Something I've been thinking about... When a volunteer joins the Morrow Project, they would look forward to their retirement after the Project has done it's monumental task. Many of the volunteers would have something in their lives that they would not want to just loose (family heirlooms and the like).

Thus I had always allowed for the PCs to come up with the kinds of personal belongings that would be for their HOMES when the project is over. And all this stuff would be stored in a cache along with building materials so they could build their new homes when everything was done and over with.

The way I've been thinking of setting up the supply caches using the ideas started by Kato has given me a lot of ideas for doing something like this.

My question is this.. would it be better for each team member to be given a cargo container of their own, or have all of the personal belongings put into cargo containers as needed?

One of the reasons i ask this, is for those volunteers who had beloved pets (or family) that they did not wish to be parted from. I had always felt that those who are married with children would have their families placed in Cryo with the agricultural or medical teams where they would work as 'general support' personnel since the Project tried to keep everything in the family.

Another idea would be a secondary bolthole holding loved ones and pets... or even have that secondary bolthole being the location of the cache holding all of their personal belongings and the materials for building homes.

Adding the supply and administration of camps, even a "camp in a box", is a significant burden for the Project, which seems to have enough on its plate already. There are other organisations and people better suited to taking care of refugees, why not let them? (Unless I'm somehow missing the point.)

On the other hand, I do see that once specialists and key personnel are identified, they will need to be housed. For the most part, they will already have housing or accommodation of a sort, but if the Project needs to set up a colony of sorts (say, to staff a Project manufacturing facility that's geographically isolated) then staff will need shelter. But most of the time, as it says in TM 1-1 people will still use pre-war structures.

Moving along, I've allowed for a personal cache per team (not per person but one per team). As for dependents and close families, while the teams were dispersed, there is nothing saying there are also bulk storage facilities with hundreds, if not thousands of cryotubes (or scaled-up equipment). Allowing for family would give personnel an extra personal stake in the Project's success, not to mention a natural gratitude for helping their loved ones survive.

Tony

The 'camp in the box' would be administered by 3 project personnel (administrator, doctor, security specialist) who are assisted by locals they are training to do the bulk of the labor. And those three personnel wouldn't be permanent if they can help it. One of the ideas for the camp in a box would be a 'intake' location for the project.. the project personnel wouldn't be from the field teams, but support/specialty teams. I had an idea for a loose type of team who'd rotate between the camps providing administrative and health & medical care. but felt that the three project personnel would allow for the best administrative care. the doctor would operate as a primary care physician, and would either send those who are 'out of his scope' to the health & medical facility for advanced care.

This actually would fit into how the project could easily work.

I have (auxiliary) vehicles for your "camp in a box"

BIKE AMBULANCES

http://www.eranger.com/products/health/ambulance.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcF7D...eature=related

FIRE BIKES

http://www.bikeinsurance.net/news/fire-bikes-uk-trial

I have (auxiliary) vehicles for your "camp in a box"

BIKE AMBULANCES

http://www.eranger.com/products/health/ambulance.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcF7D...eature=related

FIRE BIKES

http://www.bikeinsurance.net/news/fire-bikes-uk-trial

Nate,

I could see this as accommodation for the people who are doing work on Project contracts and so on. Not a refugee or a transit camp in the traditional sense. (Such would either be unneeded or already established.)

Still, I think it might be better to look towards more permanent housing than a temporary camp, but better than nothing.

Tony

the camps aren't meant for permanent housing (either for those working with the project or those that Recon Teams encounter and in desperate need for a place to stay and get help)... but are temporary. prompting the people to work harder at building their own homes and pull themselves out of the basic living standards that you'd find in a camp.

I agree fully with the concept of the population assistance cache as outlined in the initial post.

The team may wake up in the middle of a disaster. If not, then the supplies could be allocated to the reconstruction effort.

Regardless, teams are able to offer prompt substantial assistance to locals which must be useful in establishing goodwill for the Project.

The base unit for supply caches should be the intermodal container,
as Richard mentioned upthread.

This enables pre-loading at Project warehouses, and supplies require minimal
concealment - they blend in with regular road and rail freight. For maximal access to all the nooks and crannies caches and boltholes will be placed, sticking with 20' containers as the base unit might be good (the only problem I can see with the 40', 45' and 53' containers).

With regard to the amount and location of supplies, this depends on how much independence of action field teams are going to need (weeks? months? a year without resupply?). There are game balance and plotting implications here - but I think that game refs/PDs should be able to cope with an apparent excess of gear.

Despite Bruce, I don't think the Project is blessed with perfect precognition; the Project must then plan for a broad range of contingencies (e.g. nuclear war the most likely way civilisation could end, but not the only one; how bad the 3-5 years after environment will be will also vary). So I would tend to be generous with supplies. Logistic support from area/regional bases can't be assumed.

