the Regiment. More recently, he has served in a Combat Medic and Civil Affairs role in the US Army Reserves. He is the author of two books: Contact! A Tactical Manual for Post Collapse Survival and Rapid Fire! Tactics for High Threat, Protection and Combat Operations. With his vast military background and real world experience, Max provides the kind of information that every prepper needs to learn, understand and integrate into their long-term security and home defense plans.
http://www.maxvelocitytactical.com
Biography:
Max Velocity is an author and trainer providing tactical instruction and advice for those preparing for disaster survival and high threat, protection and combat operations. He is the author of two books on security issues:
Contact! A Tactical Manual for Post Collapse Survival
Rapid Fire! Tactics for High Threat, Protection and Combat Operations
http://lewrockwell.com/gun-reviews/dont-open-the-door.html
How to Avoid Getting Trapped in FEMA Camps
By James Smith,
I wrote a news story recently called “How technology will send you to hell in the FEMA camps” It was wildly popular and raised the question in my mind, “How do I prevent my family from going to the camps?”
Read More:
http://www.survivalandbeyond.net/martial-law-roundup-what-to-expect-and-how-to-avoid-getting-trapped/
Sep 18, 2012
Extreme
Home Defense - Part 4 - Slinghot - The Silent One. I remember some
Badass sling shot experiences as a kid, until I upgraded to fireworks. I
was thinking a couple weeks ago about these as Silent Hunting/Bug Out ...
Long-Term Security and Defense - Ready Nutrition
http://readynutrition.com/resources/long-term-security-and-defense_04102012/
Max Velocity has been kind enough to dedicate his time and professional insights to our preparedness community. He has an extensive military background, having served in both the British and the U.S. armies and also as a high threat security contractor. He has served on six military operational deployments, including to Afghanistan immediately post-9/11, and additionally he spent five years serving as a security contractor in both Iraq and Afghanistan. During his career in the British Army he served with British SOF (The Parachute Regiment), to include a role training and selecting recruits for the Regiment. More recently, he has served in a Combat Medic and Civil Affairs role in the US Army Reserves. He is the author of two books: Contact! A Tactical Manual for Post Collapse Survival and Rapid Fire! Tactics for High Threat, Protection and Combat Operations. With his vast military background and real world experience, Max provides the kind of information that every prepper needs to learn, understand and integrate into their long-term security and home defense plans.
In
this article for the final week of ‘52 Weeks for Preparedness’ I will
discuss long term security and defense of your retreat location. We
cannot predict now exactly what conditions will look like after a
collapse and as such I urge you not to make too many assumptions based
on your particular idea of what such a post-SHTF situation will look
like. The purpose will be to give you the general principles and
techniques of defending a location, which you can tailor and apply as
necessary and appropriate. It is best to adopt a mindset of flexibility
and gather mental and physical knowledge and ‘tools’ in order to be able
to develop your response and put some of these measures in place as you
find them necessary and appropriate. For the article I will assume a
broad post-SHTF situation of societal collapse with a general absence of
law and order.
What is the threat? As a prepper hunkered down at your home, with
food stores, the most likely threat will be from looters and marauders.
These could take many forms from a simple beggar, through starving
neighbors, mobs, tricks and deceptions, to a tactically organized group
with weapons and equipment. The worst case is some sort of organized
paramilitary style force with heavy equipment bent on forced
redistribution. Therefore, remain flexible and have an emergency rally
point and extraction route should you be overmatched. Know when you have
no alternative but to bug out. You can make this decision if you have
the information before the threat arrives and conduct the bug out in
good order. Alternatively, you may be forced to make the decision as the
attack progresses and have to ‘break contact’ and withdraw under enemy
fire; this is one of the most difficult tactical maneuvers. Work on your
leadership, decision making and decision points so that your response
under the pressure of both time and enemy is optimal. Tied in with this
is the need for clear rules of engagement and for the use of force
appropriate to the threat.
