Tactical or TactiKool Gear for Suburban Prepping

It is impossible to own at least two of everything as the prepper saying goes.  Optimally as a suburban prepper, you own a home with a back yard and a few cars and a small garden to grow crops. If you are lucky, you own a few chickens to lay eggs. Set realistic expectations about having two of everything.  Prepping is not about having most amount of equipment, but to have the items that would make life easier during SHTF.

The gear we are going over are beyond the normal everyday gear you would use to maintain your home, your car and your family. This gear is good to have for SHTF.  Gear should be used and abused to make sure it can handle the stress of SHTF. The gear that is issued to soldiers from their unit to train with is the same gear that we soldiers take into combat.  Sadly, if you have gear that is worn or broken, you cannot go to supply to turn it in for new gear.  Get quality gear for your SHTF needs for you and your family 

GEAR RECOMMENDATIONS:

Ballistic Helmet:  To protect the brain from blasts or explosions. Do not wear a ballistic helmet in leu of motorcycle helmet if you are riding a motorcycle.  If a accident occurs, injury to your cervical spine can occur. Always get a helmet with a night vision shroud should you decide to wear night vision. Better helmets have side mounted rails to attach headphones/hearing protection. Some attached night vision or thermal devices require a battery to be attached to the back of the helmet.  Fit your helmet with padding as it is a process to find the right amount of padding and to avoid getting a hot spot on your head from an odd fitting helmet.  You will have to walk around with your helmet with gear on it to learn how tight you want your straps to be, and how much padding you need to cushion.

Non ballistic bump helmet: to protect your brain when risk of explosion is low, also with a shroud for night vision and mounted rails.  Bump helmets are much lighter than ballistic helmets.  As with a ballistic helmet, practice walking around to ensure a proper fit.

Eye protection: If you already wear glasses then you have some protection, if not Suburban Prepper recommends clear protective glasses, add easily detachable strap to your eye protection that can break away if pulled on, but will help prevent your protective glasses from falling off. If something does get in your eye, have small tube of eye saline to rinse and flush out anything that gets in your eye. As a added measure of protection, keep a tube of eye antibiotic drops if you develop a eye infection during SHTF. This eye medical gear can be kept in your personal medical kit kept on your person

Ear Protection and Headphones:  Have earplugs that you can put in your ears regardless of if you have headphones that work as to block loud external sounds. Some headphones can attach to your helmet, and some can be worn separate.  Some headphones can be wired to your radio and provider hearing protection. Some headphones have a wireless feature. If you have hearing aids, do not insert earplugs into your ears. Some hearing aides have a Bluetooth option to use an external microphone on a cell phone or other device.  Find what option works for you, but the more complicated a device is, the more it is likely to fail. With hearing and communications, always have a backup.  Always keep extra earplugs, batteries for your hearing aid and for your headphone in your buttpack on your load bearing belt 

Load Bearing Equipment (LBE): Includes a fastening belt and straps around your shoulder.  Gear can be held in pouches on the belt and on the straps if they have webbing.  The LBE should have a buttpack attached to the center back. Ammunition pouches, and canteen pouches can be put on the belt

Ballistic Vest Carrier:  A vest made to carry body armor. Some vests come with molle attachments so gear can be tied off on the Ballistic Vest. I do not recommend over burdening your vest carrier with gear as this can alter your center of gravity and cause injury to your spine.  The issue with having gear attached to the front of your vest is when you have to quickly dive down into a prone position. Keep gear attached to the Vest Carrier on the sides only. The only exception would be a side arm weapon holster or your medical aid kit. You want easy access to that, and those items should be placed upper portion of the vest carrier as to not get damage if in the prone position. The easier thing to do is to have your ballistic vest on, then your LBE gear over or attached to your LBE followed by your Three-Day Backpack. Personally, I do not attach my LBE to the carrier vest. 

Hydration Carrier and Three-Day Backpack: You decide how much water you want to carry on your person.  The hydration carriers come in different sizes; take into account that you should always carry at least one old fashioned canteen with steel cup set up in a pouch on your LBE. The backpack will carry enough gear for you to get buy for three days.

Small Solar Panel: Panel that can charge phone, batteries, radios. The panel should be small enough to be attached to your Three Day backpack.  As you walk about you are charging your gear. 

Weapon Cleaning Kit:  Keep your cleaning kit simple. Keep your long rifle in good condition before you take it out. Everyone knows what to keep in a weapons cleaning kit. Have hex keys to make sure any scopes or attachments are secured. Have an extra battery for your red dot. If you have a thermal scope or a IR aiming device, have extra batteries that can be recharged by the small solar panel you have.  

Ammunition Pouch:   Do not overpack your pouch with magazines.  Carry the recommended number of magazines that the pouch can hold.  Do not be that Noob person who refers to magazines as a clip. Ammo can get heavy and the great thing about it is that the more your use, the lighter your gear is. The amount of ammo a person should carry is a dependent on what task you are doing.  Never go out with a unloaded magazine and store extra ammo in your Three-Day Backpack. The number rounds you carry should be at least enough to resupply all the magazines you carry.

