Everyone should familiarize themselves with their local self-defense laws. Many states support the Castle Doctrine. If you’re physically threatened and in your home, their lives are in your hands.
barbed wire is not expensive. it does not create an impenetrable barrier, but it does help deny certain areas or alter behavior to funnel people into areas you prefer to engage. this applies more if you are in a semi-rural location. you can get over a mile worth of wire and all the tools to install it for around $100, assuming you already have trees or existing posts to attach it to. Combined with cooperation with the neighbors and carefully placed sentries (with radios) you could do a good job of seeing trouble before it gets to you. You have to evaluate your AO and decide where your sight-lines are, where your weak spots are where people could approach closest without being easily seen, and attempt to deny those areas with barbed wire and other methods. identifying trouble before it gets to you allows you to set up an ambush, and when it comes to survival, you should never fight fair. you don't want to fight from inside your home. they can box you in, surround you, try to burn you out, etc. ambushing them outside before they reach your house is a better plan.
make sure you have generators to keep those freezers going if the local grid drops. if things get that bad, expect attacks on local power substations which will lead to extended outages that might last weeks. you don't have to keep the genny running constantly, running it a couple times a day to refreeze everything should be sufficient for long enough to use the food up. Make sure you have plenty of fuel on hand, and do the math to figure out how long it would last.
Make sure you have ways to cook indoors without electric. My personal favorite is alcohol burners, but you might find propane or kerosene more effective. Kerosene is the most common cooking fuel in the third world, because it is energy-dense and doesn't have fumes like gasoline, IOW it is save to store indoors.
There's a lot more you can do but I didn't want to wall of text or get into doomsday prepping
There's a somewhat dated but still quite informative site that was made by a guy first for Y2K prepping but continued afterwards. It doesn't have everything, but there's a lot of practical stuff here without him trying to sell you loot crates or lots of ads or anything. It's broken into categories on the left sidebar.
As far as the other stuff, for barbed wire you need: the roll of wire, u-nails for attaching it to a tree or post, wire cutters of the appropriate strength (i use bolt cutters), welder's gloves (if you don't like getting poked with barbed wire), and a come-along to help tension the wire properly.
With cooking, you can find alcohol stoves/spirit burners online cheap: the well-known one is a triangia, but it's not the only one. I used denatured alcohol (you can buy this at Lowe's or any local hardware store, from 1 quart all the way up to 5 gallon drums), but you can use isopropyl or grain alcohol. You need some kind of platform in between the burner and the pot, it can't sit right directly on the burner. Those canteen stoves work, or something like a firebox nano can also work, or any kind of steel grate that will keep the pot an inch above the burner.
The great thing about kerosene stoves is that they put out a lot of BTU, so in a grid-down situation, they provide some heat for your home as well, at least while you're cooking. Depending on where in the country you live, that might be a major issue or a minor one. Where I live, if you don't have indoor heat in the winter, you are going to be spending every minute you're not working hard, under 4 layers of blankets.
Kerosene and diesel are similar but not identical. However they are similar enough that you can sometimes swap the fuels out, or at least mix them. Some diesel vehicles can run on kerosene, and some kerosene heaters and lanterns you could mix 50/50.
That's in my plans as well, but I didn't really want to get too deep into that sort of thing on TD.W. Essentially, the places where you have the least eyes-on coverage you need to back up with traps like those. Leave a spot open without barbed wire, but with these traps. You want to avoid letting your pets roam or let children play near these....everyone in your group needs to know these are "no-go" zones.
I think another important thing about freezees is just getting extra insulation on them and storing them properly. I think with good enough extra insulation even an unpowered freezer can last for weeks if you dont open it.
Aggressive defense is the order of the day. No need to go picking them off but we have every right to defend ourselves and our families.
