Supply Cache Idea...

[natehale1971]

I've been looking at the thread about using cargo containers as the basis of supply caches, and it gave me an idea for the supply caches for teams. I've always seen supply caches as a way for teams to set up refugee camps or provide health can comfort of survivors, not just to reequip the team after they've run out of ammo... Now what i'm proposing does not have to be EVERY supply cache, but at least one or two of the six that the team has assigned to them... this would allow the average recon team to set up a small refugee camp (or bolster the food and medical supplies of a small settlement) that can help up to 300 families.

My idea is that the supply cache is a set up that looks like an eight-pointed star, established around a central shaft that can be used to get supplies out of the cache (namely via a set of block and tackle that would be part of the materials and supplies in the central shaft, along with the stuff for ramps that can be used to get the vehicles being stored at the cache out). Each spoke would be dedicated to a different aspect of supplies being stored... thus allowing a team the ability to know where something is (i always had the first thing that the team found when they accessed a supply cache was an inventory so they would know if what they are needing was in the cache or not). And it would allow the cache to be used as a storage area after it's been cleaned out (something that would be ideal if you are setting up the refugee camp right there at the cache if capable).

Heavy vehicles would all be at depots, boltholes, emergency shelters or the like.

Spoke 1 (Food, Personal Demand & Sundry Items): This spoke contains enough food to feed 3000 people for three to six months (depending on rationing), along with enough HCP 1 & 2 to provide for all health and comfort needs of 3000 people for six months.
Spoke 2 (Humanitarian & Housing Supplies): This spoke contains enough supplies to allow the team set up a long term refugee tent city for up to 300 families. Also includes a portable water treatment unit trailer, thermal conversion waste treatment unit, a small power grid & power plant, and the materials to assemble a water storage tank. Also includes the tools and equipment for at least a 100 workers to build the necessary infrastructure for the refugee camp. In addition there are support tents & materials to build secure structures (such as a clinic or infirmary). The spoke also contains all of the materials & equipment that is to be used to setup a school, which will be capable of providing for the educational needs of children from ages 3 to 14.
Spoke 3 (Weapons & Ammunition): This spoke contains enough weapons, ammunition, and reloading equipment that can be used to outfit a small armed security force of 48 to assist in protection of Morrow Project assets or habitations as needed with small caliber weapons. But the majority of the contents of the cache spoke contain the weapons and ammunition to completely resupply the team.
Spoke 4 (Vehicles, Electronics & Maintenance bay): This spoke contains one or two replacement team vehicles, and a couple alternative vehicles. There is a variety of repair and replacement spare parts and equipment that are available for vehicles, team equipment and gear.
Spoke 5 (Emergency Equipment & Vehicles): This spoke contains all of the equipment needed by fire-fighters, law enforcement and emergency medical personnel to deal with mass fatalities and search & rescue operations.
Spoke 6 (Medical Equipment): This spoke contains a wide variety of medical equipment, supplies, drugs and other necessary goods for treating the medical needs of a refugee camp.
Spoke 7 (Construction Materials & Equipment): This spoke contains all of the construction equipment and materials needed to build a long-term refugee camp. The spoke also contains solar power panels, batteries and equipment necessary to set up a power plant to provide renewable energy for the refugee camp.
Spoke 8 (Horticulture and Agricultural Supplies): This spoke contains several support vehicles (John Deer tractors and electric all-terrain carts), seeds for a wide-variety of staple crops, and all of the farming equipment that can be used to establish a farm that will allow the refugee camp to become self-sufficient within a period of three to six months. The spoke also contains all of the materials needed to build a series of greenhouses to allow for crops to be grown year around.

[mikeo80]

I agree with your thinking.

IMHO, this is what the region supply bases were supposed to be, one stop shopping as it were to help the locals rebuild. As I read Starnaman, the supply base can be easily modified to provide the items you postulate in your message.

Your idea makes more sense, though. Having a supply system that is departmentalized and distrubuted allows for greater survivability during the Big Bang. Also, your team can activated what is needed now as opposed to opening the whole can of worms as presented in Starnaman scenario.

Just my two cents worth.

Mike

[LBraden]

Hmm, I think that it maybe less than that idea Nate, more like a one in 10 teams have this as one of their scribed 6 boltholes (no idea exactly how many teams though)

However, mixing my idea of a "Regional Command Centre" and this, I came up with two options, obviously one needs to be bigger than other, but here goes


Obviously these are NOT scaled to anything, but give you an idea what popped into my head thinking about it.

