Contact pack

[ArmySGT.]

I have been to Bass Pro, Cabela's, REI, Sportsman's warehouse, Big 5, and several other large chains here locally. Then there is plenty of small business outdoor or army/navy surplus shops too.

Heck, I get used camping gear at yardsales and Good will. Sometimes it is in excellent shape.

[stormlion1]

I have got to move out west...

[kato13]

So what do we think makes a contact kit more realistic.

3 or 4 16/20 oz soda bottles.
A piece of metal wrapped in duct tape for an improvised knife.
the last 100 pages of a paper back book. (used as toilet paper)
A buckskin wrap containing 14 oz of smoked dried meat.
A tupperware container filled with peanuts.
A film container containing 1/2 oz cannabis with small wood carved pipe.

[RandyT0001]

So what do we think makes a contact kit more realistic.

3 or 4 16/20 oz soda bottles.
A piece of metal wrapped in duct tape for an improvised knife.
the last 100 pages of a paper back book. (used as toilet paper)
A buckskin wrap containing 14 oz of smoked dried meat.
A tupperware container filled with peanuts.
A film container containing 12 oz cannabis.
A six foot long, 2in diameter hollow bamboo bong/walking stick, a heirloom of the Vietnam war.

Made the necessary corrections.

[cosmicfish]

Not here on the East Coast or at least South Jersey. People who enjoy the outdoors are a minority and those equipped for it even more so.

There are a few important points being missed here, I think.

1) The war will kill a lot of people and destroy or render unusable a great deal of equipment, but considering that many of the deaths will occur post-nukes and that most "outdoor equipment" will be in rural areas away from targeted sites, the amount of such equipment available per person should be greater than it is now.

2) Someone without the appropriate gear simply isn't travelling, especially alone. You're not making a cross-country journey on foot with refilled Dasani bottles (if any are still intact) - if that is all you have, you're staying put, or travelling as a refugee group if absolutely necessary. Your gear may not be pretty or well-integrated, but it will be functional and will cover all the basics.

3) At the time the contact pack is meant to be used, survivors will have had five years to loot National Guard armories, Army/Navy stores, and sporting goods suppliers. While a refugee in the first months might be wandering around with a partial kit, at this point everyone has either assembled a functional set of survival tools... or died.

Oh, and everything I mentioned about gear applies to skills, too - the survivors 5 years in will either have had those skills to begin with, or would by necessity have acquired them in the interim. A lone, poorly equipped, unskilled traveler 5 years in would almost certainly be held in high suspicion.

[cosmicfish]

3 or 4 16/20 oz soda bottles.

Too flimsy, would be very suspicious to me. Heck, they might not even exist at this point.

A piece of metal wrapped in duct tape for an improvised knife.

Were they a prisoner There are something like 10 knives for every person now, 5 years PA there should be a surfeit of knives.

the last 100 pages of a paper back book. (used as toilet paper)

Plausible enough.

A buckskin wrap containing 14 oz of smoked dried meat.

Sure, why not.

A tupperware container filled with peanuts.

If they are near places peanuts are produced, sure... but otherwise, those peanuts would have gone bad years ago. And MP personnel don't generally know where they are being frozen.

A film container containing 1/2 oz cannabis with small wood carved pipe.

Possibly, but it this something TMP would issue

[kato13]

I have PET bottles I have used for 5 years. Several of which have gone through multiple freezing cycles. When the cap is tight the pressure keeps the form pretty well (air or water). That might keep them from getting crushed.

Peanuts are grown in about a third of the country

That might expand after the war due to peanuts fixing nitrogen (a good replacement for fertilizer).

You could have a dozen different food types and you eat the ones that don't match the area.

I want the kit to allow for various options. The improvised knife is if you are playing someone who lost things that were more dangerous.

As to the cannabis that is exactly the point. I doesn't look like something a military person would have and it has trade value.

[cosmicfish]

I have PET bottles I have used for 5 years. Several of which have gone through multiple freezing cycles. When the cap is tight the pressure keeps the form pretty well (air or water). That might keep them from getting crushed.

That's great but that still doesn't make them a great bet. You weren't carrying them on your person in a post-apocalyptic environment. They're a bad bet to last, and anyone relying on them for water is going to stick out.

Peanuts are grown in about a third of the country

Which just means that they aren't grown in the other two thirds.

That might expand after the war due to peanuts fixing nitrogen (a good replacement for fertilizer).

In the long term, sure, but 5 years post-apocalypse they are not likely making much progress on this front. If anything, the presumption should be that agriculture as a whole is in terrible shape, not that it has expanded!

You could have a dozen different food types and you eat the ones that don't match the area.

Or you could just give them a selection of pre-war canned goods. They would still be good and you could always say you found them in some abandoned house en route.

I want the kit to allow for various options. The improvised knife is if you are playing someone who lost things that were more dangerous.

It isn't a spy kit, and MP team members don't have spy training! Making a complicated story or giving complicated options is a great way to trip someone up.

As to the cannabis that is exactly the point. I doesn't look like something a military person would have and it has trade value.

It does, but my concern is that the greatest value of this would be in sharing it... literally. Like, "let's smoke some weed together, friend!" It seems like whisky or some other potable would be easier to explain, justify, and use.