Everyone should familiarize themselves with their local self-defense laws. Many states support the Castle Doctrine. If you’re physically threatened and in your home, their lives are in your hands.
a few thoughts
barbed wire is not expensive. it does not create an impenetrable barrier, but it does help deny certain areas or alter behavior to funnel people into areas you prefer to engage. this applies more if you are in a semi-rural location. you can get over a mile worth of wire and all the tools to install it for around $100, assuming you already have trees or existing posts to attach it to. Combined with cooperation with the neighbors and carefully placed sentries (with radios) you could do a good job of seeing trouble before it gets to you. You have to evaluate your AO and decide where your sight-lines are, where your weak spots are where people could approach closest without being easily seen, and attempt to deny those areas with barbed wire and other methods. identifying trouble before it gets to you allows you to set up an ambush, and when it comes to survival, you should never fight fair. you don't want to fight from inside your home. they can box you in, surround you, try to burn you out, etc. ambushing them outside before they reach your house is a better plan.
make sure you have generators to keep those freezers going if the local grid drops. if things get that bad, expect attacks on local power substations which will lead to extended outages that might last weeks. you don't have to keep the genny running constantly, running it a couple times a day to refreeze everything should be sufficient for long enough to use the food up. Make sure you have plenty of fuel on hand, and do the math to figure out how long it would last.
Make sure you have ways to cook indoors without electric. My personal favorite is alcohol burners, but you might find propane or kerosene more effective. Kerosene is the most common cooking fuel in the third world, because it is energy-dense and doesn't have fumes like gasoline, IOW it is save to store indoors.
There's a lot more you can do but I didn't want to wall of text or get into doomsday prepping
saved. thank you fren
There's a somewhat dated but still quite informative site that was made by a guy first for Y2K prepping but continued afterwards. It doesn't have everything, but there's a lot of practical stuff here without him trying to sell you loot crates or lots of ads or anything. It's broken into categories on the left sidebar.
http://www.endtimesreport.com/
As far as the other stuff, for barbed wire you need: the roll of wire, u-nails for attaching it to a tree or post, wire cutters of the appropriate strength (i use bolt cutters), welder's gloves (if you don't like getting poked with barbed wire), and a come-along to help tension the wire properly.
With cooking, you can find alcohol stoves/spirit burners online cheap: the well-known one is a triangia, but it's not the only one. I used denatured alcohol (you can buy this at Lowe's or any local hardware store, from 1 quart all the way up to 5 gallon drums), but you can use isopropyl or grain alcohol. You need some kind of platform in between the burner and the pot, it can't sit right directly on the burner. Those canteen stoves work, or something like a firebox nano can also work, or any kind of steel grate that will keep the pot an inch above the burner.
Kerosene stoves are available online as well. You can go with wick-based ones (they operate pretty much like a kerosene lantern) or with wickless pressure stoves, like the Butterfly, which is a modern copy of the old Primus stove, if you're familiar. Here's a link to the only American importer I can find for it. https://stpaulmercantile.com/all-kerosene-products/kerosene-brass-pressure-stove-2412?zenid=joqggrktj9otug05b7pmme6nu2
The great thing about kerosene stoves is that they put out a lot of BTU, so in a grid-down situation, they provide some heat for your home as well, at least while you're cooking. Depending on where in the country you live, that might be a major issue or a minor one. Where I live, if you don't have indoor heat in the winter, you are going to be spending every minute you're not working hard, under 4 layers of blankets.
Kerosene and diesel are similar but not identical. However they are similar enough that you can sometimes swap the fuels out, or at least mix them. Some diesel vehicles can run on kerosene, and some kerosene heaters and lanterns you could mix 50/50.
Punji traps.
That's in my plans as well, but I didn't really want to get too deep into that sort of thing on TD.W. Essentially, the places where you have the least eyes-on coverage you need to back up with traps like those. Leave a spot open without barbed wire, but with these traps. You want to avoid letting your pets roam or let children play near these....everyone in your group needs to know these are "no-go" zones.
We're fighting against a zombie uprising, it probably wouldn't hurt given the proper context.
I think another important thing about freezees is just getting extra insulation on them and storing them properly. I think with good enough extra insulation even an unpowered freezer can last for weeks if you dont open it.