This South African guy started a Prepper Channel on Youtube a while back and seems to have pretty much predicted the massive breakdown of society that started a week ago that saw parts of South Africa overwhelmed with massive riots and looting. News reports showed homeowners and shop keepers banding together with police and security guards to arm themselves and defend their areas. The videos are interesting as it gives a South African perspective of prepping and also daily after action reports of what they are running short of and things that came in handy.

This is just one of the rcent video's but his YouTube Channel has a bunch of other videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cJYRNqdyWw&t=2s

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Been following these informational posts about SA for about a week and a half now, mostly on other forums.  Very intriguing and constantly  hungry for more news and information out of SA.  I think China is afoot here and doing a lot of the instigation.   I also think when we have breakdowns here, that human nature being human nature, that it would not look a lot different.  Much to study.

Summary from the video:

Some basic things you need to have are:

Extra fuel
Extra food
Extra cash
Extra ammo
Community (need to be part of a community, a security community, a prepper community, etc otherwise you will not do well in a SHTF scenario)

Yes, its all very intriguing and as GlockPride says above, there is much to learn from what he and others have to share about their experience. Here in America, things may be different, but as we saw in 2020, there can be varying levels of a breakdown of society. In South Africa, apparently in certain jurisdictions, you can only get permits for up to 4 firearms and have a maximum of 200 rounds per weapon (legally). There are reports (in the videos) of people begging friends for any extra ammo and they fended off hoardes of looters / attackers who decimated the retail and industrial areas and began running through the residential areas. They discuss not knowing whether they were going to be over-run at their homes and were packed and ready to bug out to a pre determined bug out location. They seem pretty organized and had HAM type communications set up with their friends and neighbors in advance.

South African Prepper has been doing a video about every day lately. Here is his latest video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeHs3fIvLQY&t=132s

I just don't understand how people (non-preppers) could possibly have a conversation about this, openly state that SA has CRT to thanks, openly state the conclusion that it's coming here to the US in the future, but not come to the conclusion that the time to stack food, fuel, and firearms was yesterday.....

The thread in GD has run its course I think. I think my time in GD is also coming to an end...was fun. Anyways...the fiasco in SA.
As I mentioned in the other thread, South Africans are a weird lot. They claim they want freedom, but are proponents of gun control, etc. They so desperately want to look like good little Europeans.
The prepping side of things:
You aren't allowed to have more than 200 rounds per caliber on hand.
Getting long term storage stuff like O2 absorbers and mylar bags are near impossible.
Storage can be an issue as well. Homes are much smaller than here and everything needs to be secured properly. If it's not bolted down, it's gone.
A lot of people have "help" that clean the house. "Help" talk a lot with other "help" in the neighborhood, who then talk to people in the townships. If you have 5 gallon buckets stored in the garage, word will get out. If your preps are visible, word will get out and you will be a target.
Rain water catchment is taxed now as I understand it, so you have to make sure your cistern is well hidden.

I'm sorry, they tax the fucking rain?!

Yup, based on the size of your cistern.
I think there are similar schemes in California?

Awesome stuff!  Thanks all!

Another 2 points. Anonymity - fuck masks, but use them in this case. A lot of the people defending their neighborhoods were filmed doing such and were not shy. They will eventually be fixed and prosecuted. Don't have anything identifying on you. Wear your mask and shades. Don't use your name. Some yahoo will film you and stream it.

Weapons and arms - always keep something low pressure and potent. Learn to work your tools and what is needed to get basic weapons. People poopoo something like a pipe shottie in 410, but it will work well enough to either get you a better weapon or your point across. Stack ammo deep while you can. I've got more 410 #4 buck set back than I can remember. It works.

Different in some ways, the same in others.

The same in that there would be massive rioting with little accountability, which we have already seen here.

Different in that we are far better armed and prepped than SA. However, the left is far better armed than they were even two or three years ago.  So, instead of a half dozen guys with shotguns and a rifle scaring off a mob, I believe it likely that more combatants on both sides would engage in battle, and with better weapons, with concordant more casualties on both sides.

