Area of Operations

AO otherwise known in the military as an Area of Operation(s). 

In an apocalyptic situation, you are going to need to venture out of your defenses and gather supplies. One thing to remember when doing so, is that other people will be doing the same. 

There will be friendly people out there, probably not very many. There will also be other people that aren't so friendly. People killing each other for the simple supplies needed to survive. There may also be military who's sole order is to kill any survivors.

These very reasons are why I feel that it is important to have a base of operations and an area of operations. 

A base of operations should be hidden away from public view. You don't want anyone finding it and raiding your campsite. This was seen in the Walking Dead TV series. First with the Governors' town and again with the Prison raid episodes. 

You will want to have traps and crawl spaces leading nowhere and other sorts of creative ideas to keep people out of your stronghold. I will cover this subject more in a later post.

Now back to AO. When reconing your AO, you want to pack as light as possible. Some rope, a crow bar, binoculars and of course a weapon. This is the type of situation where you want to employ The Gray Man idea. I will also cover The Gray Man in a later post. 

Your AO should consist of an area that you know. Like your neighborhood or the surrounding city. Pretty much anything within walking distance of your campsite or base of operations.

In larger cities, transportation, public and private, is rampant. In an apocalypse however, this probably will not be the best option. But walking would be. If you happen to come across a bicycle, then you have good luck.

If you can get your hands on a city map of your area, then you are ahead of the rest. On this map you can draw up your AO. Mark points on the map that you come across for tools/supplies etc. When doing this, be sure to mark distances as well. Doing this will give you an idea of how far apart everything is. 

Also, be sure to mark areas of human activity. This should be done when reconing your AO. This way you can find out what places are safe to travel through and what places to stay away from. 

In an urbanocalypse, there will be many blockades. For this reason you should not travel too far from your base of operations, without establishing other base points or safe houses along the way. Another reason for this is because if for some reason you are being tracked by someone or something, you will have a place to hideout. In these other hideouts you can keep other essential supplies like food, water and ammo etc.

In my opinion, these hideout points, in urban areas, should be no more than a few miles from your base of operations. This is because if you have ever walked from your house to work or something similar, you will realize how far you really walked. Also how much time you spent walking. Now take this and factor in, blocked areas or roads/streets, gunfire going off around the corner, or convoys of people just out for a thrill kill. These things will make you 100 times more cautious. 

These are just ideas to take into consideration.