Saturday, May 26, 2018

consuming mass quantities 2 of 2


CONSUME MASS QUANTITIES 2
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The English did quite well for themselves Consuming Mass Quantities ( “Coneheads” reference ).  Their longbowmen were able to reach far beyond normal archery range which was a tactical advantage.  And that did take mad skills.  But that didn’t do a tinkers damn bit of difference without the logistic behind that.  Both the resources for training and the ability to mass produce the arrows needed ( a lone archer would be little more than a sniper, and about as useful for deciding the war ). 

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Then the English took that military idea and translated it over to black powder musketry.  So did every other nation.  The trick the Brits used was to have superior logistics.  They had the naval power to colonize overseas areas that gave them superior numbers of supplies.  An energy surplus.  The fact that British soldiers mastered the battlefield tactics ( taking the pike replacement bayonet and using it not just against horsemen but against fellow musketeers ) would not have gained them an empire without the colonies that provided the war machine.

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Consuming mass quantities didn’t do a damn bit of good for them however, in the next great colonial power conflict.  Their infrastructure had started to suffer as their energy supplies declined, and a empire powered by depleted coal fields cannot best a new oil empire.  All they did during WWI was to use the last of the empires wealth to make millions of artillery shells that did little to no good.  Germany was in the same boat, differing only in newer coal deposits and less need for a navy to protect its far flung colonies, giving it little advantage over the US but enough over Britain to matter. 

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Keep in mind that the Brits were already in economic decline far before the war.  Their infrastructure had already been in decline.  The war should have been a foregone conclusion, but their generals then, as ours now, didn’t know dingus about logistics other than “order, stockpile, ship”.  They give no consideration to economics, energy or ore, custom, education or culture.  They are just ordering from a catalog and making sure to have enough ships to transport.  Not that they were completely oblivious.  Most British troops fought in the middle east by the oil fields while the commonwealth troops got stuck in the trenches.

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But that was simply applying strategy to logistics ( we better secure our oil supply ) rather than only applying strategy from logistics ( we must avoid war until our energy supply is secure ).  The Brits fought from a logistical superiority during empire and then was unable to continue as they declined, stripping the wires from the walls in desperation ( as all failing empires do.  Did you know that in just two months the Petro-Dollar lost 15% of its participants?  They moved over to the Chinese system.  Granted, a one off.  But it is indicative of our loss of control.  We kicked Libya’s ass when she abandoned the petrodollar, and now we can’t stop Venezuela from doing so ).

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Let’s return to the longbow.  It would have been a Nazi Wonder Weapon, all flash and no substance as it wasn’t able to be mass produced, if the Brits didn’t have the logistics to field the weapon.  With those logistics, it made a difference in their wars.  Follow my logic here.  They had huge amounts of projectiles to use, which had to be supplied on an industrial scale.  Does this remind you of today’s soldiers and their reliance on firing mass quantities of bullets from assault carbines?  It should.

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Go back a smidge to the First Afghan War For Freedom when the Soviets invaded ( three guesses who invaded next, and the first two don’t count.  If you said “Islamic terrorists”, you are a moron and should hurt yourself, preferably by lethal anal injection ).  Did the guerrillas fight the Soviets on their own terms?  Tank to tank, thirty round magazine to magazine?  Of course not.  They didn’t have the logistics for that.  They were traveling over to Pakistan and giving local cottage industry chemists opium in exchange for 303 British rounds packed with nitrates made from old movie film.  And they fight the worlds biggest army ( well, perhaps the Chinese were bigger, but at least the biggest mechanized army ).

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Perhaps the Soviets would have stayed another decade if the CIA hadn’t given Bin Laden and ilk surface to air missiles, but they still would have lost.  Unless you literally genocide the enemy, guerrillas always win just by making the occupier Consume Mass Quantities.  They all eventually go broke.  If you fight them conventionally ( which, even had the Afghans wished to, they lacked any logistics to.  Their infrastructure was tribal, and occupying a capital with an army doesn’t make you a nation state.  Something anyone looking towards Washington DC will very soon find out ), the superior logistics will win, of course.