Most people, including preppers, lack enough medical supplies and training to get them through such an ordeal.

Interesting point about masks and one we probably don’t think about today. Everything is filmed nowadays…or at least we should plan for everything to be filmed. A few old school bandanas might be a good idea to keep around.

Specific question for @boerseun

What happens when a homeowner or a business owner shoots and wounds or shoots and kills a bad guy? Is there a law enforcement investigation? SSS?

Thanks

Relatively recent American incident that shows the importance of anonymity at times.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_McElroy

You can trust others till you can't.

Shit hasn't hit the fan till people become desperate.

They are just enjoying themselves at this point.

First time I shot at someone I called the cops. They came, found blood and empty cases where I was standing, but nothing where the peeps were. They tried to arrest me. Thank God they were idiots. Never called the cops again.
If you are involved in a shooting a murder docket is automatically opened against you until you are proven innocent. There are no castle doctrine or stand your ground law.

So shoot and shut up?  

When you say "tried to arrest me" can you elaborate on the details?

If you never called the cops again, what happened with the person who got shot?  

In those days, you could still win an argument against the cops. I basically stood my ground and told them that it's bullshit, that they can't produce a body - that it may have been an animal (even though I've not seen 5 bipedal animals with an AK that aren't human). After a back and forth for about 15 minutes, they left. No report written as far as I know.

This is a fascinating thread, thanks for all the insight and tips.

Here's another long video that the user has included a lot of relevant video showing the events that occurred during the most violent days of the riots. The user adds some of his religious beliefs and opinions, but there is good discussion and content. It starts with audio recordings of some pretty intense HAM Radio audio of homeowners communicating with each other as they try to defend their areas.


NSFW Warning (Ham radio audio captured from homeowners defending contains cursing).

https://ugetube.com/watch/wrol-lessons-south-africa-melt-down-pt-1_cdMi8qisO6ZR8dA.html


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A new video posted by South African Prepper with an extended audio (a shorter excerpt was posted on a different site earlier) of a South African resident describing in raw detail what they were dealing with during the rioting and partial collapse of society during the rioting and arson attacks a few weeks ago. The residential areas were about to be over-run with threats to burn down the "white areas". Just as a matter of reference (being discussed in the audio) , in certain jurisdictions in South Africa they are limited to 4 licensed firearms and 200 rounds of ammo max for each weapon.

NSFW due to raw language

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59bBrvK0hF0

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Video Part 2 by Nutn*Fancy with discussion of the events. This is a taste of what a breakdown of society would look like:


https://ugetube.com/watch/wrol-lessons-south-africa-melt-down-pt-2_S3YuzbfPwqTFWCF.html


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All of a sudden the D60 mags, NV, thermal and extra ammo that I bought doesn't seem so crazy. Now, I need a melon bucket to hang the NV on and plates.

From the reactions I've seen of groups over there when lead meets flesh, they generally scatter pretty quick.
For the most part, all shots were warning shots and the "looters" knew it. Law abiding citizens in SA are pretty much like sheep. They dare not go "too far" - especially in the cities. I know, I used to be like them. If they started dropping bodies on the first day, this wouldn't have lasted as long.
ETA: The whole point of my post is that D60's and NV would have made you a God on that playing field.

You state that a lot of people have "help" to clean their houses that are much smaller than the ones here.  Why do they choose to do that?  Is it because of necessity, cultural, or tradition / expected by others, or is there another reason I missed?

Second question, regarding the 200 rounds of ammo per firearm on hand, how is this tracked?  Does spent brass need turned in?  Is it possible to purchase ammo in excess of that number and keep it outside the home or stored / buried in another location since it would not be on hand?

It might be wise to have a foil bag to place your phone in if have it with you.

What can they do? I think it's past that point. They were out of rubber bullets and switched to live ammo. BTW, shotguns seem to be very popular for such scenarios.

