Although several government officials suggest evacuating, in certain cases, it is important to remain and protect what you have worked so hard to build.
Follow these 4 easy steps before we jump into the spider hole conversation, so you can have the best chance of absolutely avoiding the situation. If you ever face a stranger smashing through your window, you know it’s going to be a tough day for those thugs.
The 4 Steps to Secure Your Perimeter When SHTF
Assess Your Weaknesses
Take a long look at everything that could potentially allow someone to target your house. Do you live near a bad neighborhood at present? Is your house relatively secluded? Many individuals would be emboldened by the lack of structure in a disaster situation, while criminals will want to rob a soft target, not a house that appears to mean business.
Develop Deterrents
While it is possible that your position may have better protection than your neighbors, if the government has fallen, a looter would not care about a video camera. A guard dog provides a good psychological defense against a trespasser, and to show your intention to defend, this can be paired with warning signs. Many offenders would slink off to easier targets if it is clear that you will fight for yourself and property.
Build Fortifications
Eternal vigilance is a task which is difficult. Compliance is generated by the simple repetition of a routine and when someone else is out of cash, they will come for you. Before they are needed, it is necessary to have constructed defenses against intruders. For those with money, drop bars, plexiglass, and panic rooms are great, but many people do not have the resources necessary to convert their home into a fortress.
Related: Learn How To Create Your Own Home Defense Plan
Plan for Contingencies
Although you may have boarded your windows and locked your doors, it is vital that if your home is breached, your strategy covers exactly what you will do. However, don’t stop there. It would possibly be the safest choice to leave after your home has been violated. Establish a tactical bug-out strategy with several escape routes.
Spider Hole Tactics to Protect Against Looters
The United States Army’s Infantry school specializes in a specific subset of warfare called Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT also referred as Close Quarters Combat, CQC). These tactics guide how small units can effectively enter, clear, and neutralize any targets within a building.
It is possible to see the best ways to create a spider hole with the highest destructive force against your enemy by concentrating on the vital danger areas outlined in MOUT training. In their attempt to retain strategic superiority, spider holes were extensively used during the Second World War by both belligerents.
Instead of prolonged combat, spider holes are used mainly for scouting and observation. But this, of course, is for military reasons. There will be no “extended” battles between two looters and a hidden prepper with an AR-15 while SHTF is involved.
How to make a spider hole
Spider holes usually require little effort due to their small size and minimal construction materials. Here are the basic steps of how to build your own spider hole:
- Find a tactical spot. If they do not block the view of the place that you want to protect, search for spots away from trees and bushes. If I ever have to retreat, or if I miss my first shots and my position is discovered, I will personally create my SHTF spider hole in a position good for retreating. Anyway, even in that case, instead of picking on a dug in prepper, looters prefer to move to an easier target.
- Then you dig a circular hole which is just a little bigger than the size of your body. If you want more room to store weapons and ammunition or if you want to travel around, you can also go for a larger space. You can either dig it at the top of a hill to keep water out of the hole (if that’s an appropriate location, but it’s not in most cases, or put a small pallet at the bottom (most rainfall won’t fill in more than a few inches of the hole).
- Designing the lid is the next step. It should be made of a light material which can be easily camouflaged, but resistant. You may use a variety of elements, such as native plants, grass, bushes, soil or rugs, depending on the position of the spider hole. The most important fact to remember here is to seamlessly combine your spider hole with the surrounding landscape!
Designing the lid is the next step. It should be made of a light material which can be easily camouflaged, but resistant. You may use a variety of elements, such as native plants, grass, bushes, soil or rugs, depending on the position of the spider hole. The most important fact to remember here is to seamlessly combine your spider hole with the surrounding landscape!If you have found where to put your spider hole, for your location, cover and concealment, you will want to have two main elements. Cover is described as obstacles that are able to stop a bullet. The material that can shield you is concealment. It is important that your fortifications do not block the fatal funnel’s advantage and do not trap you on the spot in case you are overrun. The explanation why you should not hide in a closet is the latter.
Intentionally build your spider hole to misdirect the attention of enemies. Build a makeshift mannequin so it can take some rounds away from you in the chaos. Try to break up your own silhouette, because once it is in the fight or flight answer, the eye looks for shapes rather than details.
Related: Home Defense Tactics That You Need To Know Before SHTF
Fatal Funnels & Engagement Zones
Areas called “fatal funnels” are the most dangerous points of contact when fighting within a building. Such spaces limit mobility and push targets into a particular location. A doorway is the most prevalent fatal funnel in any building. Since a doorway provides an attacker with the easiest avenue of approach, it is possible to direct would-be looters to the particular door of your choice.
Make it extremely hard to circumvent all of your home’s exits, save for your planned fatal funnel. A smart criminal can understand this for the trap it is, so try to find a way which they will get caught before they know what’s going on. This is often counter-intuitive to the above-mentioned deterrent strategy, since you want your foe to underestimate your power.
The factor of surprise multiplies your forces exponentially in order to cause maximum casualties. Only to be limited by a long corridor (even if your house opens naturally, move furniture to widen your fatal funnel), imagine the looters coming in through your front door, then you unleash a volley of lead from somewhere above.
MOUT teaches that stairways are the most deadly, while doors are the most common hazardous areas in a house. The height difference significantly decreases the awareness of the incoming force and the stairway itself elongates the killing zone. You have essentially trapped them if you wait until the enemy is halfway up the stairs, because neutralizing your nearest obstacle would serve as a barrier to their potential forward movement. Light ’em up until they turn their backs.
Even if you’re likely to have the upper hand, you’ve got to be prepared for anything thrown at you. In addition to having a primary field of interaction, you can establish a secondary one that, depending on the situation, is much more versatile. Putting a spider hole somewhere within reach of the only stairway that leads up or down will be an example of this. This will act as a last resort attempt to remove the danger if anyone breaks into your house in a position other than your fatal funnel.
