Bugging Out / Survival

[85_Ranger4x4]

i think coils and electric motors would be ok, or fair better than an unprotected computer

I have my bases pretty well covered with ignition sources from COP EFI, Duraspark, Petronix igniter, points and a magneto. I don't even need a battery to run the mag machine.

I am pretty well set up to farm 1950's style, plow disc, harrow, cultivators... gunna have to pick by hand though.

What I read said that a single nuke set off over the east coast at 250 miles high would fry our power grid and all unshielded electronics almost to California.

Who cares when everybody dies of leukemeia from the fallout?

The more people you have to defend your crap the more crap you have to have to maintain your mob... kind of a double edged sword.

 

[Dweano]

daniel is right on this. both of those books are great, i own both of them. they really open your eyes and make you think about stuff.

"One Second After" is more of a story and some of the stuff probably wouldnt happen as the author writes it.

"Patriots" is an in depth look at scenarios you could be faced with as well as things you need to think about storing away. it's put into a novel format so it isnt so dry and is actually entertaining.

with a full out collapse of society, where reconstruction is going to be years away, the population is going to start falling off quickly. especially if it were to happen this time of year. you'd have a lot of people that just arent prepared and would die of starvation and exposure.

people that take heart medicine, cholesterol medicine, diabetes supplies, etc., they depend on a functioning society in order to get those meds. they're days are numbered based on their current supply.

also, simple things like appendicitis are suddenly going to become life threatening again. even with a surgeon, if you dont have a sterile environment to do the surgery, your chances of surviving are slim.

you want to have as low a signature as possible and be WAY off the beaten path. yeah, owning animals would be great, but that's gonna give another group of people a reason to come kill you. you cant keep a heard of cattle or chickens or hogs quiet enough that no one knows you have them. the best way to survive would be planting almost all of your food, having food already stored up and being able to can food for the cold months. and like will said, you need a large group of friends and guns/ammo to defend yourself.

Lights Out is a good book as well. I read alot about this stuff...but I am too poor to prepare anything. Its more of a hobby to be interested in this stuff...until I get older and richer. Haha

 

[88_Eddie]

Lights Out is a good book as well. I read alot about this stuff...but I am too poor to prepare anything. Its more of a hobby to be interested in this stuff...until I get older and richer. Haha

same here. but you can start now. you can buy a brick of .22's for <$20 at walmart. that would be a great barter item.

people may not have AR's, or mossberg 500 shotguns or .308 sniper rifles, but a lot have .22's that have been handed down. if you get close enough i'm guessing you could pop a deer in the head with a .22 and at least knock it out long enough to run up at cut it's throat. plus, you could defend yourself with a .22 if needed. yeah, it isnt much, but if you're talking about a break down of society, medical care is going back to the civil war era. staving off infection while it heals would be extremely hard unless you were very well prepared. injury yourself even slightly could be very hazardous to your health.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

same here. but you can start now. you can buy a brick of .22's for <$20 at walmart. that would be a great barter item.

people may not have AR's, or mossberg 500 shotguns or .308 sniper rifles, but a lot have .22's that have been handed down. if you get close enough i'm guessing you could pop a deer in the head with a .22 and at least knock it out long enough to run up at cut it's throat. plus, you could defend yourself with a .22 if needed. yeah, it isnt much, but if you're talking about a break down of society, medical care is going back to the civil war era. staving off infection while it heals would be extremely hard unless you were very well prepared. injury yourself even slightly could be very hazardous to your health.

.22LR is way more than capable of killing a deer if put in the right place.

I have heard they are wicked to be shot with too, it can go in your arm and out your leg... since it lacks the power to break bone it just slides along them and is redirected in another path.

For a flintlock all you need is flint (can find natural) blackpowder (can make) ball (car wheel weights with a mold and heat) and an old t-shirt for patches. You could go for a long time without a whole lot of equipment.

Actually archery might not be a bad thing either because if you can find your arrows you can reuse them... they are plenty nasty too. My brother just broke a total of four ribs on a 15pt buck, kinda rolled the razor edge on one blade (which could be resharpened or replaced)

 

[88_Eddie]

plus, archery is quiet. like you said, you can make your own arrows and of course reuse old ones.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

plus, archery is quiet. like you said, you can make your own arrows and of course reuse old ones.

Depends on what kind of bow you have, a modern compound would be thrilled to blow up your homemade wooden arrow in your face.

You can make your own from arrow blanks though (either carbon fiber or aluminum), a lot of people do that.

 

[doorgunner]

NO STEALING>>>>>>>STEALING IS NOT AN OPTION.......WHY WOULD YOU STEAL FROM SOMEONE WHO HAS PREPARED FOR HIS FAMILY BETTER THAN YOU DID!!!!

well....there would be 1 exception....stealing from Politicians.....Hey--what goes around......comes around (WHO said that Politics is boring )

 

[Will]

A school bus with tire chains is unstoppable. It's also medium-duty truck parts and an older one has a dirt-simple engine. I would not take a new F150 anywhere. If you've ever spent an entire night driving across a pitch-black wasteland with no lights, staring at a compass, you'll know what I mean. Go off a small cliff, rocks wrenching the wheel out of your hands--there is no protection except what your truck is made of. When civilization goes phut, you want to be in a real truck with a locomotive plow on the front of it for splitting traffic while making your break for it. I think a bus is better than a bobtail tractor because it has a lot more weight on the drivers and is going to push harder. The tractor is going to spin the tires.