[ArmySGT.]

So what do we think makes a contact kit more realistic.

practical elements and that impractical touch that spells out personal flair. A sweat shirt from the university that you attended possibly.

3 or 4 16/20 oz soda bottles.

Sure, I used a one liter Mt Dew bottle on my mountain bike for two years. My nice water bottle was stolen off my bike and no one wanted that soda bottle.

A piece of metal wrapped in duct tape for an improvised knife.

I would think that every where you went would be knives of all kinds just laying on shelves or in drawers. Were you thinking of this as a weapon perhaps A lawn mower blade made into a weapon

the last 100 pages of a paper back book. (used as toilet paper)

Phone books, catalogs went to gloss paper! Yes, finding a roll of charmin post mutual annihilation is going to ultra rare.

A buckskin wrap containing 14 oz of smoked dried meat.

If you have the skinning and butchering tools plus the know how to do it. Otherwise you need to have an explanation for what you traded for it.

A tupperware container filled with peanuts.

Which are all over in every gas station, convenience store, grocery store, and flea market. Peanuts are dirt cheap protein and plant oils.. The shelf life sucks though because of the fats and oils.

A film container containing 1/2 oz cannabis with small wood carved pipe.

Or raw vodka or whiskey, even some over the counter meds like valium. If the PC is willing to consume it sure. The PC might need to operate undercover and evaluate a refugee group for days to determine what aid is appropriate.

[kato13]

I had not thought of a pretty well worn bike as an option. That might make sense in some areas.

[stormlion1]

The best bet is to go with KISS. Keep it Simple Stupid! A mix of civvie and military gear. A civvie backpack, perhaps a simple rifle and pistol. Military canteen on a leather belt. Couple of military pouches and civvie clothes. Make it look like the contact person put his gear together over five years but not that it all came from one source.

[RandyT0001]

The problem really isn't the equipment carried but the fact that the contact person is going to walk into a community without knowing anything about the surrounding villages, homesteads, etc. that he would have to have travelled through to get to the community.

"How did you make it past Ashland" asked the local, pointing down the trail, road, direction from whence he came, "Dem slavers always taking our kin. You a spy"
Or
"You come from that way through Ashland" asked the local. "Yeah, they got a good sheriff protecting them. He keeps the slavers out. Oh, by the way, turn around and put yer hands up, slave."

MP expects a contact person to be frozen, miss five years of changes, then wake up and interact with survivors as a fellow survivor. And not get captured or shot because the lack of knowledge raises suspicions How badly out of touch the contact person becomes 150 years after the bombs.

What module had the contact pack The Starnman one where the locals hate Morrow Project people because of some imposters from decades before had done bad things to them I always had the feeling that the contact pack was included as an afterthought, following feedback from playtesters about how is a team supposed to approach the locals when all they have to wear is MP jumpsuits, unless they steal the clothes.

Just my take on it.

[ArmySGT.]

The problem really isn't the equipment carried but the fact that the contact person is going to walk into a community without knowing anything about the surrounding villages, homesteads, etc. that he would have to have travelled through to get to the community.

Realistically there is little that can be done otherwise.

There is only two solutions to using the contact pack without just walking in cold.

One is to build a hide and observe a village, camp, or group without being discovered yourself for a period of time you think is sufficient. That means around the clock 24/7 shifts in a camouflaged hide. I can think of two instances of grand scale fail for SF teams in Iraq (91) and Afghanistan (05) that only air strikes and helo extraction saved some members. Both were uncovered by goat herders.

Second solution is to pose as someone lost or with something to trade and make contacts on the roads to get information about the local groups before contact. Combine this with signals intelligence which would have worked in the 3-5 year plan for more.

[kato13]

One is to build a hide and observe a village, camp, or group without being discovered yourself for a period of time you think is sufficient. That means around the clock 24/7 shifts in a camouflaged hide. I can think of two instances of grand scale fail for SF teams in Iraq (91) and Afghanistan (05) that only air strikes and helo extraction saved some members. Both were uncovered by goat herders.

I have considered this. My thought was that after initial recon (satellite/balloon/rpv) looking for major settlements, the first teams to wake would be 8 sets of two man recon/sniper teams per region. A regional MH-6 team of 2 aircraft would also wake.

The aircraft (with massive sound reduction) would place the recon teams 6-8 miles from said settlement at night. 2 teams would be placed per night and they would observe for 4-5 days before being picked up. I admit this is only a raw idea and I have not researched SF insertions so I am certainly open to suggestions.

My thought is that the teams could place themselves in a position to watch main roads into the city. They could scan radio frequencies and attempt to observe things like technology levels. After the observation they could be brought in for debrief and R&R before the next mission.

At least some of the information they glean could be passed onto contact specialists. This might allow them to bluff a little better.

"Yeah I came from up North. The convoy I was in bypassed the City by the two rivers, you say it is called "Hobart", looked like an interesting place, they used windmills for something or another, I saw at least a half dozen of them."

[kalos72]

Thermal scanning for heat signatures could give rough population on the smaller towns. Even just scanning the countryside could produce alot of information.

This is VERY similar to what my team in T2K is doing as they expand.

We have thought about the "traveling merchant" approach but cant quite figure out how to make it work without getting jacked each time we roll into town.