This short article is mainly concerned with defense of a single
location and as such will not go into techniques such as mobile and area
defense, which could be useful for a larger community. Remember, the
best form of defense is to avoid the fight. But that may not be possible
and you have to always plan and prepare for that fight. You can better
avoid the fight by adopting a lower profile at your location, attempting
to conceal your supplies and capabilities. The opposite of this is to
have a high profile and try to use threat of force as a deterrent. But
remember that a good rifleman could sit out at long range and simply
shoot your defenders in their sentry positions. In my opinion, the best
approach for a small survivor group is to adopt a lower profile while
maintaining the capability to defeat threats as they are encountered.
The following are some principles of defense that you should consider
and apply to your location and plan:
- All Round Defense, in order to anticipate a threat from any direction.
- Depth, in order to prevent penetration of your defended position.
- Mutually Supporting Sectors of Fire, in order to increase the strength and flexibility of a defense.
- Concealment and Deception, in order to deny the adversary the advantages of understanding.
- Maintenance of a Reserve.
- Offensive Action (where appropriate), in order to seize or regain the initiative.
- Administration, to include:
- Appropriate numbers of trained personnel.
- Appropriate weapons, ammunition and equipment.
- A watch system for early warning.
Most modern family homes do not lend themselves to defense. The
structure is vulnerable to high velocity rounds which will pass through
multiple frame, wood and plasterboard walls, and also simple mechanical
breaches are possible with tools and even vehicles used as rams. They
are also very vulnerable to fire. If you try and defend your house from
the windows, then you will not be protected by the walls framing those
windows and the room can be filled full of high velocity rounds by an
attacking group. There is a real danger of being suppressed by superior
firepower. If you stay back from the windows as you should, then you
limit your fields of fire and unless there are enough of you defending
then the enemy will be able to take advantage of blind spots to close
with and then breach the house. You need a basement or other ballistic
protected safe room for your noncombatant personnel (kids etc.) to
shelter in; otherwise they will not be protected from the violence and
from the high velocity rounds ripping through the walls.
Madtown Preppers eStore: http://astore.amazon.com/madtoprepp-20
One of the key things for a prepper defense of a location is to have
an appropriate number of trained personnel with appropriate firearms,
ammunition and equipment. You will also have to take measures to harden
the building to slow down attempts to breach. You need to consider
whether or not you want your property to look derelict; this could be
good or bad in the circumstances. It would be worthwhile to consider
boarding up or shuttering at least the ground floor windows and think
about putting up door bars or even board up some of the doors. This will
also help with light discipline. External boards can make the place
look derelict, but looking derelict could also encourage approach by
potential squatters. You could put up the boards internally, or
something similar, in order to maintain a low profile and slow any
breaches. There a lots of pros and cons each way. When boarding up
doors, ensure that you have at least two independent exits that can be
used both for routine tasks but also for egress if you have to escape.
Boarding up your windows and doors does not make them ballistically
hardened. You could have sandbags ready to go, and you will need to
consider a big pile of dirt to fill them from. Consider the benefits of
simple mass of soil in protecting you from high velocity rounds, and for
the construction of fighting positions. Sandbags need to be at least
two deep to protect against high velocity rounds. If you try stacking
enough of these on a modern upper floor, or even a ground level floor
with a basement beneath, then the weight of a constructed fighting
position may cause a collapse. You could stack sandbags externally
around designated window fighting positions on the ground floor, but you
will need a lot of them. Other alternatives would include filling a
chest of drawers with soil to create firing positions, or maybe even
material such as steel plate that will weigh less but will provide
ballistic protection.
From the principles of defense it is clear that we need to establish a
plan which provides early warning, all round defense and mutually
supporting sectors of fire. We also need to create depth, which is best
utilized outside the building rather than with fall back positions
inside the house. We can create depth using external fighting positions
to keep attackers away from the house, which will also aid mutual
support. A key thing that will really help defense of a house is to have
a second or more positions outside of the main building that can
provide fire support, thus these positions support each other by keeping
enemy away from the house and each other. This position(s) could also
be another house or cooperating neighbor if it works out that way. This
creates a ‘cross-fire’ so you must enforce fire discipline and allocate
sectors of fire to ensure you do not cause ‘friendly fire’.
