WIXLIB

Also by Ragnar Benson:Acquiring New lDBreath of the Dragon: Homebuilt FlamethrowersBull's-Eye: CrossbowsDo-It-Yourself MedicineEating CheapHardcore PoachingHome-Built Oaymore Mines: A Blueprint for SurvivalHomemade C-4: A Recipe for SurvivalHomemade Grenade Launchers: Constructing the Ultimate Hobby WeaponLive Off the Land in the City and CountryMantrappingModem Survival RetreatModem Weapons CachingRagnar's Action Encyclopedias, Volumes 1 and 2Ragnar's Big Book of Homemade Weapons:Ragnar's Guide to Home and Recreational Use of High ExplosivesRagnar's Guide to the Underground EconomyRagnar's Ten Best Traps. . .Survival PoachingAnd a Few Others That Are Damn Good, TooSurvivalist's Medicine ChestSwitchblade: The Ace of Blades

Contents1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.1 0.1 1.12.13.1 4.1 5.Introduction . . . . . 1Why Retreat? . . . . 7What Is a Retreat? . . . . . 1 5Practical Retreat Designs . . . . . 2 1What Do You Have to Pro tect?35Getting to Your Retreat . . . . . 4 1Retreat Location . . . . . 49Who Is the Enemy? . . . . . 5 7The Psychology of Defense . . . . . 6 5The Retreater's Arsenal . . . . . 7 5Beyond Firep ower . . . . . 85Making It Di fficult . . . . . 9 1What if It Com es to a Figh t? . . . . . 1 0 1The Ultimate Scenario . . . . 1 0 7Appendix !-Commercial Sources . . . . . 1 1 1Appendix li-The Defensible RetreatCheck List . . . . . 1 1 7Bibliography . . . . . 1 2 5.

IntroductionhisIS NOT ANOTHE R BUY-A main-battle-tank-and-arm-to-the-teeth book ab out su s taining a three-day firefight with your neighbors afterthe collapse. My contention is that guns are one of thelast, and probably the least important of the major as pects of defending your retreat.Instead, I have attempted to put together informa tion of genuine practical value that will really teach sur vivors how to protect their retreats. In doing so, I havedrawn heavily on my own experience as well as that o fa number of people who have made it through tough ,no-holds-barred survival situations. Since no work ofthis nature could, or should, hold itself out as being thefinal word, I have also cited quite a lot of current liter ature.Survivors with some military background will prob ably not substantially disagree with my b asic retreatdefense premises . Conflicts, however, will arise whenthis material is compared with the theories of th osequasi survivalists whose volumes of writing often vastlyexceeds their on-the-ground experience. I suspect th atthe main reason some o f these people have so manyfollowers is because many Americans want a good ex cuse to buy a lot of guns. Some of the armament gurus

2RA GNA R BENSONwill gladly justify purchasing a whole roomful of fire arms!However, survival , and especially retreat defense , is apersonal matter. It is not som ething that can be decidedon for you by your neighbors, your friends, your priest,survivalist writers like mysel f, or the government. Allthat experts like mysel f can do is offer suggestions,hopefully based on good, solid experience . You, the sur vivor, will have to be the final judge of that.Because retreat defense is an individual matter, I feelyou should acquire as much on-the-ground experience asyou can. When you do, it will become p ainfully obviousthat some o f the gurus don 't have as much experience asyou though t they did. With some field experiencebehind you , you will find it infini tely easier to developand implement your own plan.In late December 1 9 6 7 , I was traveling with a smallprivate military outfit hired by a central African govern ment that has long since dropped into the bottomlesspit of oblivion. Our raiding party-that 's all it reallywas-consisted of eleven dirty , grungy , godforsakenEuropeans mounted on three Rovers , one pulling atrailer with gear and ammo, one with a m ounted .50caliber machine gun, and the third with a soc ket and tiresetup for a small clip-fed .30. One of our guys was athird generation Kenyan who h ad first fought as a teen ager during the Mau Mau Rebellion . The entire crew washard-core refuse, swept up in the maelstrom of dirtylittle African wars that no one h as ever heard o f.We were on the road for six days. Much of that timewas spent fooling around doing nothing while we lulledthe bush telegraph into i ndifference. Some days ourlittle column m ade but thirty or so kilometers when wecould easily have done eighty. But our leisurely paceand deliberately circuitous route precluded that.

I N T R O D UCTI O N3Around noon on the fifth day we pulled up early andcamped off the road in a small, obscure wash aboutforty-five kilometers from our target village. The menspent the afternoon sleeping and cleaning their weapons.Shortly after dark, the eleven o f us pulled out again,now heading directly for our assigned target. Our m is sion was to hit a village of about ten thousand souls afew kilometers across an ill-defined border. The villagehad been the source and refuge of some antigovernmentterrorists, and th e central au thorities for whom we wereworking had decided that it was time to "give some in struction in foreign policy." As the only "unofficial "member of th e group, I had a rare opportunity to seehow foreign policy is practiced in some of the lessdeveloped nations.Seven kilometers north of the village our columnsplit into two groups. Another fellow and I headedsouthwest on foo t ; the rest drove northwest on the roadacross the high savannah . Recent burning had clearedmost of the tangl e ; we had a relatively pleasant wal k inthe cool, damp moonligh t .Just before first light, w e reached our assigned p osi tion on a gentle rise about twenty meters above andeigh ty meters to the side of the dusty, rut ted road l ead ing to the village. Our instructions were to place our selves abou t one to one and a half kilometers ou t. Sinceneith er of us had ever been in the area before, we couldonly guess at our exact location . The village was not insight, although we could hear cattle now and then. Thewind was wrong to smell it.As the sky grew lighter, I could make out abou ttwelve Hunter's hartebeest m oving across a grassy flatupwind of us. They moved hesitantly , taking a little nipof new grass now and then. As soon as I could see wellenough, I p ic ked out a nice young buck and dropped

