The Q&A portion of the Wild Bunch Dispatch will be held on this page from 6pm to 7:30pm (Mountain Time) today. Any questions you might have on the 55th issue please post here and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability. Some ground rules:
1) Please stick to the subject matter of the newsletter.
2) This is not a debate forum. If you have some concerns I’m happy to address them, but I can’t get into a long circular debate while other people have questions.
3) If I do not respond to your question immediately, don’t freak out. I’ll get to it, don’t worry.
4) Try to keep to one or two questions each time you write a post. Please refrain from essay-long multi-question posts. It is much appreciated.
I will begin discussion at exactly 6pm Mountain time. Looking forward to your questions and thoughts on the Wild Bunch Issue #55. The next issue of the newsletter will be released on May 22nd. If you missed out on this discussion you can still subscribe for the next issue and participate. For more information on how to subscribe, visit the link HERE.
Regards,
Brandon Smith, Founder of Alt-Market.us
Discussion on Issue #55 is now open.
Bear traps could be a cheap but effective option, especially the big ones with the teeth. Also safer than IED’s and mines.
It depends on if you are trying to get an area effect, or only hit one enemy. All booby traps have the potential to harm the wrong people, including your people, so a lot of care needs to be taken in the planning. That said, an area trap is VERY effective in an ambush in which you control when the trap is sprung. Overhead explosive traps with shrapnel in particular could be devastating to an enemy trying to maneuver on you. You fire a few shots, get them to try to flank you, and have the traps ready and waiting on your flanks. Or, you feign a retreat and get them to chase you, and run them right into a trap. This is where area traps really shine.
Are there any other traps you recommend to stop vehicles that could be made with materials laying around the house? What if you’re trying to stop a group of vehicles from rushing through your neighborhood during a crisis event but you don’t necessarily want to hurt the people inside them?
I think larger caltrops spread across a road would probably do the trick; they should be around the size of a basketball. They would take out the tires of most vehicles almost immediately, and the lead vehicle would then become a barrier blocking all the other vehicles. You would want to place them around bends and corners so the hypothetical drivers don’t see them until it’s too late. Also, unless they are driving ridiculously fast the passengers and driver should be left unharmed. Caltrops are relatively easy to make if you have any welding experience.
You mentioned traps for drones in one section of the newsletter. Do you think ground based drones will be a big concern in the future?
I think they will be used in a limited capacity for reconnaissance and for security around sensitive areas. They will probably try to use armed ground drones as well at some point, but I don’t think this will be a very successful measure. Losing a drone does not affect the morale of an army like losing forward observers or scouts would, so there is that advantage. However, military grade drones are incredibly expensive. The civilian version of the Boston Dynamic robot dog costs around $75,000; triple that cost for a military grade version. A predator drone costs around $15,000 an hour just to keep it in the air. And, keep in mind that they have to spend a ton of money training soldiers to operate those drones as well. AI is nowhere near ready for automated combat; they would lose even more drones to self destruction as they are NOT thinking machines. Not even close. Another disadvantage is that battery life is very short on most smaller drones. People watch too much TV and they think that robots will be unstoppable overlords, but really they have so many limitations in terms of weight, mass, durability, and energy that they are only effective for limited use in very narrow situations. Drones do not scare me.
Discussion is now closed on Issue #55. Thanks to all those subscribers who participated. If you missed out on this issue or would like to subscribe to The Wild Bunch Dispatch to receive future issues, visit the subscription page HERE.
Issue #56 will be released on May 22nd.