by nigel » Thu 30 Sep 2004, 17:42:06
Aaron - This is quality.... I was delighted to discover reinforced concrete was my friend. :D
gg3
Buster, you might have a point there. In any case, I'm planning to earn my fair share building telecommute infrastructure that takes commuter cars off the road voluntarily.
Kochevnik, very interesting, we tend to think similarly; see more below.
PonyBoy, and everyone else, remember the inverse square law: radiated energy decreases, in a mathematically predictable manner, the further you get from its source. Works in physics, works with mobs. Again for emphasis, you don't have to worry about this, urban refugees will spread out in an advancing wavefront that dilutes their density as they go. You can be surprisingly close to a city and get nothing more than a few stragglers.
Back to intel & counterintel: Useful rule: Everything is Information. The following is not intended to be overly critical, just pointing out possible holes & how to plug 'em.
You have a drawbridge or sound system or other visible technology at your entrance gate? Hmm! must be a well-organized functioning enclave, probably have goodies for the baddies to steal.
You have barbed wire or similar physical barriers beyond the level of a slightly worn-looking (but secretly strong) fence and gate? Same conclusion. You drive up in a vehicle? Same.
You use a megaphone or other sound system? I just figured out where your observation post is located, and/or where your wires are strung, and if you got wires, you got other stuff the baddies want.
You use radios? My intercept operator is plotting your location and course on a computer screen, as well as hearing your every word.
Notice that my entire setup has nothing visible except a little shed near the entrance that's been (apparently) hastily converted to a crude but clean guest shack; and a gate. And a few guys with the understandable firearms who can say they're out hunting for dinner and ran into the hypothetical intruders by coincidence. Maybe they have heavy coats on (concealing their Kevlars).
Now if you want to have any visible technology at all, use an old magneto wall telephone in a booth by the gate (the booth also equipped with concealed redundant surveillance), with an obviously hand-painted sign saying "All visitors must call in, otherwise you're trespassing and may be shot." And the instruction on the phone, "lift receiver, turn crank briskly, wait for answer." This is "crude" enough to not give away how well equipped you really are. And this should ring through to your switchboard, but be sure to set things up such that the caller can't hear the telltale noises of computers and other hightech in the background at your switchboard.
If you invite a category 1 (probable nonhostile) into your enclave, and they turn out to be a spy, you've lost. Hence the guest shack with redundant surveillance. You can't take chances.
What you can do is, tell the people to stay in the shack and you'll be back the next morning to bring them some food. Now that I think of it, having a windup alarm clock in the shack is a good idea. Wind it up, set it to match your wristwatch, and tell them exactly when you're coming back.
And now that I think of it, your guards on the hillside should know how to use bird calls or other animal noises as a signaling system. Remember, radio is risk. So the next morning, you get the intel report from the intercept operator before you head out to offer these visitors some breakfast. Then while you're walking down the road, you & your fellow crew members are talking casually. When you get within audio range of your hillside watchers, the make a bird noise as per a pre-arranged code.
Reason for the latter is, a) lets you know the watchers are watching, and b) in the event there was any juicy last-minute chatter picked up from the shack. Let's say your visitors know you'll be there at 10:00AM with food. Let's say at 9:45am while you're walking down the road, your intercept operator hears them say "okay, when he gets in here, you trip him and I'll take his gun..." Your intercept operator relays that tidbit to your watch crew on the hill, who signal to you with a bird call, and you acknowledge by making some other pre-arranged noise.
Now as you get to the cabin, you can invite the "visitors" to come outside, hand them some food, and shoo them away. Thereby thwarting their plan without letting them know what you know. Or you can say, "Y'know, something about you tells me you're trouble. I think you should take your food and go, and don't come back this way if you know what's good for you. We'll watch as you go down the road there..."
As for the food to bring, a half-loaf of bread and some local fruit that's a bit bruised but not wormy, and a bottle of water, all very clean and safe, and you can even offer to take a bite to prove it's safe to eat. But it will also give the impression that you ain't got much pickins' for them and theirs.
Alternately, if your intercept operator picks up only good (innocent) stuff, and your watch-crew makes the "A-OK" bird-whistle, then maybe just maybe you invite them in for a while. But they should not be given access to anything that suggests how well prepared you are. Get an opsec freak to go over your plan and your place with a fine-toothed comb so that the surface impression guests get is of a poor community that's barely getting by. Even something as innocent as a nice piece of equipment (e.g. a tractor) sitting in a visible place, gives away information. You would be shocked at what can be inferred from seemingly innocuous observations.
Re. your categories &c.:
I really like your general principle "Strategic altruism, tactical reciprocity." That suggests you're thinking about this stuff in depth, to the point where you can condense it to something as tightly worded as that. I think I might send you email via private message on this board...
