Safe house on the sea

By now survivors you should have realized there are few things I would consider perfect, but this... this comes close.

With extra tugs it could potentially house as many people as required. I personally wouldn't want mine to get any larger then this though. Simply because you could already easily house four to eight families which is a great sized group. Big enough to survive, repopulate to some extend, protect themselves and make others thing twice about attacking.

However I did say it was close to perfect. There are a couple improvements to the design. Weapons storage on every boat, nothing major but a rifle locker with a few dozen rounds would suffice, just to make sure anyone caught on those rafts without a weapon for some reason aren't at a complete loss. A ground vehicle and emergency life-raft/small boat should be on every raft, this is for obvious reasons and there should be more then enough to allow everyone on the vessel save passage off. The ground vehicles should be of various kinds and what the crew is familiar with, motorcycles or dirt bikes if anyone knows how to drive them would be best for scouting and saving fuel, jeeps and 4X4 pick-ups would be best for gathering supplies and moving bigger groups around on the ground. I would also add more water reserves and mounted weapons. The water seems like an oxymoron because of sailing on the river but the river water may be contaminated and not easy to reach, to this end a system which gathers water from the river and purifies it while the engine is moving would be extremely useful.

Possibly the biggest thing to note is that this craft will be a target. Everyone will want it and raiders will do anything to take it or make sure at the very least no one else has it. This is why I suggest more mounted weapons, the more mounted weapons you have, the more people it suggests you have on board. Even if you only have twenty people on board, they would not expect every person to have a mounted weapon so having just the site of twenty mounted weapons will make you look like a much more powerful force. Partially because it will make you a more powerful force, in the rare case you face enemies on all sides having mounted weapons on all side to meet them is never a bad idea. Basically the moral of this is it is never a bad idea to have more weaponry on a large craft like this. It will protect you practically but more importantly it will make you look more powerful then you actually are which can be of huge benefit when dealing with raiders, authorities, or even other survivors. A couple things to note about mounted weapons, make sure the swivel but do not turn fully around, if any enemy reaches one you do not want your own gun to be able to fire back on the ship or the crew. Also don't be afraid to abandon the mounted gun for your sidearm or rifle. Some mounted guns, especially those with shields, can be used as cover as well. If the enemy has bored the ship (and your gun can't swivel onto the deck) keep close watch on your sides and back if you need to stay on the mounted gun to hold more attacks back. If you do not need to stay on the mounted weapon after being boarded, do not do so. It leaves you wide open to attack from behind while your attention is completely focused ahead. One last quick note is to fire in bursts, most video game players will think this has to do with the barrel over heating, in part it does yes. But more then that it has to do with your aim. Firing constantly will throw your aim off more then you would believe. Fire in quick bursts back and forth, left and right. Either mowing the enemy down in waves as you go back and forth, or concentrate on one side then the other side, left and right, back and forth to make the enemy funnel in front of you. In an ideal world you would have a second gunner with an assault rifle firing at the enemies being herded into the centre lane by the bigger gun. If the second shooter is not there this strategy still works as it discourages flanking and slowly you will be able to narrow the lane like a trap that closes the wall in on both sides to crush the attackers in the middle.

If anyone ever builds this or has tons of money they don't know what to do with, let me know. We will be good friends.
Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and Poseidon make your waters run smoothly, Mike D.

Zombie Defense Tactics

To test your survival technique I have created this chart. Answer honestly and you will find your chances of zombie survival.

If you found yourself among the dead do not be surprised. A great many paths lead to death. And even if you survived, that is one encounter against a single zombie. You will have to survive thousands if not hundreds of thousands of similar encounters to die of natural causes.

But back to if you died. Where did you fail? Did you misinterpret the threat? Anyone can be infected and it only takes minutes for an infected to become an undead. You cannot be sure of anyone unless you search them yourself or spend a few days with them and away from other infected.

Were there weapons around but you don't know how to use them? Or you didn't recognize the weapons in your environment? If it simple to train in use of most weapons. Spend a few hours at a gun club and talk to the people there, fire a few rounds and learn how to reload and use the safety, the basics. Look up fencers, kendo fighters and medieval reenactors. These people are all more then willing to show the basics of weapon combat to anyone showing interest.

Are you trained in unarmed combat? Find Mixed Martial Art dojos or Judo and Taekwondo dojos and take the free samples or even basic lessons. Normally I would never suggest Judo or Taekwondo or similar martial arts because they are useless in a fight against a human BUT it is far easier to learn to disengage a zombie and get away then to kill it with your bare hands.

