Force Multipliers?

Close proximity to your home base you can use barbed wire staked or attached to trees to create tripping hazards for intruders coming in to the AO at night. Concertina is great but hard to come by... everyone can have a role of barbed wire stashed and easily deployed. In addition you can add noise makers, trip flares, and so on. Anything that creates a bit of noise to alert sentries is good as well as provide a disruption to their plan. Nothing louder than a bandit falling on his face in the dark, except maybe a shotgun trip wire or booby trapped claymore...

Consider using solar motion lights closer into your area which will light up the area quickly as bandits create contact within their range..

Dog's can be another level of defense... they hear better than we do, have a hell of a bite, and won't talk back when you ask them to do something...

Just as a note- I would employ shotgun trip wires further out from the AO to create a audible distant alarm that someone is coming in to the area. Down side is then they know they are near something that might be worth hitting. At the same time giving you time to mobilize and be at the best defensive posture possible to the opponent.

Always remember man-made and natural obstacles are your friend, that drive a foe into the heart of your defensive fire power.
Just a thought...
YD

 

1 battery powered cassette player
1 cassette tape with spooky noises (moans, growls, screams, chainsaws, axe hacking bones, ghoulish groaning, wolves howling) Alternate between this and "Hotel California" just for giggles...
1 old lamp to cast shadow inside home
1 stuffed dummy inside home attached to robotic arms and fishing line, attached to motion sensor on front lawn. Place plastic axe in hand.
1 very real and very angry, large dog chained to the front porch.
On the back porch just use a motion sensing light and have plenty of fake blood on hand. Paint the porch white so the fake blood stands out. An old tub with styrofoam body parts covered in gory textured goop will add a nice touch.
Place your favorite range target on the back door.

Every day can be Halloween. If the police ever ask, just tell them it's easier to leave the "decorations" up all year.

You could have fun with this. For added fun, if you suspect your home being cased, just drag out an old rolled up carpet and dump it in the trunk of your car late at night. Be sure to give the carpet a good kick before dumping it. Dress in old, ragged clothing and talk out loud to yourself.

 

My simple answer to a force multiplier is Fear. I am thinking along the lines of protecting a home, retreat,base,compound etc. Making it so that those who would attack you get to the point where they are hesitant and afraid to take another step. You can do this with a variety of lethal and non-lethal means. Trip wire is fine if it trips something useful. There are many field expedient man traps that can be made to slow the advance of unwanted personnel.

One simple method in a wooded area is take treble hooks (the three pronged fishing hooks) a 1-2' long piece of fishing string. Paint them a dark woodland color, green or brown. Hang the hooks (dozens of them) by the lines from tree branches about head high. Most deer will pass underneath but men walking by will get a nasty surprise. A nice take on this is to have several made up with an alligator clip on the other end. Carry these with you in case you have to evade a pursuing foe. Stop every so often, remove one from your kit and clip it to a low hanging tree branch. It will slow down your pursuer(s).

One thing I have seen in a lot of survival fiction stories is where the group is defending their home, they create barriers, old cars etc, dig ditches and create earthen berms, reinforce fencing and gates. But they never mine and booby trap areas around their perimeter. You want to funnel any enemy into your selected kill zone. A few improvised traps will place whole areas "off limits" to them. Land mines are very simple to create. Two small squares of plywood, some lengths of different sized PVC pipe, a handful of wood screws, and a box of shotgun shells. Another simple man trap is a metal can or bucket. Cut several V cuts all pointing down. Bend them inwards and bury the can with a light covering. When someone steps in it they cannot remove their leg, foot, without severe damage from the metal. And don't forget simple "punji' sticks also.

Faux gas, napalm, recoiless rifles, are all very easily made from a few household goods. An air supply, say a portable air tank, and some piping, a couple of containers of powdered coffee creamer and an ignition source and you have one devastating flame thrower.
For escape or concealment a very effective (and colorful) smokescreen can be created from some koolaid in a metal can and an ember from a campfire. You would be surprised at how much smoke is produced by this. We used to do it around the campfire to entertain the kids. A soup can and one or two packets of koolaid and an ember and you had a massive smoke cloud. And of course a little laundry detergent and gasoline makes a formidable potion.