The most extreme scenario is that Project team members are going to repopulate the world - that there are no other human survivors.

[I don't think the Project should be capable of coping with a total biospheric collapse option (caused by nearby supernova, gamma-ray burst, major impactor or gravitational wrenching by rogue whatever, etc). Game over; everyone dies].

At the low end of the range is the nebulous (and controversial?) threshold for Project activation.

A reasonable level would seem to be 'limited' nuclear war scenarios with near total destruction of key industrial infrastructure (>95% of oil refining, chemical plants, etc.) and an initial (to one year) mortality of ~30-40% of the pre-attack population. This would also fit with a 'Black Death' style pandemic.

Sorry about topic drift.


Rob

Thanks Rob... you hit the nail on the head on WHY there is so much there. The Project planned for alot of things, but they KNEW that human nature being what it is, that it's better to have something than not have it at all when you need it!

Rob,

The Project is going to be activated 3-5 years after a major disaster, not weeks or months. At that point, is there still going to be an immediate crisis?

Refugee aid seems to be a kind of "primary" function, not the kind of top-level cadre/reconstruction the Project is geared towards. No one says the Project wants to deliberately see anyone starve, but if it's still a problem three to five freakin' years after the war, then it's likely to be completely outside the scope of the Project's resources to alleviate except in a limited way unless 100% of the supplies go towards that end (and even then, I don't think you could dig enough holes to make a difference).

To be clear, while I don't think refugee relief is tenable as a Project capability, I do agree the proposed caches are a solid idea! It's not an issue of earning goodwill by offering prompt assistance, it's a matter of defining the Project's "core" mission and then keeping focus. Refugee aid seems like its really widening the core mission.

I also agree the Project seems to be aimed towards a limited nuclear exchange instead of the typical "total destruction" scenario. It seems to me isolated teams (no matter how well armed) aren't optimally organised to cope with a complete loss of civil order, and there doesn't seem to be enough resources to rebuild a completely destroyed industrial infrastructure.

Tony

Tony Stroppa wrote:

Contingency planning. A team could wake up in the middle of a famine, flood, wildfires, etc. etc.

Just because civilization has ended doesn't mean that something else can't go wrong. The project has a 'global' mission but has to respond to local problems.

That's not my point, but I wasn't explicit.
A limited exchange represents the minimum disaster level ('the low end of the range') the Project should be able to respond to.

The extant game material is weighted towards field teams for play purposes, I think.
A supply/support depot based scenario (Morrow Project + MASH/China Beach/Sgt. Bilko??) might be someone's cup of tea.


Rob

hmm 4077th in TMP, now that sounds interestingly fun, just need to get done the Jeep and the Deuce and a half done up before I start drawing it.

But yeah, I have been working on "light" versions of that supply base from Sarnman project.

Page 34 of TM1-1 seems a pretty clear indication that regional command installations are an option (it also makes me suspect that the creators of the game didn't always read each others contributions,. But that's another matter). Prime Base is mentioned on this page - along with a suggestion that there is a second base of similar function - and then the description of installations continues to the following

"The second type of installation is that of a permanent depot/base. These installations are scattered throughout the country and may be either manned or automated. The purpose of such bases is to resupply and support the Morrow teams as needed. They carry complete stocks of materials and equip,ent. The stocks included the materials to help start man back on the road to civilization and include construction equipment and materials as well as full libraries on microfilm. The MARS-ONE vehicles are stored in such bases and include very large arsenals of weapons and ammunition. Installations of this type should be limited to a maximum of 10."

"Another type of installation is of a more specialized nature. These are the bases for the specialist teams and include complete farms, hospitals, supply bases and power stations"

(my italics)


I suspect that a campaign based around a "supply base" could be interesting.

Rob,

That's a worthwhile sentiment, no one is arguing that the Project isn't going to try and help whoever they can, however they can.

Please keep in mind there is a serious danger of mission creep, of losing focus if too many contingencies are taken into account. As well, we need to keep in mind a few things to remain within the realm of plausibility:

1. While the Project has a lot of resources available, they are not actually unlimited. That is, they must be paid for in some sense.
2. All these resources not only need to be paid for, they need to be pre-emplaced in some fashion; re-supply/replenishment is going to be problematical, at least at first, so we're talking about caches and stockpiles.
3. Contingency planning in this case is a zero-sum game; every ton of material devoted to refugee aid is one less available for reconstruction, the Project's core mission.