This video sends shivers down my spine. It brings nasty memories from 30 years ago, when I lived across the pond:

The help issue is both cultural and just plain laziness.
As far as ammo. Ammo purchases are tracked. If you have a permit to own a 9mm CZ75, then all you can buy is 9mm ammo. There are very few gun stores and each ammo purchase is documented with your permit number, etc. There really is no way to enforce how much ammo you keep if you purchase 200 rounds a month. Just keep it outside the home.

Another former South African?

No, never been to Africa.

The reasons you give for domestic help help issue stands out to me a a giant warning sign, and I am surprised and saddened to hear it.  I would think that surely anyone employing people in that situation could see the issues of jealousy and resentment being an underlying issues, leading to an ongoing hidden festering and increasing resentment between the people serving and those being served.  In particular with the ongoing spoken violent propaganda over the last number of years, how could a reasonable person expect the attitudes to be anything but.

Perhaps I do not fully understand, but, as was stated earlier, everything must be locked down or it will disappear.  How does it make sense to hire people from the local community, and expect their first loyalty to be to their employer rather than to their family and local community.  You are expecting them to sacrifice the safety of their family by prioritizing the privacy and safety of their employer.  This is not logical.  It may have half worked when the masses did not believe they had the freedom to initiate violence, but now (as in the last number of years) that violence with impunity is being encouraged by those in authority, violence is guaranteed.  In particular, it will be initiated by the young, uneducated poor class, those who believe the lies they hear and believe their social status and situation in life is a direct result of intentional action by the wealthy.  The wealthy in their eyes being anyone with more than they have.

Thank you for your response, and your ongoing contributions to this thread.

Ah I saw your comment about living across the pond...

Very welcome. I also enjoy seeing other's opinions on the issue.
You state all the reasons why I had a problem with the system and left. The old adage here in the US "...we should have picked our own cotton..." also rings true in SA. While slavery was never an issue (at least not among Afrikaners), we did rely heavily on cheap labor and that is what did us in at the end. A lot of farmers (not the majority though) are now employing only young Afrikaners and are working on automation of the business on a large scale. Places like Orania forbid "foreign" as in from the outside -labor. In the house, business or farm. Only residents of the community are allowed to work in the community. As an outsider, you can visit, do business and purchase stuff in Orania, but you better get your ass out afterwards. The founders there understood the problems facing our culture. The dependence on cheap native labor (who hates our guts for the most part) is just not a sustainable model.
Now when we had our farm, we had a large labor force. In fact, we had a small village on the farm, complete with a school house, etc. A little shop that "sold" the essentials (we pretty much just gave the stuff to them). It was a good crew and we never had any issues - but we were not the norm. While strict, my uncle (he ran the farm) was very fair and kind. Never a bad word, always joking, fair pay. Other farmers were not as kind. We knew one guy that would bite the heads off all the black gummibears in a pack and throw the bodies out. A real piece of shit...a lot of his folks ended up working for us. I doubt he's still alive.

I think for Americans, it is difficult to translate the SA experience.  I spent a little time there, mostly Jo'burg and out in the mining areas.  Had a guy that worked for me, never showed up at meetings after work.  I asked him what the problem was.  "I live on a farm, and armed men raid my neighbors all the time, they steal my stuff....I am afraid that one day I will come home and my wife and kids will be dead".  I got him some security people immediately.  Definitely a system far past its breaking point.

SA and the US are in different phases of the same devolvement curve, but they are a little different.  

I see good and bad from SA: yes, they want desperately to be good little Euros, but a lot of them are tough as nails, and take little shit that they don't have to and stand up when necessary.  Perhaps a result of a long toughening in the environment you mention.  Out in the boonies, there aren't too many folks that adhere to the limits on anything. It's the equivalent of SSS here in Texas...Shoot, Shovel, and ShutUp.

