VGOF resistance....

[bryanrheem]

was watching falling skies and thought: If the SHTF and aliens (or all of the Middle East) invades the US, would there be a VGOF resistance? If it's already organized, I want in!

And where would we have our food and ammo caches?

[allingeneral]

hmm...never really thought about it. Interesting idea... Maybe you could head it up as the leader of the Resistance Planning Committee.

What do you suggest?

[OakRidgeStars]

I'll throw out the first pitch, so to speak.

Do we have any ham radio operators?. Maybe a certain frequency for VGOF members?. Of course, that would require repeaters and such for better coverage.

Communication is critical, and the interwebs probably won't be usable for us peons.

[TBob]

The keys to mounting a successful resistance are logistics and communications. These enable the interoperability of small, mobile cells.

Logistics in the case of a fixed area with limited or non-existent resupply, for example VA after a zombie apocalypse or alien destruction of infrastructure, would be the prepositioning of copious amounts of anticipated necessary supplies scattered around strategic areas. These would include ammunition, weapons, cleaning & lube for weapons, knife sharpening ceramics, batteries, radios, sparking and fire starting material, low-visibility shelters, medical trauma kits, medications, dry and canned food stuffs, water, and normal non-perishable necessities like toilet paper. Probably other stuff I'm not remembering at the moment. As much dispersion as possible should be used so that the compromise of any one stash would not be a huge loss.

Comms would best be something with low probability of detection and intercept. HF radio sounds great and has long range, but can easily be intercepted and DFed to the user if the enemy has that capability (not zombies, obviously). They also eat batteries like crazy. Better would be frequency-hopping radios like Have Quick capability in UHF/VHF or the 2m band. There would have to be stored with a prearranged key set that would extend out for some time. Coded (or non-coded if necessary) HF could be used for occasional region-wide coordination at known, preset intervals, while the Have Quick UHF/VHF would be the backbone comms of the cells. The details would obviously depend on the enemy capabilities and how much of the infrastructure survives, especially the electrical grid.

The resistance cells should small and routinely operate independently to both minimize large losses at any one time and to provide greater stealth. They must be mobile to minimize exposure, and their exact location should remain unknown to other cells. Each cell should operate in a predesignated kill box whose size would depend on terrain, cell size, target environment, and overall size of the resistance. Cells could combine temporarily to conduct larger operations as needed. The LPD/LPI comms enable coordinated actions.

Just some quick thoughts off the top of my head, more geared to a zombie infestation or alien invasion but generally applicable to any resistance movement.

[allingeneral]

As much dispersion as possible should be used so that the compromise of any one stash would not be a huge loss.

On the flip side of that - more dispersion means more spots to defend and less defenders at each spot, whereas several good-sized caches would be more easily defended by more people.

I'm no professional...just tossing it out there.

[bryanrheem]

hmm...never really thought about it. Interesting idea... Maybe you could head it up as the leader of the Resistance Planning Committee.

What do you suggest?

I am by no means experienced or qualified to do any sort of leading! But I do think there is probably a wealth of information and experience on this website to throw around ideas. I guess a key strategy is always survival vs. resistance. I understand that at some point resistance is key to survival, but in the beginning, I would think the primary goal is to survive, get organized, and then conduct more coordinated strategic moves.

Communication is something I've done some research on, and to get going in newbie HAM radio setup is not that expensive, but to understand all the nuances of HAM radio has my head spinning. It's definitely something I'm going to read up more on. An interesting angle though is what was portrayed in the move Battle LA where the aliens were able to locate the 'good guys' through their use of radio frequencies. Also there is the issue if that infrastructure is destroyed.

In the end, there is hope for us if we know that there are others in the VGOF community that we could link up with if the SHTF. Maybe a good start would be to see a geographical depiction of VGOF members. LIke a google map view of VA with red dots to depict VGOF members... Anybody with good geospacial coding skills?

[TBob]

As much dispersion as possible should be used so that the compromise of any one stash would not be a huge loss.

On the flip side of that - more dispersion means more spots to defend and less defenders at each spo, whereas several good-sized caches would be more easily defended by more people.

I'm no professional...just tossing it out there.

Ah, but the beauty of these logistical nodes is that they are well-hidden and NOT routinely defended. Cells visit them for resupply as necessary without the constant presence that draws attention to the cache. This provides no routinely fixed points for the enemy to attack. The resistance is in and out like a vapor.

[bryanrheem]

Comms would best be something with low probability of detection and intercept. HF radio sounds great and has long range, but can easily be intercepted and DFed to the user if the enemy has that capability (not zombies, obviously). They also eat batteries like crazy. Better would be frequency-hopping radios like Have Quick capability in UHF/VHF or the 2m band. There would have to be stored with a prearranged key set that would extend out for some time. Coded (or non-coded if necessary) HF could be used for occasional region-wide coordination at known, preset intervals, while the Have Quick UHF/VHF would be the backbone comms of the cells. The details would obviously depend on the enemy capabilities and how much of the infrastructure survives, especially the electrical grid.

Awesome... now can you repeat but talk to me like I'm 3 years old?

[Jakeiscrazy]

We could call ourselves Wolverines! Wait isn't that name taken or something? In all seriousness radio comms would be the only option I the internet and phones would be down for at least some time I would think. Assuming the enemy isn't our own government you'd likely be better off joining up with the armed services.

[allingeneral]

As much dispersion as possible should be used so that the compromise of any one stash would not be a huge loss.

On the flip side of that - more dispersion means more spots to defend and less defenders at each spo, whereas several good-sized caches would be more easily defended by more people.