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Do you think the prepper with the deeper stock of ammunition will be the next military victor after the die-off?  Why?  All who  fight that group conventionally lose, but then that victor loses as soon as guerrillas need to defeated.  No stockpile is deep enough.  Without mining and factories, you have no logistics.  The same does in fact apply to defense using conventional tactics.  You consume mass quantities of ammunition.  Which, because you lack ore and energy and manufacturing facilities, will run out soon enough.

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Think about a massively awesome food supply.  Wow, five years of wheat for you and your wife.  But as soon as a squad shows up, all that is gone in a mere eight months.  With ammunition, twenty thousands rounds might be a generational supply if all you ever encounter are poachers and thieves.  But how long does that last against squad attacks?  Because you aren’t treating each round as irreplaceable, you practiced outdated tactics relying on logistics you no longer have.  You are defending agricultural land, but without the infrastructure needed to do so.  Just as wheat stocks don’t substitute for farming, ammunition stocks do not substitute for a logistics infrastructure ( odds are you won’t even be able to replicate the longbow manufacturing and training infrastructure, let alone a black powder weapon one ).

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You fight however your logistics dictate.  If you lack manufacturing, you fight as a guerrilla, not as a nation state soldier.  You don’t have logistics!  Stop training to be a soldier!

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59 comments:

  1. Longbowmen, logistics... Damn Jim you just did yout telepathy thing again ! I was writing an article along these lines for you.

    I'll post it here as a set of replies, then.

    Article : visualizing collapse through the military

    The Seneca Cliff tells us we will lose wealth and population that has accumulated over a long time. Good old Dennis Meadows is kind in that his graph tells us that we will merely go back to 1900 levels or so https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/1379496921-Futurism-Got-Corn-graph-631-thumb.jpg ). Hell yeah, more french cabaret girls and living the high life in the colonies !

    But I fear this is not going to be the case. We will slide back to the 1400's, as I shall explain now.


    Part 1 : complexity reappeared with centralized authority.


    Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire (final in 476), armies in Western Europe were organized by the High Nobles that ran their own province, which was an autonomous entities. It made a lot of sense because it was made with local people and ressources. The king had no armies of his own (except that of the Crown Lands, the king's own province) and thus had to use the armies of his vassals which had next no modern weapons, because they were so expensive. The few that was present were confined to specialy roles (against medieval fortifications) and for prestige.

    That model crashed hard at the battle of Agincourt in 1415 (about one millenia after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire) and the next to pick up the pieces was Charles VII. For the first time since the Roman Empire, he levied taxes directly on the people, allowing him to have a budget sufficient to set up professional artillery units, at that time cutting-edge technological and logisitics-intensive units.

    With these units, a conflict that meandered over a century was going decisively in the favour of France, and in twenty years the English and their allies went from controlling the richer two-thirds of the country to about zero. The War ended in 1453, the same year when the Eastern Roman Empire was destroyed.

    This was the decisive moment when a state-wide complexity was reestablished. Everything else complex followed : large construction projects to transport bulky goods on canals, royal academies, monetary standards, unified measurement system, economies of scale, standardization etc.

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  2. I read some where that US soldiers in the middle east expended 7,000 rounds per enemy killed. And then this morning I read about the dismal hit rate of american cops - something like 30%. What are the other 70% hitting?

    Regarding the massive food supply and the attack by squads, the old real estate mantra, "location, location, location" is the survival rule too. Be as far away as possible, and difficult to get to, and you'll have a far better advantage.

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    1. If I'm not mistaken, engagement distances have shrunk even compared to jungle fighting. And the sights have vastly improved. Our professional volunteer army isn't doing any better than draftees did. OR. And I'm not sure which is true, OR, our industrial capacity has fallen so much in fifty years, we don't have the rounds from aircraft to match the old Vietnam "20k rounds per enemy" figure ( which was actually higher since we inflated the body counts ).

