turtling

If a situation X even occurs the most important and relevant tactic and survival technique is that of “turtling” in any given situation the most important factor is the necessity for you and others around you to survive. Often the best option to achieve this is to remain in an area which is known to you. I’ll accept that if a situation occurs where you need any of this stuff remaining where you are may not be possible but its still preferable to going wandering about with people who don’t know what there doing. Consider; which area do most people know best? Generally it is their local neighbourhood this gives them the advantage of local knowledge and if necessary fighting on home ground. Look at New Orleans, from what I gathered here in the UK, those people who stayed barricaded themselves in their streets and shot any looters etc. As such your best bet is to remain where you are and if necessary fortify your position. Attacking a defensive position without suitable fire support (mortar’s, tanks, etc) is a recipe for disaster and in this given scenario fire support is likely to be thin on the ground.

Coupled with this is the fact that mentally people are more prepared to fight if there homes are in danger and untrained civilians are likely to take fewer casualties and fight more cohesively when defending. Also remember that in countries such as the UK there are guns available, hunting rifles, shotguns, and whilst these are not very effective in attacking, if you give someone a scoped hunting rifle to snipe with from behind a wall they can hold off a much larger enemy group for a considerable time.

What I personally would suggest then is firstly asses the type of situation X which is occurring is it one where you should “turtle” down and await? If it is then firstly get a group together this is where larger is better, think in terms of your whole street. Secondly gather as many weapons as possible guns, knives, axes, etc this is where you need to organise a command structure, medics, radios if you have them, cars etc. Then you need to prioritise what supplies do you need the most? Leaving the majority of your group to defend your base (or safe Haven) travel in heavily armed squads (whilst leaving enough weapons in your base to guarantee its defence) either by foot or convoy and make only necessary incursions into the surrounding area to gather these essential supplies (raiding shops, stores, petrol stations etc). This is where you can make use of any soldiers, police etc who may have experience with these types of tactics leaving the people who don’t safe in the base and not exposing them to circumstances they are untrained and unprepared for. Then if necessary you can either wait for rescue such as in New Orleans or you can perhaps begin expanding, absorbing more streets, recruiting more people. This is the point at which you have to sit down and assess long term goals etc. But at least this gives a better chance of surviving

I don't care how many people you have defending a base, if the masses see you as having more than they do then you mightaswell just give them it. Going on the type of raids you describe woudl be a suicide mission, EVERYONE is going to have the same idea. Tryi this here in the UK and providing you have enough people and enough guns you will get away with it. However trying this in any of the major US population centres and it's asking to be shot.

I'm not saying don't band together with your street, but don't think you can defend it against hoards of desperate people. Get the people to a less populated area and take it from their, but don't have your plan revolving arround looting supplies - it's just not going to work.

The problem with your plan though is that at any one time you have the majority of your people out in potentially hostile territory and with the availability of assault rifles in the US this is dangerous. (1 AK47= potentially 10~20 dead or wounded per 30 round mag). I will accept that staying in a city and sending out squads might be dangerous so the plan could be modified to move out to a town (or similar) and do the same there. But remember defending an area gives exponential benefits over attacking it.

And if you don't loot your supplies where are you going to get them from?

My idea was more like get your people to some remote location that people aren't really interested in. Think some remote farmland and a house or something.

I think your over estimating the numbers of dead from 1 magazine. 20 or even 10 kills per mag would be very exceptional indeed! After the initial surprise of being atatcked (probably shouldn't be the case with proper lookouts etc) you would be on a par with the attackers, then add onto that your defenders advantage and you have yourself a good chance to fend off the attack.

As for supplies, If your organised enough to have a large group of people with veichals, weapons and a plan for what to do in the event of situation X. You much have made provisions for food and water. Obviously you cant store enough food for X number of people for an indefinite timescale. The least you can do is make sure everyone is responsable for having X days supply of food etc.

You could ofcourse just go for it and try to loot what you need but the same problem as above applys. What do u do when it runs out? It gets to the same place but is just more dangerous. The ONLY conclusion is that you need to become self sufficient somewhere along the line, which would be a massive task indeed!

If things are really that bad then it would be hellish situation and i don't know what would be possible after that.