Medical Aid Kit:  Have a good medical kit for you. The specifics of what to pack in your medical kit will be addressed further on this page 

also keep a three-day supply of medications that you take 

Personal Water Filtration: Have a way to dirty water to fill up your hydration system and canteen. Also have Iodine tablets to help purify water 

Canteen with Steel Cup:  Have at least one canteen with steel cup.  The steel cup can be used to shave, heat food up, boil water and hundreds of other uses. Keep both in a canteen pouch. Store your extra iodine bottle in the pouch attached to the canteen ouch

Matches and Lighter: Always have matches and lighters on hand. Always store them so moisture stays away.  Practice using a Fresnel Lens to start a fire before SHTF. These Lens requires sunlight. Gas and electric lighters are fine to use

Compass/ Maps: Have a magnetic compass attached to your LBE. Learn to use your compass. Learn what the degrees mean and other navigation skills before SHTF. Have laminated maps of the area you are operating.  Have a way to mark on your map with crayon pencils

that will stay on the map till you clean it up. That map is a sensitive item, so never lose it 

Cellphone or Radio:  Make sure you can charge your phone or radio with the portable solar panel

Batteries for gear: Have back up batteries, make sure you can charge your batteries with your portable solar panel

3 days supply of food:   In addition to food, have sugar, salt and pepper packets. Bring along Freeze Fried Coffee to suck on in your mouth and snacks 

Wipes and personal hygiene items: Keep your ass, pits, folds, genitals and teeth clean. 

Body Armor:  Ceramic Plates or Steel Plates  to protect vital organs

2 extra pairs of socks: keep socks in plastic freezer bag 

Nonmilitary outdoor clothing: Don't wear a military uniform.  Even if you were in the military as a veteran or retiree, do not attract unneeded attention and be seen as a military combatant during SHTF.  You might very well be a combatant as a civilian in SHTF.   Wear appropriate outdoor clothing based on what you are doing 

Gloves and disposable gloves: Have a pair of gloves that keep your hands warm but yet still let you operate your long rifle or other gear. Disposable gloves are good when you come into something contaminated 

Small Towel: For your person for dryness 

High Quality Multi Tool: Don't cheap out with a multitool

Small Hand Sized Shovel: Have a hand sized shovel so you can dig into the soil to bury feces or create a small, concealed campfire. The intension is to not carry something like an entrenching tool, but smaller. 

Emergency Warming Blanket: Commerical mylar sturdy small sleep bags that you can go into to sleep. This along with a poncho and poncho liner as well as a large 55-gallon heavy duty black trash bag will help to keep you drier and warmer 

High quality hiking boots or sneakers: Do not get cheap boots or hiking sneakers.  Your feet are and will always be your primary means of locomotion.  Some former military prefer older well-fitting military boots that they are used to. 

Collapsible Walking Stick: Using a walking stick is a good way to take strain of your knees and backs during long walks

Chemical Lights:  Use bright white chemical lights if your location is not secret.  If so, use limited red chemical or green chemical lights

Infrared chemical lights are cool, but if your danger lurks have even digital night vision, you just told them where you are.

Flashlight: Rechargeable batteries and make sure they are compatible with your portable solar panel. Do not get a cheap flashlight. 

Ferro Rod Firestarter: Use sparks as backup to light your fire

Firestarter or cotton balls mixed with petroleum Jelly:  Make starting a fire easy, practice starting a fire with scraps of tinder way before SHTF

Field Knife and Sharpener: Have a good field knife and way to keep it sharp 

Handheld chainsaw :  A handheld chainsaw is a chainsaw with two grips on each end used to cut down wood for a fire or other things 

Handheld Thermal Scope and PVS 14 goggles for night vision: A decent handheld thermal scope should have at least a 320-picture rating. The PVS 14 should be a generation 3 goggles analog device. Avoid digital night vision as basically you are looking at a tv screen with massive amounts of IR light shooting out to bring that image into. The analog PVS 14 picks up protons with helps light the night without having to turn on the IR light on the PVS 14.  Both are expensive options.  Thermals are good for detecting threats and analog PVS 14 is good for patrolling at night as you can see still in 3 dimensions clearer, whereas with thermal is not good to walk around with.  If money is not an issue something called Fusion night vision goggles can be purchased. Other option is called a Clip on Therma Imager or Coti.  A Coti is a thermal device that attaches to the front of your PVS14 superimposes the image from the Coti to the analog PVS14.  Thermals use a lot of battery power as so digital night vision, but a PVS14 will last over 40 hours with regular batteries 

550 Cord and Tape : 100 feet of 550 Cord and a small roll of 100 Mile Per Hour waterproof tape

Side Arm Holster: You should carry your Long Rifle with a sling and your side arm in your holster. Find a way to attach it to 550 cord and keep tied on. 

Poncho and Poncho Liner:  These are your heating elements and comfort measures 

Large Heavy Duty Black Trash Bag: 55 Gallon heavy duty black trash bag can help keep gear  and your body drier and help protect for a while if you find yourself in a contaminated environment 

Underpants Stored in gallon size freeze bags: Once worn, can be stored back in said bags and bags can also be used to carry other items 

Five Extra Gallon Size Freeze Bags : Always have extra gallon size bags for multiple of uses 

Hand Powered emergency AM and FM radio with Flashlight:  Hand cranked radios now come with a solar panel and plugs to recharge some equipment. If noise and light discipline is not an issue

Pen and Paper : Always have a way to take down notes and more than one pen 

Gasmask: With a trash bag to cover, a gasmask can help you survive in some environments for a while till you can get out of the place or till the wind blows things away or rain washes it out and the sun shines.