kelabar
Senior Member
Posts: 399
Likes: 469
|
Post by kelabar on Aug 22, 2020 12:09:02 GMT 10
If find it quaint that you think it would be a large foreign force that would be involved. No need to go looking for trouble elsewhere. But that could never happen here. Just like curfews, being told who you can associate with, travel restrictions and being held without trial. Oh wait, they have happened! Good ol' Aus, she'll be right!
|
|
blueshoes
Senior Member
Posts: 608
Likes: 698
Location: Regional Dan-istan
|
Post by blueshoes on Aug 22, 2020 16:41:46 GMT 10
But in this particular scenario ... the destruction of Pine Gap is a really, really big deal. It's in the top 3 list of US military strategic targets. That type of event is a trigger for 'the big one'. Folks in washington would be facing a choice of "Go large immediately" or "lose the empire". Which option you reckon they'd take? I'd estimate that within weeks/months of the opening blow (possibly a lot sooner even) a very large foreign occupation force will be engaging in cleansing activities in the land of Oz. Look up 'East Prussia' 1944-47 to get a feel for what it might be like. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)Part of my family went through this catastrophic event. Yugoslavia/Bosnia was a more modern version. Civil unrest etc really is nothing to be concerned about. I find the whole 'mad max' thing quaint and amusing. Being hunted out of existence by an organised, well equipped adversary is a very different thing and has plenty of precedent. These events don't 'return to normal' in a few weeks, months , years. They drag on for decades and lifetimes. Honestly... which option would they take? I do wonder if they have enough of an army to go large with under the circumstances I didn't know about East Prussia! Wow, just wow and from reading up on it: i didn't realise the US and UK made German POWs work as effectively slaves after the war! That would be interesting to read first hand accounts of, and try and learn about, because it's not like it hasn't happened "suddenly" many times over around the world
|
|
frostbite
VIP Member
Posts: 5,480
Likes: 6,992
|
Post by frostbite on Aug 22, 2020 19:26:42 GMT 10
My father was a POW, captured in France, taken to England, imprisoned and then used as farm labour after the war. He was permitted to stay in England, just needed to report to local police (yearly from memory).
He didn't seem to have things too bad. The only complaint I ever heard from him was the very poor conditions they were kept in France before being shipped to England. Oh, and his opinion of the US soldier was pretty poor.
|
|
|
Post by milspec on Aug 22, 2020 21:03:05 GMT 10
To be honest I dont think the day 2 scenario is credible at this point. The US wouldnt need or strategic desire to recall foreign based troops to defend CONUS on day 2 of 'stuff' happening.
Pine gap being cratered is the start of war and its not some half assed antifa group behind it if the facility has been destroyed.
These two factors in addition to the cyber attacks which will be recognised as such within Defence will have the ADF on a war footing.
As an aside with cyber attacks and widespread power outages as described, ATM networks have negligible chance of being in service even if isolated districts do sporadically have power.
|
|
blueshoes
Senior Member
Posts: 608
Likes: 698
Location: Regional Dan-istan
|
Scenario
Aug 22, 2020 21:35:00 GMT 10
via mobile
Post by blueshoes on Aug 22, 2020 21:35:00 GMT 10
To be honest I dont think the day 2 scenario is credible at this point. The US wouldnt need or strategic desire to recall foreign based troops to defend CONUS on day 2 of 'stuff' happening. Pine gap being cratered is the start of war and its not some half assed antifa group behind it if the facility has been destroyed. These two factors in addition to the cyber attacks which will be recognised as such within Defence will have the ADF on a war footing. As an aside with cyber attacks and widespread power outages as described, ATM networks have negligible chance of being in service even if isolated districts do sporadically have power. thankyou milspec, this is helpful feedback. I don't think i would have started this if I'd realised how much military knowledge comes into it!! The US military being recalled was meant to be in response to a number of weeks of unrest which had been happening over there (but that was badly expressed, my bad). I will believe you that it is unlikely If a) some "foreign diplomats" and agents pulled off a complex plot and took out Pine Gap, what happens next? Would it be public retaliation or planned and executed without the public being told much? b) how likely is it that a cyber attack is deliberately done at the same time as an adverse event (breakdown, natural disaster) and how likely is it that the source of this is unidentified and/or not named (like in the last few incidents)? And c) I'm not old enough to remember any wars before Afghanistan, and that is a long way from here and wasn't a real threat to Australia ... what does it mean if the ADF is on a war footing? I don't even know where to start reading, other than WW2 stories about rationing and Victory gardens ... What does a war look like, in a country with people from pretty well every ethnicity on the planet and cellphones on every citizen sending location data across the Pacific? (Homework is welcome... i have so much to learn)
