Unemployement and Crises

Menzie Chin at Econobrowser had an interesting post post last week:

It showed a chart of unemployment rates at various income levels.   At the bottom income bracket (less than $20k) per year, you have about 45% of the population under- or unemployed.   At the next bracket ($20k to $40k) you are at 25%.  Those are some huge numbers.

With numbers like this, why are we not at the EOTWAWKI already?

IMO one of the largest reason is that no "elite" group has left the game.  When the truly poor and low status revolt on their own, you generally get a sort of peasant revolt.  Peasant revolts are pretty scary, but they rarely come to much.  It is the breaking away of a group of the inner elite that generally get the real revolutionary movements going. 

Although the Tea Party movement is upset, they are simply trying to reestablish the old status quo.  They are also at cross purposes with the African American and Hispanic workers who are some of the groups that are most badly effected.  But since these groups have never done particularly well within the satus quo, they are not as likely to be attached to it. 

But if unemployment hits more of the upper income groups you could have some very quick radical changes to the current situation.

Here is the chart:
Note that the blocks (up to about $60K) on the left each make up about 20% of the population.  So Up through $60k is about 60% of the population.

Figure 2: Unemployment (blue), underemployment (red), and labor force reserve (green) as ratio to sum of labor force and labor force reserve, for January-August 2010, based on household income over the previous twelve months [corrected 10/6/10]. Blue dashed line is average unemployment ratio for entire sample; purple dashed line is average unemployment plus underemployment ratio for entire sample; teal dashed line is average unemployment plus underemployment plus reserve ratio for entire sample. Source: Calculations based on estimates provided by Andrew Sum and Joseph McLaughlin.

It is an update of information found here:  Study.

Andrew Sum,Ishwar Khatiwada, Labor Underutilization Problems of U.S. Workers Across Household Income Groups at the End of the Great Recession: A Truly Great Depression Among the Nation’s Low Income Workers Amidst Full Employment Among the Most Affluent.

Skirmishing with Small Arms 7

So what exactly is the point of all this?

We are talking about skirmishes between individuals, not larger armed militia, national guard or policing unit.  That takes out most opportunities for supporting functions (machine guns, mortars, etc.).  But it also tends to limit the some other roles:  sniping would still be useful, but urban sniping is typically used as a way to ambush larger forces.  Sniping in very small engagements tends to take more the role of an offensive strategy.   A prime example that comes to mind in the Clanton-Earp feud (think O.K. Coral) where the Clantons took out one Earp by sniping, and disastrously failed in a latter attempt.

One important item to recognize:  in a potentially dangerous situation you will have all sorts of encounters with various groups and people.  The most dangerous ones will be the ones that occur up close.  We can turn up close into a further two zone:  let’s say really close and close:   up to 7 yards, and out to 100 yards.  They will be even more dangerous if there is some element of surprise involved.

At 10 yards you can throw a spear, or axe and a dodging will be difficult.  You can close to contact in less than 2 seconds.  If you turn and run there is very good chance that you will can be tackled: of hit multiple times by someone firing 6 or more pistol rounds.

At 7 yards you have an immense advantage if you have surprise.  As you may recall from number 2, when the Shawnee used trickery to get up close, not a single settler survived the encounter.

What works within this zone?  Weapons with a high cyclical rate of fire, and shotguns.  With the very quick closure rate and minimal distances you want to be able to stop your opponent before they can in turn damage you.  So the speed of fire does balance somewhat with speed.  But if you have someone coming at you with a knife in close with a .30-06 bolt action rifle, and you don’t stop them with your first shot, you are now have a clumsy club in your hands rather than a gun.

When you get to out to 100 yards, the effectiveness of a number of weapons drops off drastically, all your hand held melee throwing weapons, and your pistols become of very limited value.  Your shotgun can still be effective with slugs, but it losses that in-close shredding effect of a tight pattern of buck shot.