I read some of the numbers posted earlier on this list. According to Lee, a 90-day (3 month) food supply for only 3,000 people is 405,000kg. That's 27 shipping containers worth, for a few thousand people. Imagine the space that takes up! To help 3,000 people for 3 months.

Wouldn't it be more worth it to devote that 405,000kg/27 container loads to reconstruction? I agree it would be expedient to be able to hand out food or other aid immediately, but it wouldn't be more than a token unless a serious amount of Project capacity and resources were re-purposed from reconstruction to aid, which seems to defeat the purpose of the Project in the first place.

As for the destruction level, it's hard to see how the Project could function in the book scenario of a full thermonuclear/biological/chemical war, if you treat it like a thought exercise. Isolated teams, little in the way of industrial infrastructure, well-armed as individuals but not much more. Not the optimal strategy for an all-out war. Which to me would be organising many Project field teams into brigade group-sized units clustered around highly-automated industrial facilities in areas that are agriculturally self-supporting. Note, I don't normally advocate such a highly militarised Project other than as a thought-exercise for what would work best after an all-out war.

As Matt mentions, the Depots actually could be part or mostly industrial facilities. This would make sense, and provide a backup capability for the "worst-case" scenario. Still not optimal, but much better than nothing!

Tony

Also a reason for these kinds of supplies goes back to the fact that a team might just wake up during or right after TEOTWAWKI event, and need to do SOMETHING to help people.

But even if they don't need the 'Camp in a Box' for refugees... the equipment would still be definitely be put to good use that would go a long way into improving not only survivors lives where they get used, but improve project public relations ("hey, these guys are here to help.. and they've built a clinic/school in our town").

Nate,

I'm not trying to be a big meanie or anything, but on one hand the whole point was that teams would not be activated right after the war. Primarily because of concerns over radiation or disease, but as a side effect the immediate crisis would also be over.

On the other, it's an issue of what I keep trying to bring up: mission creep. The food requirement alone is astounding. 405 metric tons (27 container loads) of food alone just to keep 3,000 people alive for 3 months. It's a "zero-sum" game, where almost every kilo of refugee aid is taken at the direct expense of reconstruction.

Let others who are better equipped handle the refugees. If there is no one, then it's not likely something the Project can handle anyways except in a limited way. It's not a matter of what will be appreciated, it's that including sizable stocks of refugee aid literally hamstrings the Project.

As for the design of the supply base, hey, I'm going to use that for my game, for sure. a "camp in a box" will be useful as well for housing Project personnel and contractors.

Tony

The food issue is something i've been working on. Just because we can't hold enough food for 3000 people for 3 months does not change the fact something like this is necessary.

Just because the plan is NOT to make up during or during the immediate aftermath of TEOTWAWKI Event. Accidents happen. And planning for those accidents are a hell of alot easier than not. That's why we have lifeboats on our ships. Even though an aircraft carrier is built so that when the flight deck reaches water level it will float for several hours. But we still had enough lifeboats for more than double the crew. And that's not counting the liberty boats, and other embarked boats we have aboard. You have an access of them so that if anything is lost, you have plenty of replacements.

It goes back to the fact of "Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it" principle.

And the one thing about the project is, they have the time to put all this together... And they would have the time to take the long range preps to set up each of these 'camp in a box' concepts. Their only fear is these places getting uncovered.

That would keep them from setting them into places that would be easy to stumble onto. Such as buying property were they are located to keep them from getting bought by some developer... Such as front companies that are developers who are going to build something, but then go out of business... that's always a good cover.

Nate,

No matter how well planned or how much time it has to prep, the Project doesn't (or at least realistically shouldn't) have unlimited space or probably even funding (although I agree that this planning can be done relatively cheaply). Therefore a better principle is ""you can't do it all".

Refugee relief, while a useful PR effort, is not part of the Project's core mission. Otherwise the Project would be activated right after the war. This is not a situation that for want of a nail the shoe was lost, because not having it won't negatively affect Project operations in a direct way. (There are a host of indirect factors that might affect the Project, but we can't cover all bases!)

That said, I see the "camp in the box" as feasible and desirable, not just for refugees but for Project personnel. Shelter is not going to be as bulky and the materials can always be re-purposed. In my own game, one group of players is setting up a Project base of operations and rebuilding a destroyed community for political reasons, having this material would make things a lot simpler. The campaign is based on Final Watch, so this is a cooperative effort between the Reds and Rebels, basically a joint effort between former enemies run by the Project and used as their base.

The sheer amount of food and supplies? I can see a token issue of a 3-month supply for 3,000 on the Regional level, but not something for teams or Groups to worry about.

Tony

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. the 'camp in a box' isn't 'doing it all'... it's something that would allow a team in a pinch to be able to DO SOMETHING. Not everything. Just because you can set up a camp and keep the people fed for three months isn't going to solve all problems.

