Raiding the Y2K Survivalist

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During the Y2K debate, I wrote a little, tongue-in-cheek essay about the folly of a Y2K "bunker." Based on my experience, I thought the idea of a "Fort Big Dog" was pretty silly... but not everyone shared this opinion.

It was almost as if the serious Y2K pessimists felt cheated by life in late 20th century America. We have no domestic war, no frontier, no "circle the wagons." Life is pretty easy for most folks in modern America... and I think some people are curious about how they would fare in a survival situation. Perhaps this explains the enduring popularity of survival/apocalyptic fiction. Without further ado...

*****

"I thought a bit about a favorite Y2K doomsayer fantasy--survival in a post-apocalyptic America.

As we learned... repeatedly, a fixed position defense is always, always vulnerable. Most Y2K "retreats" are classic fixed positions. Aggressive patrolling provides one of the better defensive strategies, however, it requires tremendous resources and skilled personnel. Without aggressive patrolling, a fixed position can be "reconned" by the enemy for any weaknesses and attacked at one's leisure.

The "non Y2K compliant" aggressor force can scout the fixed position and select the most successful tactical options. Were I the "noncompliant" squad commander, the most effective tactic might be a pre-dawn positioning of a sniper. When the "compliant" force stirs about, preferably outside the "fortification," the sniper takes his shot.

As a side note for the survivalist set, a high-velocity, scoped rifle of reasonable quality is extremely deadly in the hands of a skilled marksman. As an experienced hunter, I try to take my shots within 250 yards, but I can routinely place rounds in a target at 400+ yards. This means even an average sniper has a reasonable chance of killing one at a quarter-mile. With a "premium" weapon and exceptional skills, this range can be extended to a half mile.

Of course, the Y2K survivalist may choose to never leave the house.

A skilled sniper will wound the first target... hoping to draw other targets into the field of fire. Unless highly trained, family members will rush to the aid of a downed target... ouch.

Of course, ambush is a favorite small unit tactic. If the "compliant" force has a patrol pattern, an ambush can easily performed. If the "compliant" force remains within the "fortification," there are multiple breaching options. By the way, all of this can be easily accomplished with off the shelf hardware. Most American structures can burn. Using Molotov cocktails or other combustibles can easily force a "compliant" force out into the open aka killing zone. Night attacks are particularly effective when attacking a fixed position.

Larger "compliant" forces can be reduced by a series of sniper attacks/ambushes. A sniper team makes a long range kill or two and then falls back to a safer position. The ambush team waits for pursuit. If no pursuit, the sniper team takes a new position and waits for targets. If pursuit, the ambush team adds to the casualty list.

Having read some "Y2K preparation" drivel, most preparations consist of buying a Mossberg 500 pump shotgun and a Ruger Mini-14 and then spending the day at the range. This is appropriate if you think marauders will ring the door like the "Avon" representative.

"Hello. We're here for your stored food and supplies."

A decent rifle squad with adequate NCO-level leadership will cut through a group of Y2K survivalists like a hot knife through butter. In fact, taking any casualties would be a serious embarrassment.

Military discipline and leadership is not something one can pick up from a book. Combat experience has a much higher price tag indeed. All in all, the odds of surviving a well-organized attack by a "noncompliant" force is slim. In fact, there are many more tactical options available to the aggressor force, but I am running out of lunch time.

To any Y2K preparedness fans... relax. I plan to spend New Year's Eve enjoying some decent wine... not leading a team of marauders in your neighborhood."

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@att.net), January 13, 2001

Answers

>>>Having read some "Y2K preparation" drivel, most preparations consist of buying a Mossberg 500 pump shotgun and a Ruger Mini-14 and then spending the day at the range. This is appropriate if you think marauders will ring the door like the "Avon" representative. This is appropriate if you think defenders will wait for marauders to come in through a front door.

>>Military discipline and leadership is not something one can pick up from a book. Combat experience has a much higher price tag indeed

Very true. But what widespread door to door infantry combat experience are we talking about? I imagine you'll fine it all but nonexistent in any of the large western military forces.

For US military forces, perhaps we're talking about WWII veterans?

-- Bonita (BND@wideband.net), January 13, 2001.


Won't most "non Y2K compliant" aggressorss be kind of hungry and desperate by the time they get to this point? Assuming that they get the man of the house, they still have to deal with an angry armed woman and possibly other family members that can also shoot. Some of the agressors would likely die.

-- 7th Samurai (decker@is.still.stirring), January 13, 2001.

Ken, why are you posting this now---because of that EZ Board thread? Bunker mentality has always existed and always will. I don't live that way but I also think that people who aren't prepared to defend themselves against at least moderately hostile aggressions are naiive. Shit does happen.

If one person in that office in Wakefield MA had been armed, there might be seven less grieving families right now.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), January 13, 2001.


Lars, shit happened here today. Ken Decker's essay was on my mind.

-- helen (b@r.f), January 13, 2001.

"Fort Big Dog" LOL!