[natehale1971]

the second one, that's what i was thinking.... the central shaft would be a stop-sign shape, with the ability to be used to store materials as well...

Each cache would easily be a 'refugee camp in a box'... and regional supply bases like starnam would be there for keeping all of these camps supplied.

[LBraden]

I was using something close to the "stop sign" one for my "Regional Command Base" for places they could not make a copy of the NORAD style base, essentially it is a massive supply and command centre, reducing the whole "hub and spoke" system that Base Prime did.

But yeah, I will attempt to do up some drawings of it, no idea how big to make it though.

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by LBraden

I was using something close to the "stop sign" one for my "Regional Command Base" for places they could not make a copy of the NORAD style base, essentially it is a massive supply and command centre, reducing the whole "hub and spoke" system that Base Prime did.

But yeah, I will attempt to do up some drawings of it, no idea how big to make it though.

Each spoke would be a reinforced cargo container box type (10ft x 20ft x 40ft. i think) set inside a concrete block to protect it from the elements like described for to other cargo container cache threads. the shaft would have the equipment for setting up the means of getting the supplies, equipment, gear and small vehicles (john deere tractors and m-gators and other light vehicles) out of the cache.

what program are you using? i've been trying to figure out how to do something like that so i can do the new Damocles base maps...

[dragoon500ly]

[QUOTE]Spoke 1 (Food, Personal Demand & Sundry Items): This spoke contains enough food to feed 3000 people for three to six months (depending on rationing), along with enough HCP 1 & 2 to provide for all health and comfort needs of 3000 people for six months. [QUOTE]

Started to crunch a few numbers and came across a couple of items...Spoke 1 is supposed to provide enough food to support 3,000 people for 3-6 months. Assuming that you provide MREs/HDR style food, that's 1.5kg per person, per day...soooo (evil grin), the daily requirements would by 4,500kg, for 90 days of supply, that's 405,000kg, just in MRE/HDRs, 180 days supply moves up to 810,000kg or 20 standard cargo containers! Assuming that you provide bulk foodstuffs, the requirements get worse, that's 2kg per person per day (6,000kg) with a 180 day supply running or 1,080,000kg; that's 27 standard cargo containers....

Staying with just 8 standard cargo containers, as broken down in your first post, one container (MRE/HDR)would hold 26,667 person-days or a food supply for 148 people for 180 days. Moving to bulk food leaves up with 20,000 person-days or a supply for 111 people for 180 days. You will notice that this is based on max capacity of the container with just food.

Now this is not meant as a flame!!!! I think that you have an intresting solution that is simply not covered in the canon material. Just how can you help the local population when a standard supply cache is a 4'x4' concrete cube, that also has to hold team resupply? It ain't going to happen!

[natehale1971]

[QUOTE=dragoon500ly;26765][QUOTE]Spoke 1 (Food, Personal Demand & Sundry Items): This spoke contains enough food to feed 3000 people for three to six months (depending on rationing), along with enough HCP 1 & 2 to provide for all health and comfort needs of 3000 people for six months.

Started to crunch a few numbers and came across a couple of items...Spoke 1 is supposed to provide enough food to support 3,000 people for 3-6 months. Assuming that you provide MREs/HDR style food, that's 1.5kg per person, per day...soooo (evil grin), the daily requirements would by 4,500kg, for 90 days of supply, that's 405,000kg, just in MRE/HDRs, 180 days supply moves up to 810,000kg or 20 standard cargo containers! Assuming that you provide bulk foodstuffs, the requirements get worse, that's 2kg per person per day (6,000kg) with a 180 day supply running or 1,080,000kg; that's 27 standard cargo containers....

Staying with just 8 standard cargo containers, as broken down in your first post, one container (MRE/HDR)would hold 26,667 person-days or a food supply for 148 people for 180 days. Moving to bulk food leaves up with 20,000 person-days or a supply for 111 people for 180 days. You will notice that this is based on max capacity of the container with just food.

Now this is not meant as a flame!!!! I think that you have an intresting solution that is simply not covered in the canon material. Just how can you help the local population when a standard supply cache is a 4'x4' concrete cube, that also has to hold team resupply? It ain't going to happen!