Hell, doing that actually ties the team down. I came up with the idea for 'Camp in a Box' as it's become known as a way for the Recon Team to be able to do SOMETHING to help locals when they wake up, and allow locals to feel like they are doing something to better their condition. I never intended for the team to manage or run the camp.

Having the food there is not 'trying to do everything'... and seeing that the Project is operating on a long-term basis they could easily take the time to build things up and set up caches all around the country. because in all honesty, it's the only way that the project could do anything they are attempting to do.

Thus giving the teams the flexibility to do their jobs. That's what 'camp in the box' is all about. Giving flexibility to a team. They can use the 'camp in a box' for refugees or setting up a project community.

But I'm a big believer in the idea that if the project is doing something for it's own people, they are doing it for the people they are helping. You don't have the Project personnel and contractors living good, while the people you are helping are living in squallier. That just makes the people you are trying to help feel resentment that you are keeping the best stuff for yourself.

Thus i came up with the 'Camp in the Box' so that the Team could give locals some of the 'perks' that the Project would be using for their own people as well. A bridge between the two worlds, showing that soon as we get all this done, everyone can have access to the same stuff if you work for it.

Tony,

You seem to assume that supplies can be used for one thing only.

Stockpiled food and temporary shelter are multi-purpose items.

In terms of 'unlimited resources', the Project has fusion power and cryotubes.
Depending on whether or not you follow canon slavishly, they also have
weapons of mass destruction. The Project must be extremely well resourced to have such these!

How much gear is too much for a given team?
As I stated earlier, some decision about team endurance needs to be made with regard to consumables (food, other consumables e.g. ammo, spare parts). Three months seems a reasonable minimum. The camp in a box cache
may end up being used by the team in the worst case.

Thinking more broadly, what is the Project set up to do? What does
'recovery' mean?
From Quarantelli 1999:

http://www.udel.edu/DRC/preliminary/pp286.pdf

Reconstruction (rebuild infrastructure)
Restoration (of physical and social environment)
Rehabilitation (of the survivors)
Restitution (governance rather than settling claims of loss in the Morrow setting!)

The Project's activity has to cover all these options to some extent.
I do not agree with the 'disaster relief is mission creep' concept.


Rob

My own throught behind the 90-day food supply was to assume worst case (no food) and the minimum amount of time for crops to grow. The limiting factor is just how many people could be supported by the Camp In A Box and above all else, just how many survivors/refugees a single team could support. And this is perhaps the greatest stumbling block to a CIAB. I think we all agree that the is simply no way for the Project to aid everyone, the sheer scale of supporting a refugee populations swamps FEMAs (but then just about anything swamps FEMA!!!) ability to aid the survivors.

So what is the cutoff? Does the Project plan on CIAB supporting 500; 3,000; 15,000? Should there even be a CIAB? The careful use of a CIAB should allow a PD to let the team answer this question...

We might be able to combine the Camp in a Box with a Farm in a Box idea... once the containers have been emptied, they can be converted into a hydroponic garden. All you'd have to do is have equipment stored in the cache complex, with a 'snap-together' type set up that would allow even unskilled labor to put everything together.

This would allow the pre-stored food supplies to last the three month time it takes to get regular agriculture on its feet. And after this period the hydroponics can be used as a greenhouse type arrangement to grow food year round.

Rob,

I seem to think supplies can be used for one thing only if they are in fact used for one thing only. In this case, the stumbling block is food. Food and pre-fab shelter are short-term solutions to long-terms problems. How much is too much? 27 containerloads to feed 3,000 people for 3 months is too much, in my opinion.

I do agree that pre-fab shelter can be re-purposed to house workers, although it's not truly multi-purpose. Certainly, I'll concede that point.

Fusion, cryotubes, even WMDs are either small or crucial to Project operations, worth the expenditure. Storing food and shelter takes an enormous amount of space that can go to other materials that are specifically meant for reconstruction. It's a question of "bang for your buck" in terms of space and manufacturing capabilities.

I like the list you quote, although the link is no longer active. The Project can cover all the elements listed without taking "immediate" disaster relief into account.

Tony

Nate,

I don't think we'll have to agree to disagree, I do think the "camp" part is useful. I'm going to use that in my own game. I'm just not sold on the food. Like Lee asks, how many people is the Project supposed to feed using stored food supplies? 3,000? 300,000? 20,000,000?

Agriculture is also something that takes an enormous amount of materials, from seeds to fertiliser and feed. I think that the Project is best served by concentrating on industrial infrastructure. Agriculture teams should be focused on returning mechanisation to agriculture (by applying high-tech solutions like fusion power) to enhance all food production. Not just, say, build a farm to feed X people in a given town.