But SA doesn't have the inner city rampage that we do---it's somehow different.  A crime wave, yes...chop your arm off for your car, yes...corruption, yes (way more)....but I don't think they have people like Cori Bush, Maxine Waters, and Sheila Jackson Lee in power to incite the masses as we do.  

And SA culture does have a bit more "family" in it.  Groups of folks band together more easily.  A lot of folks strive to be independent enough...to prosper, to defend, to leave if they have to.  Once again, perhaps because of the tough environment.  

I think our path to destruction is along a similar, but different path. Should we devolve along that path, American is in for some serious trouble.  

Most of today's testosterone, pronoun-scaredy cats would last about 5 minutes in the tough sections of Jo'burg and outskirts.
Many have lost the art of relationship building, of family strengthening.
At least 40% of the population can't take care of themselves WITH a good supply chain and rule of law.
I can't even estimate the percentage of the population remaining that even understands our history, Constitution, and laws....let alone fight for them.

One thing is for sure, whether it's SA or the USA...when you allow things to incrementally go down the shitter, they never, ever come back from the shitter.

Roadwarrior, Well said

A breakdown of society in the U.S. would likely look different that South Africa's recent societal breakdown but could in some ways be worse. Since 2020, certain cities have allowed protesters to use violence against civilians and police for over a year, it's going to be hard for those cities to bring back any sense of order as those elements in society have now accepted that as the norm and will only escalate their violent tactics. Once you allow protesters (for over a year) to violently attack and taunt the police and peaceful families eating dinner at a restaurant and not immediately take aggressive enforcement action, you have essentially told your community that this type of behavior is allowed. The prosecutors and judges in those cities are letting the violent offenders out of jail immediately to re-offend and the charges are being dropped.

We have seen a significant increase in heavily armed protesters within the groups of rioters as well as armed outside groups not affiliated with the rioter groups, but showing up to protect one of the primary rioting groups (not because they are totally aligned with the particular group, but because the armed group also hates the opposing protest group or are anti government). We have seen heavily armed protesters in large numbers in encounters with opposing groups of heavily armed protesters (Stone Mountain and St Louis) . We have seen small numbers of radical instigators instigating more peaceful protesters.

The supply shortages, supply chain issues, severe drought, forest fires, cyber attacks, grid infrastructure failures (Texas and Ca), inflation, upcoming expiration of the eviction moratorium and conflict (war) brewing in the middle east, Asia and Russia, all can have a compounding affect on America's existing problems.  One or two events or conflicts (a mass shooting, police shooting (bad or perceived to be bad), regional conflict) can start a cascading effect on the relative peace America has been used to for so long.Our Military is divided (and our leadership knows it), the nations police have been defunded, are quitting and are totally demoralized. The crime rate is skyrocketing. Certain elements of society have come out of the lockdown emboldened and much more violent, robbing and attacking at random. Those that are normally expected to keep the peace are going to be much less effective and much less motivated to keep the peace effectively. A societal breakdown in America would likely tend to start in these cities already experiencing lawlesness and major issues and initially be less problematic in other cities. If the lawlessness is not contained quickly, it will spread to other cities.

Listen to the audio from this South African in the midst of the recent breakdown of society and put yourself in that position and think about your preparations. For reference, the term SAPS he uses refers to the South African Police Service.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59bBrvK0hF0&t=320s



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Full-Auto....

You pray for peace, I'll provide cover fire.

Copy that. Thanks

Any updates?

