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Letter Re: Anti-Vehicular Barriers for Retreat Security
Dear Jim,
I have for some time been meaning to write about vehicular and other counter-mobility
obstacles. The dramatic video that you posted yesterday has prompted me.
Ever since reading "Patriots",
when the looters simply cut the lock on the front gate with a “universal key” (bolt
cutters), it has been on my mind. Coming as I do from a combat engineer background,
I couldn’t believe
how they could have overlooked such as basic aspect of perimeter hardening.
They could have very well lost that fight because some clown had the sense
to bring a pair of bolt cutters along.
In terms of retreat security, counter-mobility, from both an anti-personnel
and anti-vehicular aspect, must be a high priority. In your profiles of retreat
people you know, I noticed that only one--the Vietnam veteran--had laid
in a heavy stockpile of barbed wire. He obviously has some experience with
this.
It must be stated from the onset that barriers of any kind are intended only
to delay and channel aggressors, rarely will they stop them outright. Given
preparation, planning, time and determination, any barrier can be breached.
In a survival situation, however, this adds up to, “How bad do you want
in here?” This is where the delay and channel aspects can turn into a
painful experience and aggressors are forced to choose between paying dearly
for entrance or picking a softer target. And that's what we're looking for.
From there, in terms of counter mobility, there are thus two categories…anti-vehicular
and anti-personnel. As one may expect, one set is designed for cars and such
and the other for humans on foot. We deal here with the vehicles.
In the anti-vehicular category there are two sub-categories; above and below
ground. The below ground category consists of obstacles such as ditches, pit
falls and craters (or mines if you take it all the way).
These are deliberately created, or in some cases simply improved, terrain features
that prevent vehicles from moving across with ease. For example, a deep ditch
with steep walls prevents easy transverse because the vehicle falls in nose
first and gets stuck, unable to rear up and clear the opposite side. These
sorts of obstacles have to be bridged in order to be crossed. It is unlikely
in a TEOTWAWKI scenario
that the looters will be bringing along bridging sections, so if time and resources
permit, such features can be used to deny easy access
from road frontage. If you have access to a loader of some kind, they’re
not to difficult to dig (given the right ground) and when the grass grows over
them they don’t appear as militant as a chain link fence. Existing ditches
can be modified to achieve the sheer wall on the side facing your main line
of resistance (MLR).
Such obstacles can also be installed on roads at choke points. Here is where
the obstacle isn’t a ditch line running for 3⁄4 of a mile along
your road, but a single point on a road or your driveway where the trees get
in tight, for example. In the West in particular, cattle guards are outstanding.
In normal times the grate stays down, when it’s time to close the road,
the grate comes up. Unless they’ve brought a monster truck along, getting
across one of these dug out to four feet deep is going to be an axel breaking,
hood crunching proposition. (I remember well a midnight encounter with an irrigation
ditch in NM that had quite the same effect)
There are several drawbacks to these features, however. First, if they are
permanent and outsiders can’t get across, neither can you…unless
you have your own bridging apparatus planned and on hand or permanent crossing
points, such as your driveway culvert. (The classic draw bridge/cattle guard
is such an example)
Second, without accompanying anti-personnel obstacles and being well covered,
they make good cover for anyone dismounted, being that they are essentially
a trench. But, if far enough away from your main line of resistance, with a
good bit of open ground (and maybe some anti-personnel stuff between the ditch
and you) they can at least prevent a mounted attack coming in at speed right
to your doorstep.
Then there are the above ground types of anti-vehicular obstacle. The concrete
barrier is by the far the most common type in use here in the US . As we saw
on the video, they posses impressive stopping power. (They are, however, permanent
and provide cover)
Another kind is the “Bollard” type. These are simply solid posts
of various materials ranging from wood to cast iron (or old cannon barrels
in some places) that are dug into the ground or set down into receptacles in
the ground and locked. We see these in use to deny sidewalk parking or restrict
access to service roads that are in frequent use. Sometimes they are reinforced
with heavy rope or chain running between them, especially if they run for any
distance. Unlike a concrete barrier, they can easily be passed off as a “decorative” feature.
If they happen to be made from something along the lines of railroad ties with
1in cable running between them, they become something a bit more. Even railroad
rails or I beams, cut to length and placed so that a vehicle cannot squeeze
through them will generally stop anything this side of a tracked armored vehicle.
The real beauty of bollards is that they can be emplaced as needed, usually
across choke points, and pulled up and stashed when not needed if engineered
for it.
A more permanent type was seen in Britain where invasion preparations featured
concrete cubes or cylinders set like the classic WWII dragon’s teeth.
There were also the classic I-beam “hedgehogs” where beams were
welded together in a crossing pattern and then secured in some manner to the
ground.
Then there are good old fashioned gates. As we saw in "Patriots", a gate is only
as strong as whatever is locking it closed. As they are also dependent on hinges
generally, if the post goes, so does the gate. Only the most robust structures
of this type will stop vehicles generally.
There is one other kind, however, that was employed all over southern Britain
in preparation for the expected German landings. These were gates of a sort,
but instead of having the opening and closing feature, they were simply two
very heavy colonnades of stone and concrete on each side of the road with slots
left in them for inserting railroad rails or I-beams when the time came.
A good cross section of these pre-invasion obstacles set out in southern Britain
can be seen at this
web site. Typically British, they were usually unobtrusive, which may also
be a boon for retreats wishing to avoid the “Nut case survivalist” label
too soon into the game.
In any case, anti-vehicular counter mobility obstacles should be part of any
survivalist retreat plan. Be they professional looking “Driveway” bollards
or simply trees knocked down across the road [an "abatis"] when the time comes,
they prevent looters from roaring up to your doorstep and bailing out guns
ablaze.
Even
a strategically planted line of fast maturing trees will have the desired effect.
Surfing around online a bit will give all sorts of good ideas, as will a copy
of the [U.S. Arm]y Engineer Field Data manual, FM 5-34.
In any case, the inventive will come up with any number of ways to block roads
when sticking to the two main categories; above and below ground obstacles.
But always remember, obstacles are not intended to stop an advancing aggressor
in their tracks. They are intended to slow them down or channel them into kill
zones of your choosing. Essentially, with anti-vehicular emplacements, the
best idea is to turn a mounted, 40 m.p.h. advance in a steel chassis into a
dismounted, 8 m.p.h. advance behind a cotton shirt.(Or, at the very least
a 10m.p.h. advance
as they slow down to try and get past all this crazy junk in the road, at which
point their 8 cylinder engine starts becoming
a 9, 10, 11, 12 cylinder because of the 30-06 AP that’s
ventilating the engine block.)
At that point, your adversary may just decide that attacking you is a bit too
pricey and move on.
P.S.: if any of you haven’t read "Patriots" yet,
do so. Then read it again…and
take technical notes. I recommend tabbing a notebook into relevant categories
such as food, firepower, communications, fortification, etc. Jim's novel is
a field
manual in it’s own right. - Mosby