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  3. Part II : socieites and armed forces in a pre-collapse state

    All western armies are running on fumes right now (there were a lot of articles about that recently):
    - old and extremely worn equipment for most of the force, except few critical units which receive expensive specialty equipment (true also of the Russian army)
    - low ammunition reserves (in Lybia, the french air force had to resort to drop bomb-shaped concrete block that were designed for training, for lack of reserves. The Lybian tanks did go bust, though...)
    - not enough qualified manpower , for instance in the US air force, at all levels. Not enough pilots, motor mechanics etc.
    - Hybrid forces (look at our allies https://southfront.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/3-26.jpg?x87222 ) are the ever necessary barbarian units operating alongside increasingly dilapidated legions staffed with city rabble (insert images of obese US “fobbit” soldier & tattoed gang member here)

    This means we are already in a pre-collapse situation militarily. In classic pre-collapse fashion the strategic reserves would already have been depleted, slowly, over the years, especially P.O.L.

    These armed forces exist only because there is a central authority with the means to provide them with everything they need. No other actor than states can achieve the required level.

    In a true collapse, the central authority diseappears or is not on a state scale anymore. This means that we would go back to a level of organisation that went extinct in 1429. From the aircraft carrier to your local Cessna airplane, everything not strictly localy viable ceases to function. Because so much is dependent on oil, the collapse can happen overnight, because in classic pre-collapse fashion the strategic reserves would already have been depleted, slowly, over the years.

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  4. Ah but then again , much of my training as a soldier was being a sneaky snake. All the better to avoid conflict.
    Yup indeed , long bow manufacturing might easily be accomplished with my hoarded supplies and tooling.
    As would smithing arrowheads...
    Logistics has long been an interest here.

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    1. An amateur could PVC pipe the bows, salvage metal for arrowheads. I think the arrow shafts would be the weak point.

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    2. Well , perhaps in Elko proper wood might be in short supply but in almost all forest there are plenty of shaft supplies ready to turn into arrows.
      Forget a PVC play bow...a solid hand carved wood 'Self' longbow can be made in a day.
      Knowing the knots and how to twist strings, could be a useful occupation for older folks and infirm ones.
      Setting up an arrow turning lathe is not difficult either.

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    3. I would imagine the PVC would be an interim, not yet "tribed up" piece of kit.

      Delete
  5. Part III : Local production

    It's a matter of what you can produce locally. Local, autarcic production is much more expensive than state-wide or world-wide production, with massive economies of scale and tailor-made components (I've read an article the other day which said there was only one company which manufactured a compound needed for the Tomahawk missile fuel, and it was going out of business – again, pre-collapse situation). It would be a net loss to build small production units in advance, especially now that we have no spare capabilities to do so.

    It would require the possibility make biofuels and crude lubricants (for a few hours with the ultra-light aircraft, forget about the F-35 or even the Cessna...) , a miniature Haber-Bosch plant to produce nitrates, specialist chemistry to produce primers, and a small hydrodam to power this industry.

    If your nitrates are too expensive you can forget about grenades, explosive shells (for which you also wouldn't have metallurgic capabilities and fuses) and actually any explosives. One might think that's going too far, but the reality is that the whole chemical industry is spread globally as well as in the US, and even if it were still manufactured, there is the issue of transporting it across a country with insufficient infrastructure and with local infighting. Would the increasingly pityful stakes justifiy the increasingly demanding effort ?

    Even if there are reserves, they will never be replenished, and thus their value increases expontentially. Pretty soon nothing will be worth using the reserves for, except the immediate defense of the strategic depot where the reserves are. Just so that they can continue to exist, until they too are gone.

    Local production and maintenance would require not only trained personel, of which we already have not enough for, but actual engineers and specialists which are simply absent of the locations where it would be possible to establish such local industry, and which also cost too much. We don't have enough people for our own pre-collapse economy already.