4RA GNA R BENSONhim with one shot from my Browning .3 3 8 . The noiseof the p istol shot echoed throu gh the gentle hills. Mycompanion was so startled, he fell off the termite neston which he had been sitting.According to the instructions we had been given , wewere supposed to shoot the first villager who happenedalong the road that m orning. As it worked out, thehartebeest was a better choice. There was plenty ofbloodshed a bit later withou t our adding anyth ing to it.As an ex tra benefit , we enjoyed fresh meat that after noon for the first time in six days.I set to work gu tting the critter and was almostdone when the other group 's guns opened up. The planhad called for the two of us to create a diversion thatwould scare the villagers out to the other side of towninto range of the machine guns. Apparently my one shothad put the plan in motion. We could hear the steadypurr of the .30 along with the metered fire of the FNs.Over all that, the giant .50 caliber thump-thump thumped regularly. After about five m inu tes the shoot ing subsided. We walked cautiously on up toward thevillage on the dusty little road. Had we even supposedthat anyone had anythi ng m ore than a gas pipe gun , itwould have been an act of incredible bravado .In those days the flow of Soviet weapons into theregion had not yet reached flood stage. I felt safeenough , but a kind o f sick self-consciou sness made mewant to melt into the stinking, dry village dirt as wepassed through . Most of the villagers had fled. A fewwomen and children, old m en , and a cripple or two wereall that rem ained. Those who couldn't run awaywatched us pass with horribly scared white eyes frombehind the boonahs and randaavels . The few sh ops wereall deserted.The scene on the other side of town was horrible,

INTRO DUCTI O N5the more so for the presence of the remains of the onehundred fifty or so cows that had been caught in theambush . The only redeeming factor I could think of wasthat, in their rush to escape , the men had abandonedtheir women and children. They had tried to save onlytheir most precious possessions and their own lives,which was why so m any cows got it. Women in Africaare treated worse than cattle. The upside of the ambushwas that, in comparison to the men, very few womengot hurt . Usually it 's the other way around.There are four valuable lessons in this story for theretreat defender. The first is don't ever become a tar get for those wh o can hurt you. Be inconspicuous andstay out of sight. The wise survivor does not become alesson in foreign policy.The second is that no m atter how well armed youare and how hardened your retreat, you can't hold ou teven briefly against a well-trained, well-armed militaryforce. We knew that some of the African villagers hadweapons and were fairly proficient with them ; yet theywere spooked and overrun in minutes.The third lesson may be obscure at this point : it isdon 't ever become a refugee. Stake out your home turfand stay there, defending it as best you can.Fourth and last, we should never have been able towalk through that village after the shooting. You shouldnever give up your ability or desire to resist. Thisassumes that you have both the equipment and thedesire to begin with . In the case of the African village,the outcome would have been the same ; it just wouldn 'thave been so damn easy. A psychological element ofretreat defense is forfeited when the defenders areknown to possess neither the means nor the will tofight.As I said at the beginning, a lot of things are m ore

6RA GNA R BENSONimportant than guns. In this ex ample, we could listthings like regular patrols, sentries, a plan of resistance,a basic defense network, rules against openly and notor iously harboring terrorists, and a set of values based onsomething more precious than cows .Each element has its place in a viable retreat defensestrategy, and each is, in its way, as important as guns.The important point is that defenders should under stand the rules and then set out to play the gam e wiselyand with determination. To that end, I dedicate thisbook to those who are willing to defend their retreatsno matter what the cost eve n zf it means staying ou t ofa fz'refi'ght.-

1 . Why Retreat?WHYRETREAT?" IS A QUESTIONth at 9 0 percent of our population cannot and will notanswer. I f they could, th at same 90 percent of ourfriends, neighbors, and countrym en would have toadm it that things may not continue on as they are now.They would also have to admit that they will need aretreat-som ething completely impossible for the aver age American to do.Certainly part of the problem lies with the hope lessly pessimistic attitude the peacemongers have en couraged. According to several national polls, a mini mum of 80 percent of us genuinely believe that no onewill survive a general nuclear attack. These people havegiven up already.I certainly plan to m ake it through a nuclear attack,and I sincerely believe you can make it through as well .I f you doubt this , try reading Bruce Clayton's excellentbook Lzfe After Do omsday (see bibliography). It willdo more to instill spirit and hope than anything else Ican think of. Other worthwhile reading is the editorialseries run by the Wall Street journal in early 1 9 8 2 . TheJournal did an ex tremely credible job of tracing theantinuke peace movement's leadership back to theKremlin and of documenting the fact that the Soviets7