Tony

dragoon500ly wrote:
I think that's very reasonable - assuming you can grow food (shades of 'The Road'?).

It should be a relatively small number - from the 'Farm in a Box' thread, 34,500 person-days food per 20' ISO container is an upper limit.

Area and Regional Agriculture teams are the ones who can really assist in longer term food production.

Tony Stroppa wrote:
What are you feeding people with? 9 containers of rice or corn will provide the required amount of calories - bland, but it's an emergency diet. If you don't need to eat it directly, plant it or feed livestock with it.

Quarantelli E.L. The Disaster Recovery Process: What we know and do not know from research. University of Delaware Disaster Research Center Preliminary Paper 286.

Google Scholar gives this alternate link. Replace the %20 with a space:
http://dspace.udel.edu:8080/dspace/b...%20286.pdf.txt

Industrial infrastructure?
Are cattle feedlots and high intensity piggeries/battery farms 'industrial infrastructure'? I think a fertiliser plant counts.

Do Agricultural teams make plows, combines and tractors?

Agricultural teams help people grow food. Mechanisation is a small (but highly visible) component of modern high-yield agriculture.

At a minimum, Ag teams need skills in agronomy, pedology, climatology, applied climatology, entomology, environmental toxicology, microbiology, mycology and veterinary medicine.

About the OP
 

I wonder why you wanted to come up with a hexagonal or octagonal design, other than they look cool?
Digging a frakking big square or rectangular hole is commonplace and known and "easy" for countless construction firms. Placing ISO/ConEx containers therein and covering them with the fill dirt again, a basic construction job.
If you wanted to be all fancy you could lay in a conventional concrete slab after leveling the hole, and place your containers on top of that. Cover with dirt, etc.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
While an octagon or hexagon isn't incredibly difficult, square and rectangles are likely cheaper and perhaps faster to build with less questions asked by the locals.
As for construction materials like gravel and sand they could be used as some of the fill material on the sides or banked areas around the container cache. There is a map of their location relative to the entry to the cache and their removal wouldn't disrupt the integrity of the cache. Even in 2-5 years those would be expected to be completely overgrown.

Rob,

If you page back, the information I was using came from Post #11 by Lee Yates' on possible food requirements.

"Assuming that you provide bulk foodstuffs, the requirements get worse, that's 2kg per person per day (6,000kg) with a 180 day supply [for 3,000 people] running or 1,080,000kg; that's 27 standard cargo containers..."

Nine as opposed to twenty-seven 20' ISO containers is a lot more reasonable, but still, how many people is the Project supposed to feed, and for how long? Let's take a token amount of the American population, 300,000, for the suggested duration of 6 months. That's 1,800 containers needed to feed a token population scattered across the USA, containers that can't hold anything like components for a fertiliser plant, materials to build or repair plows, agricultural machinery of any kind. It's not even a farm-in-the-box, just the seed stock (which is still important, of course).

Certainly, dual-purpose food-seed stock makes sense, but it would be most useful really in a narrow range of circumstances. That is, there is starvation but not so that it overwhelms Project food stocks, and not where there's already enough of a yield for sustainable agriculture that the food/seed would be redundant and therefore wasted space/resources. Not that there's no use, but it seems that the space and resources could be better used for something else.

Speaking of something else, saying "Mechanisation is a small (but highly visible) component of modern high-yield agriculture" is kind of like saying mechanism is a small (but highly visible) component of modern high-speed transportation. More seriously, your suggestions about agricultural components, technology and skills are well-taken. While the obvious thought about Ag teams is they would be slaving out in the fields (and there would still be lots of that) but they are most useful as a cadre and knowledge base.

As a side note, I figure that 1 20' ISO container (1 Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) will store 28,119kg of maize/seed corn (at 721kg/cu.m, 39 cubic metres per TEU). This amount of seed will plant 1313 hectares (21.4/kg seed/hectares) with a yield of 6.6 tons per hectare or 8672 tons total.

Tony

The key question in this whole debate has been just how much the Project can help local refugee populations. This breaks down into two parts; how large is your Project and how much gear/technology is available to support your Project.

Say, for arguement's sake that your version of the Project has 20,000 recon personnel, split into 10-person teams...thats 2,000 recon teams and let's further say that each recon team has a CIAB that can support 3,000 survivors...that's roughly 6,000,000 survivors being supported by the Project.

At the 2kg per per person per day supply; that's 12,000,000kg or 6,000 tons of foodstuffs per day.

Supplying a 90 day supply...that's 540,000 tons of just basic foodstuffs, no clothing, no tools, no reference materials. This is the weak point of the CIAB.

