(11-09-2024, 01:19 PM)Michigan Swamp Buck Wrote: I've gone on and on about Venezuela for a long time as a lesson learned in real-time. I've also considered Mexico as a threat for even longer with border towns at greatest risk. I've also felt that these border problems will reach the bigger cities like Chicago and Detroit, those two in particular as they are closet to my area. Of course, the video indicated that they are already in a few places in Michigan.
ETA: A good search on Google and AOL only returned incidences of Tren de Aragua in Colorado, Chicago, Florida, Texas, and Connecticut, but not a thing in Michigan or Detroit Michigan. Makes me think this video isn't that great. The map in the video shows Grand Rapids then either Ann Arbor or the West Side of Detroit, and one place in the UP. From what I can tell it is in the middle of the Ottawa National Forest with the small town of Iron River closest to the area on the map.
It seems that my security plans should be put into place now. I like the idea of starting with a moat and drawbridge. I don't have a castle to defend, and it ain't much, but it's all mine.
A log stockade with watch towers, like a fortress from the pioneering days would be more like it based on available materials.
TDA ia just the most recent of several south of the border gangs that have taken to operating in the US, and is not yet as finely infiltrated and integrated as some of the others.
It's M.O. is also different from most of the others. Where the Mexican cartel operations in the US seek to keep a low profile, because too much publicity is bad for business, TDA and similar gangs like MS-13 try to increase their publicity profile in order to generate terror among the populace, hoping that they can then operate with impunity in an atmosphere of fear. TDA ahd MS-13 also are more prone to attack the populace in general than the Mexican cartels are. The Mexican cartels generally confine their violence when they deem violence necessary, to rival gangs. TDA and MS-13 feel that anyone in the general population is fair game.
We've not seen much of TDA here yet, but I'm sandwiched in between the territories of two Mexican cartels. We have the Sinaloa cartel to the west of me in the Cumberland Mountains and Kentucky, and the Jalisco cartel (CJNG, Jalisco New Generation Cartel) to the east of me, in the Blue Ridge and eastern VA. Their presence is likely to be what is inhibiting TDA and MS-13 from making inroads into this area. Both Sinaloa and Jalisco are some bad mothers, but they prefer a low profile here so as not to inhibit their primary business model, which is drug distribution.
MS-13 has a presence in Northern Virginia and Maryland - the DC area - which may inhibit the infiltration of TDA there unless they form an alliance.
TDA and MS-13 are more "direct to consumer" operations, where they parasitize everyone they meet, not just the dopers.
Regarding the stockade, I'd like to offer some advice, which you can either take or leave as suits your inclinations. We've had a few different kinds here with varying results.
Actual stockades, with corner blockhouses, curtain walls, and the whole nine yards, are more suitable if you have a larger force of defenders - platoon strength or better. The reason is they have a lot more area to cover and be defended, so they require more personnel.
For smaller operations, say a fire team up to platoon size - more to the point, a family-sized defensive force or less - I think what we used to call a "blockhouse" or "fort house" here is more appropriate. Back in the day, there were a LOT more fort houses here than there were actual stockaded forts. In this area, there were only 3 stockaded forts, but 18 to 24 fort-houses. They are easier for smaller groups to both build and defend.
They are really fortified log cabins, usually built on a square plan with at least tow floors. The upper floor overhangs the lower floor to proved defense for the lower walls. The overhanging strip has it's own loop holes to shoot at miscreants up against the lower walls who often tried to set the structure on fire, since it was log-built. You could shoot them through those loop holes and still maintain cover for yourself.
Both upper and lower walls had heavy shutters over the windows with "plus sign" shaped loopholes to shoot out of. The whole was self-contained and defensible with a smaller group of defenders.
So, if you have 15 or more defenders, then a stockade sized to the number of defenders is probably the way to go, but if you have 15 or fewer, then a fort house may be more appropriate. They're hard to beat for small defensive forces, especially when combined with a defense in depth - rings of obstacles and booby traps surrounding them.
This information is gleaned from experience received during the southern Appalachian Indian Wars in West Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Tennessee, and Western North Carolina. Attacking forces generally numbered from 3 to 30 personnel, and defending forces were usually of similar size, although the two were not usually evenly matched - you would usually have few attackers against more defenders, or few defenders against more attackers, in which case the fort houses were of great value. One of those old fort houses still stands not far from here, and was built around 1770 by the Witten family. It's called "Witten's Fort" if anyone wants to look it up.
I have often wondered if, given modern construction materials available, whether building a block house out of cinder blocks filled with concrete and rebar, using steel I-beams for the floor joists, might not be a better solution. Something built like that, with a log facade for aesthetics and bullet absorption might be the way to go, if one can afford the materials.
Dugouts with log and earth overhead cover, with a narrow observation slit covering the business side, might do well for observation posts/ listening posts to house 1 or two man teams to cover approaches and give advanced warning.
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