**UPDATE** I'm still not seeing many local units offer any answers to this essential topic. Are you planning to "tax" the locals, and just take what you need? FYI - taxing civilians will earn you a Kerodin blade in your neck. Just so you know. Does your team even have the skills to hotwire a car anymore, if so? This stuff matters, folks - at least as much as every man being armed. No need to reveal your laundry here - so long as you have an answer in your Team.
Not sure how to put this, not sure how it will work, I'm just throwing it out there so you folks with experience in such matters can start working out the details.
Performing capers, any FreeFor caper, requires widgets.
If a caper is going to happen with a single Operator in Cleveland, what's it going to take to get logistics to pre-stage the widgets he needs - like escape cars, maybe a motor cycle, maybe a bottle of mascara - stuff he can't get on his own, or would draw suspicion, and stuff that may be used once and then useless for future work.
This takes money. The III community has no real money players to support capers, especially distant capers (or, do we?)
And Logistics is a skill unto itself.
Feel free to talk among yourselves, I have little knowledge to contribute - I fall onto the operational side of things - the guy who needs the widgets and safe houses and such.
If I was a dangerous radical, that is. Of course, I'm not. I'm loveable and fluffy.
K
Enemies of Liberty are ruthless. To own your Liberty, you'd better come harder than your enemies..
I know of two III Patriots that have been in the Logistics industry for 13 years. We will leave it at that, I will PM you the rest.
ReplyDeleteIn Liberty,
Israel
III
People should have dead drops, gear caches and safe "locations" already set up in their home state. Moving "things" after the dance starts will require special skills and "unusual" connections.
ReplyDeleteSomething as simple as a wallet of cash in a bus station locker may just save your ass.
So much of logistics being possible or not is dependent on just how popular the resistance is in general which would in turn limit what type of operations can be mounted.
ReplyDeleteIf you want untraceable escape vehicles have a logistics officer from a large urban area network with a rural group. Basically the logistics side is going to have to work full time networking and urging cooperation between groups in many cases.
It would be a very dangerous job but the most necessary one.
I also know a Patriot or two (myself included) that's worked logistics.
ReplyDeleteWhatever y'all come up with I would suggest the changing of hands several times to make it harder to track.
Working on other aspects.
ReplyDeleteAlready have plate available.
Seeds are out there too.
Working on medical...
What else might be needed that might be affordable through group effort? "Together WE ARE III"
Willing to work log too.
+1 that idea. I am working it down here in NC as well, thinking along the lines of AF Mobile Field Surgical Team units with backpack sets. Maybe some SF doctor types could weigh in as to priorities? Maybe we could devote some PATCON time to this?
ReplyDeleteCaR-DH
So, the consensus seems that each Team/Tribe should have its own Logistics Officer, and/or Logistics Team, tasked with pre-positioning required assets prior to an Op. OK.
ReplyDeleteNow here is a real-world aspect I'm not sure many folks realize: When you are a Logistician for .Gov, you have resources. When you need 3 pre-positioned escape vehicles in three locations in case the Team must exfil in X direction, it really doesn't take much more than a trip to the local motor pool and three bodies to drive the cars to the spots, leave the keys under the mat, and walk away. Then they can pre-position weapons (scrubbed, untraceable) in bathrooms at 4 different local restaurants in case one of your Operators needs a piece in a hurry.
FreeFor simply doesn't have it that easy, and never will. Your Logistics Team will have to steal 3 cars and risk arrest getting them into position. Then the odds are high in any major metro that meter-maids will identify your stolen vehicles before your Op runs. In order for your Logistics guy to pre-position 4 firearms, he must first steal 4 firearms - not a safe act in itself, or make 4 firearms (or get 4 home-made forearms from your armorer), then risk capture just getting those assets in place. And if your armorer sucks, your Operator may pull a wet billyclub out of the toilet tank and hear a 'click' when it should go 'bang' - then you have what we affectionately call a ClusterFoxtrot.
So - without divulging any sensitive intel on an open blog thread, sketch ourt the infrastructure you are setting in place? Are you adding car thieves to your Team? Car Jackers? Do you have plans to steal enough money from Citizens to buy operational needs? The Koch's are NOT going to help you buy what you need.
K
K, as you know I have a background in working logistics for FedGov intel ops, both in the field and here in the homeland (thankfully, my homeland ops were all targeting known Islamic nutcases in Illinois/Michigan). I read your post early this a.m. and have been thinking about it all day. I just came back to the blog to post a reply, and I see you stole my thunder. As a FedGov guy all I had to do was make a call to get assets and equipment...something we won't be able to do as a FreeFor. But, I'm willing to assist in any way possible with anyone's endeavors. I'm in AZ now, hopefully relocating to ID next month, so that area (pacific northwest and North/South Dakota to the west) would be my best oparea. Vehciles are always going to be tight, but that hurdle can be overcome with some judicious planning (I can expand that thought if needed). Weapons.....well, we still have the "gun show loophole" that allows person-to-person sales with no records. Have a friend/neighbor you trust but one....he/she sells it to another friend, who sells it to you, who loses it (and reports it lost to LEO) in a hiking/camping mishap, or boating accident, or stolen, whatever. it's then relatively clean for our use and provides enough cutouts to provide advanced warning of impending SWAT visits and/or fedGov rollups. Developing a network, nationwide, of knows individuals who we trust and can be used as contacts for support, resupply, conveyance, whatever, is paramount. But, in order to do that we need a more formalized structure than we currently have. Something along the lines of Frontiersmen; but a bit more under the radar.
