Wednesday, February 22, 2012

US Army Survival Manual

Was thinking of picking one up on Ebay, then it dawned on me it has to be there on dem der interwebz in PDF somewherez. Then I thought this might be of interest to some of you "fools" that like to be prepared and pay attention to those "stupid" debt figures or read (pfa!) "history."

Duly noted I have to print it out because if I need it, chances are there is no electricity to power my laptop to open said PDF file.

5 comments:

CBMTTek said...

Cappy:

As good as it is to know this stuff, and to have the document on hand, it is even more important to actually have DONE/PERFORMED the survival skills. When the time comes to require this stuff, you will probably not have the luxury of looking it up.


I would highly recommend that you light a fire, build a shelter, etc... using the directions in the manual. Nothing, and I mean nothing will prepare you for how much time and energy you will have to expend to make a fire using the techniques described in that manual, for example. take a shot at it once or twice, and I gaurantee you will stock up on waterproof matches, firestarter, or get yourself one of these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MATCH-LIGHTER-LITES-METAL-LIGHTERS-GIFT-15000-Times-/180728146910?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a143cabde

Survival is all about conservation of energy and efficiency of effort.. (Which curiously enough the OWS generation knows almost nothing about.) Do as little work as humanly possible to stay alive and build up reserves. When you have fire, shelter, and some steady source of food/water, then you can start reading the manual on how to improve the situation.

When the apocolyps comes, those of us that have actually hiked, camped, hunted/fished and enjoyed the wilderness will be able to continue in a relatively high standard of living. And the dependency generation will be the ones scrambling for survival.

Anonymous said...

An old-fashioned Boy Scout manual is better than nothing.

Anonymous said...

Which is why smart people think ahead and have a few solar panels set up to power said laptop.

Hippie crap might not be good at producing decent amounts of power, but it's great for backing up your UPS so it'll last longer in case of a power outage, or powering your laptop/phone during one.

Anonymous said...

There are hand crank USB chargers on the market. Those really ought to be part of one's survival gear.

Mike James

Hot Sam said...

My favorite part is how to kill a beaver.

First, straddle the beaver den. Then wait for said beaver to come out. Grab beaver by tail. Swing beaver by tail side to side until beaver goes limp. Carry beaver to tree and whack said beaver against said tree until said beaver is dead. Cook. Consume. Fart.

The Army's Survival FM is a great book, well worth having in hard copy if you can find it. But since its bound to get dirty, wet, or lost, maybe a pdf printout is better.

FM 7-8 is another must have book. Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad Tactics.

Demolitions is very good, but not useful unless you have a large supply of C-4, primacord, and detonators.

Land Navigation is cool, especially if you can get military maps of your area. It's the old fashioned version of geocaching.