Don't get me wrong, I think the CIAB is a wonderful idea! It's the logistics side of it that are the major stumbling block.

A better way of calculating things may be to look at the population of the area that the team will be working in...if the pre-war population was 38,000,000 and following TM-1s 98% death rate...that would leave a post-oops population of 760,000, once again at the 2kg rate that's 1,520,000kg or 760 tons per day or 68,400 tons for a 90 day supply.

There is no way that the Project would be able to support the entire surviving population of a post-oops world for much more than a minimal amount of time. The logistics of securing and emplacing CIAB of the size needed are almost impossible...not to mention the security problems of burying 540,000 tons around the country, sooner or later somebody is going to uncover a cache or a CIAB. That's why I feel that the CIAB would be of the minimal size, perhaps to support 1-3,000 people in very carefully selected portions of the country.

I put it in this design for one reason.. That all of the containers can be accessed at one time, and that you wouldn't need equipment to pull them out if they were stacked on each other.

More data came in with ideas of bulk supplies being placed in pits, thus the pits would be placed in between the spokes of the supply cache complex of the spokes. Thus you dig one big hole, place the cargo containers around the pre-fab central shaft. Once the containers have been placed you would the place the specially designed 'pits' full of bulk construction equipment (bricks, sand and the like) in between the container spokes and then fill it all back in. The job can take a few days.

While someone finding something like this going on, is greater... we haven't been talking about the fact that boltholes getting put into place can be just as easily stumbled across.

It's why i was using the Georgia Guidepost monument as an example of a place that the Project can set up as a rally point, or cover for a facility, ect.

Tony Stroppa wrote:
dragoon500ly wrote:
Richard's initial post suggested to me that this was an emergency relief capacity - enough to relieve a local disaster that was available to a given field team.

The 90 day food supply for 3,000 people being kicked around seems like a reasonable start, until area and regional Project assets are brought to bear on the situation.

Fertiliser plants and tractor factories are area or regional level assets. Plow kits would be part of one of Richard's proposed containers.

The remark wasn't as silly as you apparently think.
Without oil extraction, refining and distribution, where's modern high-speed transport? What about roads, ports, airports? The factories that build cars, trains, planes and their supply chains? What about the common engineering and safety standards that underlie all of this?

Back to agriculture: there's a lot more to growing crops than combines and tractors.

Thinking more widely: this is another reason why recovery has stagnated at D+150 - a lack of infrastructure and physical capital (Tony's right about needing to rebuild industry).

Another obvious area for Project expertise is food storage (pest proof containers). Distribution comes 'naturally' with area and regional level logistic support networks.

Agreed - all Project members are most useful as a knowledge base.

Looks reasonable.
From:
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/pub...ons/pm1885.pdf

figure 30,000 seeds per acre - this is ~75,000 per hectare.

A pessimistic fudge factor for seeds/bushel (25.4kg of corn) is 85,000 seeds per bushel:

http://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/...estmethod.html

That's ~22.4kg corn per hectare.
1,250 ha planted per 28,000 kg corn.

Historical average yields from the Iowa State file linked above and
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/serv...-of-area-plant

range from 10 bushels/acre (635kg/ha) to 150 bu/acre (9525kg/ha).
6.6 tons/ha (~104 bu/acre) is a typical 1970s level yield.

This makes a good case for a container of seed corn as an emergency supply in areas where it can be grown. Wheat and rice look like good alternatives in certain regions. The question is whether or not this should be a field level asset or not. I can't see why not.


Rob

Pob,

If we're looking at a capacity to aid 3,000 people for 3 months per (say) a hypothetical 10 regions across the entire Project, then that's not out of the question at all.

Even with all those things you mention, high-speed transportation is not possible without mechanisation. Transportation, yes, but not the high speed kind. Likewise, without mechanisation farming is possible, just not modern farming.

Anyways, I just found your comment amusing, and thanks for the smile.

Tony

Tony Stroppa wrote:
Do you mean each team can do this, only 10 teams nationally, or something else?

What do you mean by 'modern farming'?

Yields (gross and/or net of storage and harvesting losses)?
Productivity per farm worker?
The use of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers?

The only one of the items above where mechanisation is essential is productivity per farm worker. Green Revolution farming techniques in the 3d world invalidate the others as points of argument.

I'm pretty sure you're avoiding a circular argument (modern farming = mechanisation).


Rob

Rob,

If we arbitrarily set the number of regions in the USA at ten, then one per region or equivalent area in the USA. Ten such caches (9x containers) nationally is better than nothing, but not a significant drain on Project resources.

Agreed, I could be doing a better job of defining my terms.

