Lone Wolf or Lord of War

[acem]

Many survivalist types tend to think they will live out eternity as a "Lone Wolf". Living off the land or stored up supplies. Not having to deal with the suckers that were not prepared. Back in the 90s there were even quite a few groups of these type that joined together in groups but I don't hear much of these groups anymore.

Another strategy is to have enough arms and ammunition (and ideally food) to become a 'warlord' (I prefer the term Lord of War). In this situation you would recruit people to be under you. You would provide them food and the means for security while they worked with you. It is not hard to store enough arms and ammunition for this but storing enough food would be a problem for many.

What is your opinion?

Thx-Ace

[noname762]

Re: Lone Wolf or Lord of War

Besides food and arms you'll need farming skills seeds tools and man/animal power. Rather than operate as a warlord I think it would be prudent to operate as stealth like as possible. Noise and light discipline as your watchword. Glean manpower from those navigating through your country via observation and listening posts in over watch positions.

The Lone Wolf approach will only get most killed and plundered in 1sies and 2sies. Try as you must one cannot stand watch 24 hours a day.

[cannee]

Re: Lone Wolf or Lord of War

And why would these people not just kill you and take your stuff?

[RT]

Re: Lone Wolf or Lord of War

I would say right now that able bodied capable smart working productive people are ALWAYS in demand and if they have been savvy enough to survive the badlands, we need them alive in some capacity not as a rotting corpse that takes work to be buried and all we have to show is their personal survival **** they were carrying around. By the time of SHTF, you will not give a **** about having an extra backpack with some upgrade water bottle or solar powered Ipod. You can only carry so much, only pack so much **** in the vehicle you are using, and will really wish that you can have extra people watching your back at night so you can safely get more sleep, that you had someone around to help with the dishes, if you only had two or three more people, the shelter would have been bigger, the campfire had more wood ready, that all the work is on you because you don't have enough people to handle it.

Sure you can do a mercy kill on the pathetic sick and starving beggars who showed up, or some weak person who tried to rob you in desperation, but then you will really get to thinking "this **** is so simple, but I can't do it all alone, I wish someone would come around who has their **** together and can help". Then you would compromise, figure maybe the sick can be healed and be useful or you would put up with some lame if that means betting on their good side means their able bodied children will be doing all sorts of work around the farmstead.

There are reasons a lot of settler farmers had a lot of children - the kids were working at an early age too, at around 5 years old they could be useful, at 13, a real asset on the farm. At 18, you were hoping to have them producing grandchildren and not particularly heartbroken if you had grandchildren coming around when your kids were 16 and you are under 40. It means if you raise them right, they will take care of you in old age.

Now yes, junkie mentality gets prevalent early on, demanding, manipulative, murderous under circumstances of advantage, but junkies start to thin out their own ranks when they figure out there are not going to be many others left to feed off of.

[jefferson101]

Re: Lone Wolf or Lord of War

For the first six weeks or so, I don't really want to see anyone, other than folks who I've already been networked with. Most of the rest of them are just coming around begging, and I'd have to shoot a few of them, which I'd hate.

OTOH, sooner or later, you are going to have to get things started back up, and once the Welfare cases and the useless have fallen by the wayside, you are going to need to get your stuff in one sock and start planning more local defense than you had planned originally.

If you don't, you will get overrun by the folks who do get it together and don't care to have a whole lot of independent loose cannons rolling around their AO. Just to note, a lot more of the "Lone Wolf" types over the longer term are going to be more like Gunkid than anything else. They'll be stealing and killing to try to stay functional if they don't tap into a new infrastructure and start cooperating with other folks.

I'm not a big organization guy, but some level is necessary.

[Anthony]

Re: Lone Wolf or Lord of War

I can see where the lone wolf would become the target of the organized.

There are degrees of shtf and the capable will prepare for all of them. One man alone is like one dog alone in the wild - neither will last very long.

I would make it my priority to save children and enough of the right kind of adult to protect them. Like anything else half-vast preparation equals half-vast result.

[erich]

Re: Lone Wolf or Lord of War

I would not discount the Lone Wolf so fast.
In true long term survival situations, rarely is it a group that makes it. Too many problems in a large group. Look at society now, more takers than givers. Hows that going to play out? A lone wolf or two are more apt to have the same goals and even if alone, will avoid any type of a battle with a large group.