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Defensive Considerations for Resistance Forces
Resistance/insurgent operations should
be inherently offensive in nature. Defensive operations by guerrilla
forces should be the exception that proves the rule. Whether the goal
of such an operation is to protect the personnel and physical
infrastructure of a widely dispersed guerrilla base in the mountains,
a rural farming community that provides foodstuffs for the logistical
support of the resistance, or an individual survival retreat
homestead, the old cliche that the best defense is a good offense
holds true.
Nevertheless, defensive protective
operations may be critical to support and/or facilitate further
offensive efforts, as well as to prevent enemy penetration of
resistance-controlled territory and destruction of critical
resistance support infrastructure. Defensive operations are conducted
to resist, defeat, or destroy an enemy assault only in order to
facilitate follow-on offensive actions. Otherwise, the resistance
element should always choose to evade contact with an attacking enemy
force, choosing to fight on their own terms instead.
Considerations of the Strongpoint
and Perimeter Defense Strategies for Home and Homestead Defense
I am not an expert in criminal assault
paradigms. I know fuck-all about the criminal underworld as a
sub-culture. I've been around outlaw bikers, gangbangers, and white
supremacists, but never by choice. While I have a large number of
LEOs whom I consider "friends," I've never been a cop, have
no interest in being a cop, and don't hang out with cops. So, while I
do know quite a bit about reinforcing and defending a strongpoint,
keep the above and the following facts in mind...
Number one, consider the reality that
what will protect your family and home from being broken into a
rampaged/ransacked by a lone meth-head "tweaker" looking to
steal Granny's heirloom silver flatware in order to finance his habit
is not going to suffice to protect you against a coordinated effort
by the local DHS office's tactical team, driven to your front door in
a fucking Stryker, while ensconced in Level Four ceramic ballistic
plates.
Number two, remember, if it gets to the
point where you find yourself defending against multiple enemy
personnel, all utilizing select-fire weapons, with armor support, and
all in body-armor, you might kill one or some, and wound several
others, but you're not going to WIN and SURVIVE all by your lonesome,
and the team you're going to need isn't going to be comprised of just
you and the missus. That thinking is so far beyond delusional that
it's fucking stupid. If you don't have a crew/team/tribe of friends
that you can call, at
Zero-Oh-My-God-Do-You-Know-What-Fucking-Time-It-Is-Thirty, and tell
them to get to your place with shovels and a bag of lime, and trust
that they WILL show up, no questions asked, then your only successful
"defense" is going to be a fool-proof escape-and-evasion
plan that lets you slip away through an established cordon of enemy
security, while the entry team is stacking on the front porch.
Those things having been said, here are
my recommendations...
- Establish realistic, effective perimeter security. Don't live in a suburban neighborhood where your perimeter will, of necessity, be within yards, if not feet of your front and back door. That leaves no maneuver room for you to break the cordon and escape. If you must live in a suburban neighborhood, you better make sure you have a metric shit-ton of the above mentioned "shovel-and-lime" friends on your street to help back you up when the two-way range gets hot. By perimeter security, I am referring to some form of deterrent devices (before hostilities are openly hot, IEDs/booby traps MIGHT be overkill, although I'd certainly be the last person to tell you not to emplace them, as long as the risk of injury or death to neighborhood kids isn't a consideration you need to make) and, more importantly, early warning devices to provide you adequate warning to get out before the AFVs get to your front door. It is not unrealistic to plan for and construct, fences that will stop unarmored and light armored vehicles that will not make your place look like it belongs in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Surplus drill casings, set deep in concrete (like 6-10 feet deep, not 6-10 inches deep, just to clarify what I mean) then filled with more concrete, as fenceposts, with the horizontal runs constructed of welded and bolted drill pipe (not drill rod) will not stop an Abrams tank, but it'll damned sure stop a LAV, and at a bare minimum would seriously slow down a Stryker. Anti-tank ditches dug just outside the perimeter of the fenceline would be extremely time-consuming to costruct, even with ready access to heavy equipment, but not impossible. Additionally, the majority of people casually passing by would not recognize them for what they are. Hell, most non-armor MOS military vets and LEOs would not recognize them for what they are...until they try to cross them in a vehicle. In essence, utilize natural and man-made obstacles to channelize any vehicle traffic to where YOU want them to go.Establish a method to prevent foot-mobile personnel from accessing the property as well, or at least deterring them. Concertina wire can still be purchased on the surplus market, although the prices are certainly not what they once were. Placed in likely avenues of approach for foot-mobile insertions, they will slow down any advance. If you cannot access concertina wire, or are not comfortable with the ramifications of such overtly "paramilitary" obstacles on your property, string five-strand barbed wire fences, and then emplace tanglefoot barbed-wire inside of that several meters away. "Overwatch" any such obstacles with motion-sensor activated halogen lights, powered by independent solar cells. Make sure it is all well-camouflaged and concealed. The idea is that the lights coming on is a surprise to the dumbshit trying to breach your wire obstacles.If things have really gotten hot, anti-personnel IEDs and/or fougasse emplacements are even better than the lights, since it not only alerts you of their presence, but may relieve you of their presence simultaneously.