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  6. The soft and spoiled 'mericans with the point and click order system and retail outlets on every corner-roadside is poorly conditioned for the shock coming in a deep collapse. The squishy ass wanna preppers who only stock goods without an effort at producing-production (farm/livestock/craftsman goods) are shortening their own survival to the length of ther storage supplies. As highlighted by master Jim, those supplies are woefully underestimated. At least after the die off, there will be a lot of materials pickings about from the abandoned dead and useless suburbs.

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    1. At least one thing all the PA movies got right was the salvage aspect.

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    2. Very good point Anon 7:54. In a way, setting up a shop for repairs or food production is having one foot in the post-collapse world already.

      I fear that most people don't have the time and the means to do that. Also, the wife would object.

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    3. Ave 9:00,
      Not only does my wife approve of my tools and stockpiles of materials. She too enjoys creating something from nothing but materials and labor.
      There's a lot to be said good about finding and marrying a Tomboy type woman IMO. Country gals often fit that bill.

      Delete
  7. Part IV : how far back in time ?

    Collapse means death. You can be just “a little bit dead” (fatal snake bite) or completely crushed to particles, either way you're dead, and so collapse is collapse. The societies we always knew will not exist anymore.

    So, in a way, we could say that at best we could be thrown back to the 1400s. We could imagine that the collapse would be too severe to allow any form of local organisation, but while it is a certainty for most cities and large towns, in more isolated areas there is a chance of organisation, because the rot (desperate people from the dying society) would not have to means to reach it.

    The chief issue would be to decide who is the boss. Local family networks would be the safest bet, which would lead to something akin to clanic structures. If enough trained people from the now defunct complex society are still present, there could be specialization again and thus a form of feodalism. Russian Mafias are feodal structures, and while they suck, they manage to exist in our time and use specialization (tax evasion etc.)

    The 1400s are a time stuck between the Black Plague and the Renaissance. Knowledge has not yet reached critical mass at that time to set off the chain reaction of the Quattrocento.

    After a collapse, knowledge could indeed become the most important variable. Computers would still run for two to three decades, but how much knoweldge is stored on them ? Books are increasingly rare to find, and libraries have been “slimmed down” to irrelevance in many places. Perhaps school libraries would be the best bet.

    The big problem would be : would the survivors be ready to go back to knowledge-based societies ? Local power structures are not based on knowledge, contrary to central authorities and its attending business world. Their power base could be threatened, or they would lack the intellect to set up knoweldge-based forms of power. If this is the case, it would look much like the stagnation and decline of the Ottoman Empire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_decline_thesis) which interestinlgy started in the 16th century.

    (Last post of the series)

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    1. Great piece. I love your focus on depleted stockpiles. I knew about the global grain reserves being depleted over the last twenty years. And oil depletion is nothing new. But I had no idea on the military stocks ( I viewed most stories as the pretend panic of the officer corps trying to jack up funding ). And the lack of reserves leading to quicker collapse is a good area of focus. It isn't because of JIT inventory, JIT was a response to dwindling reserves. Shortages are not because of a glitch in JIT, they are a product of reserves falling down past critical levels. I would love to write on this. I'll have to see if I can find enough research material.

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    2. Fragile: Pentagon report raises alarm that US industry can’t support war for much longer
      https://www.rt.com/usa/427593-pentagon-report-munitions-bombs/

      Quote : "“We may be too far down the path to resurrect an authentic munitions industrial base,” Mackenzie Eaglen of the American Enterprise Institute told Defense News"

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    3. Only a command economy (soviet-com bloc) can muster resources sufficient and on demand/under orders enough to push a war machine or government control racket past its economic expiration date, (though only a short while longer) 'merica capitalist business and paid for politicians won't sacrifice profits to stock necessary reserves or prepare the nation for contingencies. Minions really are on their own.

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    4. Which means your job ain't safe, yo!

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    5. Anon 10:10 Yes they were armed to the brim, but nevertheless they collapsed (and many sold themsleves to the enemy on the spot).