True... i was thinking of the food being t-rations and the like instead of MREs/HDRs. but if we can't hold that much in a single spoke, might have to have a series of 'stars' for the supply cache. it's alot to think about, and thanks for the math. I'll be thinking about this and figure something out (or hopefully someone can help as well).

From Paul's site describing them...

T-Rations: In bivouac, the normal ration is A/C/A, or hot breakfast, MRE lunch, and hot dinner. This requires the mess section to cook twice daily, and keeping food fresh and restocked presents logistical problems. The T-Ration is a pre-prepared meal kit consisting of sealed metal trays of entrees and side dishes such as meat, scrambled eggs, lasagna, etc., and items like canned fruit and vegetables, designed to feed multiple (18) soldiers per tray. They are heated by boiling the trays in water for a specific time. This system lessens mess personnel staffing requirements and eases preparation. There are 7 breakfast and 14 lunch/dinner menus. A module also contains various instant beverages, nondairy creamers, hot sauce, jelly, Styrofoam cups, cardboard plates, and utensils. The T-Rations are normally supplemented with irradiated, individually wrapped bread slices, UHT Milk (both provided with the modules), and locally procured salad (which became harder to get as the war wore on). Required intake is 2kg per day. The T-Rations are designed to last a minimum of 3 years under poor conditions, and if kept carefully, can last much longer. A can opener is required to open the tins. Weight: (single module) 42 kg, (pallet of 24 modules) 1010 kg; Price: (single module) $215, (pallet) $4125 (S/R)

[natehale1971]

This has given me alot of though... the cargo containers could be two deep instead of one deep, allowing them to hold more materials. With the secured pits holding gravel & concrete blocks that can be used later for water storage or septic tanks after they've been emptied of there contents... would sand also be able to be kept like this over long term? in a completely sealed pit container? or could the groundwater end up turning that sand into rock?

[dragoon500ly]

We maybe making this harder than it needs to be. Your original idea is excellent, it's the scale of the thing.

For a Team, one or even two of these 8 spoke sites is an excellent starting point for assisting survivors. These would be placed near prime locations with good water, usable lumber, decent farmland, etc. If the team is going to be operating in areas where a large refugee population would reasonably be expected to pass through, then stacking 3-6 spokes/levels would be a viable solution.

I can even see these sites being positioned in easy to find locations, minus any obvious Morrow Project equipment and perhaps listed as Civil Defense stockpiles. The team would have as part of their mission, the job of checking the nearest "stockpile" and see if any community has been set up.

In my own games, I have the teams equipped with a variety of footlocker-sized chests that hold antennes, radio repeator gear, ni-cad batteries and a solar collector to recharge the batteries. Great way of helping a team expand its radio capabilities...there is also another reason, if one of these sites goes off line, it's a good indicator that locals may be capable of understanding and using this technology....

[dragoon500ly]

From Paul's site describing them...

That's were I pulled the base numbers for daily capacity. Know and love Paul's web site, it's one of the best support sites out there!!!

Kudo's Paul!!!

[Matt W]

An excellent idea, but I think you missed a few items. They may seem banal, but they might be very useful

Books: A small library (and not just instruction manuals).
Paper/Printers: If you're running a camp you need paper: records, journals, notes, maybe even a newspaper
School supplies: The UNICEF "school-in-a-box" is pretty good
Entertainment: something to help morale

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by Matt W

An excellent idea, but I think you missed a few items. They may seem banal, but they might be very useful

Books: A small library (and not just instruction manuals).
Paper/Printers: If you're running a camp you need paper: records, journals, notes, maybe even a newspaper
School supplies: The UNICEF "school-in-a-box" is pretty good
Entertainment: something to help morale

Thank you!

I thought i had put the school-in-a-box listed in the supplies...

On the entertainment front... at least one of those big screen projection TVs with a large DVD collection to create a movie theater (or even the materials to set up a network of TVs so that they can have several different shows for better morale).

Also have one of those small range 'home broadcast' radio stations that has a range of under a mile that could provide music and 'news reports' for the camp.

also there would be a set of computers (such as Panasonic toughbooks) that would be used for the administration and medical clinic using programs that were developed for the VA to keep track of medical records... the supplies for the clinic facility would also have x-ray machines, and the like. The long-term storage for drugs would definitely be on the priority list, along with means for creating the more easily to make drugs that can be done with a 'low-tech' environment.