- Have an escape route pre-planned. Ensure that it is a covered and/or concealed route. Keep in mind the reality that the enemy may have access to and will use, thermal imaging devices and NODs, so don't rely on darkness to conceal you. Have go-bags ready to GO, and practice escape drills regularly, with all affected personnel/family members. Don't plan them. Just pull them out of your ass, when the missus and the kids least expect them. If your wife can't stop curling her hair long enough to grab a bag and run, you've got more serious issues to deal with than developing an escape-and-evade plan for the family. Don't expect to sit out a siege and survive. If you think that will work, I suggest you sit down to an interview with that Koresh guy from Texas....or that Weaver fellow from Idaho...you get the point, right?
- If all else fails, and you've got an entry team stacking on your front door, recognize that you've got approximately three seconds from the time they get stacked, until the breacher will be blowing the locks and/or hinges off your front door. A magazine of rifle rounds through the walls on either side of the door at knee level (it's called "grazing fire" for those without an infantry background) will go a LONG way towards ruining their day. If the breacher does breach the door, a flashbang will follow momentarily, and it will ruin your day. Ignore Hollywood, I've been on the receiving end of a flashbang-reinforced entry. Dark glasses and hearing protection will help some, but not very much. I guarantee you that you will be hating life and not providing much effective resistance when the first man comes through the door. Nevertheless, as I preach consistently in classes, "Hips and heads, kids! Hips and heads!"
- Reinforce your doors. Two, three, or even four deadbolts, in a REINFORCED door in a REINFORCED frame, with reinforced, hidden hinges, will slow down a ballistic breach with a shotgun-armed breacher (good luck stopping or slowing down an explosive breach...if there's a successful way of reinforcing a door adequately to stop one from working, I've never heard of it). If you've got the time and fore-warning, pile furniture in front of the door. It won't stop the entry, but it can slow down even a well-trained entry team (don't bother asking me how I know). Do whatever you can to slow the entry, giving you not only time to recover from the effects of the flashbang, but also to keep the enemy in the "fatal funnel" of the door where they present a massed target (a quick note on doors...Alternate to the locking mechanism, a good breacher will know that the hinges are vulnerable to breaching rounds. Even "hidden" hinges are generally in the same location. Whether you build your own home, or have to retro-fit an existing structure, all exterior access doors should be in reinforced frames, with multiple dead-bolts, and have the hinges hidden on the inside, with unusual spacing, and ideally, extra hinges. I don't consider six individual hinges too many. I guarantee you, when I ran a breaching shotgun, if I'd blown the three spots I knew to blow to breach the hinges, and then went to kick the door down, only to discover it was still held in place by the hinges, it would definitely get inside my OODA loop.
- Have "shovel-and-lime" friends nearby, and on "speed-dial." Ensure multiple means of communications, since the enemy will do their best to shut down any form of outside communication as soon as they begin moving on a structure. Make sure those friends will start engaging the hostiles from the rear and flanks to distract them from their mission of breaking and entering or home invasion. A couple of sniper teams engaging the command post (CP) from 800-1000 yards out will go a long way towards disrupting the enemy's OODA loop, giving you an opportunity to start counter-punching more effective. A couple of mortar rounds dropped on their heads, courtesy of a home-built mortar tube would probably be even more effective. Combine the two and I guarantee, they're going to pull back and reconsider just how critical it is to take your house, today.
- If you KNOW you've been targeted (you have begun establishing your intelligence collection networks, right? You are working on getting a source inside the local security regime headquarters, right?) by the security forces, get the fuck out now. Drop everything except your guns and go-bags, and whatever else you can carry, hit the treeline (metaphorically speaking, if applicable) and don't slow down until you reach your first re-supply cache, or a safe-house (you have begun establishing escape-and-evasion networks, corridors, and caches, right? You do have "shovel-and-lime" friends outside of your immediate geographical area, right?)
As I mentioned,
I'm not a cop. I'm not a defensive kind of guy. If I KNOW I'm
targeted and there are armed men coming after me, I'm setting up
multiple ambushes along the suspected route. If it comes down to it,
I'll be 800 yards out, ghillied up or in a hide site, behing a
7.62x51 SASS and a 10X optic, with a pre-developed range card for my
front yard, waiting for the local security force commander to step
outside of his pretty little armored command vehicle. If hostilities
are already hot, it might be a 60mm "knee" mortar sending
my greetings instead of a paltry 7.62mm delivery service. I'm sure
not going to sit in my living room watching Jericho or Red Dawn and
jerking off while I wear my multi-cams and the latest Tactical Tailor
plate carrier, festooned with mag pouches that have never been muddy.
These are however,
the recommendations I try and make if someone asks me how to defend
their homestead. If you've got a group/crew/tribe, all ensconced on
the same property? Look at the first half of this article and start
planning an area defense.
Nous Defions!
John Mosby
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