Wargaming the Plan, Avoiding Murphy

By The Maj

Everywhere you look when searching for information on being prepared for a SHTF scenario, you will find immeasurable amounts of information on what to stockpile, what not to stockpile, how to stockpile it, personal defense or protection, bugging out or bugging in, etc.  Many people correctly insist that you include some type of physical fitness regimen in your preparations, including leading a healthyish lifestyle.  All of these things are definitely necessary pieces of being prepared and fit together like a puzzle or links on a chain.  If one puzzle piece is missing the puzzle is never complete and if the middle link on the chain is weak, it will be where your post SHTF world falls apart around you.  Murphy’s Law will be experienced as never before the day the scales tip past the point of no return and it will become the prevailing law of the land in the world “after”.

Every prepper is horizon planning at this particular point in time, meaning that the event that will set things in motion is out of view and there is absolutely no way to know many parts of critical information necessary to develop a complete plan for survival.  Take your plan(s), in the comfort of your climate controlled home, today and study them step by step.  Analyze each step and do your best to tear it all to pieces before Murphy does it for you.  Doing a complete, critical walk through on your plan(s) will take time, effort, and an open mind but doing so will help to identify the potential holes in the plan(s), provide you time to alter your prepping strategy if necessary, and prepare you mentally for the things that you cannot control.

Open Your Mind – Before you start down this road, consider this tidbit from FM 3-0:  “Any plan is a framework from which to adapt, not a script to be followed to the letter.”  A well executed plan is better than no plan at all and I am certain that if you are reading this, you have already developed a plan or possibly many plans for the eventualities that could come and change life as we know it.  The problem with plans comes with being married to a plan and most people find it very difficult to open their mind and take a critical look at what they have created.  If you are a “lone wolf” in your prepping you will have to constantly remind yourself to think outside the box and be creative with all of the “what if’s”.

Including Others – If you happen to be a part of an organized group of preppers, enlist the help of those you trust to walk through this process with you because if your survival depends on the actions of others within your group, your plan is going to have to mesh with their plan(s) in order for it to work.  If you are prepping with family, enlist their help and include them in the process.  Doing so will help you build redundancy in the understanding of the plan and they will almost certainly pick up on things that you missed and vice versa.  The important challenge with group wargaming is overcoming the “I am being attacked” mentality as well as settling personal differences which are certain to arise.

Identify the Event – I am betting many plans go something like this…  “SHTF and I am bugging in with my year stockpile of ammunition, food, water, and medical supplies.”  The same can be said for bugging out plans for many and they all end happily ever after with the successful prepper helping to reestablish some form of government years after the event which triggered the downfall of society.  Now, while such a simple planning strategy may work well in books about TEOTWAWKI and it might serve to get the beginning prepper started down the road to becoming prepared, it is not a plan.  There are basic prepping strategies and aspects of preparations or planning that will apply to each trigger event, across the board (I.E. food, water, ammunition, etc).  At the same time the sheer differences of each trigger event will mean that additional steps, modification of strategies, and planning will have to take place in order to ensure your survival.  Let’s face it, a nuclear attack is a much different animal than an economic collapse and while there may be basic applicability of prepping between each, at the same time, the hazards presented to your success by each will be vastly different.

I am not suggesting that you can prepare for each trigger event individually here, unless you have unlimited resources and prepping is your full time job, but you do have to consider the differences between each event in order to make certain you have a viable plan.  What I do suggest is you develop a list of what you feel are the top 3, most likely trigger events that could catapult you into survival mode, list the basic hazards which are common to each, list the hazards which are unique to each, and do the same for the preparations and plans for each.  Developing a good list here will provide you with several checklists to bump your plan/preparations against and form a basis for your wargaming.

Phase it Out –  Planning and wargaming can be overwhelming.  Do not even attempt to sit down and wargame your plans from trigger event to happily ever after.  If you do, you will find yourself bogged down in an exercise in futility, become frustrated with the process, and miss so much that needs to be addressed that your process will not produce the results that you need.  At a minimum, you will need to break your plan(s) down into phases similar to the following: Known Event Immediate Preparation, Immediate Actions Upon Event, First 72 Hours Bugging In, First 72 Hours Bugging Out, Short Term Bug Out, One Month After Event, Six Months After Event, One Year After Event.  The key to breaking the plan(s) down is ensuring that each phase has a definite starting point and a definite ending point.  These points may change based on the situation, especially on the longer term phases, but for wargaming purposes they will help to keep you focused on identifying your holes.