A very important concept is that of ‘stand-off’. This can be created
with a combination of fighting positions in depth and cleared fields of
fire with obstacles. If you have an obstacle, such as wire, it must be
covered by fire to be effective. Utilize stand-off distances to keep
enemy away from the property, combined with obstacles to slow vehicle
and dismounted approach. Examples like wire are good for dismounted
personnel and also vehicles if it is correctly laid concertina wire.
Obstacles such as steel cabling, concrete bollards or planter boxes and
felled trees will work well against vehicles. This will also have the
effect of reducing the risk of attackers getting close to set the place
on fire, which they are likely to try if they can’t get in to get your
stuff. If we expand this concept we can see how a mutually supporting
neighborhood with checkpoints/roadblocks and observation/fighting
positions will provide a great advantage. Stand-off is also important in
terms of engaging the enemy with accurate effective fire at the longest
range that is physically and legally possible. If you are competent and
have the equipment for long range effective suppressive fire, this can
have the effect of keeping the enemy at arm’s length and reducing the
accuracy and hence effectiveness of their fire, which will prevent them
successfully suppressing you and subsequently maneuvering onto your
position to breach or burn the property. In addition, consider the
presence, placement and potential hard protection of any flammable
sources on your property and close to your buildings, such as propane
tanks and fuel supplies. Ensure they cannot be repeatedly fired upon by
the enemy to cause a fire or explosion. The ability to generate accurate
effective long range defensive fire depends on skill, equipment,
positioning of fighting positions, your policy for the use of force and
also the way the terrain affects weapons killing areas and ranges. To
engage at long range you have to reasonably fear that the enemy presents
a threat of lethal force against your defended location. However, if
you are in a closer urban or wooded environment you may find some of
your fields of fire are limited and you will have to plan and position
accordingly.
Administration is a key factor. While you are maintaining your
defense you need to look after the welfare of the team, equipment and
the site itself. Administration is what preppers usually concentrate on.
This is your “beans, bullets and band-aids”. This is an area where
those that are non-combatants can really pull their weight and make a
difference. You must maintain a watch system which will be tied in to
‘stand to’ positions and maybe some form of ‘Quick Reaction Force’ or
reserve, depending on the resources and numbers available to you. Your
watch system can be augmented by other early warning sensors such as
dogs and mechanical or electronic systems. Day to day you will need to
keep the machine running and this will be the biggest challenge as time
goes on. Complacency Kills! Depending on the extent of your
preparations, stores and the resources within your property, this will
have a knock-on effect to your ability to remain covert and the
requirement to send out foraging patrols. People will also start to get
cabin fever, particularly kids, and you will need to consider how to
entertain them. Consider that while mundane tasks are being completed,
there is always someone on watch. People that are not on watch need to
have weapons and ammunition carrying equipment close or on their person
while doing other things. Consider carrying long rifles slung as well as
handguns everywhere you go on the property, with at least a light bit
of web gear with some additional magazines in pouches. Rifles should
never be out of your arms reach if there is any kind of threat of
attack. You should put rifle racks or hooks/nails on walls in key rooms,
out of reach of kids, so that rifles can be grabbed quickly if the
alarm is sounded.
Regarding your noncombatants or protected personnel; what you do with
them depends on who they are. The younger kids will need to be
protected in the safest location you have. Others will be useful to do
tasks such as re-load magazines, distribute water and act as
firefighting crews. Note that you need to have fire-extinguishers and
buckets of water and /or sand available at hand during a defense to put
out any fires. The more tasks you give people during a crisis, the more
the activity will take their minds off the stress of the situation and
the team will be strengthened. Ammunition replenishment, water
distribution, casualty collection point, first aid, watching the rear
and looking after the younger kids are all examples of tasks that can be
allocated to make people a useful part of the team when personnel
resources are tight.