Do you not rank among the elite in the training you have with hand-to-hand or armed combat? What most people don't realize is how hard it is to kill a human, let alone to kill something that used to be human and now will only stop if you destroy the head. The CIA assassination handbook estimates there are a mere handful of people in the world how are skilled enough in unarmed combat to kill someone before they make an attack back. All the undead need is the chance to make one attack, a single bite and your world is over. Making a headshot with a handgun or rifle is a task made easy in the movies but requires training and dedication most people simply don't realize.

The goal when facing a zombie until you have survived or trained long enough to begin killing the undead is merely to avoid them. Your best chances of surviving any encounter are to escape the danger. If you cannot escape it then removing it is an acceptable option if you are capible of doing so. Hopefully this opens the eyes of a few to the need for training and being prepared BEFORE the dead rise. Be ready or be food.

To that end I wish to bring your attention to a group in Denver who I wish all the best and want to recognize their efforts to prepare the world for it's inevitable end.

An MMA trainer in Denver offers a serious Zombie Defense Tactics course open to anyone of any experience level. First let me throw down that I am an experienced fighter and zombie defense expert and I fully intent to one day make the trip south of the 49 to take all of his courses.

The sample course includes four defensive moves to redirect or kill a zombie. They make a point of teaching that pain does nothing to stop a zombie. The training focuses on immobilizing and running. Exactly the two goals you must always have in mind when facing the undead. Killing the undead is an option and always preferred but as this course points out and I have said in my blog, killing a zombie in hand-to-hand combat is a LOT harder then it would appear. Even shooting a target in the head is a feat which the average person cannot complete under controlled circumstances, forget when the target is trying to eat you.

They include games of HvZ in their training. An age old training technique which every zombie survivalist should be aware of and run regular drills whenever possible. The rules of HvZ are simple. The group is split about 5 humans-to-1 zombie ratio. Humans must then accomplish tasks of varying difficulty (sometimes just surviving for a certain amount of time or finding a weapon with which to dispatch the zombies. Zombies must grab the humans in order to turn them, once grabbed a human is then made into a zombie. Humans may only kill zombies with the add of a weapon (normally nerf guns or swords) and a head shot. It is always surprising to the untrained how often the humans lose this battle and their are an infinite number of lessons to be learned from such an encounter.

ZDT includes a number of reality checks. Including placing a melon on a stand and letting trainees try to smash it with various weapons. Most people will find they cannot even hit the melon, let alone have enough force to smash it. Again this is a controlled event, now imagine if the melon was a flesh craving zombie and your life depended on that single swing. The fear can overwhelm most people.

Which is the main objective of the team at ZDT, to show people they need to train so that when our body goes into autopilot when we get afraid -which don't kid yourself, every one will when the undead come knocking- our bodies will know exactly what to do to keep us safe in those precious moments.

Here is a link to the ZDT
http://www.agogewarrior.com/Zombie_Defense_Tactics.html

Until then, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate,
Mike D.

Just the begining

Hello fellow survivors and those who wish to survive:

This is a letter to state the intent of what is to follow. There is a battle coming, not a battle between good and evil or between nations but simply a battle for survival. One like we have never faced before. The undead have always been a part of our world. Dating as far back as cave drawings we find records of the undead used for both entertainment and enlightenment.
It is only a matter of time until these small isolated events become a larger full scale outbreak. There are eight-billion people on this planet and very few of them are prepared to deal with the simple truth that the undead do exist.
We find them in every culture and in every situation and era. As long as humans are around to die, the undead will rise from the fallen.

This site will focus on a number of ares:

• Tactics for survival. This includes everything from surviving the infection itself to more importantly surviving in a world destroyed by the infection.
• History and science of the undead.
• Combat with the infected. Ranged and close-quarters.
• Types of undead and infected. Differences, strength and weaknesses.
• Recognizing and containing outbreaks.
• Truth versus myth. Detailed looks into zombies in different forms of culture compared to legends and scientific facts.

The road ahead of us is long and hard. Humanity has no natural predators and we have grown weak in our current pampered state. Much can be learned from Scouts Canada's motto, "Be Prepared."

In conclusion I will do my best to bring you as much information as I can with as much experience and as little bias as I can produce. The rest is up to you.

Good luck, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate,
Mike D.