Prepare to Accept Risk – I do not know of anyone that has a perfect plan, for every eventuality, with all of the necessary resources stockpiled, and all of the necessary skills to survive each potential trigger event, as well as everything else Murphy will throw at them along the way.  It is impossible to be that prepared and you might as well accept it.  All you can do is all that you can do to be prepared and in many cases, you will have to accept risk in your planning and wargaming process.  The fatal error in accepting risk is simply utilizing it to excuse a gaping hole in your plan that you could have been prepared for or planned better for.  If you do not have the resources available at this point to mitigate such a risk, prioritize what you think you need and add it to your wish list.

Gather the Tools – You are just about ready to sit down and start tearing your plan apart but you need to gather the necessary items with which to conduct your wargame.  Items will vary according to which phase you are wargaming but you will need things like topographic maps of bugout routes, inventory lists, cache locations, your written plan if you have one, a mechanism for recording your steps and findings, etc.  I like to use old fashioned butcher paper and markers and a visual representation of the plan so I can post it on the wall and stare at it when I get stuck but I also could be referred to as old school.  Whether you go all electronic, all old school, or a combination of both it is very important that you record things as you go and make certain that you can reference them later.

The “What If”-  Finally, you are ready to start wargaming your plan(s).  Start by going through your entire plan, to include the maps, your inventory lists, your wish list, and any other list or reference that you might have.  Review how you have broken your plan into each phase and your “top 3” trigger events.  Once that is complete and you have a reasonably clear picture, start dissecting your first phase with all the “what if’s” you can think of.  I like to break the phases down into key areas and I follow a militaryesque manner in doing so.  Command, Administrative, Logistics, Operations and Physical Security, Personal Security, Communications, and Transportation & Logistics are the broad areas I consider.  For some phases, I will break the key areas down even further into sub-categories.  You can break things down any way that you like but I have found that less gets missed if they are broken down in some manner and applied as a standard across each phase.

Examples of “what if’s” include:  What if I run out of gas on my way to my bug in location?  What if the route I have chosen is closed?  What if my wife sprains her ankle?  What if I come upon a large group of refugees while bugging out?  What if over half of my one year supply of food spoils six months after the event?  What if I run out of batteries? What if…..

Recording –  If you cannot adequately answer a “what if” as you are analyzing a phase, make certain that you record it for further study.  The inability to answer everything does not necessarily invalidate your plan but it does mean that something has to be done to address the issue or you have to make the decision to accept the risk posed.  If you get stuck, record the issue and come back to it later.  You will be surprised how while thinking on another “what if” the answer will come to you.  As you are recording, some changes or additions may be as simple as changing an SOP for a group or you may identify additional purchases that you need to make for your supplies and equipment or you may identify a skill that you or the group need to get up to speed on.  In either instance, your recorded list(s) will make it easier for you to continue in your preparations and further refine your plan(s).

Stay Out of the Weeds – Yes, you do want to “what if” your plan to death but you do not want to get hung up on the little things to the point that it takes you a week to analyze the first phase of your plan.  Answer the “what if”, if you cannot add it to the list of things that need to be addressed and move on.  If you get stuck on Datrex Bars vs Power Bars for the bugout bag, then you are most definitely in the weeds.

Tie It All Back Together – Once you finish with the last phase of your plan, you will need to refine and consolidate your lists, incorporate changes to your plan and SOPs for future reference, and get to work filling the holes that you have identified.  This may take you longer than the rest of the process to complete.  When I finish, it looks like a 3 year old got ahold of a marker and went to town on the wall.  It takes time to get that information off of the wall and back into a storable and understandable format.

Going through a wargame for the first time will frustrate you and many will simply dismiss the idea.  It is not an easy process and you will probably find out you were not nearly as prepared as you thought you were.  However, it is a critical part to validating your plan for survival.  Keep Murphy in the shadows after the SHTF and you will be the one smiling.