Re. lending tools to neighbors:
I'd suggest not lending tools, but instead offer to come over and perform the labor with your own tools. Tools are too easily damaged by unintentional misuse. For example failing to scrub out your concrete mixer thoroughly, every half hour during use, can quickly lead to mortar buildup that subtly destroys the mixing efficiency. One careless cut with a power saw can cause the blade to heat up to the point where it goes dull, and in some cases won't ever hold a good edge again. Drill bits are notoriously easy to break. Chisels, and chisel-like tools including wood planes, can get dulled or worse, the blades can get chipped. Etc.
The way to deal with that, without being rude, is to just say "We'd gladly come over and help you build your (whatever), but we have a rule that we're not allowed to lend tools by themselves." If you "have a rule," then you're only "following the rule," which shouldn't be taken as an affront, and in any case you're offering to do some labor. Which also means you have more contact with the folks who are asking (because you'll be at their place doing the work), and that helps to build mutual familiarity which is a good thing.
I would suggest a slight variation on tactical reciprocity with neighbors. If someone lets you down once, tell them you "feel like you were let down" or "it hurt your feelings" or something like that, and give them a second chance (as long as their failure didn't cause you significant harm). Every dog should get one bite as long as it doesn't break the skin. If they screw up the second chance, you can go from "friendly" to "cordial," rather than letting them know they're on your sh*t list. And keep the channels open in case they decide to make amends.
Speaking of bad neighbors: Meth (speed) labs. From what I read, those are bad bad bad, and the people who run them are ruthless. Speed is instant brain-rot in a pill, and it very quickly causes paranoid psychotic reactions. That means freaked-out neighbors who are convinced you're beaming a radio station into their tooth fillings which is causing them to lose their sexual stamina (actually the latter is due to the speed) and they oughta shoot you for making their lives miserable. You do not want that anywhere near you. Pre-emptive strike is a justifyable tactic if you smell the telltale chemicals in the air (I'm not sure what they are but I hear they have a very specific smell; ask a cop for details).
Chain of command: If it's implicit (as in most families), make it explicit. Implicit is *dangerous*, because people's ideas may differ and they don't know it, and that leads to conflicts when you need choreography. Create a system of job titles, rank titles, and MOS designators, and make sure everyone knows what they mean and how they work. If you have ex-military in your group and they don't object, you can ask to adopt the system from their branch of service and have them teach it to you. Otherwise use terms from team sports or something else that is clearly understood. Establish an explicit means by which an individual's titles and duties can be altered as they develop skills.
Re. scenarios: But be sure that you don't get caught up in the scenario generating process and get all paranoid. You would be surprised at how easy it is to convince yourself that a scenario is an immanent reality. Therefore you need to cultivate a detached attitude when doing this. Practicing mindfulness and concentrative meditation helps here, as it does in many other areas (details on request), and those exercises do not conflict with religious beliefs or practices any more than doing pushups and situps.
Good reminder about the comms center being in your basement. Reinforced concrete is your friend:-). If you're doing radio intercept, you need antennae, and these should be concealed, for instance in the attic of a wood-framed house with non-absorptive shingles. Most efficient case is to co-locate all of your comms into one building (so you can scale back your staffing to one person on overnight shifts if needed), but that also makes it a bit of a tasty target, so it should be concealed or disguised.
If you have local LEOs and they know you well enough, try to arrange a system whereby they can tell you how quickly they'll be on site to respond to a call. For instance, you call in an incident, their dispatcher should be able to say how many minutes until they arrive, and that information should be reliable. Then you can plan your holding-action tactics accordingly.
Good point about orderly retreat. Frankly I had never considered the option, which does not make me brave, it points to a strategic flaw in my planning. However you need a place to retreat *to,* i.e. a neighbor's property or something of that kind, where you'll be welcomed.
One thing that could be useful is for each neighbor in an organized group of neighbors, to have built a set of bunk platforms somewhere on their property, so people who are stuck in retreat mode have at least got places to sleep. Those platforms can be used for storage of stuff in boxes when not needed for emergency sleeping areas.
Strictly speaking, I don't think things are going to get so bad that we all have to be taking all of these steps. But most of them can be taken with little extra effort and only slight design changes in your infrastructure, and the wargame exercises could even become a form of "entertainment," instead of sitting home and playing video games:-). In fact most traditional games (both outdoors and stuff like chess) had "dual use" purposes, in teaching skills that would be useful in a practical sense. Chess teaches strategic thinking, hide-and-seek is good for recon, baseball is good for ballistics, "scavenger hunts" and Easter-egg hunts are a throwback to the "gatherer" part of hunter-gatherer, etc.
I would be very interested in hearing more about your group and its plans