By "modern" I mean industrialised agriculture that provides increased individual productivity along the scale of the 1st world, per your point above.

The methods of the Green Revolution (pesticides and fertilisers) are important in raising post-war agriculture to the level of the pre-war third world. (It's funny, when used in the context of the Cold War, 1st and 3rd world are quite appropriate.) I would hope the Project is aiming for something higher.

Tony

Tony... only helping that small of a group (one group of 3000 per region) would be a slap in the face of the project itself.

The entire project has been designed to HELP as many people as possible. Considering helping people a 'Drain on Resources' is... well, that goes totally against what the project was founded for. And is honestly heartless.

The project has 30+ years to prepare for TEOTWAWKI. And any Prepper will tell you, that stocking food is the easiest part of prepping for disasters. It's also the CHEAPEST part of their prepping. And considering the resources of the Project, stockpiling food is not a 'drain on resources'... because the project is the one whose very founding is to HELP as many people as possible. The original game had a bunch of supplies stuffed in a tiny little concret box that really could not hold all the stuff they talked about being in them.

My idea here, was to explain how a cache complex would be set up.

Giving each field team (recon, mars & science) a 'Camp in a Box' wouldn't be a drain considering just how VAST the conspiracy that would be necessary for the Project to have existed (and another reason to say that the Federal Government knew about it, and was turning a blind eye to it... and would give a damn good reason for Carter to have killed Civil Defense Preparations).

Look at the Soviet Union, they never gave up on Civil Defense and pretty much didn't give a rat's ass about their people as individuals. But even they had kept civil Defense going, and had made provisions for people to survive a nuclear exchange.

if 3000 people is just to big a group in your oppinion to help, cut it down to 1000. Or even 500. But to call it a 'drain on resources' is heartless and a slap in the face to the very IDEALS that the Project had been created for.

Nate,

Ah, no one, much less the poor Project or it's IDEALS, are getting slapped in the face! (Repeatedly, and so violent, too!) Roshambo'd in the balls, maybe. :D

I think the Project isn't heartless, nor should it be seen to be. Immediate aid for 30,000-100,000 people seems about right. Significantly less isn't worthwhile, significantly more requires diversion of additional Project resources and courts the danger of "mission creep". Project resources may be vast but they shouldn't be practically unlimited (if we want to keep this within the bounds of reality). Hand-waving this concern away is simply dodging the question. As has been mentioned several times, the Project can't feed all survivors, everywhere, even if all possible resources are devoted that end.

Please note, I am separating immediate food aid from the idea of a CIAB, which I otherwise like. So don't take this as a flame for your idea in general. To recapitulate, as it stands, CIAB to my understanding comprises 16x standard ISO containsers: 9 for food/seed stock alone, 7 for the other supplies and facilities. I can't see one of these per team, but one or more per region would be do-able. If I am mistaken, please clarify!

We must keep in mind the main mission is still to aid in long-term reconstruction of the USA. That is the guiding principle to keep in mind. Therefore, short term aid is acceptable as long as it's not a drain on the resources that are available for reconstruction. That said, I agree that the COT and Morrow would see the USSR's continued efforts towards civil defence and postwar reconstruction is deserving of a private-sector response (with some government backing or at least tacit acceptance).

Tony

Actually you would want to protect the containers before covering them with dirt. I work in the construction Observation, management and testing field. Metal will corrode in allot of soil situations and not last long. Encasing it in a concrete cocoon will help considerably. The tricky part would be to protect the lock/access area from the soils and still allow some one to gain access to them with a minimum of tools. One such idea would be a specially designed lightweight concrete that with a large hammer or other object could be used to break it away for the critical area. Perhaps with a MP or other symbol cast into it.

All in all Caches will be a tricky part of the project. Though if you were only expecting them to last a short time then it would not be a problem. Though in the case of the normal MP scenario waking up 150ish years later some of the caches may have been compromised as in rusted through or rusted/corroded shut. This may even be an issue with Bold holes to some extent. Location is the most important part of the planning. Know your area. How it reacts chemically and geologically. Ground water level/depth is very important. Trying to keep something buried in or below the water level and keeping it sealed or dry is very hard without an active system. Big sealed stainless steel containers would be the best bet, especially with an additional plastic or rubber coating. The one tricky part is the access to the cache. How it is protected and still accessible.

The plan i had for the "Camp in a Box" is for each Field Team (MARS, Science & Recon Team) to have at least one of these types of supply caches. And this is not a drain on resources. No by a long shot. You are forgetting the fact that this kind of prepping is the easiest and cheapest. You are providing for immediate aide to a community, and news of this will get around. Thus improving the public perception of the project.