|
|
|
Post by milspec on Aug 23, 2020 22:42:29 GMT 10
To be honest I dont think the day 2 scenario is credible at this point. The US wouldnt need or strategic desire to recall foreign based troops to defend CONUS on day 2 of 'stuff' happening. Pine gap being cratered is the start of war and its not some half assed antifa group behind it if the facility has been destroyed. These two factors in addition to the cyber attacks which will be recognised as such within Defence will have the ADF on a war footing. As an aside with cyber attacks and widespread power outages as described, ATM networks have negligible chance of being in service even if isolated districts do sporadically have power. thankyou milspec, this is helpful feedback. I don't think i would have started this if I'd realised how much military knowledge comes into it!! The US military being recalled was meant to be in response to a number of weeks of unrest which had been happening over there (but that was badly expressed, my bad). I will believe you that it is unlikely If a) some "foreign diplomats" and agents pulled off a complex plot and took out Pine Gap, what happens next? Would it be public retaliation or planned and executed without the public being told much? b) how likely is it that a cyber attack is deliberately done at the same time as an adverse event (breakdown, natural disaster) and how likely is it that the source of this is unidentified and/or not named (like in the last few incidents)? And c) I'm not old enough to remember any wars before Afghanistan, and that is a long way from here and wasn't a real threat to Australia ... what does it mean if the ADF is on a war footing? I don't even know where to start reading, other than WW2 stories about rationing and Victory gardens ... What does a war look like, in a country with people from pretty well every ethnicity on the planet and cellphones on every citizen sending location data across the Pacific? (Homework is welcome... i have so much to learn) I think the concept of your thread is quite valuable, so the criticism I provided is intended to be well meaning. I guess you have to be connected with the military system and its interaction with govt in a meaningful way and for an extended period of time to get a feel for how it tends to work/react. To put things in perspective an attack which disables Pine Gap is a significant event. An Oklahoma style bombing wouldnt achieve it. As Spinifex pointed out, its a big deal, its only achievable by a state player, its not a low level attack that can be kept quiet, an event like that isnt noise, its a key strategic asset and its destruction creates a vulnerability, hence it is a catalyst for war. Cyber attacks wouldnt be timed with natural disasters, they are timed with poltical objectives. Militaries and their cyber capabilities are tools of government. When the ADF is on a war footing, operational tempo increases, surveillance increases, rules of engagement are defined according to the threat & risk. Resources shift away from raise/train/sustain towards the conduct of offensive/defensive operations. Forward deployments occur. You mentioned large vessels conducting abnormal surveillance in proximity to port infrastructure - that would have attracted an immediate border force response at a time when we are under direct military attack (cyber & pine gap). As for what war looks like ... not like the last one. Perhaps you didn't realise it but in your scenario you have described the opening stages of a war we haven't seen for many decades.
|
|
|
Post by Stealth on Aug 24, 2020 10:30:06 GMT 10
I also feel like cyber is a more 'diplomatic' attack. As a society we haven't yet experienced a full-on cyber based conflict. It's not like "Old mate over here pointed his bang stick at me, so I'm going to point mine back" etc. It's a moral dilemma because a lot of people don't yet connect the internet as real world. I suspect that those days will come but for now we're still half-in, half-out of that arena.
Destroying a facility is different. There's historical precedence for most every military response to that ever and it's usually warheads on foreheads. It's the Australian Defence Force however. I'd expect to see "Do that again and we'll call our mates" rather than birds being sent up there for strafing runs. I'd also expect in normal times to see a large amount of our US brethren deploy to Aus as a discouragement for further engagement but with the great sweet potato in office at the moment I'm not really sure that would happen. Perhaps a token group would be sent over at the behest of the brass over there who were able to see the writing on the wall, but it would have to be done sneakily and without Mr Tiny Hands in the know (or at least, at the very last minute so he couldn't stop it).
