Survival Kits in F&S

[bacman99]

thanks ras

by the way the topic was "Survival Kits in F&S"

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Are you saying that an employee of an oil company (or the like), who manages to escape with nothing on him (he's been searched and stripped of everything but the clothes on his back), has no excuse for not having gear on him and being prepared?

It is easy to come up with a situation where you have little to no gear, they are however rare, the vast majority of survival situations can be solved with a couple of simple rules and basic preperation which includes proper gear, and in lots of enviroments this gear is just as essential as knowledge as you die readily without either.

It is also the most extreme circumstance and what you ideally work up to. Once you have mastered basic fire building in ideal enviroments (no wind, dry climate, high temperature), you start experimenting with it getting more difficult, ideally you get to the point where you can build a friction fire without a knife in high winds in heavy sleet.

Same thing with shelther building and all other aspects like traveling. You start off with optimal gear ideally, get the necessary skills and slowly strip it away and learn how to deal with less than ideal situations. It is how naive to assume that you don't need gear and that only knowledge is key, this is just as misleading as assuming because you have high end hear you don't need any experience.

Plus, if you lose your gear, you can't lose your knowledge. If you lose your mind, your gear ain't gonna help you in any kind of situation.

This is simply false Brian, in extreme either can be a savior and lack of either can be a death trap. You take someone with no survivial information and a sat phone vs someone with lots of information but no equipment and the first guys comes out ahead is a lot of situations and the other guy dies, similar if one guy is well prepared clothing wise and one isn't. Yes you can also reverse it, but the opposite is true as well, it isn't as one sided as you present.

If you want to play extremes you die in either case when you are severely lacking, you can also die just due to bad luck even having a lot of both, rogue waves and wideomakes take a lot of experienced people all the time. You also lose your knowledge constantly, you have to practice skills in order to retain them, both in the details as well as the physical ability to actually carry them out.

You can also readily lose knowledge in a survival sutation while retaining your gear by suffering stress or memory loss through a variety of causes, either which can effect the recall of information. This is why it also helps to have key information written down, both for you and the people who may find you. People who need medication for example should have this information written down in case of injury. What they need to take, in what does and how often.

You could also be in a survival sutuation where your information is useless because you are disabled and you have to rely on someone else who can use your gear, you can also easily not be in a position to relay the information to them for any number of reasons but they can easily use your gear. This is why I think the versus or ranking of those aspects is pointless and misleading because it forces away from the actual midset which should never be restrictive in terms of what you can use.

You gather the best gear you can, with the most experience you can, and do the most preperation you can, because it is all necessary, it all helps, and it isn't in opposition.

-Cliff

 

[skammer]

There is no excuse or at least very few to not have some basic life support gear on you day in day out.

A bic lighter, knife and bandana take up little room and go a loooong way in getting you out of trouble. Our forefathers would be ashamed at how ill prepared and thoughtless we are today.

Specialization is for insects.

Skam

 

[Thomas Linton]

Since you asked:

Unless barred by law, I carry a SAK Farmer always plus a butane lighter and "coin" LED.

I have a small shoulder bag that goes with me everywhere the law allows -- and has done so for fifteen years. The contents have changed over the years. It currently has:

Princeton Attitude 4xAAA LED flashlight
4 extra AAA batteries
small role of TP
neophrene gloves
fleece watch cap (bright red)
5.5" miniature wrecking bar
3.5 power magnifying glass
EZE-LAP miniature diamond sharpener
Brunton compass
35mm film can of vasaline-smeared cotton
SOG Paratool
SwissChamp SAK
Benchmade RitterGrip knife
spiral pad and pen
first aid kit (bandaids; chap stick; Neosporin; aspirin)
Storm Whistle
55 gal "contractor's" garbage bag x 2
2 1/2 ' x 11/32" firesteel and point file striker
1" candle stub
"egg carton" sawdust & parafin fire starter
match safe of strike anywhere matches
red bandana
25' of 550 paracord
50' of dental floss
50' of double-strand copper telephone wire
1 gallon zip-loc bag x 2
2 oz. salt
6 oz. peppermints
4 grainola bars
butane lighter (Gander Mtn.)
personal meds for 3 days


Given the season, my vehicle now has:

wool blanket
stadium waist-down insulated bag
25 degree sleeping bag
show-paks and wool socks
medium fleece jacket
hooded shell parka
winter gloves
wool watch cap
2xD LED flashlight
3xAAA LED flashlight
Mark II Combat-Utility Knife by Ka-Bar
fixed-blade prunning saw, 12"
early 1960's GI intrenching tool
"Made in Sweden" "WB" hand ax
small snow shovel
100' of 1/4" nylon climbing rope
8'x8' nylon tarp
6'x6' nylon tarp
6' walking staff
thermarest-type mattress, 24" x 72"
about 3000 calories of snack food (dried fruit/peanuts/candy)
1/2 gal. of water
2 highway flares
1 qt. motor oil
tire pump

 

[Myakka]

There is no excuse or at least very few to not have some basic life support gear on you day in day out.

A bic lighter, knife and bandana take up little room and go a loooong way in getting you out of trouble. Our forefathers would be ashamed at how ill prepared and thoughtless we are today.

Skam

Skam, I totally agree, even the indians carried some basic tools with them. I'm not against gear, I alway carry the basics on me. Some people just carry too much gear on them daily, it's just sometimes over kill. With practice, skill, and the proper gear in most cases you'll be okay.

 

[bacman99]

skammer: wow