Firearms and equipment has been covered under the home defense article.
For this kind of defensive situation you will be well served by the
ability to detect, observe and accurately engage enemy at the longest
range possible by day and night. This is easily said, but would take
throwing money at it to get all the equipment you need to best do it. In
terms of firearms, I would recommend tactical type high capacity
magazine rifles for the main work, backed up by handguns and pump action
12 gauge shotguns. The shotguns are good for close work and if the
enemy gets in to the building, last ditch stuff. Long range hunting type
rifles are good for observation (scope) and longer distance engagement.
You would be best served with good optics for your weapons and also
observation devices such as binoculars. Think about night vision and
even thermal imaging if you can afford it. You will also have to
consider that even if you can afford a night vision device, it will only
work for whoever has it so how will the rest engage? What type and
configuration of these night vision devices, on weapons as sights or
not? Without night sights you can fire at muzzle flash or use whatever
illumination is available, white light or whatever. A good option is to
have parachute illumination flares.
Loose barking dogs on your property
are perhaps the best low budget early warning system; however consider
that they may give away your position if you are trying to be totally
covert. Decide on your priorities and strategy and tie that in with what
money you have to spend on equipment. You can get expensive systems
such as ground sensors, lights and alarms, but these cost money and you
have to consider their use in a long-term grid down situation. I would
prefer to spend money on optics and night observation devices which will
last without grid power (but will require batteries) and can also be
taken with you if you have to move locations. Here are some basic
suggestions for equipment to augment such a defense:
- Appropriate tactical firearms & ammunition
- Web gear and magazines
- Ear and eye protection
- Body armor and helmets, NIJ level IIIa or Level IV
- Barbed wire, coiled (concertina) and for low wire entanglements
- Sandbags or other ballistic protection options
- Night vision devices
- Binoculars plus optical rifle sights
- Black out curtain and pre-cut plywood for windows
- Parachute illumination flares
- Trip-flares
- Trauma medical kit incl. CAT tourniquets
- Range cards
- Two way radios and/or field telephones
- Multiple fire-extinguishers and/or buckets of water
If you have put a group together for such a defense, they need to be
trained on not only tactical shooting and basic small unit tactics and
movement, but also briefed and rehearsed on the defensive plan including
fighting positions and sectors of fire. Consider that depending on your
circumstances and the terrain, you may be benefited by running periodic
clearance patrols around the property to mitigate against surprise
attack, and to do this your team need to be able to patrol and move
tactically, as well as respond to any enemy contact. 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.
Max Velocityhttp://www.maxvelocitytactical.com
Biography:
Max Velocity is an author and trainer providing tactical instruction and advice for those preparing for disaster survival and high threat, protection and combat operations. He is the author of two books on security issues:
Contact! A Tactical Manual for Post Collapse Survival
Rapid Fire! Tactics for High Threat, Protection and Combat Operations
http://lewrockwell.com/gun-reviews/dont-open-the-door.html
Sep 22, 2012
With
a global as well as domestic economic crisis looming, further
hostilities in the Middle East, the likelihood of war with Iran
(possibly sparking World War III) and turmoil surrounding the coming
presidential election, we are indeed living in very precarious times.
Couple that with the DHS continuing to arm itself and various
government agencies to the teeth, the possibility of martial law in
America is looking more and more likely.
The following article outlines what to expect when martial law rolls
into your neighborhood and how to avoid capture. Big thanks go out to James Smith (aka The Covert Prepper) from Survival and Beyond’s supporting Network; Prepper Podcast Radio.How to Avoid Getting Trapped in FEMA Camps
By James Smith,
I wrote a news story recently called “How technology will send you to hell in the FEMA camps” It was wildly popular and raised the question in my mind, “How do I prevent my family from going to the camps?”
Read More:
http://www.survivalandbeyond.net/martial-law-roundup-what-to-expect-and-how-to-avoid-getting-trapped/
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