Your loaded 30,000# bus rolling down the highway with a V-plow carving a groove through panicked jams of traffic heading for your new country-Yes.

 

[straycat]

Think, guys...if when this happens, there will not be any animals running around to eat. This is going to be one hell of a wake up call when it does happen. You need to always have food and water stored on hand as I do. Money will be useless when a world disaster occurs. Shelter underground will be the best choice. I have an underground bunker up in Mississippi that was built by the military back in the mid 60's that is on our property. I am just hoping that if something bad does happen we can get up there. I also can fly a plane so I can get there another route. If not, we have always been prepared to survive here. Don't wait until the last minuet to make plans.

 

[CHKNFKR]

For the short term (snowed in, blackout, stranded, etc...) i keep a months supply of food, a water filtration kit, a knife, several lighters & match books, and some snivle gear in my truck at all times, all that and plus guns, ammo, a generator, and more at the house.

For the long term (nuclear/emp blast&fallout, total breakdown of society and civility) i'd stay put, sort of. I'd find a home that doesn't look like a home, a concrete grain cylo comes to mind for multiple reasons. I'd stock up on food, ammo, blah blah blah. I'd hunt and gather, light farming, but nothing local. Having multiple and very diversified food sources a good ways away from home i think would be best. I'd develope a very complex routine, something like a 40 day cycle. Routine keeps you from being surprised and ensures supplies are plentiful. Making it complex makes it look like less of a routine, makes you less noticeable, makes you look like a passer by.

I'd keep all my hunt/gather/farm sites a minimum of 20 miles from home, if a raider came through and saw a small plot next to a structure, he'd assume theres people and supplies in the structure, if you keep a good distance, he won't know where to look to raid your stockpile.

Concrete grain cylos are solid and tall, this makes them very defensable, and good for storing food as well as other supplies. The elevators i've worked at had a significant network of tunnels underground with augers, conveyors, etc... These tunnels are usually naturally cold because of the depth, you could actually keep meat for extended periods of time. You could also use the tunnels to make a maze, with all other access baricaded, or rigged not to open unless you know how to open them. This would confuse raiders to be, and give you the upper hand in defending your stockpile.

I'm too tired to turn all my thoughts into words, but you get the idea. I've put a fair amount of thought into this scenario.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

A school bus with tire chains is unstoppable. It's also medium-duty truck parts and an older one has a dirt-simple engine. I would not take a new F150 anywhere. If you've ever spent an entire night driving across a pitch-black wasteland with no lights, staring at a compass, you'll know what I mean. Go off a small cliff, rocks wrenching the wheel out of your hands--there is no protection except what your truck is made of. When civilization goes phut, you want to be in a real truck with a locomotive plow on the front of it for splitting traffic while making your break for it. I think a bus is better than a bobtail tractor because it has a lot more weight on the drivers and is going to push harder. The tractor is going to spin the tires.

Your loaded 30,000# bus rolling down the highway with a V-plow carving a groove through panicked jams of traffic heading for your new country-Yes.

.22LR to the window and your unstoppable bus is stopped and awaiting its new owner. It could have came from the guy whose F-150 you just folded in half.

It may be 10' tall, but it ain't bulletproof.

Too many ditches and rivers around here to go bombing across the middle of nowhere with the lights out at night, hop that thing off a couple terraces or drop it in a crick and you are walking (if you can still walk)

And when it comes to size, big gets you farther but more screwed if you get stuck. It doesn't take a whole lot to jerk out a '150, a 30k bus laying frame... hope you have a dozer handy. With the hidious breakover/departure angle a bus has it would take much to get it hung up.

I would rather have something smaller that might fly under the radar a little and maybe a buddy could help push out if it got stuck. If it happened quick I would probably take my '150 because it is more ready at the moment and has more room for gear... if I had time it would have the Ranger on a car trailer behind it for a backup because it size and clearance has its advantages too. Pretty rural area here, and few of the city slickers in Omaha that would likely invade would know the backroads, I only have about 30 miles to get where I would go and after about a mile I could do it all without touching pavement.

For the long term (nuclear/emp blast&fallout, total breakdown of society and civility) i'd stay put, sort of. I'd find a home that doesn't look like a home, a concrete grain cylo comes to mind for multiple reasons. I'd stock up on food, ammo, blah blah blah. I'd hunt and gather, light farming, but nothing local. Having multiple and very diversified food sources a good ways away from home i think would be best. I'd develope a very complex routine, something like a 40 day cycle. Routine keeps you from being surprised and ensures supplies are plentiful. Making it complex makes it look like less of a routine, makes you less noticeable, makes you look like a passer by.

