Security: Fences, gates (five (5)-eights (8)-inch diameter or larger), locking road cables, rosebush plantings, "decorative " ponds (moats), ballistic protection (personal and residential), anti-vehicular ditches/berms, anti-vehicular concrete "planter boxes," razor wire, etc.
•Oversize vegetable garden. Ring with flower beds and some tall floweiing shrubs.
•Get a big, quiet, mean-looking (but obedient) guard dog.
•Plant several rosebushes or thorny bougainvillea vines beneath each window.
•Buy defensive wire (military-surplus concertina wire or civilan razor wire).
•Replace all of your exterior doors with sturdy steel ones in steel frames.
Turn your garage into a mini-warehouse, with lots of heavy-duty shelving. Plan for a security detail to protect the water detail.
Buy a CB radio and a few walki-talkies so that you can coordinate security with your neighbors.
Want a pair of military-surplus field telephones, for coordinating retreat security. House don't have barred windows or European-style security/storm shutters, defensible space, and they often have no barriers for the approach of vehicles.
Pick a retreat parcel that can provide both open fields of fire out to fifty (50) or sixty (60) yards (150 feet or 180 feet) yet not have a house visible from nearby roads. Getting infrared (IR) floodlights to house the exterior of your house. They can be motion-sensor activated.
A layered defense that is adaptable to changing circumstances - all the way up to the dreaded "worst-case" societal collapse. Install your seismic intrusion-detection sensor in the outermost layer. This gives you early warning of approaching malefactors. If it would not look too out of the ordinary in your neighborhood then might consider planting a "decorative" thorny hedge around as much of your perimeter as possible, and installing a gate across the bottom of your driveway. The gate should have a spiked top to discourage gate jumpers. Make the hedge and the gate the maximum height that you can without being branded as the poster child for paranoia. Any access roads should also have a MURS-frequency Dakota Alert (or similar) wireless IR-beam motion detector. Then, depending on your situation, you might want a screen of trees for concealment. Next, some open ground, then a tall chain-link fence. Then more open ground close to your house and outbuildings. This area should be crisscrossed with tangle-foot wire. Lastly, thorny bushes beneath each window, and beefy steel shutters.
Even well-manned retreats should supplement their guard staff with both dogs and intrusion-detection system. Reliable night-vision gear is also a must. But please note that technology by itself is insufficient. Intrusion-detection, communications, and night-vision technologies are force multipliers, but you still need underlying force. It takes 24/7 manpower to defend against retreat.
Now, getting back to concealment: There are advantages in most situations to adding some "privacy-screen" trees to block the view of your house from any regularly traveled roads. Depending on the lay of the land, leaving thirty (30) yards (90 feet) of open ground (for defense) and then another ten (10) yards (30 feet) of thickness for the privacy tree screen will probably necessitate a property that is at least ten (10) acres.
Regardless of what you decide to do in terms of concealment, be sure to leave at least twenty (20) yards (60 feet) of open ground for last-ditch ballistic defense. To impede intruders, think in terms of gates, cables, and "decorative" b3rms to stop vehicles. A chain-link fence will keep your dog(s) in and at least slow down the bad guys.
Keep some concertina wire or razor wire handy, but do not install it in pre-Schumer times. This wire should be installed only after it is clear that law and order have completely broken down. Add some staked-down horizontal rolls just beyond your fence.
Temporary and Permanent Obstacles for Retreat Security
Favorite roadblock is a Caterpillar ("Cat") or similar tracked tractor, parked perpendicular at a narrow spot on a road, with its blade dropped and ignition system disabled. This will stop just about any vehicle short of another Cat. The biggest advantage of this method is that a Cat can be moved quickly to allow the passage of "friendlies."
One fairly inexpensive techniques is to emplace multiply five-eights-inch-diameter steel cables at twenty-to fifty-foot intervals strong eighteen inches above the ground, secured with heavy-duty padlocks. To gain entry, even someone equipped with large bolt cutters would have to repeatedly reduce each obstacle. And during that time, they could be warned off directly engaged with rifle dire.
Prowlers and Lighting
Pre-TEOTWAWKI
Under present circumstances, security lighting is a benefit. You have law enforcement available to call. Prowlers aren't likely to shoot at you. For Pre-TEOTWAWKI, it is best to think in terms of active defenses, such as vapor lights, 1,000,000-candlepower twelve-volt DC handheld spotlights, full-spectrum trip flares, barking dogs, peafowl, tangle-foot wire, concentrina wire, and silent alarm systems.
Post-TEOTWAWKI
For Post-TEOTWAWKI, it is best to think in terms of passive defenses, such as star light scopes, infrared chemical lights - stick trip flares, quiet (but alert) dogs, tangle-foot wire, concentrina wire, and silent alarm systems.
Safe at Home
Buy a brick or other masonry house and upgrade its security, or, start with a bare lot and custom-build a stout house with an intergral safe room. Two good starting points for house designs are Mexican walled courtyards and building, with square bastion (also known as copper corners). These projecting corners eliminate the blind spots that are common to typical square or rectangular houses.
Safe Rooms and Vaults
Replacing your bedroom doors with heavy-duty exterior-type doors (preferably steel) with sturdy hinges and one or more dead bolt locks.
A built-in basement walk-in safe room is ideal. Reinforced poured-concrete floor, walls, and ceiling. Specify a vault door that opens inward, so it won't be jammed shut by debris in the event of tornado, hurricanes, or bomb blast.
Warehouses
Many warehouses have a security office, usually equipped with bathroom facilities and therefore an immediate source of water.
Military Complexes
Elaborate security fences around their perimeters. Some have secondary, even tertiary defensive positions. Most are equipped with fully stocked, fully functional fallout shelters, some with the capabilities of a small city.
The layout should be scouted and building materials either purchased or designated from the terrain. If thry succeed in breaching your defenses, always have a fallback position prepared.
False wall with one of these hidden, slide-out gun racks. This is hidden behind an average-looking metal supply closet which is hung on car truck hinges.
Check food supply.
Check generators.
Double check doors and windows.
The urban environment offers a wealth of excellent firing position and plenty of hard cover. Urban terrain is ideal for snipers. The main tools in urban operations are patrols and building clearance.
Catalog all supplies. Establish renewable water sources.
Anything I should add, change, and/or
delete.
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Idea and Research Book
General FictionThese are the ideas I have come up with over the years. This include fanfiction I could come up with or fanfiction based on something. This is a wiki of sorts.