I reckon for the most part we'd be on our own at least in the early days. In the past, the US would have probably promptly sent a large chunk of their force over here to harass and annoy the locals. I mean provide a discouraging ground force rather. lmao. But these days, with an election on the horizon, covid cases out the wazoo, and military forces being used to quell social unrest, I'm not ensure old Bone Spurs would be keen to send any of his forces away to protect another country's shoreline regardless of any alliance. We've already seen plenty of evidence that it wouldn't be his gut reaction to do so.
As for recent conflict I agree with milspec. Even recent and current conflicts won't give us any indicators of how warfare will be conducted in the future and relying on lessons learned from those would be a mistake. It's the equivalent of going from fighting against an enemy that only have sticks and stones (figuratively) to an enemy with a finger on a big red button. That's simplifying things A LOT... Like, a HUGE lot lol... But you get the idea.
It would be as different of a conflict as the difference between WWII and Afghanistan. You only have to look at the deployment rig of your average person in those two conflicts to see how different warfighting looks. I suspect we'd be looking at a similar difference in any conflict in our area, depending on who the aggressor was. And lets be honest, there's really only one serious aggressor in our region at the moment.
|
|
frostbite
VIP Member
Posts: 5,480
Likes: 6,992
|
Post by frostbite on Aug 24, 2020 16:56:10 GMT 10
Pine Gap is a CIA/NSA facility, 18km from Alice Springs. An attack on Pine Gap is an attack on the USA, and I would imagine it would attract a major military response from the yanks. If it was a tactical nuke that took it out I wouldn't want to be living in the Alice, or Beijing.
|
|
|
Post by milspec on Aug 24, 2020 17:14:13 GMT 10
Pine Gap is a CIA/NSA facility, 18km from Alice Springs. An attack on Pine Gap is an attack on the USA, and I would imagine it would attract a major military response from the yanks Indeed, with little doubt.
|
|
|
Post by spinifex on Aug 24, 2020 17:50:46 GMT 10
My father was a POW, captured in France, taken to England, imprisoned and then used as farm labour after the war. He was permitted to stay in England, just needed to report to local police (yearly from memory). He didn't seem to have things too bad. The only complaint I ever heard from him was the very poor conditions they were kept in France before being shipped to England. Oh, and his opinion of the US soldier was pretty poor. He got off lightly. Being a POW in Russia was a different thing entirely. A huge proportion never made it out alive.
|
|
|
Post by spinifex on Aug 24, 2020 18:02:21 GMT 10
If find it quaint that you think it would be a large foreign force that would be involved. No need to go looking for trouble elsewhere. But that could never happen here. Just like curfews, being told who you can associate with, travel restrictions and being held without trial. Oh wait, they have happened! Good ol' Aus, she'll be right! Yep. It'll be foreign for sure. True war is a real estate business. The aim is to take and control territory in the absolute. The moment it isn't ... its a police action. And everyone must have learned by now ... police actions always fail. At great cost to both sides. If someone pops Pine Gap ... they are not intending to conduct a police action. The local ABC's and such would likely be on the menu for 're-education' in 'special facilities' anyway. Not joining a hunt.
|
|
kelabar
Senior Member
Posts: 399
Likes: 469
|
Post by kelabar on Aug 24, 2020 21:33:19 GMT 10
What does a war look like, Search 'syria war damage'. That will show plenty of building damage. This is only a small war with conventional weapons. When we can attach images again, I will upload a picture of personnel damage if I can find it. The best description of WW2 I have ever read was "Everybody knew someone who was in harm's way." There has, fortunately, been nothing like it since.
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Aug 24, 2020 23:14:38 GMT 10
- The last world war.
