u/ferds41

If you were to face an Alone (TV Series) type of survival scenario (somewhere in the rural northern Canada) with the added uncertainty if you would ever be rescued, or if there is still a functional society to return to. What 10 items do you take?

Changing the rules ever so slightly you are allowed either a rifle with 50 rounds of ammo any caliber (100 rounds if you pick 22lr) or a modern compound bow with 15 arrows and 5 broad heads. All items such as knives and broad heads will be subject to blunting and all other items mechanical wear. Your backpack doesn't count as an item. If you pick a compass and maps those are one item and will cover the entire area you travel (bit of a cheat). If you pick an item like fishing gear that includes line hooks etc.

Also not part of the items but what would your choice of clothing be (for this hypothetical we assume you have a spare set of exactly what you are wearing)

My items would be.

Coldsteel SRK Knife (cmp3v version)
6" mega ferro rod
100ft paracord
Heavy duty tarp
Arcturus wool blanket
22lr with 100 rounds
Toaks 1100ml cooking pot
Swayer squeeze water filter
Snare wire
Compound bow

Which skills would you say would be the most critical in a long term survival situation? My logic says

Fitness.
Sourcing and treating water.
Harvesting/Foraging or growing food which requires secondary skills such as tracking, slaughtering and marksmanship.
Community management and coordination.
Bushcraft skills such as fire and shelter building and food preparation.
Food cultivation and animal husbandry.
Navigation skills, map reading and compass navigation.
Sharpening skills (knives, axes and other tools).
Medical and nursing skills.
Repair skills such as mechanical and sewing skills.
VHF/UHF radio technical knowledge.

Please expand and comment on this list with anything that I am missing.

YouTube has an entire subgenre of GHBs (Get Home Bags) were I believe most content is derivative in nature, one guy makes a somewhat original video and the masses follow suit.

If you think about potential scenarios where it is preferable to abandon what in 90% of cases I assume would be you vehicle, very careful assessment of circumstances that could likely lead to this is required. Most scenarios I can think of where this would be the case would almost undoubtedly result from circumstances where the biggest immediate threat would be other people and crowds (civil unrest, threat of terrorism, wide area blackout etc).

As with bugging in vs bugging out I would argue that by far the majority of scenarios where your options are limited to moving on foot or waiting an event out in your vehicle, you would be better off remaining at your vehicle. I would assume if you are the type of individual that has a GHB you would also have a vehicle kit and this would almost undoubtedly offer favourable alternatives to grabbing a bag an moving on foot.

The problem I see with most GHB is they prioritise bug out/bushcraft heavy survival. Examples of this would be having multiple fire sources, a tarp and a saw, all items that are very useful in rural bug out scenarios but offer little utility in get home scenarios. I would assume that the first thing that needs to be prioritised is speed above all else, therfore any item that doesn't offer a very clear real use application shouldn't be included in the bag.

Especially in urban settings (which is probably 90% of all cases where it makes sense to abandon your vehicle) I would assume the biggest challenges will be navigation/route planning, obstacles such as buildings, walls and fences and potentially areas where crowds have gathered. To my mind all tools in the bag should be expressly aimed at dealing with such challenges. I therfore offer my version of what I think a GHB should look like.

Clothing and PPE:
Seasonal change of clothes with multiple layering options.
Hiking boots/shoes
Cut proof gloves and sleeves
Good quality poncho
Spare socks
ABEK1 respirator
Eye and ear protection

Complete IFAK with extra tourniquet.

Tools:
Headlamp and handheld torches
Multi tool
Mini bolt cutters
8" heavy duty prybar
Good quality folding knife
Resqme glass breaker
Monocular (thermal if budget allows)

Navigation and comms:
Offline phone maps
GPS and sattilite communicator (Garmin inreach or similar)
Compass and paper naps
GSRM/HAM or similar 2 way radio
Mini drone with spare battery (dji mini4k or similar)

Force multipliers (if local laws allow):
Concealed carry handgun with 50-80 extra rounds
Pepper spray
Small extendable baton
A knife that can be used as a weapon as an absolute last resort

Other items:
Laminated card with ICE contact details
Backup copies of all essential documents
150 dollars cash [equivalent] in small bills
2x Bic lighters
4x heavy duty zip ties
Burner phone
25000mah battery bank.

Water & Sustenance
3500 cal in bars snacks and trail mix
3l water bladder in bag.
Swayer mini

This feels more like a bag that has taken possible threat scenarios and worked off them rather than just expanding on someone else's flawed thinking.

If you have any suggestions or thoughts I would love to hear them.

A deadly pandemic breaks out, it is extreamly contagious. Society breaks down to the extent that rule of law is non existent. Any large scale industry has completely broken down, which items become the most valuable to have? Below are some examples I can think of:

Food production equipment and consumables, reloading equipment and firearm spares, propane gas, any solar equipment, batteries, vehicle spares, tools.

Your thoughts?

Exactly what the title says, what are your thoughts? For reference I am comparing the AliExpress (UV) version of the Loop. Seem damn similar lights? Apparently the Jetbeam has a very clunky UI?