I must have missed that thread, Ken. Too bad. I would have enjoyed watching some of the extreme doomers squirm as they struggled to come up with an even remotely logical counter-argument.

Lars- I don't think Ken's essay was addressing the rational people like yourself who are "prepared to defend themselves against at least moderately hostile aggression". I think it was intended more for those extreme doomers on TB2000 who were naive enough to believe they could fend off any and all attacks ad infinitum from the safety of their post Y2k bunkers. Ken no doubt found it as laughable as I did and was pointing out the errors in their over-the-top rationalizations.

-- CD (costavike@hotmail.com), January 13, 2001.



Helen, it is Saturday and the snow (here) covers the ground. In such circumstances, our minds reach desperately for certainty and the Absolute. Have compassion for Ken in his anguish of anomie.

"Military discipline and leadership is not something one can pick up from a book. Combat experience has a much higher price tag indeed. All in all, the odds of surviving a well-organized attack by a "noncompliant" force is slim. In fact, there are many more tactical options available to the aggressor force, but I am running out of lunch time."

Ken, your point is true enough and yet there are many cases of rag-tag guerillas fighting great powers to a standstill---Viet Nam, Chechnya, Afghanistan, etc. Their very size makes them vulnerable.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), January 13, 2001.


Lars, I don't know if what I'm about to say even belongs on this thread. Ken's essay in '99 was accurate considering where we live. I reevaluated our plans regarding home defense -- we CAN'T have much of a home defense. Our y2k plans revolved less around home defense and were based more on taking care of as many people as we could.

Now I'm working my third job. My husband is away and I have all the animals, kids, and farm duties on top of working two shifts, nights, whatever. This morning I was too groggy to get out of bed when I heard what sounded like a car wreck near my house. A few minutes later a county cop arrived and informed me that a fugitive was seen running away from the wreck and toward my house.

The county cop told me to stay inside and to call if I saw a man. That's great for city folks with indoor cats and a day off, but I had to feed and water animals and go back to work. I armed myself and went out. The barn door was open. The mule and the dog were alerting on the barn. I decided to let the fugitive have some time to bleed out -- a few days maybe -- before I would try to find him. I was pretty uptight and unhappy.

I went down to see an impressive wreck. It's amazing the guy walked away at all. While I was telling the cop about the barn, an elderly man pulled up to look for his nephew. He looked very concerned.

This is the part I thought was worth posting, even if it might be on the wrong thread: When I met the uncle of the fugitive, I relaxed a bit. The fugitive, at least on his uncle's side of the family, was not caucasion. Until then I hadn't realized that the face I put on my imaginary enemy was white. I was more afraid when I thought the fugitive was white.

The cop offered to look in my barn. The uncle looked a bit more strained. I went to the barn instead. It seemed safer for everybody if I went -- no confrontations, no accidental or intentional injuries, no deaths. The barn was empty.

Meanwhile the elderly uncle had climbed nearly straight up a steep grade to get to my house. I think he was trying to get to the barn with me, but he had to stop and rest. I told him the barn was empty. We weren't close enough to the cop for him to hear us. The uncle said his nephew would tough it out, hurt and alone in the woods, before he would be arrested. There were warrants out on him. I promised that I would get his nephew back to his family if I found him.

What I think -- I'm very, very tired and not thinking well -- is important about this was how I was willing to take lethal measures against an imaginary enemy with racial characteristics that I regard as "them". As soon as the same person was defined more as an "us", more like ourselves, and as a part of a family, I was willing to do everything possible to aid him.

What this sort of has to do with y2k is that all of the y2k senarios were imaginary.

Sorry if this is disjointed.

-- helen (b@r.f), January 14, 2001.


Helen--

Thanks for the interesting and slightly hair raising story. Hope it turned out ok. Did they catch the fugitive?

Yes, we all have our stereotypes, often we aren't even aware of them. How many people, male and female, still think of a man when they hear the word "doctor". I know I often do even tho both my internist and neurologist are female.

I'm a little tired myself right now so maybe I misunderstood you. Are you a non-white? If so, welcome to this white-bread forum.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), January 14, 2001.


Bonita, today's military is better trained than the military of WWII vintage.

Samurai, history teaches us that roving bands of marauders are more successful than static settlers. Marauders also learn from experience. If the Y2K survivalists wander outside the bunker, they can be picked off at long range. If they hole up, they allow the attackers the opportunity to burn down or blow up the "bunker."

The weakness of a fixed position is the lack of mobility. The attackers can study the "bunker" and pick the best time and avenue of attack.

Lars, there is a huge difference between keeping a loaded firearm in the house and planning for a "Mad Max" scenario. In our current society, we have the "cavalry" in the form of local law enforcement. If someone starts at my front door with a battering ram, I'm going to call 911. (Who knows, it might be the local police!)

Furthermore, Lars, you make my argument for me. Guerillas are successful because they do not have fortresses. They are highly mobile, fluid aggressor forces. The guerillas do not have military academies... they have practical experience. This has taught them to move and hide rather than to construct reinforced bunkers.