Ps. I would encourage you to go with your story anyhow Blueshoes, the accuracy or not doesn't dissuade from the lessons and the combined pool of thinking.
|
|
|
Post by SA Hunter on Aug 25, 2020 3:08:22 GMT 10
My father was a POW, captured in France, taken to England, imprisoned and then used as farm labour after the war. He was permitted to stay in England, just needed to report to local police (yearly from memory). He didn't seem to have things too bad. The only complaint I ever heard from him was the very poor conditions they were kept in France before being shipped to England. Oh, and his opinion of the US soldier was pretty poor. He got off lightly. Being a POW in Russia was a different thing entirely. A huge proportion never made it out alive. My grandfather ( died when mum was 16yrs ) was an officer in the Russian Army in WW1. He then fought for the White Army, and was captured by the Reds, and sent to Siberia. A few of his mates and him escaped, and somehow made it through the German lines and to Morocco, where he died. He never spoke of his hell. For an interesting read on life in a Russian Gulag, a book called "Father Arseny - Priest, Prisoner etc" He was a Russian priest sent to the Gulag, and the story tells of his ordeal till his eventual release after Stalin died.
|
|
blueshoes
Senior Member
Posts: 608
Likes: 698
Location: Regional Dan-istan
|
Post by blueshoes on Aug 28, 2020 16:29:54 GMT 10
For clarity, this update is split up into what it looks like for the average person vs what the army is doing / what's not being reported.
It seems like, in most major events, you don't see a lot of things unless you are looking in the right place - and many many people seem to just deal with whatever happens that directly affects them, and then continue "normal" as best they can.
============== Day 3 ========================================
--- from the 'normal', everyday-civilian perspective... ---
Things have still been pretty much seeming to go back to normal.
There have been no further comments about "cyber attacks" and many people have partly forgotten, already, and gone back to work/watching tv all day/whatever they were doing.
Boil-water directives - which happened in most areas when the power was out - have been lifted for a couple of suburbs, as the water authorities continue flushing the system in different areas. it took a while for the word to get out about those but most people have heard by now.
some medicines, vaccines, plasma/blood products, insulin, etc are out of stock or supply is low due to loss of refrigeration. Most had to be thrown out but hospitals still had some thanks to their generators.
Conspiracy theorists are going nuts with the following: - The government is trying to vaccinate us all using the water supply, and when they say it's "safe", still don't drink it (nb this is not true.. let's not go there). - The government has called up the army (true) because the prime minister wants to put the whole country into lockdown (not true) and install 5G towers everywhere while we aren't looking (yes) TO CONTROLL US ALLL (not true). - etc etc
most of the social media and talkback radio has resumed worrying about christmas, shopping online, unseasonal rain (again?), and whether the boxing day test is going to happen in light of social distancing.
Airports are open; now that power is back on, they are functioning mostly normally again. Most people are unaware about the number of ships off the coast, or that there were drones on some of them. Most people are unaware of what it means that pine gap was cratered, and unless they have close-ish friends or relatives in the army (i don't - and i wouldn't know) will be unaware that the army has been called up. Some 12 year old was on the news complaining that they flew their drone near their house, it got shot down, and the police weren't too interested (not reported by the TV: it was shot down by an army unit that happened to be nearby). In Victoria: cash which has been used at Coles or Woolies is being banked, but cashouts are no longer being given; the available banknotes in circulation will decline from here (in Victoria, at least, the border's still largely shut, and people can't drive between states freely - still!) Planes were heard coming in at 3am again, and photos of convoys have been seen heading north from Edinburgh (SA), but no media comment has been made yet (someone on radio mentioned 'there's some photos circulating on the internet of some army trucks driving around recently, we're trying to find out if it's just routine shift changes or if there's anything going on but haven't heard.') Comments on said photos range from 'probably just the army going up to have a look' to "oh look, we're gonna start ww3" to some full panic.
=============== behind the scenes / not getting reported ==================
>> Army deployments happened to the ports (watching for any more drones like the ones they shot down). The drones were programmed to not drop when they were jammed, they had to be shot, startling a few local residents. None of the drones were reported on TV,
>> There might have been a biological weapon attached to the foreign drones, or they might just have been empty containers (now mostly smashed) - it's not certain at this stage. One container was recovered intact after dropping up-side-down at sea and was empty as far as the lab could determine. All definite information about these drones is now classified.