      If we make a parallel here, weaponry & ammunition are not enough, if our family members get seduced by the mass media & social media (they will only realize too late that it was all lies). But social isolation is not an answer :
      'Guns and survivalists, but no school until I was 17' http://www.bbc.com/news/business-43038598

      Perhaps the best thing is too meet people in your area (of all ages) and see who is still sound.

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    6. Without even going to the BBC article I can guess it was in the same vein as "my polygamous family kept me as a sexual prisoner" expose BS.

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    7. Here's the short version of that article. The article writer did his best to make the family appear neanderthal in all the usual ways but in the end had to admit the subject woman did very well without the handicapping of the gov't systems.

      Our son was self educated at home, met the state high school requirements when he was 15, was offered scholarships to more than 50 colleges, went to a local community college while living at home and working part time, graduated a 4 year degree in computer engineering in less than 3, received over 200 job offers nationwide but chose a local software design company, spent 4 years with them then started his own business and now, 18 years later, has 20 people all over the world doing work for him and he's bringing in an easy 6 figures per year.

      The biggest stumbling block most people have had to overcome for the past 70+ years is the overwhelming programming by the hijacked communist public indoctrination system in the US. Most people, it seems, never over come it.

      In 1998 my wife wrote a best selling Homeschooling book and was interviewed by the NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, and Rush Limbaugh. 10 years ago the publisher wanted her to do an updated version with technology links which she did and they contacted her recently for another updated version. She has personally assisted thousands of concerned people worldwide in the learning processes of their children.

      In all things, the gov't lies. Always.

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    8. I was listening to a podcast with a current US Special Forces soldier. He was saying all SF units are below strength & they are having serious recruitment problems. From memory, the recruitment issue basically is young men are fat, unfit, unmotivated, uncoordinated & would rather work in an office.

      Maybe that's a good thing? As long as you can run (jog?) for 5 minutes you can get away from GI Couch Potato and Constable Pietime? Heck, just walk away from them

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    9. You should probably somewhat factor it, more and more mission creep is putting too much strain of the SF. Even decent motivated troops might not necessarily want to go through all the selection and training. What should be elite small units are turned into a huge organization.

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    10. GS-and not only does the gov lie, anyone using the gov as their information source lies, so you might not even realize THAT lie. People just suck, yo.

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    11. Very interesting, Dingo, perhaps the kids nowadays play too much Call of Duty and got the idea that urban warfare (that is, the only type of warfare we're gong to have) is just too deadly to be worth it.

      In urban warfare the attacker-to-defender is 10:1 instead of 3:1 in traditional warfare. That's also why they're all doing Hybrid Warfare now, turn the heads of illetrate (and unfit) ghetto trash with scientology or wahhabism (same difference) and send them off to fight with Captagon (tm) pumping in their veins.

      IEDs were the real game changer. On a separate but related note, notice how Russia is at maximum capacity, waging a hybrid war in Syria (and with help from Iran and the local government) and a small hybrid thing in Novorussia. Similarly, the whole western world is pouring all the ressources it can bear in that same area (Syria + Yemen).

      The multiplying effects of technology make it very costly to arm and use even a small force of pube-bearded fanatics.

      If you think the .gov is going to arm you and equip you (and even feed you)in the next war, you'll be disappointed.

      As I said, this is all a pre-collapse situation.

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    12. I hadn't thought of Call Of Duty being a good teacher on how easy it is to be killed.

      Delete
  8. In hindsight, it was not wise from me to post this article here. It looks as if I tried to hijack the topic or something.

    Sorry :(

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    1. Do NOT, I repeat not, apologize. That was a kick ass article. Plenty of days I post was ignored in favor of comment socializing or such.

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    2. Ave:

      I very much enjoyed this essay of yours as well as your others. I don't always track with 100% of what you say but that's probably because my life situation is somewhat different than yours. That doesn't make me right and you wrong, it just means we have slightly different issues and needs to address. But what I enjoy (for the same reason I enjoy Jim's writing) is the well-presented thought process that went into the article's construction. That is invaluable as it makes me take a hard look at my own reasoning and presuppositions. Thank you both!