The printing press and paper is a good idea, as well as the materials for recycling that paper for later use, and since this is the morrow project with a few of the really kewl gadgets they have for turning poo into fertilizer so easily, they can have a gadget that takes used paper and turns it into new paper for use. Especially if it can make toilet paper, one of the greatest sanitation inventions. it's either that or washrags that get used and washed after each use...

Thus the thought of putting the cache two or three containers deep, thus holding all the supplies needed for the camp. Having the cargo containers as the largest they produce is going to be necessary.


I was just thinking... Once the Cache has been emptied, it would be perfect for cold storage. Be it for food storage, emergency shelter during combat (or during forest fires)


There use to be a website that showed using Cargo Containers as the framework for an underground bunker.. it had blueprints for them as well... even had one called "fortress" or "Castle" or some such... had four containers set on their ends at the corners, with containers set normally inside that... the four containers on their ends were the stairwells... i just wish i could find that website. it'd make this so much easier!

[mikeo80]

[QUOTE=dragoon500ly;26765][QUOTE]Spoke 1 (Food, Personal Demand & Sundry Items): This spoke contains enough food to feed 3000 people for three to six months (depending on rationing), along with enough HCP 1 & 2 to provide for all health and comfort needs of 3000 people for six months.

Started to crunch a few numbers and came across a couple of items...Spoke 1 is supposed to provide enough food to support 3,000 people for 3-6 months. Assuming that you provide MREs/HDR style food, that's 1.5kg per person, per day...soooo (evil grin), the daily requirements would by 4,500kg, for 90 days of supply, that's 405,000kg, just in MRE/HDRs, 180 days supply moves up to 810,000kg or 20 standard cargo containers! Assuming that you provide bulk foodstuffs, the requirements get worse, that's 2kg per person per day (6,000kg) with a 180 day supply running or 1,080,000kg; that's 27 standard cargo containers....

Staying with just 8 standard cargo containers, as broken down in your first post, one container (MRE/HDR)would hold 26,667 person-days or a food supply for 148 people for 180 days. Moving to bulk food leaves up with 20,000 person-days or a supply for 111 people for 180 days. You will notice that this is based on max capacity of the container with just food.

Now this is not meant as a flame!!!! I think that you have an intresting solution that is simply not covered in the canon material. Just how can you help the local population when a standard supply cache is a 4'x4' concrete cube, that also has to hold team resupply? It ain't going to happen!

I was in a game a couple of years ago. Based out of rural Kansas as part of a Recon Team. We (two of us) were looking over a very small town (22Survivors). We were about 7 days light travel from our base camp. We stumbled upon a few of the survivors and started to help with food, water, med kits, etc.

Then it dawned on us...we and these people were screwed. My buddy and I each had 7 days of rations in our back pack. We had one ration pack, good for four people for 15 days...

So here comes the math.

In personal rations/mre's/whatever, we started with 84 meals. ((3x14)x2)

We used 42 in our travels to here. ((3x7)x2) (Yes, the GM made us track consumables. PITA but worth the detail once we got ourselves into this mess.)

In the ration pack, we had 180 meals. ((3x15)x4)

Total of 222 meals

So, to feed these people until we could get back to base, and then return.

We needed 924 meals. Just for them. ((22x3)x14)

Even if we rationed to one meal a day. (Better than eating the rats and other little things they HAD been eating.) we needed 308 meals (22x14)

Oh, BTW, you might notice WE are not eating !!!

The TL had a strong sense of duty and honor. He opened a nearby cache, dumped everthing into his V-150, and drove like hell.

He got there in 5 1/2 days.

So we used ((24x1)x6) or 144 meals.

We made it. But no one was happy. But we did save those 22 people.

But the math sucks.

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by mikeo80

I was in a game a couple of years ago. Based out of rural Kansas as part of a Recon Team. We (two of us) were looking over a very small town (22Survivors). We were about 7 days light travel from our base camp. We stumbled upon a few of the survivors and started to help with food, water, med kits, etc.

Then it dawned on us...we and these people were screwed. My buddy and I each had 7 days of rations in our back pack. We had one ration pack, good for four people for 15 days...

So here comes the math.

In personal rations/mre's/whatever, we started with 84 meals. ((3x14)x2)

We used 42 in our travels to here. ((3x7)x2) (Yes, the GM made us track consumables. PITA but worth the detail once we got ourselves into this mess.)