At 100 yards, your various long arms do not need to adjust for wind or drop.   You are still in the zone where you are very much at risk, and rate of fire (ROF) counts.  Within this zone that you  get a lot of arguments about which long arm are the most effective.  It is still close enough that even your more inaccurate assault rifles can hit and the M-16s (Ar-15) and SKS bullets will still likely due their tumbling tricks to maximize their damage.  But your larger rounds will be able to nullify a lot of the oppositions cover advantages:  you can shoot them through a tree, or house, or block wall.  If they have some type of body armor, it is less likely to be proof against the heavier rounds.  If burst or automatic weapons are available it adds considerably to the firepower within this range band, but very little beyond.

As you go from 200 to 300 yards (the middle zone) you are getting into the area where the combat effectiveness of all weapons against alert opponents drops off considerably.  For various weapons it drops off more quickly than others.

But here is where you get into another argument of tactical effectiveness.  You are starting to get into bolt-action territory.  And here the argument is often as much one of expense as effectiveness.  The semi-automatic (particularly .308 Winchester/762 Natox51 and larger) can still hit.  But their speed in firing advantage is pretty minimal.  So as the range increases past 100 yards, the bolt action comes pretty close to being the same weapon as the semi.

Finally you get to the area beyond 300 yards.  Fighting can occur at these ranges, but it is difficult to hit.  The larger caliber and more powerful rifles have a clear advantage over the lighter weapons provided the user is skilled enough to hit what they are aiming for.   Hitting a moving target with a normal rifle gets to be very difficult.  You will usually only get one shot.  If you were in a military unit, this is where you would effectively be using your squad machine guns, light mortars, grenade launchers etc.

So what is the final point?

If you are going to get killed, it will probably be at a relatively short range.  You need appropriate volume and power to win and win quickly.

If you want to attack someone at minimal risk to yourself, you want to do it at a distance.  The further away you can attack a target from, the less likely you will be injured when they fire back.  A somewhat exception to this rule would be if you have night vision capability, and they do not.  At which point, you will be able to fire at them from 100 yards, and they probably won’t be able to see the end of their barrel.  But you are still at a sufficient distance that they cannot effectively strike back.

Where you weigh these two options says a lot about what type of weapons you will choose, and how you will act. 

Skirmishing with Light Arms 5: Into the Night.

I am going to use Use of A Long-Distance Night Vision Device For Wildlife Studies because although it is a little dated (1992), they are using a 3^rd generation scope with a telephoto lens attached so.  It gives its resolution findings in understandable terminology (can you tell a raccoon is a raccoon at 1200m?) rather than lp/mm which is a little hard to sink ones teeth in.

Now I am sure your first thought is the same as mine.  Boy, they sure have some big raccoons in Mississippi!  They don't comment on people, but you would suspect that they would be somewhere toward the top of the range.

In flitting about the web, the following numbers came up:

• 
  
  You could distinguish people at 75 to 100 yards
• 
  
  Infrared Laser Illuminator-Red Dot Scope was good from 100 to 500 yards.
• 
  
  Night vision cameras are good to around 400 meters.
• 
  
  And of course, the above indicates clear species identification from 300 meters to 1700 meters.

Note though that the longer ranges are with some sort of telescoping lenses that will allow precise identification, but within a very limited arc.  You also have some exceptional military thermal imaging systems that will generally cost somewhere in the six-digit $ range.

Some of the modern scopes  ( Eotech comes to mind) will allow you to use their low to no magnification scopes with your regular monocle, rather than a dedicated piece on your scope.

The final summation:

If you have military experience with advance night fighting equipment,  the ability to obtain said equipment, sniper training, and a Barrett, you obviously are going to be the Master of the Knight. 

For those of a more normal disposition, you would have to conclude that if you Generation 3 and you are faced with Generation 1 technology, you would have a significant advantage. 

If you have any generation technology, and add in a relatively inexpensive infrared illuminator, you will have a very large advantage over those with no technology.  You will possibly be able to open up at 200 to 300 meters, and they may not even be able to see the end of their barrel well enough to aim their fire back at you.  Since this is toward the top of the range that competent people can expect to hit anything in daylight, that is perfectly adequate.  

