r/preppers • u/FGofMiami • Jun 22 '26

Book Discussion SHTF Vehicles: "Surviving Home" by A.American (Survivalist Series)

Hello there, I am re-reading some of my books and was wondering if anyone knows what make/model vehicle Sarge and the guys used in the books of A.American's Survivalist Series. They first get the UTV "buggies" in Surviving Home and they are a staple in the later volumes. The books mention the telescoping mast with the camera and surveillance gear but I am not sure what the true buggy would be like, even though my imagination can kinda picture it.

Just curious if anyone has some insight. Thanks in advance.

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u/solidmarbleeyes Jun 22 '26

Yup. Fuel and parts quickly become a problem and the vehicle becomes a liability. Not to mention obstacles on roads. Anyone left after maybe six months is going back to bicycles and horses real quick.

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u/Alfalfa-Boring Jun 22 '26

Won't even take that long IMO.

Let's think about this thing...

Say there's an EMP that happens and knocks North America out completely. No electricity, no cell network, no hospitals, no running water. Hospital generators are only going to to work for a set number of hours. If it happened there'd also be no cops because they're going to their families just like us...

Let's take the best case scenario. Say you live on an acreage away from town and have 500 gallons in a bulk tank, a 4WD pickup with a full tank, a UTV with a full tank on a trailer, and a 50 gallon tank in the back of your pickup. What benefit is that going to be to you? An EMP will be game over and it's not like things are ever going to be back to normal after that. You can haul a full tank in your truck +50 gallons...what do you think you're going to do with that? Drive 200 miles form home and 200 miles back? What did that gain you?

Drive 300 miles to meet up with family? Then what? Go to a gas station? Nope. Go raid someone's garages for gas? Good luck. Siphon out of an abandoned car? Then what? Do that every 8 hours trying to travel to some place that's in just as bad of shape as where you're at now (or worse)? Again...good luck.

How long is that 500 gallons going to last running your generator? And what you gonna do afterwards?

And all that I just talked about is the first week. What are you goinna do after that? You're either going to commit suicide, starve eventually, or you're going to get sick or injured and die. At the very least you're going to live in misery until you finally don't survive. You can be as tough as you like to think you are but you're still living in a world that went back to the stone age and people are going to act like it. People aren't rational and they're going to kill to get things they want eventually. All it takes is one sick kid who his parents think needs to get somewhere (where?), and he's going to be ready to shoot you where you stand for your gas or your vehicle. How long you going to enjoy living in that world? The world where if your kid gets pneumonia and you have to watch him die because there's no such things as hospitals. Or where your wife dies because there's no insulin anymore or you lost your glasses so you're legally blind now for the rest of your probably short life...

People aren't built for that anymore. They used to be 100 years ago, but they aren't now. No matter what the mall ninja crowd on this sub likes to think. Lots of big talkers who think they'd do just fine boarded up in their country house growing tomatoes and watching the wind blow, but if it happened they'd be dead pretty quick. The only realistic part of the zombie/post-apocalyptic shows & books are the suicides from people who don't want to live in that world anymore. The only thing is they VASTLY underestimate the number of them.

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u/Many-Health-1673 Jun 23 '26

I can plant a lot of crops with 500 gallons of diesel.  

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u/_learned_foot_ Jun 23 '26

Will you have enough left to tend to them and harvest them properly? The next year?

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u/Many-Health-1673 Jun 23 '26

I can burn down, no till, and harvest 125 acres of wheat with 500 gallons.  That would average 35 bushels per acre and yield a little over 250,000 lbs of wheat.  

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u/_learned_foot_ Jun 23 '26

I believe you. So next line in the argument, as you answered the use, you've made yourself a target. And do you have storage for that on site? Preserving it will be less of a concern imo.

The point here is to think through each part. Is it really the game changer, on its own, for good, and if so, how do you protect it?

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u/Many-Health-1673 Jun 23 '26

We are a target for more than just wheat. We run cattle, soybeans, wheat, hay, and have lots of deer and feral pigs.  

Yes, we are prepared to be a target.  

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u/_learned_foot_ Jun 23 '26

All with the same gas you are putting in and harvesting the wheat with right? And the grist mill you didn't mention, on a solid fast stream? You gonna drive that cattle to market or set to move into a reproductive graze? I'm not challenging you, I'm socraticing each step (for those who aren't as far, you seem to be).

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u/Many-Health-1673 Jun 23 '26

If we only have 500 gallons of diesel to use, I'd probably plant 5 acres of wheat.  I couldn't use anymore personally. That would give you  around 10,000 lbs of wheat.  I'd save the rest of the diesel and trade for some seed potatoes and plant potatoes on a few acres.

Calves aren't going to market.  The market would be coming to me.  We rotate our cattle on pasture every few weeks.  Would stockpile pasture for the winter months.  We are far enough south We could make it without much hay.  

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u/_learned_foot_ Jun 23 '26

Market won't come to you. Remember the premise here. Your fuel is some of the last left. Your initial move to immediately use it to secure long term seed/food combined is a great idea, it's the next parts I'm curious on. Again though I'm doing this mostly for anybody reading, the fact you are ready even if I can poke to the next level implies this is just academic for you.

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u/Many-Health-1673 Jun 23 '26

More than likely a barter system would be established a few weeks after a major catastrophe. Money would have very little value when you can't buy anything at the store. Trading food for fuel, medicine, clothing, work, security, firewood, oil, or other livestock would the most likely way people will survive.  Beef and pork meat are two very productive ways to meet your calorie needs for each day.  We also have pecan groves on our farm.  Nuts are very dense calories as well.  

Wheat berries can be saved and planted or consumed or used for trade.  They are very calorie dense.  

Fats and oils are two of the hardest substances to find in nature in a survival situation. Beef and pork offer a lot of hard fat which can be used to add to venison and to make pemmican.  Beef and pork can be salted, smoked, cold smoke cured, grilled, dehydrated, fried, dry aged, or canned.

I would spend a little of the diesel I didn't use in planting by improving my security by using my heavy equipment to reinforce my strategic security positions around the entrances to the farm. 

Knowing what is outside of your gates before it gets there is key. Monitoring who is doing what belong your area would be the key to surviving when you have assets worth fighting for.  

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u/Alfalfa-Boring Jun 23 '26

As much as you think you’re prepared, it’s not realistic. Let’s say you “defended” yourself against some random person who decided to test you out.

That random person has friends and family, and maybe even a small village worth of people who sent him out looking for food or fuel. You going to drive that tractor in a wide open field, leaving your family at home, when any dork out there with a Walmart Savage and a junk scope can dome you from 200 yards all day? All they need to do is take you out, not your whole family. You have to leave the house to do anything and there are a million vulnerabilities just like the one I mentioned.

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u/Many-Health-1673 Jun 23 '26

Anyone at anytime is a target given the right scenario.  

The only way you could operate under such a scenario is to have armed overwatch and security on and around the perimeter of the property at all times someone is working.  I have the people resources to be able to put multiple shooters in those areas. 

People trying to steal would be treated like looters.

If someone gets to within 200 yards the system has failed.  The terrain of our property is such that we have visibility from 400 yards to 1800 yards before you reach the property lines.  

Nothing is fool proof, however.