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US Army Survival Manual (2006) [pdf]

pssurvival.com

41–50 of 69 posts

Re: US Army Survival Manual (2006) [pdf]

#41

If you guys enjoyed this, you'll love the Ranger Handbook. Still have mine from when I went through :) [0] http://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ranger.pdf

Since we're on a roll, here's a CIA manual on tradecraft https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...

Oh wow this is a great one. Can't find the link online but some of the older, Vietnam era field manuals concerning radio-wave propagation and the NVIS effect are pretty amazing. Not as usefully today in the age of SATCOM, but a great skill nonetheless.

Re: US Army Survival Manual (2006) [pdf]

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, if eating cigarettes doesn't work, you can apparently try drinking "2 tablespoons of kerosene but no more."

A common cough remedy in rural areas was a two tablespoons of kerosene chased by a tablespoon if honey.

The cancer cured my cough. Wow.

Re: US Army Survival Manual (2006) [pdf]

#43
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very nice. Is that some kind of US military standard issue cigarette? Because they so many varieties in content now.

To your actual question yes and no. In the past, yes. Currently no. I think its more the principle. Nicotine, like caffine was evolved by planets as a pesticide. Animals (like parasites) that don't normally come in contact with it, likely don't have resitances to it. Highly evolved Apes like us, are simply to big and evolutionarily advanced to be killed by such a small dose of poison.

> Highly evolved Apes like us, are simply to big and evolutionarily advanced to be killed by such a small dose of poison.

This completely misunderstands evolution on a very basic level, and is wrong beyond the hope of being salvaged.

Re: US Army Survival Manual (2006) [pdf]

#44

If you guys enjoyed this, you'll love the Ranger Handbook. Still have mine from when I went through :) [0] http://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ranger.pdf

I wish I could post my "Engineer Bible" but it's FOUO. It's full of all sorts of fun stuff, including improvised demolitions, various breaching charges, and weirdo WW2-era stuff like the abatis [1].

Totally impractical for anyone here but a very entertaining read. There's a lot of math that goes into explosives if you want to do it right.

[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abatis

PS- to above poster: saw your comments a few weeks back about leaving the Army and entering the tech workforce. I have experience with both. If you have questions or want to chat, my contact info is on chrissnell.com.

Re: US Army Survival Manual (2006) [pdf]

#45
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a thing. This is crack-pottery at an insane level. From the intro: "We expect about 90 degree shift of the crust as planet-X passes earth's orbit on its way through our solar system. " As other comments mentions magnetic pole shift though, that is a thing and happens every so often, about every 0.1 to 1 million years, see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal

To be pedantic, the survival for magnetic poles shifting is "go about life as normal". The magnetic poles are constantly shifting, just not very fast (~50km/year or so). Reversal would be a bit more dramatic, though...

Motion of the poles has sped up quite dramatically in the past century. That 50 km/year is up from almost zero in the late 1800's and 15 km/year in the early 1900's.

So it isn't entirely out there to worry a bit out reversal. Current thinking is that the Earth's magnetic field becomes multi-polar during reversals, but field strength won't dramatically diminish. So if it does happen, it'll complicate some things, and no doubt result in some economic activity, but won't be the end of the world.

Re: US Army Survival Manual (2006) [pdf]

#46

An uncle gave me an early 90's version of this manual as a gift when I was in my teens. This manual, along with "The American Boy's Handy Book" resulted in days and days of outdoor activity and a plethora of failed boats/rafts/cabins/snares/spearfishing/etc... There are some awesome instructions in here and the print copy I have has an entire color photo plant identification guide in the back. My only word of warning…

From p. 107:

> Make fish poison by immersing walnut hulls in a small area of quiet water. This poison makes it impossible for the fish to breathe but doesn't adversely affect their edibility.

Wowzer

Re: US Army Survival Manual (2006) [pdf]

#47
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are actually referring to geomagnetic reversal, believed by some to be a likely cataclysmic event, in which the poles could reverse entirely and it is supposed that the protective field would have a dramatic reduction in power for enough time to cause serious problems.

Well, we see evidence for magnetic reversal in the geological record. It happened before, and a lot. Also, the strength has gone down to about 5% before. This much I'd take as fact. What is not clear is the effect this has on the biosphere. Calculations have been made for different magnetic field strenghts during the reversal and it seems that radiation can go up. By how much and how much of a problem that would be..…

The effect on the biosphere likely isn't vast. We can't see much effect in the fossil record and reversals have happened a lot.

Far more interesting--as in the case of climate change--is the effect on the economy, which is much more finely tuned and sensitive to change than the biosphere.

The hypothetical timescale of 1000-10000 years is based mostly on the low resolution of the data and the seeming implausibility of much more rapid mechanisms, but as the Wikipedia article suggests there are data that point to much higher rates.

Furthermore, the current theory is most consistent with a multi-polar field during the reversal, which would make magnetic compasses awkward, although probably not unusable. I used to sail in an area that had a large local magnetic anomaly (22 degrees over the course of a few nautical miles) and compasses weren't completely useless, just a tag tedious to use.

So if a magnetic reversal is about to occur there is likely to be a market for a "smart compass" or "compass as a service" that updates daily to your local conditions. Never a wind so ill it doesn't blow somebody good.

Re: US Army Survival Manual (2006) [pdf]

#48
post #24
post #4

I was not aware Pole Shift Survival was a thing. The internet really is a collection of wonderful things. http://pssurvival.com/ "The information on this site is for those who wish to improve their chances for survival after the coming pending pole shift."

They are going to be bitterly disappointed by attempting to use Homeopathy in a trauma situation!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0

Re: US Army Survival Manual (2006) [pdf]

#50
post #14

For the curious, here is also surviving guide in a pdf form issued by Finnish defense forces in 1985: http://www.puolustusvoimat.fi/wcm/61ba4180411e702ea19ee9e364... You probably can't make much out of the text, but pictures may be worth looking of, even though most of the traps demonstrated are illegal to make during peace. There's also cooking recipes in the bottom of the document, which contain oddities such as so…

I always enjoy seeing small scandanavian tactics (Norway, Sweden, Finland) tactics against German, Russian juggernauts.

I've been told by several different people that in the Finnish service you are trained to battle against a nuke by first using your 'nuclear cloak' to wait for the fallout. After that, you are told to take a pruce branch and use it to clean others' cloaks from the fallout. Then you keep on fighting.
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