In my opinion the biggest advantage or force multiplier if you will is to create fear in your opponent. By creating several of these types of things that are going to give them pause. But also, and maybe more importantly, creating fear in their minds. My motto is "Power perceived, is power achieved". I have always had a fascination with the great military men of history who used deception and manipulation to win victories. A master of this was JEB Stuart. His was a mobile cavalry force and lacked any heavy artillery. Yet they captured and entire regiment of Union soldiers, who outnumbered them 10 to one, and who had dozens of cannon and mortars. They captured the entire outfit without firing a shot!

The Union force was camped in a valley when JEB Stuarts scouts found them. JS's men set up on the hills in front of the Union force. They only had 2 captured cannon with them and were outnumbered 10 to one. The Union forces weren't too concerned they knew that Stuart had no artillery and only a minor force. JEB Stuart devised an ingenious plan. He had his men take the two cannons and hitch a team of horses to them and carry them across the ridge line in front of the Union force. There was a break in the tree line and they rode across there but as soon as they were behind the trees again(and out of sight of the Union) they quickly rode down the opposite side of the hill where men were waiting with a different colored teams of horses. They quickly hooked them up to the cannons and rode up to the ridge line, crossed in the break in the trees, ran back down the other side and repeated this process all afternoon. The Union forces in the valley are seeing cannon after cannon being maneuvered into position around them and they are starting to sweat. Stuart let the sun go down and let the Union forces worry all night long, certain that in the morning they were going to be annihilated. At sunrise the next morning, without a single shot being fired, the Union general raised the white flag and surrendered to Stuart. Power perceived.

Another favorite story of mine involves who I consider to be the foremost genius in deception in warfare and that is General Erwin Rommel. He had his headquarters of the North Afrikan Corp in the Libyan coastal town of Tubruk. The allies were considering sending in bombers and fighter planes to attack him there. Intelligence was saying he had no anti aircraft artillery and that an air strike would be unhindered. A reconnaissance flight returned and reported that the intelligence was wrong that every hill around Tubruk had multiple anti aircraft guns and that it would be suicide to send planes into there. After the war when they entered Tubruk they found that all of the "guns" were nothing more than scrap metal and wood, painted to look like anti aircraft guns. Power perceived.

Hope some of this is what you are looking for. Sorry for getting long winded but this is a subject that I have been passionate about for years. I love military history especially strategy and am fascinated with improvised weaponry.

One more that just came to mind. Draino and ping pong balls. Drill hole in ball, fill with crystal draino. Wrap in electrical tape. Drop in a gasoline tank or container and clear the area. When the gasoline finally melts through the tape and the plastic ball and contacts the draino it will be very exciting!

 

Good stuff. I love the Dakota Alert systems that use MURS.

Additions from my setup:
Night vision
Suppressors - .22 and .45

Force multipliers are key when your force is small.

 

Take a 50 gallon drum cut in half, recess in the ground at strategic locations such as main avenues of attack. Fill with gasoline, laundry detergent and old oil and camouflage/conceal. Makes a hell of a explosion ignited in whatever manner you choose... throwing up a fire ball 40 feet or so and splashing down on top of everything like napalm.... We ignited using a 18/2 wire back to a fighting position and a car battery (we did this with 5 barrels, one at a time, in the desert as training tool to simulate realism in combat training. With no danger to stating major fires to property or land as a side note). You can also do this with smaller metal containers such as paint cans.

Just as an FYI: Don't due this at home unless you have good separation between you and the explosion... It will catch everything on fire within a certain radius and is very hard to put out.

This will create fear day or night...and light up the kill zone at night pretty well.

 

Rose bushes..... not just for looks. And don't forget a few Castor bean plants.

 

That plan is indeed a force multiplier....