>> ASD (Signals Directorate), ASIO etc have definitely not forgotten about the cyber attacks. Identifying the source country is tricky because the hallmarks and mechanisms are different to previous (less disruptive) attacks. The source IPs were routed through the caribbean, the US, and back in and out of visible networks a few times, but the original source IPs haven't been tracked yet due to apparent use of multiple stretches of tor routing and tunneling between the controller and the servers. It doesn't help that yet again, social engineering (phishing) was used to great effect and a number of the relevant key people are embarrassed and trying to avoid admitting what happened. With no foreign country claiming responsibility for the attacks, the Australian agencies are being careful who they accuse publicly.
>> US and Australian troops were deployed back to Pine Gap on day 1, to assess the damage, check for hazards, and do cleanup. By day 2, a limited amount of temporary equipment was set up to resume collecting information; new equipment started to arrive by day 3. Some underground areas were fine and untouched.
>> A national cleanup operation happened involving swat teams quietly detaining anyone who might have been involved in the plot - including a number of people with Chinese passports or whose immigration history was unclear, but who were completely uninvolved. This is legal under anti-terror laws.
>> In the US: The US war room is very close to making a call and has started drip-feeding information to the president about what's going on (carefully) in the lead up to making a declaration of war, in response to the as-yet unclaimed cratering of Pine Gap.
>> China is beginning to make statements accusing the US of setting up "excessive and unnecessary" surveillance equipment which invades their citizens' privacy and security.
========================================
Thank you to everyone who's commented so far - especially the ones who've mentioned many things that are really not realistic! It helps. (some of the above will still not be terribly realistic... )
I hope reading over and commenting has helped you like it has helped me. I'm not going to keep doing more updates after this, but the general arc is that yes, war happens; the major cities end up looking like Syria and largely uninhabitable; and large swathes of whoever is left end up in refugee camps along the coast, where they are barely supplied by UN forces from who-knows-where. I don't know who would be funding and leading the UN now, unless Russia, China and whoever's holding the power in the EU have healthy economies and feel inclined to be charitable in place of the US.
|
|
kelabar
Senior Member
Posts: 399
Likes: 469
|
Post by kelabar on Aug 28, 2020 19:09:10 GMT 10
especially the ones who've mentioned many things that are really not realistic! Johhny Turk at Gallipoli didn't think it realistic that the Aussies would bugger off one night, but it happened. The Nazis were beaten as soon as the D-Day landings broke out of the beach head. But it didn't feel like it to the Allies on the other end of the Battle Of The Bulge. To say something isn't realistic doesn't mean it won't happen. When we study history we have the huge advantage of hindsight. When history is actually happening it is a very different story, confusion, misinformation, deception and just plain ol' human 'stuffing things up' all play a much bigger role than what is realistic. Some things may not be realistic, but you better have a plan to deal with them anyway! As for the scenario, everyone knows not to wake me on a Sunday morning or it will be the end of the world. I probably would have missed it all!
|
|
blueshoes
Senior Member
Posts: 608
Likes: 698
Location: Regional Dan-istan
|
Scenario
Aug 28, 2020 20:17:09 GMT 10
via mobile
Post by blueshoes on Aug 28, 2020 20:17:09 GMT 10
As for the scenario, everyone knows not to wake me on a Sunday morning or it will be the end of the world. I probably would have missed it all! hahaha! I would probably wake up but ignore the blackout for an hour or two. Although maybe not, having now thought about it... We are stuck on whether or when to bug out in this scenario as we are effectively living at our BOL - in a small regional town, which isn't 100% as awesome as acreage (but truthfully we don't have the skills or time to maintain much more than a house block). We moved out from the city (and feel a bit vindicated now we get to not be in full blown Melbourne lockdown and curfew). If things went really bad, we would probably just stay here, glued to the radios, and try and make our house look boring... unless there was mandatory evacuation for some reason (fallout or something). What's your trigger point for getting out of town? And at what point would the cops or ADF put roadblocks in a war, and why? (I wouldn't have thought I'd ever see a curfew or roadblocks but we've seen both already this year )
|
|
kelabar