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    3. I can't speak for Ave but he is probably similar. We are craftsmen and take pride in our work. Money is secondary. Too bad there aren't more real writers out there ( Talib-I think I got that right, the Black Swan author-seems to hold a similar outlook. You can always tell, but alas there is too little demand, or at least market demand.

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    4. Anon 5:39, well thank you ! :)

      Don't worry about your own thought process, lots of it is hardwired in all of us anyway. Like Jim says we are craftsmen, because we do the same thing over and over again, my brain never stops mulling over stuff all the time.

      These weeks a lot of things came together, and so I could write my articles with all these details, but now I feel exhausted and it will probably be some time before I write anything new. And then it will probably be on something completely different.

      Real craftsmen have consistency of delivery, and they have customers with specific needs. In many ways, intellectual types are dabbling.

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  9. The fuedal model has been my expectation in a post-total collapse of the current flagged state actors. There may be autonomous entities in certain areas but one must be cautious of proxy war engagements by outside actors. (Syria-yemen as examples) eastern yankee blue forces may be engaged in war with west coast/intermountain red forces with supplies and interference from china/russia for de-stabilization motives. In the middle a minion in nevada-etc, is pinned down in crossfire like starving people seen on t.v. news. Plan accordingly.

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    1. Lots of pig fodder here. Should be good. Even the actual gold fields are far enough away-the town only exists for mass consumption purposes. If the gold is even economical. I'd wager it isn't, and the mining companies are just here for their CEO and boards to get rich off the stock price inflation.

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  10. Darn good points. On that note, even modern proxy wars would soon devolve without the steady supply from their patron states.

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    1. You wonder if the colonial states would have gained independence without Soviet backing.

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    2. Especially nowadays with every state actor and ngo groups with fingers in everybodys business. F.U.S.A. will be so whored out by competing interests, expect your neighbors, friends, and even family members making alliances, in the interest of survival or holding onto power and control. Just watch the election cycles as the politicians flap in the wind on stupid issues, as an example.

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    3. Night time air drops of ammo, vodka,anti-tank and surface to air missiles will be wonderful.

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    4. 5:31-heard the one about Michele supposedly running in '20? Even knowing they are front men, still rather scary.
      5:36-the Tommy Tacticals will be so overburdened by equipment a fair number should get crushed by the descending pallets.

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  11. This comment is meant to address Mr. Ghost's comment regarding low hit ratios in civilian (not military) self defense shootings. The proper way to shoot your self defense pistol or other firearm, is with both eyes open. This is more difficult to do than with one eye closed, so most people "cheat" and close one eye. When you get into a self defense shooting, your brain wants to gather as much information as possible, and it will be impossible to close one eye. So one of the THEORIES of why people who can shoot small groups at the range, but have numerous misses in a real-life encounter is...now that they have both eyes open, which is the opposite of the way they've been training, they now have a completely unfamiliar sight picture. Of course, there are other factors such as they can't see the sights because of the stress, adrenalin dump, fine motor skill deterioration, etc. Probably (again, it's a theory) the most overlooked factor is people practicing sighting using a method they can't physically use during a real-life encounter.
    Peace out

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    1. A common failing, yes? Not training how you'll fight. Easy, just go to the ghetto with that Die Hard 3 type sandwich board. Instant self defense training. Survivors are now properly trained.

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    2. The one eye-two eye thing is very difficult the longer you've been doing it wrong. There have been tremendous changes in the tactical shooting methods in the last 10 years and more coming all the time. I have never taken an official tactical course but my neighbor down the road has been to all of them, by the people you've heard of (Max Velocity for example), then he teaches me. Yes an old dog can learn a new trick especially if he understands why the old way is wrong.

      At the risk of stepping on delicate toes the hollywood method of holding the pistol with 2 hands rigidly out front has never set well with me. The geometry is all wrong. You can't rotate as quickly. Therefore, unless you are pulling the trigger, the gun should be retracted tight up against your chest, dead center. Yes, 2 eyes, all the time.