My advice to Helen was to have a good place to hide.

CD, agreed.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@att.net), January 14, 2001.


Lars, the young man is back with his family. I don't know if he's been arrested. The warrants were misdemeanors, and since the wreck didn't involve anyone else he probably won't face charges for walking away from it. The wreck was so bad that it looked like he might have head injuries. I have to wait a few days before checking with his family.

The us/them division is at the root of all social interactions. Social training may mitigate negative interactions, but all interactions are based on how the parties view each other. Are you more-like-me or less-like-me? The interaction itself may shift the initial perception either way.

I was born into two cultures and belong fully to neither. I am uncomfortable with both. The ironic thing is that my face tends to identify me with the culture that I identify with the least. That is to say, my face gives me "more-like-us" interactions with the culture that I view as "less-like-me". My face makes those "more-like-me" in my own mind view me as "less-like-us".

Funny story: I worked for a long time for people from Taiwan. I moved to a large city and attended a nearby church. Inside the church, the congregation was self-dividing according to family ties, which also happened to be along racial/cultural lines. After a moment of hesitation I joined "my" group. A few minutes later I became aware that every member of "my" group from the toddlers to the elders was staring at me -- they were Chinese.

Forgive me for rambling.

-- helen (b@r.f), January 14, 2001.



I must have missed that thread, Ken. Too bad. I would have enjoyed watching some of the extreme doomers squirm as they struggled to come up with an even remotely logical counter-argument.

I couldn't find that thread, CD, but I did find this old thread on which Ken says he is bothered by the "bunker mentality." Most of the responses on it were quite logical with the exception of Invar's.

-- I've never (had@a.bunker), January 14, 2001.


Original Thread

This is the original thread... back in my days as "Mr. Decker." I thought the best response came from Jon Williamson:

"You describe, in modern terms, the classic conflict between raiders and settlements. You are correct, of course. The raiders, be they Huns, Tatars, Norse, or Apache, have the initiative. They usually have weapons adapted to their needs. They have the element of surprise. They can pick and choose their targets.

Farmers and settlements cannot maintain a continuous high level of defense and still support themselves and their families. Nor does their lifestyle provide the military training and weapons resources they may need.

So, what happens? People die. Lifestyles deteriorate. Eventually, in most cases, the raiders and looters settle down as rulers of the people they have been raiding.

One of history's prime examples of this was the transformation of the Norsemen (Vikings) into the Normans of northwestern France over the period of a century or two. They remained among the fiercest warriors in Europe and the Middle East, and their part of Europe was the most heavily fortified territory this planet has ever seen.

Folks, if the situation deteriorates to this bad of a level, many of us will accept and support a group of "raiders" to protect us against more of their own kind. Feudalism has happened many times in one form or another, and in the event of a worst case scenario, could well be our only choice, even assuming we have a "choice".

Fortune too often favors the ruthless. I've studied too much history to find fault with either your techniques or your conclusions. Thank you for your professional insight.

Let's hope the programmers are successful."

If we ever suffer a complete social and economic collapse, the world will not look like the fantasies of the Y2K doomsayers.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@att.net), January 14, 2001.


Helen--

Sounds like you are in limbo between two worlds. Must be a strange feeling. I guess the positive aspect of that is that you are enriched by both cultures. I realize that may be a naiive view as the following anecdote points out.

Intermittantly I hire a woman to help me at home. Jan's background is bi-racial. Her father was a white soldier boy from the US. She has never met him. Her mother was a South Korean. Jan was born during the Korean war. She was raised as a baby by her mother in S. Korea. Then her mother was murdered by some town's-folk because of her interracial bastard daughter. Turns out that Koreans in Korea are not very tolerant.

At age 5, Jan was adopted by a white couple in Kalamazoo MI. She was raised as a white midwesterner, married a local white boy, had 3 kids with local white boy, has always been active in the Baptist church and at age 47 is still happily married. She looks quite Asian. I don't know if race has been a problem for her here. If it has, I think she has long ago come to terms with it.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), January 14, 2001.


Lars, your friend's life history is very much like that of a woman whose story was published in Oprah's magazine. This woman's biological father was a black soldier. She had some interesting questions about the wisdom of transplanting children of different cultures regardless of good intentions.

I guess a lifetime of standing in the middle enabled me to talk to both "sides" of the y2k debate. It grieved me to see strife among people who were decent and caring in my personal interactions with them. It was also surprising to find vituperation to the nth degree among people who had no physical interactions -- until now, I thought hatred needed a "real" face to focus on. After going hunting for a "white fugitive", I realize that I can be stupid too.

-- helen (b@r.f), January 15, 2001.


Personally, Ken, I enjoyed the laugh at myself provided in your (perhaps) tongue-in-cheek posting. Still (occasionally) laughing at my own folly. Wish I hadn't gone as overboard as I did prepping for the year of disruptions followed by these years of depression....

-- Reformed Doomer (ftbigdog@a.bunker), January 16, 2001.


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