Senior Member
Posts: 399
Likes: 469
|
Post by kelabar on Aug 28, 2020 22:15:47 GMT 10
Firstly, well done for getting out of the city. IMO regional towns are the best each-way bet. A reasonable level of services without massive crowds. I have always loved Ol' Remus' wisdom "Stay away from crowds." What's your trigger point for getting out of town? To my thinking you always want to stay at your primary location for as long as possible. You are there because you can have the best life there. Things are easy and convenient. Don't bug out unless you will be worse off staying or better off leaving. Unfortunately working out when the scales tip is always going to be a judgement call. Expect to get it wrong (because life sucks sometimes), but have alternatives if you can't make your best plans work. Yeah, I know that is pretty general advice but good advice can only really be given with hindsight. Just keep thinking about what could happen and work out possible plans if it does. A general rule is "If people don't know what to do, they will usually do nothing." If you already have a plan in mind you will generally just get on with it. A great quote from either (I think) Sykes or Fairbairn of dagger fame is "If you are in a combat situation and don't know what to do, shoot someone, anyone." Not because it might produce a good result, but because it gets things moving. Once things are happening we generally go with it and adapt our actions to give the best outcome. Until we start moving we just dither around. Best not to dither! And at what point would the cops or ADF put roadblocks in a war, and why? For police, who knows. They are gov puppets so will do any stupid thing they are told. Avoid all police roadblocks. Period. There is no telling what stupidity will result. The military is primarily concerned about two things, stopping enemy action and maintaining transportation. A military checkpoint will be looking for enemy personnel or Aussies acting for the enemy. Stopping sabotage and spying will be the main focus. The other important function of military checkpoints is to make sure that military supplies and forces can get to where they need to be. Supplying a battalion takes a huge amount of supplies. These have to get to the soldiers. No exceptions. You cannot fight if you don't have what you need. It is also critical that infantry, artillery and armor can move as quickly as possible. Speed wins in modern warfare. Civilians may be denied access to roads to make sure this happens. If your car breaks down or is in the way it will be shoved off the road, if it gets damaged, stiff shit, you'll live, the diggers may not! Deal with it. If you piss, moan and whinge you will be arrested or more likely given a kicking and your vehicle will be trashed anyway. It isn't a @#$%ing game, get out of the way. TBH the military doesn't give a shit about civilians (unless you are a spy), we are irrelevant, they have a deadly job to do and they are good at it. Get out of their way. One other point about "staying glued to the radio". All forms of communications are heavily targeted by the enemy. There is even jargon for it 'C3I', command, control, communications and intelligence. Typically all transmitters are bombed. 'Jamming' will be widespread. This leads to confusion due to lack of information. So, at minimum, I would get a UHF CB like the truckies use. They will have better info than most and it may be the only info available if the regular radio stations are destroyed or are afraid to transmit. The internet will likely also not be available. Either we will shut it down or the enemy will. Don't count on it. Radios are so useful during war that the Nazis shot anyone who had one. This was just the normal radio you listen to every day. Research the BBC radio during WW2. Every day the Brits would read out a series of sentences like "Johnny has a red apple" or "Seven clouds on the horizon". These were codes for Resistance cells in occupied Europe. From wikipedia: In preparation for Operation Overlord, the BBC's Radio Londres had signaled to the French Resistance with the opening lines of the 1866 Verlaine poem "Chanson d'Automne" were to indicate the start of D-Day operations under the command of the Special Operations Executive. The first three lines of the poem, "Les sanglots longs / des violons / de l'automne" ("Long sobs of autumn violins"), would mean that Operation Overlord was to start within two weeks. These lines were broadcast on 1 June 1944. The next set of lines, "Blessent mon coeur / d'une langueur / monotone" ("wound my heart with a monotonous languor"), meant that it would start within 48 hours and that the resistance should begin sabotage operations, especially on the French railroad system; these lines were broadcast on 5 June at 23:15. These sabotage operations played a very significant part in the success of the D-Day landings. Radio and all communications will be heavily targeted.
