Timelines with Bugging In vs Bugging Out

[ojiu0u4]

Hi,

From everything I have read so far:

1. Bug In, keep a low profile and defend
2. Don't build a bunker because it can always be over run by enough people / acetylene torches / burned out, so you have to be ready to...
3. Bug Out as a last resort unless
4. You had the foresight to move your life to "safe place" way in advance

I get the above it kind of makes sense, it has some holes... Like if a bunker can be overrun by the starving hordes, why do I think I can defend my house. Lets say I had an automatic rifle, 2000 rounds and the skill and will to use it, that only takes care of 10% of the small town I live in, let alone all the people migrating North! My point being, no matter how well armed, with enough people, or just them waiting you out for three days till you have to sleep, it is very difficult to defend a fixed position. It is even more difficult to bug out of that location when it is surrounded by the starving hordes with your Bug Out Supplies. And yes Bug out to where, the road system is likely toasted....

Maybe we should be asking the question from a different perspective. The way I see it, Bug Out is to get away from other people, before you need to get away from them, because there are way too many to defend against, not a preferred strategic choice, but a tactical retreat of necessity, until the people problem changes.

Presumably, the game plan (for those that didn't do 4 above - which is Buging In somewhere remote already) - is to be able to disappear for long enough "somewhere" that it is then feasible to return to your primary location once the threat of too many other people to defend against has reduced through death to a manageable level and whoever is left is in reasonable shape.

I tend to agree that Bug Out to the woods is a very big ask on a >12 months timescale (and probably very crowded - largest Forrest in UK is only 297 square miles and there are a million people in Glasgow and another 100K in Carlisle both less than 50 miles - so if just 0.027% of those two cities head to the closest and biggest woods that is one person per square mile which sounds equally scary as beep) let alone permanent game plan. So we presumably need to select somewhere "dumb" (idk roof of an industrial building??) that other people wont think is a "good" location such as a national park.

And so I finally get to the point of this seeming insoluble tactical contradiction...

So should we in fact inform our decision making by asking ourselves the question how many and how quickly will the population die and secondly how depopulated does it have to get for us to individually feel within their individual / group / community that they can handle the looters and ultimately defend veggie patches. I know the different SHTF scenarios in total breakdown will effect how quickly the population decreases, so lets park nuclear and pandemic for a second and just consider social infrastructure collapse for whatever reason (EMP, blackout, flood, economic, etc) something which trashes the infrastructure but doesn't actually kill lots of people on day 1.

Has anyone done any work to estimate or predict how rapidly the wheels will fall off, dehydration, starvation, victim to looters and how quickly the unprepared masses will not make it.

Once we have this time frame in mind if we think about Bug Out, location, kit, timeline, when to jump and why in the context of needing to disappear/hide from people for X months before it is "safer" to move back from the tent in the woods to a conventional building in a town and start building a group community with whoever is left.

Does anyone have any links to any predicted research / graphs. I am guessing, but the first two months are going to be total carnage in a complete global SHTF.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[hobo]

Thanks for this post. Please still resubmit your intro though!

[hobo]

Oh, and remember to consider prepping for the 'small' things in life - the ones that are far more likely than this sort of thing - like illness, flooding, redundancy etc!

[Jotnarjager]

I think most of it comes down to mindset. You can cover the basics comfortably. Food, water and maybe hunting supplies, solar power etc will serve you well in any situation but I think most of it comes down to mindset.

Like evolution, those who survive are those who are adaptable, not necessarily those who are 'strongest' (aka, have all the best gucci gear.)

[pooky2483]

...Or a bad winter. Anyone remember what the winter snow was like from the 60's up to the mid to late 80's.
The Government are the worst, they're so ill-prepared for a cold snap or a heavy downfall of snow. They're always panicking they haven't got enough grit for the gritters.
The way it's going, were having to look after ourselves, as some have already done after the bad rain we had last year. One resident raised their house up by around 1.5 metres and another one build a moat or was it a 'hill' surrounding their property.

Back to the snow...
We would probably do better if the (useless) Government didn't bother gritting the roads and instead had us put chains on the tyres (they could subsidise it). Look how bad Canada/Northern States of USA/Russia/Alaska/Greenland have it in winter and they cope, theres no hysteria.

Personally, we've chosen to stay put as my wife is disabled. We don't have a bug-out location but we do have a car.
Were stocking up on foodstuffs and other needy things (been making a list and slowly buying itms on the list).
In case of power faileure,we are going to buy a generator (currently deciding how and where to hide it to reduce noise) and somehow incorporate it into the mains.
Also made a list of 'silent' weapons to stock up on as it's harder to obtain guns & rifles. We also have an Alsation.

[jansman]

Good thread, please carry on discussing. However, we do not discuss 'weapons'. It is illegal under UK laws to have to hand anything if it is intended to be used as an offensive weapon.
Everyone please abide by the law and forum rules.

[grenfell]

Does anyone have any links to any predicted research / graphs. I am guessing, but the first two months are going to be total carnage in a complete global SHTF.