      I have a red dot reflex on my Beretta 92FS and it negates the whole thing because it doesn't matter which eye you use or both eyes. Put the dot on the target and squeeze. I have one on order for my Remington 870 marine magnum.

      Couple months ago my neighbor came across some statistics based upon the shootings in the dark at people with lights on their guns. The other guy shoots at the light. So I took the light off my shotgun. We've been analyzing our accuracy by shooting one handed (pistol) while holding the light out to the side with the subordinate hand.

      Again, at the risk of stepping on toes that are on constant lookout to be stepped on, there are a lot of people out there that "think" they have had training and they will be sorely disappointed at the proper time, and it will be too late. Training isn't a destination, it's a journey. Ya gotta like it or you won't do it.

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    3. And hence most won't do it. Back as a young lad I loved to jog. Peaceful and free cocaine like drugs my brain thoughtfully provided. Would I have started training for the pros? Heck no. I didn't like it that much. I suspect gun use is the same. Learning enough for fun, not to be a pro.

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  12. The English used the Yew wood for their longbows. It’s my understanding that Yew of the type that they required for their bows is uncommon today, and even less common in the US. Fortunately, you can craft a halfway decent longbow from the red oak. You want to stick with the simple longbow design if possible. When you start getting into the recurve type bows (while far more efficient) you will need to go with lamination techniques, which is not a PA friendly construction technique.

    If you live in the midwest, or any area that has the Osage Orange, this is one of the very best woods for bow making. However, the Osage Orange is a very heavy and dense wood, and as such, makes for a slow firing longbow, and is best used for the short plains style bows used by the injuns.

    For arrows, I hear that the dogwood shoots are already pretty straight right from nature. Also, cane, reed, or bamboo, can make for decent shafts. The backyard bowyer dude shows you how to make some really cheap arrows.

    To me, the weakest point is the strings, so stockpile plenty of Dacron. Anyone that can weave a string from vegetable fiber or sinew that is strong enough to hold up while firing a bow, has my respect.

    I learned a lot from that Hawaiian dude, the backyard bowyer, the traditional bowyers bible, and the other dude in the link below.

    http://poorfolkbows.com/

    https://www.amazon.com/Traditional-Bowyers-Bible-1/dp/1585740853

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    1. And if you REALLY want to be confused on Dacron, whether it is good or bad, watch YouTube. It seems no one can agree.

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    2. Ahh, didn’t realize that someone decided to make it more complicated than it needed to be. For the purposes of our discussion, we’ll keep it real simple. I’d say that any Dacron of a reasonable thickness (say a 1/16”) should be fine. I’ve also seen people use paracord (most survivalists already have some of this on hand) and thin nylon rope with good results, though you will need to have larger arrow nocks. Really, anything that you have access to pre-collapse that’s made from modern materials, will be a far cry better than anything that you can fashion from natural resources found in the wild, so that’s the thing to keep in mind.

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    3. I don't know enough on the subject to judge one way or the other. I don't know if they were purists or hella pros who wanted the best. I just know I got a headache listening to the debate.

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  13. could not find the bean meat recipe. computer said july 19, 2017 was not there.
    could you guide me or repost? thanks/.

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    1. https://bisonprepper.blogspot.com/2017/07/fried-and-dried-post-1-of-2-today.html
      *
      I believe the top of the month article lists the end of the month rather than the beginning. That might have been the problem. It also doesn't help I "odd name" every article. Too cute by half sort of thing. I can't find my own stuff, 90% of the time.

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  14. Paid a visit to my local gun store today, one that in the past has done a rip-roaring amount of sales on everything from inexpensive military surplus arms/ammo to very high end items like NEMO AR-10s (starting at $5K) and Nightforce scopes for similar four-figure prices.

    The place was dead with only one customer (and that was just a "Lookie Lou") in the 1/2 hour I was there talking with the guys.

