Good read, it only emphasizes that war is nasty business, and there are no conscientious objectors in war, everyone will be forced to pick a side.

Should have mentioned, from the Dutchman http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/

Those type of activities, especially among the Cuban Communists probably made them more long term enemies than any of their actual political ideologies.

I've always thought that some in the militia see through rose colored glasses. They fantasize about waging guerrilla warfare, aka Red Dawn; yet give little or no thought to supply and logistics.

They stockpile weapons and ammunition by the truckload, yet have to run down to Mickie D's to find something to eat. They erroneously think they will "just live off the land", or supply themselves off the enemy dead when the shtf. Ain't going to happen. They will starve before they win their first battle against the tyrants.

These same people hold survivalists in utter contempt because "they're only interested in taking care of themselves". Do these people think that the coming civil war is going to be a 9-5 job where they can just punch out at the end of the day, go home and see what the ol lady has fixed for supper???

Those much maligned and despised survivalists better become some of your best friends and you better become part of their network. They will be your only friendly base of supply and assistance during any conflict.

If Joe militiaman does not become a well prepared "survivalist" himself, his war to restore the republic will be over in about 2 weeks. If he's lucky he will then receive 3 hots and a cot...unless he's already dead.

Amateurs study tactics.

Generals study logistics...Once a squad (or fire team) knows how to use their weapons, there are only two more things to know in the military: How to get squads to work together, and making sure the squad has beans, bullets, batteries and bandaids.

It is legitimate to stockpile weapons and ammunition in SECURE stockpiles (not the gun cabinet in the living room or obvious safe in the garage). These items are what become extremely difficult and risky to obtain in the early stages of a conflict when initial waves of enemy action have neutralized the stockpiles and sources of easy to obtain hardware.

As for food, fuel, batteries, vehicles. All of those things tend to continue to exist into the outset of a conflict. There are some other items of interest to stock and familiarize with before they are needed, like decent quality two way radios and such, but larger stockpiles of food, fuel and batteries and such may be obtained through such mundane sources that in some cases, they can be more of a burden than benefit to maintain stockpiles, especially when we are talking about pre-conflict bad economy lifestyles.

I know guys right now basically bouncing from place to place, living mostly out of their vehicles. Some have stashes of stuff here and there and are building those up, but we already ran into some serious integrity issues when items were "stored" with people who were thought to be trustworthy. In two instances regular legal firearms were simply given to the batfags when they showed up to question the people. In others, vehicles got driven more than they should have and found with nearly bald tires when they were checked up on, or not driven at all and all messed up from not being run or in the worst instance scavenged for parts, MREs used as snacks by a family member too lazy to cook and taking advantage of a directive to "check and taste test samples".

Fuel stockpiles have turned out to be a hassle, but I still think the fuel storage situation was a sound investment. My problem with having it readily accessible in the past retreats was too many people deciding they were having the "emergency need for fuel" and not enough figuring out they could afford to go to the gas station get some fuel cans filled up and then bring them back to refill the fuel storage cells. That was more of a "quality of people" issue than logistics issue though.

One of the very worst circumstances was a former Navy medic entrusted with organizing and maintaining clinic supplies went straight into the pharmaceuticals we had gone through considerable effort to obtain and stockpile and in his fucking addiction cleaned out the hardest to replace painkillers, then got so mad about us not restocking him that he turned fed snitch as revenge.

A realistic option is to establish some sort of action plan for at least periodically gaining control of needed stockpiles of the types of supplies that would be needed in a conflict but are a lower priority to pre-stage. Stores, food warehouses, establishments which maintain what would be needed. Having your people in control of a basic interstate highway truck stop would pretty much supply a decent operations group with what can be siphoned off of the commerce that would have to go through there no matter what.

If you are putting together an enclave of some sort, it is necessary to run enough retail business out of it that you can stock and rotate your survival supplies through the retail business, running it with an extensive surplus of "merchandise" which is really a stockpile and not just an on-time delivery model of convenience store type merchandising model which is engineered to save storage resources and only keep the place profitable.

There are guys who have figured this out with their gun and gear businesses, but fewer branched out into owning some convenience store/gas station type places although it is a very valid direction to go into.

Another thing is to have a realistic view of what sorts of conflict operations you are willing to run and support. Currently, just about nobody is running the types of "kill people and blow shit up" types of resistance operations, but are doing some things like the citizen border patrols, security operations for ranches, protests, watchdog type stuff and research, and not too many of those operations are very well financially supported. In fact, the people watching the border watchers managed to get more grant money faster as soon as publicity of the border watch people started to hit the mainstream media.