ReplyDeleteJust my two cents.
Fuzzy: So, you agree that for FreeFor Teams, acquiring assets is essentially going to be a long-term game of Grand Theft Auto and such, with all the inherent risks, yes? I don't see an easy answer, do you? Either way, the Operator is quite often going to have his ass swinging in the wind if he gets pulled over for a legitimate traffic stop and he's geared up in stolen guns and hot plates on the car...
DeleteAm I missing any of the fundamentals?
No answers means no good solution YET. It takes time to wrench your mind around to being a crook, even if it is for a cause - not something us PRODUCERS are used to. Here's my train of thought - bash at will. OPSEC - for obvious reasons, you can't contract the job out - this needs to be done in-house, which means personal risk. ALARMS - modern cars may be just as easy to hotwire as older models, but the alarm systems still need to be defeated, unless you are stealing an older car from the local Rent-A-Wreck. I advise mitigating unnecessary risks where possible. Alternative - buy an old clunker out of the newspapers for $500, make it run, and abandon it if/when compromised. Maybe one job, maybe more . . . Stealing plates only seems smarter to me - it takes longer to notice, and longer to report.
ReplyDeleteCaR-DH
Setting aside the "legal" aspects -which hardly matter anymore in a Nation no longer under the Rule of Law, I have to say WTF are you thinking?
ReplyDeleteStolen vehicles are reported -which makes your "getaway" vehicle marked -even before your op. Running for cover after a successful op and -12 LEO's are waiting around your primary and secondary escape vehicles is going to ruin your day. Even worse if it is towed to the impound yard from its emplaced position before you can even get to it. It isn't glamorous, but scooters in most states have no licensing or registration issues, dirt bikes, atv's, etc. are much the same -and all can be chained down someplace without drawing much attention. Even golf carts (suitably modified) would seem to be a much better solution; even horses in some circumstances would be better than drawing unwanted -and negative- attention via theft or larceny.
Nothing could or would delegitimize the III% faster than adopting the label of criminal -then the gov's PR can legitimately claim that they are suppressing a militant, criminal gang responsible for a rash of auto and gun thefts -while our own PR has its hands tied.
Do you know why the First American Revolution succeeded in seceding while the Second did not?
Positive PR both in the colonies AND in England kept the opposition off balance. England lost the PR War and as a consequence opinion was divided among our enemies both here and in England. That is why it was so critical for the British to fire First at Lexington and Concord -and why it was critical to Dr. Warren and the other Patriots to get the American version of events to England BEFORE General Gage could.
Clausewitz aside, whomever has the MORAL High Ground has a considerable leg up Strategically over the enemy.
The Southern Confederacy had none of these things. Even today, thanks to lost Moral High Ground that Revolution is popularly thought of terms of "slavery" rather than "State's Rights"
Someone with half a brain and Photoshop could print reflective vinyl license plate stickers -stealing from the Enemy- rather than stealing from and antagonizing potential Citizen allies.
Only III% may have fought, but they could only do so with the overt/covert support of another third of the population and apathy one way or the other on a significant portion of the remainder. That formed the majority of the Continental Army's logistics -good will not the dollars they had to pay with -which "weren't worth a Continental".
Good will that can translate into "sure you guys can use my car, but I will report it stolen at noon precisely" or locals of one town or village leaving gasoline cans under a bridge for you etc.
Thirty guys show up in fatigues in rural South Carolina and loot a town is VERY BAD PR -but thirty polite young men show up and plant vegetables, fix a couple cars, harvest a crop, or chop wood in EXCHANGE for what they need -and maybe sometimes a little less- is VERY GOOD PR and will not take a disciplined group terribly long.
From the business world -a happy customer will tell 9 people of their experience over the course of a year and those nine will on average only tell one other person.
An unhappy one will tell eleven, and each of those will tell (a proven average of) six more.
See how easy it would be to win or loose this whole thing on PR alone?
Build some dune buggies from salvage, buy "S" titled vehicles or put ads "I pay cash for used cars running or not" -then get 'em running and never title it.
Sorry, I read here a lot and try not to interject my opinion too often, but...
True Blue: Thanks - this is the purpose of the post.
DeleteRunning a caper of even small scope will put the Operator in jeopardy on several fronts, present many moral question that simply CAN NOT BE IGNORED.
And as I have said before: We must not violate the Constitution to save the Constitution.
K