    A couple of comments were made by the general manager that I thought you might appreciate:

    1. Almost zero milsurp ammo for sale (two stripper clips of 8mm styer) where there used to be cases upon cases. He noted that the supply has dried up - he'd call his distributor when he (infrequently) saw some advertised and by the time he called they were out...because the distributor could only get a dozen cases versus the container load he used to be able to get.

    2. The few customers he did have come in were mostly trying to sell their old guns to raise cash. Many made lots of quick money in the last shale boom here (the Midwest) and bought whatever caught their fancy. Now they're trying to sell them back to pay the bills, and they almost always wanted as much or more than they paid for the guns originally. The GM explained that the market is soft and buyers with spare cash are few. To have any hope of selling the piece he had to make them a lowball offer which was almost always refused. There was *one* used gun on the rack and it was an air rifle that had been there for months.

    3. Speaking of surplus rifles, he noted that the surplus Mosin-Nagants he used to sell for $99 were purchased from his distributor for $79, who got them from his Russian sources for - get this - $7 each. That's right, seven dollars.

    Not sure what you can do with this but I thought you might find it interesting.

    P.S. - Thank you for keeping this blog going by slogging through the uncivilized comments. Spending so much time on ZeroHedge has pretty much desensitized me to that sort of unproductive banter but it is still an annoying time-waster. You're right - time is short and we can't afford time and energy wasted on emotionally-charged, unproductive arguments. I know it's difficult be we need to try and focus on ideas and not the messenger.

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    1. $7!!!!!! Makes you want to go back through time and become a wholesaler. I wonder why the gun shop doesn't just do commission sales.

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    2. Remind you of the days of being able to buy as many $69/1000 cases of steel core SKS ammo and as much 3 cent per round 9mm Egyptian ball ammo as your little heart desired? Those days are gone forever.

      The store's founder was a very shrewd fellow who sold mass quantities of items that the everyday man could afford. He had low markups and made his substantial fortune on volume sales. He sold out a few years ago to a younger fellow whose business model focused on higher income individuals with significant disposable income, along with law enforcement agency sales. (The latter is doing well - I recall a day last year when the GM told me that the local PD came in and cleaned out his entire stock of 5.56 ammo, something on the order of 30K rounds. The former, not so much. The GM said that everyone he talks to is pretty well tapped out.)
      As for commission sales only, I believe that he is using the shop for tax loss purposes to support his other business ventures. No matter to me, I don't have the coin to buy more than an occasional box of practice ammo now and then.

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    3. Reminds me of the Yuppie Scum Survival Guru's, chasing the dwindling affluent market. Suck it, bitches!

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  15. One of your best series yet! As a military retiree and one time Logistitian, it drives batsh*t crazy when people say invade this place, invade that place or they’re going to invade us. My first question on them invading us is, “what’s their sea/land capabilities and how good is there logistical sustainment capability?” That always gets me the deer in the headlights stare.
    I question ours now due to the drain of the last sixteen years of the GWOT.
    I don’t always agree with you, but more often than not, you hit the nail on the head.

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    1. You don't need to always agree. In time, my greatness will win you over on previously contrary ideas :)

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  16. Jim is almost always right on the big picture. Minions fill in the details on the small stuff in comments and guest posts.

    Like financial commentators who are not criminals, Jim will not give you a date or magnitude for the upcoming festival of doom. Expect collapse to be sooner than later, and worse/weirder/wider than anyone expects. Long pork, and all that is associated with a 90+% die-off is some tough conditions that will do a rough sort, including a bunch of folks who you would prefer to have made it. Some planning, training, spending may slightly adjust the odds, but not to as good as a coin-flip to make it 10 years past grid-down. Luck is a hard bitch. Good luck, eh, 'specially in cities.

    pdxr13

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    1. Bravo! I probably tried to say it better myself and failed.

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    2. Completely agree, especially on the worse/weirder/wider angle.

      For instance, people aged 24 and younger (half of mankind, one-third of the USA) are a new breed, due to technology they reason differently and their "collective" aspect is also different.

      On the general picture, pdxr13 is right, the numbers are pretty staggering and there very little we can do about any of it.

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