Perimeter Home Defense For The Urban Prepper & Survivalist

This post is a response to the excellent post over at Thoughtfullyprepping about perimeter defense.

“Does that mean I’ve largely written off urban dwellers?
Realistically? Yep, you’re toast.”

This is true if you face a large mob in complete chaos. Thoughtfullyprepping is correct. In the country, you can use distance to create a “barrier” between you and your attackers. Open ground is the best. Open ground is an odd sounding “barrier” but it works.

If you’re a great rifle shot and those attacking you aren’t, you have a chance to keep them at bay. Many shooters aiming at you from 150 meters could get you, but you’re much better off than being taken on up close by superior numbers.

This assumes you’re a better shot than those trying to take you out. A professional sniper can hit you in the head from 500 yards out. If you’re up against those guys, you’ve got trouble.

Any kid who’s watched old westerns knows you’re safe at day! It’s at night when they’ll come for you. You won’t see them. You can’t shoot what you can’t see. That’s offset somewhat if you have night vision capability. John Wayne would have been a real bad-*** with a night scope on his 44-40.

You need enough numbers so some can sleep while others keep watch. From an attacker’s standpoint, waiting till your target falls asleep isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. He could just be waiting for you to crawl a few more yards forward before he shoots you. “Yeah. He’s fallen asleep. Sweet.” Bang.

In the military, there are many ways to discourage opposing soldiers from wanting to come at you through open ground. Barbed wire, claymore landmines. Anything that slows the attackers down or thins the herd helps.

In the city, this all falls apart. I’ve said exactly this in my book. In the city, one guy with a good arm can hit your home with a Molotov cocktail. Regardless of how you fortify your dwelling, attackers can burn you out. Thoughtfullyprepping makes this exact point. Toast is a good word!

There is one thing you could hope for and that’s a community response. If citizens came together to protect their homes, you could create a defensive perimeter. You’d keep the bad guys out of your neighborhood.

This could fall apart for many reasons. Are your neighbor’s dead because they starved? Did they flee because there wasn’t any food? Are they willing to work together or have they turned on each other as each tries to provide for his family?

As a small group of neighbors, I like the term defensive perimeter more than perimeter defense. What is a realistic area you can control? A block? Four Blocks? That only offers a bit of a buffer.

For most of us most of the time, as homeowners, we think of our perimeter as our walls or maybe a fence. We can’t keep out a mob intent on killing us. We can highly discourage the typical small gang of robbers or looters.

Occupation and Guerilla Warfare

How do you respond if your country is invaded and you wish to repel the invaders?

In America, I don’t see us being invaded in my lifetime. Our military is too strong. Take away most of our military, and we can still nuke the crap out of any country that would have sufficient troops to invade us. Invaded, we still have about 150 million armed citizens. That would spoil any plans for domination by a foreign power.

Occupation should be looked at as a severe economic collapse where nothing is working. You need to hunker down and stay home. It’s dangerous to run into foreign troops. You can’t trust them to act in a civilized manner. You must hide your resources or they would be confiscated. Secrecy is the key. Maintain as low a profile as possible. In today’s world, remember, all of your online and cell phone communication could be monitored 100% by an invader.

If you want to oppose an invading army and don’t have an army of your own, you must rely on guerilla tactics. Guerilla tactics are confused by many for basic combat tactics. Everybody moves. Everybody uses concealment. Everybody hits the opponent where they are weak and avoids battles when a loss is likely. Everybody wants great intelligence about their adversary. If you’re playing paintball with your friends, you’re not using guerilla warfare. You’re using basic combat tactics.

Guerilla warfare means you have insufficient force to confront your adversary directly. You’re relegated to hit and run attacks. You need to find what works. The goal is to slowly and steadily drain the resources and will of your adversary.

Renewed respect and interest today focuses on Lawrence of Arabia’s views of guerilla warfare. He said it well: Guerilla warfare is a war of detachment and not engagement. Blowing stuff up and forcing the larger occupier to protect everything saps energy.

In my time, Mao Tse Tung was credited with innovating guerilla warfare. (Link to book in pdf.)

We live in a very different world today than T E Lawrence and Mao Tse Tung. Drones, communications, satellite images, and a whole host of other technology changes traditional guerilla warfare. You can’t move across a desert without getting spotted by drones.

One mistake I personally believe America made in fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan was the use of regular ground forces. We didn’t need them. When we came in with overwhelming power, we made the Taliban flee and resort to terrorist attacks. Much better: Arm and support the Northern Alliance and let them grind down the Taliban for the next 30 years. Use targeted strikes to take out key leaders. Give an enemy the right-sized opponent and they want to fight pitched battles. They destroy themselves by thinking they can win. Same result in the end for much less resources.