I have never seen silo spelled like that... kind of a neat way to do it.

 

[Will]

I didn't mean to take the bus cross country--it's the road plow. The F150 isn't going to clear traffic and will have to go cross country, in stealth mode, and will break.

A .22LR isn't doing shit after hitting the glass. It would be a lucky shot. The bus is 2 sheets of steel with a fiberglass mat between them, and cabinets built in. Besides, you cut gun ports in the bus with a 4" hole saw and your buddies are on the lookout.

You have to get out of town when the shit hits the fan. The roads are going to be packed. Nobody is going cross country very far. The whole country is criss-crossed with creeks, the smallest of them will stop a 4x4. You have to take the highway.

Seriously, I'm playing the game here, but I'm not planning for this Armageddon. Everyone already did that in the 60s and 70s. You can still see little fall-out bunkers in the yards of some older houses. Everyone wrote the books on survival, Lucifer's hammer is maybe the most famous, which I already mentioned. A month without power, water or essential food items I could see. Something like the former Soviets faced for years. For that, I can see a generator shed with a month's supply of fuel--a large enough tank that you can store it when you find it available, a month of water--you can probably dig a sand-point well in your yard even in town if you want. A place to grow vegetables and chickens--and learn how to do it. A .22 rifle to snap away at small game. And that 4x4 F150 to give yourself a reasonable chance at getting to the city when you hear some rationed item is available. That's a reasonable amount of preparation.

 

[CHKNFKR]

.22LR to the window and your unstoppable bus is stopped and awaiting its new owner. It could have came from the guy whose F-150 you just folded in half.

It may be 10' tall, but it ain't bulletproof.

Too many ditches and rivers around here to go bombing across the middle of nowhere with the lights out at night, hop that thing off a couple terraces or drop it in a crick and you are walking (if you can still walk)

And when it comes to size, big gets you farther but more screwed if you get stuck. It doesn't take a whole lot to jerk out a '150, a 30k bus laying frame... hope you have a dozer handy. With the hidious breakover/departure angle a bus has it would take much to get it hung up.

I would rather have something smaller that might fly under the radar a little and maybe a buddy could help push out if it got stuck. If it happened quick I would probably take my '150 because it is more ready at the moment and has more room for gear... if I had time it would have the Ranger on a car trailer behind it for a backup because it size and clearance has its advantages too. Pretty rural area here, and few of the city slickers in Omaha that would likely invade would know the backroads, I only have about 30 miles to get where I would go and after about a mile I could do it all without touching pavement.



I have never seen silo spelled like that... kind of a neat way to do it.

I was just going to give props for your use of "crick" everyone makes fun of me for that one, then you go and tell me i mis spelled silo.....

 

[John Smith]

Interesting thread...thanks for bringring it Jim

Like many of you I've enjoyed all the conversation about the vehicles we have chosen to drive..One of the reasons i have chosen the B2 platform is that it is a "4wd" that is very very maneuverable and can be operated via "duraspark" if you have chosen either a 2.8L or a 2.3L (which I'm sure many have chided me for considering but I must confess my primary reason for choosing a 2.3L was to operate it with that points diz i have in my shop) I also have other ways to fire a 2.3 or 2.8.) That being said, I'm not sure that I may have the capability to use the highway system that my city street is connected to when the proverbial CHTF so to speak. Being very familiar with the mountain roads of my surroundings (southern Oregon) may not be of any advantage for me if i wait till "THAT" moment to "bug out". To "where" would be the issue...and even if my vehicle would still drive..(I have found that the local BLM/GOV vehicles have locked many of the gates to the "hills") .would i want to take a life to prevent it from being taken away from me? I have like man y of you a LEO background and also am a born-again Christian. This is a deep topic that deserves some soul searching regarding what one is willing to do to defend one's possessions...versus staying where you are and preparing for being the "salt and light" in a dark place at a dark time. Today I am prayerfully where i feel i should be. That may change 2marrow...and I will leave to wherever i feel i should be..but when "there" no matter what i drive or have with me..i may have to stay...and that after much prayer, will be a decision i will have to make along with those with me... Where i am now i have 6 mo's of food and a years worth of water...and hope and concern for my neighbors..( and want to be known in my last breath as one who "lives" the Words in Red")

Great topic Jim..and I again want to say i Respect you and your vision for this site and trust and hope that you surround yourself with those you can spend time with to help you in your considerations regarding the future decisions this topic may stir up...

Good judgement to all my prayers are with you all...eternity will be at stake for many...

 

[adsm08]

Yeah..... Bobtail would also fail during emp...... Idi diesel with an air starter would solve that.... Or be prepared to swap electronic parts..... I should put a spare ecm and fuel modules for the bobtail in the box and get ahold of spare powerstroke electronics.

Not to worried about being snowed in and I can build a simple windmill for power if it came to that.

Keep in mind that electronics will still get fried even if they aren't hooked up or powered up. Anything unshielded.


Besides, it's the zombies we really have to look out for. The EMP isn't what will get us, it's the infected undead.