For a thorough examination of the advantage of even early versions of night vision have over those with none, this article about the experiences of the Howell Twp. Police Department in New Jersey is very illustrative.  One example:

Meth Warrant

A subject who was stopped for a traffic violation was discovered to have a quantity of methamphetamine in his possession. He agreed to roll over on his supplier, an outlaw biker who had a string of weapon offenses on his resume.

The dealer operated out of a two-story house in a remote, “very rural” location, which presented a problem in serving a search warrant: the house sat in the middle of a “wide open” field, making it dangerously difficult to approach without being detected.
Capt. Mayfield, who headed the ESU team assigned to hit the place, describes their strategy:

“We figured that waiting until nightfall would be our best chance, but still, getting across the field, a distance of about 100 yards, could be problematic. We took a night-vision scope off of a rifle and used it as a monocular.

“Starting at about 9:30 p.m., two officers surveilled the place for about 90 minutes. They could see people coming in and out of the house, but we never felt our target left and we didn’t see anything threatening.” The scope/monocular continued to be used as the full six-officer unit moved in for the raid.

“We did a two-team entry, one in the front door and one up the rear, outside stairway to the second floor,” Mayfield says. “The operation was a total success. The suspect never knew what hit him. We also got some drugs, several other people, and a couple of guns—all with no officers hurt and no shots fired.”

Skirmishing with Light Arms 6: Distance Counts.

All right a quick pop test, as an individual soldier in combat in battle which time period was more dangerous to you:

a)      Classical Roman Empire

b)      American Civil War

c)       World War 1

d)      World War 2

But first:  A Chart.

And the answer is:  a) Roman Empire.

 The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare

By Trevor Nevitt Dupuy

Dupuy wrote a good deal about casualties in battle.  He showed that except for two little jumps  up (Napoleonic Period, and American Civil War Period) losses dropped fairly consistently through time as technology advanced.

Yes the armies were (generally) smaller, yes the later weapons are more destructive, and yes more people overall were killed on the latter battlefields.  But a combat soldier in battle during the time of the Roman Republic:  particularly if you were on the losing side,  had a much higher chance of being killed.  A soldier on the losing  side of a modern battle has less of a chance of being killed than a soldier of the winning side in any time before 1900.

The primary reason that casualties dropped, is that as weapons got deadlier, armies spread out, started hiding, and started digging in.  In fact clearly one of the blip-up periods (American Civil War) was a time period when there were advances in weaponry, but the troops did not spread out or take cover until latter in the hostilities.  As further illustration, although the trenches of World War 1 are famous for the futile assaults, the early period of open battle in 1914 was the deadliest phase of the war.  Only after the armies had blasted themselves to pieces, culminating in the Battle of the Marne, did the trench warfare start.

To continue the discussion at a more tactical level , Tests by the U.S. Army found that it was often difficult to even see your enemy.  Based on data from both WW2 and Korea, the success rate at 100 yards was only 80%, at 200 yards only 40%  At 300 yards the was only spotted 20% of the time.  By the time you get to 400 yards a very slim 5% chance of spotting your target.

Norman Hitchman, et al. Operational Requirements for an Infantry Hand Weapon, Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, Chevy Chase, MD, 1952.

Gabe Suarez has done some additional research with unloaded rifles in open country with variety of moving, running, standing still, and hiding targets (people) His observation was:

Unless you are already monitoring an area for movement, you will probably not see a man further than about 300 yards.  Thus your 200/600 yard standards make good sense.  Truly we could cut the distance to 500 yards and still be real world relevant.   Gabriel Suarez - Warrior Talk News - The Guerilla Sniper Revisited.

Not that this is in open country.   If I go to the closest cross road near my house (a subsidiary feeder street), my longest sight line is about 85 yards.  With a little work I can find a slightly elevated location where I can see about 150 yards down this road.  Even when the Google Satellite view shows a clear LOS, folds and elevation changes give a lot of cover for someone attempting an approach.

So distance, along with dispersion, concealment, and cover count for a lot.