I'm guessing now but I don't think any such graphs will exsist . There are frankly far too many variables to actually plot such a thing . For a start saying " the first two months" assumes a definate start to such an event which may be difficult to pin down , there is still debate for instance on a start date for the Second World War and that was a pretty big event. There are many , myself included , that believe an event will evolve over a period of time and is probably doing so as we speak , the long slow crash , in which case bugging out in many respects of the term is of no use or option.
The level of die off is another question . At what point does that become an extinction event? It's possible that very few people may actually die. In the long slow crash scenario there may be resource wars that end up killing a few thousands , a few more in famines and such , the birth rate may very well slow but we could find the global population still rising during in such an event.
Looking back in history we see events like the Black Death which killed off something like 1/3 to 1/2 of the population and WW2 which left another 60 million or so gone and our world has survived. Ebola is serious but has only claimed less than ten thousand out of a global population of seven billion. There are threads on here that have estimates of 90-95% die offs which I personally feel to be a little fantastical but would be very frightening if it were to happen. At some point , and again that point would be pure speculation , the population may drop so low that our extinction would be all but guaranteed . For example the worlds nuclear plants need maintaince and especially the containment pools for fuel rods ( demonstrated at Fukushima ) would all dry out and release radiation. In a single case such as Fukushima that's perhaps not too bad but on a global side it would have a much greater impact. Also I can't help but think that something that has the capacity to wipe out 3/4 to 9/10 of the population is going to have a pretty devestating effect on the envoirment so those few left may find it impossible to survive and by survive I mean to continue for decades to come rather than a couple of months until the baked beans run out.
Defence is another tricky area in all honesty. It may have seemed that TS had HTF a few years ago when we saw a lot of unrest , looting and rioting on some city streets but had anyone stood on their roof machine gunning rioters they would most likely now be in prison as the police did regain control after a few nights. In the event of some sort of military invasion we would be up against trained troops and possibility all but a few ex service types would end up dead .
The city wide riots do indicate your option 4 to be the best option to me , that being to move somewhere that is hopefully safer and to build a life around resilience and self sufficiency but as you say we are a small crowed island and in reality there may be very few places that would be left untouched especially if in a worst case scenerio the population doesn't experience a huge die off but takes to it's heels.
It's a very interesting set of questions although I don't personally believe there is a definate answer other than to remain as flexible as possible and be prepared to alter plans as and when needed.

[Plymtom]

Nice post Grenfell, that's me actually being prepared to wing it no idea what of if what will happen but accept that it might, and that many other less than global SHTF events will happen frequently

[ojiu0u4]

Hi,

I agree with your well made point of what is the start point of an event and the slow crunch / crash. I guess from a practical perspective it could be measured not from the root cause / start point but that at which the public goes silly and panic buys everything in the super market / fills their cars up as recently witnessed when tanker drivers struck/ blockaded petroleum refineries. From a point of view of measuring wide impact effect in the general public, it did not matter when the labor dispute or wage negotiations or start of blockade started, what mattered was when a significant collective / sheep woke up and decided to fill up / stock up and everyone else saw this and decided they best do the same. I guess that moment of coming to wide public consciousness that there might be a problem and they should be doing something. That point will fit some form of normal distribution curve with a few waking up quicker and a few slower snoozed while the majority of the curve woke up in quiet a short period. I guess that would be round 1 of public panic, then round 2 coming a weekish later with the realization that the fridge is looking very empty and there is not much on the shelves and then round 3 probably after a month when freezer and cupboard supplies have been run low despite rationing, the super markets petrol stations are still empty... that is where people are going to get very desperate and life will get hazardous with looters.

If panic hits wide areas of the UK, there are simply not enough police, military and reservist to control 60M people - about 200K army active 40K reserve and 140K police - so approx 380K or around 1 person for every 160 civilians.

So I guess I am still agreeing that it will likely be a slow start where the event is happening and then it reaches public initial panic and a period of time to get to a point where large numbers of people are desperate enough / panicked enough to break the law and start preying on other people and then to reach a point where that tide of panic gets big enough that the police and army are no longer able to enforce law and order / marshal law / curfew.

Then from month 1 to 2 that is where I would guess things would get very unpleasant as most people are now out of food and there is no where to get any / most everyone else has also run out. Which is where I sort of got my idea of the first two months in the OP from the point of the first signs of panic buying to the collapse of law enforcement.

If we were to reach that point, I think it would be difficult for the state to be able to resupply / get things back on an even footing, especially if other countries are tied up having the same problems. We just need to look at Katrina, Boxing Day Tsunami, Philippines Cyclone, Fukishima where the rest of the international community is not directly effected and how slow and minimal the response of "help is on the way", if a large number of countries were experiencing the same societal break down it would make any response from the unaffected international community, less likely, more diluted or slower.

I guess an argument can be made for any of the time line locations where a prepper may pin their flag as a signs / portents of pending problems approaching and that they need to start implementing any plans / get last items.

[Wulfshead]

I thought I'd post this video as it is one that makes you think about before, running up to and 'after the initial reason to bug out'
I know it's an American video and I know we here in the UK will be hit by many, many less chaotic events but this IS something we must have in the back of our minds in my own opinion.
I am taken with the conclusion of this long-ish video that survivors WILL gravitate towards forming workable communities but also I am glad it addresses issues that will be deadly post event, issues we think nothing of today.

If you have the time I'd watch it, it makes you think !

http://nofema.com/video-after-armageddon/

Wulfshead