So I recently had the misfortune of having my duty (patrol) bag stolen from my vehicle, the bag also doubles as my GOOD/GH bag, but with the misfortune comes the opportunity to rebuild the bag with much more insight and experience than when I started. 

For some background and context: 
I do work in the anti-poaching and law enforcement sector. I mainly prepare for large-scale civil unrest, looting and violent protest, where I live all of those have occurred in recent memory (we even had an attempted coup), so this is for work and getting home or out of dodge when roads become problematic to travel on.

I will include my EDC gear as I see this as complementary to this bag and required in the for context, this I already have, so input can be used on bag and contents:

Bag, I would need very good alternatives to be swayed from the Savotta Jääkäri M, the bag is the perfect size, and although durable doesn't seem overly “tactical”

EDC gear:
Springfield Hellcat Pro Comp with Streamlight TLR-7 X Sub and Holosun 507k dot. Coldsteel Recon1 knife, and Wuben X4 torch. 

Clothing and PEE: 
Spare Merino wool socks, and Merino wool base layer, Crye Precision G4 battle pants, soft shell jacket, poncho and woobie. Mechanix M-Pact Gloves, 3M respirator mask with ABEK1 cartridge filter, ESS ballistic glasses. 

Water and Nutrition:
Various energy bars and gels, trail mix, peanut butter (+-4000cal) 2l Water bladder, Grayl Geopress bottle, swayer mini filter and water purification tabs.

First Aid:
IFAK with tourniquet, Israeli bandage, hemostatic gauze, compressed gauze, NAR trauma shears, vented chest seals.

Tools, Optics and Lights:
Leatherman Arc 
Cold Steel SRK (in CMP3V)
Acebeam L35 2.0
Wuben H1 Headlamp
Hikmicro Lynx LH35 v3
Vortex Solo 8x36 Monocular
Silky Zubat Handsaw 
Spec Ops 15” flat prybar
Knipex CoBolt mini bolt cutters
100 yards 550 Paracord on Atwood Ready rope dispenser 
Zippo with butane insert 
Bic lighter, xl ferro rod and waxed rope tinder

Electronics, Comms and Navigation:
Garmin GPSMAP 65
Garmin Inreach Mini 2
Yeasu FT-70 Radio
Anker 25000mah powerbank with integrated cable
40w portable solar panel
2 x 18650 spare batteries 
Suunto baseplate compass 
Topo Maps in soft map case, folding road atlas greater metro area 

Admin & utility;
Copies of all docs
200$ in small bills
Duct tape and heavy duty zip ties 

A lot of these items are just like for like replacements of what I had, but I am definitely seeing some room for improvement where previous kit was insufficient or could have been better optimised, there are also several items that I have been wanting to add to the setup that I might not get straight away, but this is my ideal scenario “one bag to rule them all” with some limitations and compromises obviously 

Exactly what the title says

I run a share scheme manging agent and receive many calls on WHATSAPP BUSINESS daily. It always used to display the callers profile photo on my locked screen (this was useful as I can't possibly safe or memorise everyones number but could often quickly identify urgent calls by user profile photos that I know) is this a simple setting or is it a future (been struggling with this for a couple of months BTW so not related to recent updates for sure)

As the title suggests. Is the better steel worth the premium price tag that comes with it?

Context, this knife will genuinely work, it will be used in survival instructors courses. I however don't know enough about knife steels to make an informed decision. Up till now I used an ESEE 5 in 1095.

Local prices:
SK-5 (88 USD)
CPM3V (226 USD)

Thoughts?

Before we start with the getting your finances in order, getting fit, having a deep pantry, having enough water etc etc, assuming all of those things are in order would a range finder be useful in a GHB or a GOOD bag?

Is there actually a reliable and legit company that can buy used for such a service? Looked at

shipping xps.com
syrush.com
myus.com
usa2me.com

And they all have terrible reviews, and every single one has someone calling them a scam?

Help would be massively appreciated.

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As the title says...

The idea here might be if everything needed to be reduced to essentials only, what are you still taking?

When going over some plans with the family during the last week or so realised that in a grid down total comms failure true point to point comms that don't rely on expensive sattilite infrastructure is actually quite difficult. And before any suggest ham radio, yes I know but I am not going to get my wife involved enough to get certified (she is generally very on board with prepping but this is kind of testing the limit).

Enter Meshtastic, I have looked a bit into the infrastructure and this seems promising, however my concerns are, lack of nodes in my area, and by extension reliance on others to maintain infrastructure. It does still seem like an alternative but I just want some pointers before investing too much resources into something that might be a dead end.

Scenario for intended use would be to establish contact if she is at the office (about 6 miles as the crow flies in a very dense urban environment (Pretoria South Africa))

Some questions:

1. Will two individual nodes cover this distance

2. Is anyone else looking into this as a comms strategy, and if so can you offer some pointers?

3. Any other point to point comms that might work and not rely on mobile networks?