Oldgold, Yes. South African Prepper posts new videos about every other day. I wasn't sure if this topic had run its course so I hadn't posted updates in a bit. Here are a couple of the videos. In summary, he says that things are still rough with many businesses still closed (from being looted and burnt to the ground) and many goods still in very short supply. Things have somewhat calmed but there has been information that new attacks may be in the planning stages with specific mention of burning certain etnic minority suberbs (predominalty white) to the ground (the ones that survived the first riots). The South African government is trying to now ban and confiscate firearms and ammo reloading supplies which will leave the white / European / Indian minority unable to defend themselves. As it is, they are already restricted to 4 licensed firearms per household and 200 rounds of ammo for each weapon. Much of that ammo may have been expended protecting themselves from the first massive riots. Those that had prepped by stockpiling food and supplies and those that had organized neighborhood watch groups fared much better and many were able to prevent their neighborhoods from being burned and their families from being killed. The first video tells the story of some contractors (construction contractors I believe) that were caught in the riots who gathered in a hotel for shelter. They were attacked by the mobs and some armed locals had to come together to try to protect them. Some of the contractors jumped into a convoy of cars and tried to flee but were later found dead.

These are some of my observations of lessons learned from what I've assessed from viewing the videos and news reports so far:

1. Family and friends that ridiculed those into long term prepping shit on themselves and ran to the prepper family for help.

2. Small groups of neighbors with firearms helped repel thousands of attackers and prevented the deaths of their families and the burning of their homes. They did this by rallying at the main entrance points into their communities. They may not have been effective trying to stop the massive mobs from their homes individually just due to the sheer numbers of attackers swarming. Stopping them at the choke points proved effective. This may not be the best practice in some cases, but it was in this scenario.

3. Many of the defenders seemed to have run out or ran low on ammo!

4. The residents that had created a neighborhood watch community and method of communication (ham radio) were able to establish a neighborhood defense faster and were more effective as they had already made a plan and had established friendships and trust that made the plan work.

5. Although most will plan to bug in and hunker down to protect their home, you have to have a bug out plan in place in case your area is certain to be over-run or things have become too risky to stay. Thinking ahead if there is family, friends or a place away from the immediate danger that you can flee to to regroup. There will always be "what if's" but better to have a plan ahead of time and you can always adjust as needed.

7. Just my thoughts, but although night vision may be a luxury to many because of the cost, the mob attacks like in the societal breakdown in South Africa didn't stop when the sun went down. Those (in South Africa type event) who have the ability to see at night will have an undeniable advantage  at night especially when the grid is out.

8. Assuming the power will be out in SHTF (whether from a natural disaster or other) wifi cameras and home alarms that rely on phone, internet or cellular service may or may not work. There are some items that can help give you an early warning of people on your property. Solar LED motion activated spotlights and solar driveway motion alarms can be configured to help notify you when someone enters your property or travels in your driveway. Nothing is perfect and they have the potential for a few false alarms but it may be better than nothing. I posted a video I found on the driveway alarms below.

9. Hardening your entry points and having supplies tucked away to set up expedient area denial barriers may save the day during a worst case scenario.


South African Prepper video / after action reports https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEtO9pRDw2c&t=162s

South African Prepper updates. Gov't trying to seize guns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRUSf29Qtjk&t=83s


Unrelated to the South African Societal Breakdown topic but on the topic of Preparedness- Driveway Motion Alarm used as perimeter alarm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPca-bEoERY

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Thanks for posting this.  I'm going to start watching his videos.  Scary stuff honestly, and part of me things part of our country is headed in this direction.

Yes, it feels like its already started heading in that direction. Some American cities are already having massive crime waves and daily riots. The current leadership and the main stream media pretend like they are not happening which basically tells the agitators causing the riots that it's ok to riot, burn and loot. I don't think many people realize that we are only one catalyst away from a localized breakdown of society that will likely spread to other cities. Looking at what happened in South Africa may not be an exact mirror of what may happen here but the lessons learned from listening to how South Africans handled their recent SHTF can certainly help you think of what you would need to stay safe if confronted with a similar event.

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I will pray with you, but make sure you have your rifle handy just in case.

Thanks. I'm topped off and ready.

Always better to learn from someone else's dire situation. People are people and what happens in one country can certainly happen in another.

Post 3k

I need NODs and IR laser....

I just cannot afford that right now, but I am looking hard at some of the digital nightvision rifle scopes that are on the market now.