One thing I notice about the survivalists in general is the ones with retreats almost always need help with labor and are rarely in a position to pay any prevailing wages for it. If you have a roving "militia engineer" unit that can go around and help do work on people's survival retreats in return for at least room and board and goodwill toward operations groups needing a hideout from time to time, then it can probably help, but then in the current legal climate you probably would only be running a 20% success rate for them being willing and able to follow through with paying you back the favors when it is of any risk to them.

See how long batteries, candles, bottled water and food last in Florida two days BEFORE a hurricane hits....

If you need something, you better either have enough of it on hand now, or have a realistic, tested plan on making it yourself...relying on the charity of others is simply delusional.

And if you don't have the gear now, know how to use it, and what special things you need to run it how will you know that it takes a special battery or wrench or whatever? That the antenna connector you thought was BNC is actually a mini-TNC (the manufacturer changed the specs last month) and you need a special adapter?

Finally, we're talking about serious investments here...are you sufficiently prescient to know when the balloon is going up, so that you will be able to run down to the local survivalist store and buy the stuff you need? Not to mention you will need a very, very hefty pile of money to buy it all at once, and I've yet to find a single store that sells everything I want, need or desire - I've got to go to several. In addition to that prescience and cash, better give yourself a few days, and a big truck to haul it.

Or, start now, and do a little each week.

We are already going to assume that people can sustain themselves for two weeks to a month, what I am talking about is the six month and one year supplies.

Also, by "gear", no we are not talking about people deciding not to have bugout bags or a tac vest, but whether or not it is wise to make investments in keeping storage lockers and garages in rented real estate full of long term survival stuff or "banking" it with people who are likely to turn out to be less than loyal, trustworthy or reliable.

This is one of the more educated opinions that I have seen and more of a real life expectation. Reality is simple, it takes about a 10 to 1 ratio to field a force for any duration of time.

Supply or more important, re-supply of your basics. A mobile in shape, meaning not out of shape or old, force is not going to last long with out having a darn good network. You will need to make alliances NOW not later.

As an example, your group of folks is now mobile. Tell me what do you expect will happen when you go into anothers AO and want/ask/demand suppies to keep going if you have not made alliances with them? Do you think they will give up thier supplies and they will do without just because you say so? Or will you be seen as people to eradicated from the AO with extreme prejudice?

Previous threads have stated that if you are not up to speed in shape you are a has been and should be told to go away. Those older "has beens" are most likely the same folks you will be begging supplies from and hoping they do not see you as a threat and put you down and divy your gear!

So again, it takes about a 10-1 ratio to mount a troop in the field, without the support network, you will be lucky to have a cot and 1 hot a day and still be breathing good air.

Loss of power and comm will put most back into the stone age. With the onset of winter operations shelter and fuel. How long can you survive without becoming a predator and someone else wanting to put you down for fear of losing thier supplies to you?

Learn to be self suffient and self relaint. Do not expect others to take care of you and your needs. I have had folks tell me when the SHTF they are coming here. I tell them simply, you better be ringing the figuretive doorbell with your elbows cuz your arms are full of supplies. The alternative you already now and need not be said.

Being a survivalist means just that, to survive. To do so without becoming a predator is my choice. Making do with what you have is the simple country way of life. Not being dependent on others to take care of your needs.

Do what is right, not what you can get away with. Not all people feel this way, that is why Samuel Colt made all men equal!

5.56

Excellent article. Looting / scavenging / cache are only short term immediate resupply strategies.

Any type of sustained operations will depend on a real logistics system with an established method of taking raw materials and creating unit supplies from them. Even a one year plan requires tons of preparation (literally). Having enough of a force to make a difference requires a logistical base and supply system.

Even in the (totally fictitious) Red Dawn, the patriots were done in at the end by a lack of logistics, which the enemy was able to use to kill most of them off.

It takes about 600 lbs (minimum) of dried food for a year, for a person. And thats a pretty damned boring diet. Besides food and ammo and water, people need hygiene products, medical supplies, replacement clothing, footwear, socks, and gear, weapons replacement parts, batteries, etc.

Got a plan?

How many people buy an AR for a grand, never zeroed the sights, put another grands worth of superuberhypertactikewl shit on it, and only have two magazines, one of which he got at a hell of a good price at the gunshow - which explains the dent in the body, the kinked spring and the bent follower and duct-taped on floorplate? Or only 50 rounds of ammo? And no food stored?

But they'll be sure to tell you why the $70/oz miracle glop they use to lubricate it is the only thing that will keep it from jamming...cause they heard it from the septic tank guy who's cousins husband is a member of the delta seals...

And when they say "I'll get battlefield pickups" for everything, they better be damned good to survive their first contact, cause thats all the chance they'll get.

Clauswitz said it: "In war, everything is simple..." and it is: Once a squad can employ it's weapons properly, everything else is just putting more and more squads together...and making sure they have the resources (logistics) to be functional. But the rest of Clauswitz' saying was "but even the simple things are difficult".