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Aug 29, 2020 5:23:51 GMT 10
I'm glad things are back to normal. Not sure what all of that was about, I think we'll stick with condition yellow [watching] for a while. I really don't want to spend a week digging a shelter under the house for nuclear war, been meaning to, I really should... crap. With pine gap being cratered that's very very dangerous. I'm surprised it didn't turn very bad. Glad it hasn't. I'll make a very basic one, an L trench. I suppose I could lay timber down on top for now... I was using that timber for a bed I was making, I suppose if I wrap plastic around it and be careful I can keep the condition of the timber whilst I make this shelter. At least till I figure out a better option. Not the most fun thing I've done, better to be sure, it's not full on, I'm not going to dig 24-7, but for a few days I'll work at it and then I can rid of the 'hall shelter' which the partner is starting to crack the poos about. Better to have a dirt hole in the ground than nothing. Im too far away from anything that matters to be in the blast radius, so the house won't be falling on me, though potential fall out could be an issue. The trench easily gives me 1m of soil to the sides and with the floors above me, I won't need 1 meter on top if the worst thing happens. We'll see. Probably a waste of time.. prepare for the worst, expect the best.
We're boiling water again. Oh I just cleaned my teeth without boiling... so easy to forget these things. I have bottled water, I'll use that for a bit and keep the bottles to fill up. Then there's that big drum. I might look at catching rainwater asap, didn't want to cut the downpipes, but I suppose I can go to bunnings and add a joiner if this is all nothing.
Glad we got a BBQ going in the neighborhood yesterday after the fridges all died, even with all the masks. A nice get together despite the C' thing, good to see community spirit is still alive in all of this nonense. I had kept half of my food on the backup batteries and I'm glad it's over as I wouldn't have been able to keep them charged with the limited solar I had. Met a few new people and got to know a few more better. The beers might have been warm but the laughter was real. Good to know them a little better. This might matter in the future, though if things got really bad, there's only a few people I can support in terms of food. If the food run out, we would be in all sorts of crap!
Plan B is to live in the roof, to disappear, could stay there uncomfortably for a few months without issue if it were really bad. There's lots of food that doesn't need cooking. I wonder if looters would come looking in the roof or burn the place down. Hard to know... I'm fairly sure they'd wished they hadn't looked. I wish I had grabbed that abseil rope last year, at least we could get out from any height. I'll make a thick rope with all of the loose ropes I have, that'll do the trick so we can climb down if need be. At least we could defend and potentially escape if we had to.
Yeah, the usual nonsense from people about this or that controlling us. I get the fear, I've seen it in my profession many times, people getting well into issues of being controlled. People are being influenced all the time, it's only a question of who and for what. These conspiracy things are much the same, they're controlling each other, one error leads to another. Makes me laugh, nobody really knows what's going on properly anyhow. The problem is fear is always what gets you controlled.
Army being called up... hmm.. makes sense to be on alert. I think we're right, I might just grab a few more bottles of gas for cooking to be sure anyhow. I mean it's extra really though who knows what you might need the gas for, it never goes off.
Drones being shot down? No idea on this, could be that some kid was flying one out of boredom and the law took it down for security? Weird.
In Victoria: cash not available, what's that all about. Have to use cash for purchases at the supermarket? That's of concern. I'm not sure I need anything, I could go without just fine, though I'm always happy to grab that extra thing. Do I need to hold onto the cash I have, we hardly use it anymore till now. Weird.
I think I'm going to fill up the cars with the old petrol and top up with fresh in the jerry cans. I wonder if I can buy some more of them [probably not] though I'll look. Long queue at the servo, still, I'm at the pump now, even if it's overly priced. No jerry cans, though I should be ok, I've designed my preps to only need the fuel for travel and possible power tool use with the gen. Everything else, cooking, washing, toilets should be covered for at least a few months and a if this goes to poo.
[I'm not acting on the information available only to those who have the required security clearances]
|
|
blueshoes
Senior Member
Posts: 608
Likes: 698
Location: Regional Dan-istan
|
Post by blueshoes on Aug 29, 2020 10:29:24 GMT 10
Have to use cash for purchases at the supermarket? That's of concern just to clarify it wasn't that you have to use cash, it's just that as currently, you have a choice. However cash which is used at shops is then taken out of circulation when it is banked, which combined with no cashout means even less circulating over time. It then becomes easier to force all transactions to be digital ... whether this is bad depends on political climate and who's in control
|
|