In the ration pack, we had 180 meals. ((3x15)x4)

Total of 222 meals

So, to feed these people until we could get back to base, and then return.

We needed 924 meals. Just for them. ((22x3)x14)

Even if we rationed to one meal a day. (Better than eating the rats and other little things they HAD been eating.) we needed 308 meals (22x14)

Oh, BTW, you might notice WE are not eating !!!

The TL had a strong sense of duty and honor. He opened a nearby cache, dumped everthing into his V-150, and drove like hell.

He got there in 5 1/2 days.

So we used ((24x1)x6) or 144 meals.

We made it. But no one was happy. But we did save those 22 people.

But the math sucks.

No kidding... that's why I've been trying to figure out how best to set up these Caches that are a lot more realistic and capable of setting up a way to save as many lives as possible.

I like the idea of having the Caches set up in an area that has already been 'pre-seeded' for building a camp... Especially with the addition of the protective pits holding gravel, sand and concrete blocks that can be used for water storage and septic tanks when they have been emptied.

And making the "Star of Life" shaped supply cache with two to four containers deep... thus able to hold all of the materials needed for such an undertaking.

Morrow Project Facilities are going to be massive to hold all the supplies needed for post-TEOTWAWKI reconstruction planning. They'd need all that just to do the task... Yes the personnel are suppose to be there to act as advisors and using the 'skilled' and 'unskilled' labor pool drawn from survivors.

But it still comes down to the fact, you need the materials to rebuild with. Or the means of making those materials.

[dragoon500ly]

Let's look at the food situation this way. This is out of the T2K v2.2 rule book, but its a good starting point.

A person needs to eat a total of 3kg of food every day to remain healthy. This is raw foodstuff.

If you are going to use canned or packaged foods, then the requirement drops to 2kg a day.

If you use specially fortified, prepackaged foods, such as MREs, than the requirements drop to 1.5kg.

So for planning purposes, we are faced with a couple of major variables:

1) What time of year that we are setting up this camp; i.e. how long a period can reasonable be expected before crops can be planted? Allowing for emergencies, we would basically be looking at 12 months.

2) How large a population can the area support? This is going to be A MAJOR FUDGE FACTOR!!! For a Recon Team, I would plan for about 300 people. So, planning on using commercial foodstuff, that's 300 people X2kg X365 days= 219,000kg of food. Based on a standard commercial cargo container, that's 6 containers (240,000kg, a little fudge for packing material) required.

Moving on to support, for planning purposes, a typical GI would have about 10kg of supplies, this would cover everything from toilet paper to handcuffs to condoms, reloading equipment, band-aids, mouthwash, etc.etc...so our 300 people for one year would require 1,095,000kg or 28 cargo containers.

So for plaining purposes, our little supply dump would consist of 34 shipping containers with a maximum capacity of 1,360,000kg.

Plugging in some other numbers, lets assume that the Project is going to cover the US and Canada. Over the years the, a total of 40,000 people have been recruited and frozen. Average team size is 10 people, so we have 4,000 teams, scattered across North America. According to canon, a team is supposed to have 6 caches, and since a cache is a 4'x4' cube, we'll say that two containers will fill all of the caches. We'll also assume that each team has an average of 1.5 of the larger dumps.

That works out at 8,000 cargo containers to fille the caches; and 204,000 cargo containers for the supply dumps. This is the largest weak point, because 212,000 containers is a lot of stuff to move around and ship, from a security stand point alone, this would blow any equipment upgrade. And the chance of somebody digging a new swimming pool...and incovering a stash.

But this is the weakest part of the whole idea behind the Project; you have to recruit people, but sooner or later, you are going to have to explain the large number of fatal accidents that your employees seem to be suffering from. Which argues for a smaller Project. Since the stated ideal of the Project is to help rebuild, you have to have the personnel, or a force multiplier provided by superior equipment/logistics, which brings us right back to just how much can be hidden before somebody starts asking questions?

You know, PDing this game can lead to grey hairs and accelerate your drinking problems!

[natehale1971]

The thing of this is... you have decades to recruit for your project. starting in 1963 and going all the way up to 2012... this allows you to do your recuiting, and to find a lot of ways to 'disappear' the volunteers without anyone finding out about it.

my ideas for the six supply caches and depots that each team would have... this might need some hand-waving being done to cover everything... but that's easy as long as you make things look like they fit.