Amateurs study battles. Generals (successful ones, anyway) study logistics.


Hey! It's my 1000th post!

+1 CSC, I am a survivalist and a militiaman. I have friends who think that their little garden sitting on the side of the house will do...

It would but a survivalist knows that the garden will do nothing for you if it is visible from the road.

Nothing thats says come and take my stuff must be seen.

Surviving is just that.

You must prepare to protect and hide, your land, home, garden, root cellar, caches, escape route and any other thing you wish to keep for your family.

There will be people who's full time job is to take your stuff.

I have said it before and I will say it again. This will be like no war you have seen or served in.

The governmnet will starve people into submitting. There will be times when people you knew, will turn on you to feed themselves.

You cannot feed them all, so you must have a retreat, or get them to wake up.

Or sadly you will be killing people you called your friend because they failed to prepare their family.

To amplify on Flight-ER-Doc's excellent comments.

Having stockpile for myself and a retreat is not enough. Having some buddies similarly situated is also insufficient.

I really believe in going the global guerrillas resilient communities concept one better. Our unit needs to be able to defend that community, because only a community can create enough of an economy to be self sufficient for survival and produce goods for trade / sell. Thus, the country is rebuilt from the community level, and freedom and liberty better assured by a government responsive to its citizens.

For what's coming, you're not going to survive individually even if by circumstance you're stuck being a Lone Wolf.

1.)You won't hold out at your 'retreat'-or your friend/family basement.

2.)Provided you survive first contact-at your home/retreat/whatever, can you load your bug-out vehicle? Can you trust your stuff already loaded inside?

3.)Okay, by some MIRACLE you outfought your assailants, you're in your bug-out vehicle... or sled or you're humping what you can carry to where you got your stashes... provided you weren't followed or someone with a metal detector got to them and got your goodies...

...now what?

Are you going to do a Rambo? Good luck with that. Ralph Bucky Phillips the New York State fugitive who gunned down some NY staties-how many did he take out? Only a few. What was the time period? Over a month if I recall. HE mostly hid and couldn't rely on the general good support of his hometown because the feds were all over them.

So you get a survival group going-but most folks who join are looking for a hand out. Just the way Americans are these days. To get you got to give and then you risk giving and then getting took. Americans...

But outside of generally poor characters of Americans a survival group needs food, shelter, munitions, intel. Food needs to be grown but with the government cracking down on Amish(?!)for raw milk and the contamination of GM seed open cultivation is problematical. Microplots scattered about help preserve some of your food but hungry scavangers will clean them out. Hydroponics, growing food indoors will require a building and power-where?!

Got a way to make fuel? Acquire/build weapons and munitions? Got connections on the inside?

So your group will wind up becoming predators and loot, or perish. You become predators with raids you better target stores that your supporting community doesn't rely on or you will lose support even from your own side and you will perish. This means an urban operation-getting in with a truck, rolling out before overwhelming opposition arrives, a midpoint hideout to QUICKLY transfer your loot into alternate vehicles... and can you do this without being surveilled all the way? Good luck.

Breacher's ideal of having a convenient/gas store is a good ideal, but you're still jurisdictionally flapping in the wind if The Day The Dollar Died scenario gets going.

Your best bet is to get support together, take over a small town or rural area politically-now. Don't advertise yourselves as either militia or survivalists; amplify local controversy and use Alinsky tactics to win local office. Have a full slate of candidates like the GI ticket in Athens TN in 46, clean out the trash, the bad law, see if the investments the city made can't be used to finance a mom and pop store mini revival to start up a local free economy... your group will have the resources and political backing of a town to draw upon.

Recall Election-doesn't sound so crazy now does it?

Thats the idea behind the "Free States" movement...they tried (at first) to find a small jurisdiction in New Hampshire, but it didn't pan out - not enough people were willing to move. There is a similar group in Wyoming, in the Sundance area, they have a board I frequent but I'm not sure how many people are actually there
http://www.fundamentalsoffreedom.com/fswforum/index.php

It's a good idea but getting people to commit is nearly impossible. The area the folks in Wyoming have staked out (for very valid reasons) is nearly empty of people, which means it's nearly empty of jobs, stores, etc.

Wyoming-uninabited, of the people that live theire, they are mostly patriots.

California-overpopulated, almost all people there are sheeple.

Is there a connection between population density and awarness?

People in Wyoming, Alaska, the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, parts of Colorado, Nebraska, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, a few other states are used to being responsible for themselves... there is no 'government" that will come save your ass when TSHTF, and it does with some regularity (like, every other winter).

There are lots of patriots in California...mostly east of I-5 and North of Cal 14. The vermin just overwhelm them.