I'm no professional...just tossing it out there.

Ah, but the beauty of these logistical nodes is that they are well-hidden and NOT routinely defended. Cells visit them for resupply as necessary without the constant presence that draws attention to the cache. This provides no routinely fixed points for the enemy to attack. The resistance is in and out like a vapor.

Good point!

[allingeneral]

Maybe a good start would be to see a geographical depiction of VGOF members. LIke a google map view of VA with red dots to depict VGOF members... Anybody with good geospacial coding skills?

You're full of neat ideas. I think I could do this on an anonymous basis. Exact locations wouldn't be provided - only the main node from which each person accesses the interwebz. FOr instance, I would show up as "Metrocast, King George, VA" which would map to the main Metrocast building. Anyone on the same metrocast subnet as I am would map to the same location.

[OakRidgeStars]

The sun is always available to charger your HF rig

http://store.prepared.pro/guide-10-adventure-kit.aspx

[bryanrheem]

Assuming the enemy isn't our own government you'd likely be better off joining up with the armed services.

I'm not saying it's not possible...

[bryanrheem]

Maybe a good start would be to see a geographical depiction of VGOF members. LIke a google map view of VA with red dots to depict VGOF members... Anybody with good geospacial coding skills?

You're full of neat ideas. I think I could do this on an anonymous basis. Exact locations wouldn't be provided - only the main node from which each person accesses the interwebz. FOr instance, I would show up as "Metrocast, King George, VA" which would map to the main Metrocast building. Anyone on the same metrocast subnet as I am would map to the same location.

I was thinking totally anonymous. I definitely don't want you to break any laws or infringe on people's privacy! We would do this all the time with the government to visually display high crime areas, etc. Only it would just allow us to see where the high concentration of VGOF members are.

If it's not kosher to pull that data, we would just have to start a registry of people who want to add their dot to the map...

[allingeneral]

Maybe a good start would be to see a geographical depiction of VGOF members. LIke a google map view of VA with red dots to depict VGOF members... Anybody with good geospacial coding skills?

You're full of neat ideas. I think I could do this on an anonymous basis. Exact locations wouldn't be provided - only the main node from which each person accesses the interwebz. FOr instance, I would show up as "Metrocast, King George, VA" which would map to the main Metrocast building. Anyone on the same metrocast subnet as I am would map to the same location.

I was thinking totally anonymous. I definitely don't want you to break any laws or infringe on people's privacy! We would do this all the time with the government to visually display high crime areas, etc. Only it would just allow us to see where the high concentration of VGOF members are.

If it's not kosher to pull that data, we would just have to start a registry of people who want to add their dot to the map...

[attachment=1]June-July2011-map.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=0]June-July2011.jpg[/attachment]

[TBob]

Comms would best be something with low probability of detection and intercept. HF radio sounds great and has long range, but can easily be intercepted and DFed to the user if the enemy has that capability (not zombies, obviously). They also eat batteries like crazy. Better would be frequency-hopping radios like Have Quick capability in UHF/VHF or the 2m band. There would have to be stored with a prearranged key set that would extend out for some time. Coded (or non-coded if necessary) HF could be used for occasional region-wide coordination at known, preset intervals, while the Have Quick UHF/VHF would be the backbone comms of the cells. The details would obviously depend on the enemy capabilities and how much of the infrastructure survives, especially the electrical grid.

Awesome... now can you repeat but talk to me like I'm 3 years old?

Sorry. The idea is to use comms that the enemy cannot detect and/or intercept. There's a couple of ways to do that. One uses very low power and highly directional antennas so that anyone not in line of sight doesn't have much of a chance of even knowing comms is proceeding. Another way is to have radios synchronized to a common time code so that they all have a common time within milliseconds. Then they change the frequencies on which they communicate every few milliseconds across a predetermined frequency band. This not only makes the signals difficult to detect and monitor, but also makes the radios difficult to jam. To anyone monitoring any of those frequencies it sounds like random noise. The necessary synchronization information could be stored indefinitely until needed. That's more or less what the military Have Quick system does.

On the other side of the stealth equation, High Frequency radio's (HF's) strength is also its weakness. It has very long range - global with the right conditions. But, it's also easy to locate its transmitters using simple equipment that you can find at Radio Shack. The German mercenaries fighting for the French Foreign Legion in Indochina used HF for routine communications because the Viet Minh didn't have sophisticated direction finding (DF) equipment to find them. Plus, because the signals traveled so far, intercepting a signal didn't mean that the transmitter or receiver were close by. A shorter range Very High Frequency (VHF) or Ultra High Frequency (UHF) system is line of sight, so if you pick up one of those signals, you know that both the receiver and transmitter are within your line of sight, helping to narrow down your opponent's location. The German's use of HF in Indochina was brilliant and enabled them to operate with complete surprise against the Viet Minh. In fact, the Germans were incredibly effective. He who leverages the physics to their advantage has a huge leg up on their opponent.

Does that help?

[bryanrheem]

[attachment=1]June-July2011-map.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=0]June-July2011.jpg[/attachment]

Very interesting! Looks like we have a very good population in NOVA... much more than I expected. How did you use the data? Was it just that a person posted once? Is there a way to also add a variable based on activity on this board?

[zephyp]

I would recommend any serious discussion on this topic be held off line and out of the public space...just sayin hypothetically that is...

[allingeneral]

Seems like resisting alien or zombie attack is a noble cause...

[OakRidgeStars]

Seems like resisting alien or zombie attack is a noble cause...

Indeed. That's what elections are for