Once the "CIAB" has been set up and gets running (something that the team isn't expected to run, just get it started), it will act as a good distribution point for a localized recovery area.

This does something for the PC Team... it's part of the standing orders of the project, and allow them to feel like that even without being able to raise the Project on the radio that they are doing something substantial.

You stated We must keep in mind the main mission is still to aid in long-term reconstruction of the USA. That is the guiding principle to keep in mind. and the CIAB is an important part of that goal.

Look at the big picture Tony. Only providing help for a handful of people would come across as elitist. That the 'Morrow People' are only helping 'those people' and keeping all the good stuff for themselves and those that kiss their asses.

That creates a division in the people you are trying to help.

By providing a field team, who is out in the field and can see where the help is needed RIGHT NOW, the ability and means to do something positive about it... goes a million miles further than just pretty words of 'we've got aide coming'.

Actually having the ability to do something RIGHT NOW, even if you feel it's a 'drain on resources' to feed someone starving, or provide medical aide to someone who is dying and can't 'just hold on a little longer'.. because those words would be seen as hollow, and when that aide doesn't show up as said... well, that turns you into a liar.

The "CIAB" provides a field team composed of PCs something that allows them to get things set up, so they have long-term goals that fall into what the Project is all about.

To break the fourth wall for a moment, having a team of PCs just running from one shoot-first-grab-loot encounter to another is boring in my opinion. and the "CIAB" falls into the entire ideal of the Project with one big box with a nice bow on top. The project's long-term goal is to rebuild the country, and to do that you have to do it one building block at a time. That's what a CIAB is. a building block. It's a starting point.

Back into the game universe now...

Even if the project got started out 5 years after the nukes were exchanged, they would have some people out there who knows how to do high-tech skills. But they need to get find them. To get them into a place that their knowledge can be used.

Thus the CIAB.

It allows the Field Team to see what is needed on the spot, and set up something that will act as a rally point for civilians to come too. And allow the project (who sends someone from the supply & logistics branch to run the CIAB at first to set up the computer hook-ups that will allow them to know who they are helping, their skill set, ect) to start finding out just what human resources they have access too.

Once the CIAB has been set up, this central location will be perfect for the Agricultural teams to go to first, then go to the local communities that really need their help the most.

That's what this has been used for in my campaigns. And it worked. If you don't want to use it, so be it.

But to call something like this a 'Drain on Resources' goes totally against what the Project's goals are.

Nate,

I don't agree being rational goes totally against the Project's goals. In fact, it's crucial.

I also believe we both see the big picture. To suggest otherwise simply doesn't make sense.

We just disagree on how resources should be allocated, or even what (if any) the reasonable limits to those resources are.

I think the CIAB is a good idea, maybe one per Group or several per region. Minus the enormous food storage, of course! I've even adapted the CIAB for my game, so that's certainly a personal compliment regarding the idea.

We'll leave it at that, and no hard feelings.

Tony

No, just realistic. Depending on number of people, transportation, and other resources, you can only do so much, Recognizing that is not a slap in the face or heartlessness. Now, saying "We're all about rebuilding America, and we'll let the survivors starve because there's plenty of other survivors elsewhere that we can use without having to give handouts" would be heartless and disregarding of the projects ideals. OTOH, as a servicemember, I know how many sailors couldn't give a rat's ass about the flag, the constitution, or the ideals of America.

Any use is a drain - just how justifiable is it?

i am a DAV, so i know there are many in uniform who don't care about the flag or the constitution or ideals of america. but one thing you are forgetting. the project SCREENED everyone to make sure that only those who believed in those three things got into the operation.

And what you and Tony are not getting is the fact that I have worked with Preppers, and know that what I am talking about is NOT difficult. Every prepper I have worked with has stated that stockpiling FOOD is the easiest (and cheapest) part of their preps.

Yes that will take up space, but when you empty the container... you are opening up space that can be used later. Thus the "FARM IN A BOX" idea can be combined with the CAIB... you can turn the empty storage area into green houses.

As I stated. Saving lives is never a drain, and is always justifiable.

Remember that the project is country wide, and that they have to place resources in a way that will allow the intital teams the greatest flexibliy to do their jobs without immediate support from the main resources of the Project itself.

CIAB gives that ability. it allows for teams on the ground/frontlines to do their job, and do it right up until they can get access to the rest of the Project's resources in all those hidden warehouses in Alaska and Canada.

That's why i came up with CIAB in my campaigns.

I came up with CIAB using the Planning on how to do things with the 5 to 10 year window after TEOTWAWKI in mind. Considering the way the game has it being 150 years afterwards... the CIAB allows teams to have the ability to set up a settlement, and give them the breathing room to set up everything that can give them a sense of self-sufficiency.