
US Army Survival Manual (2006) [pdf]  - pappyo
http://www.pssurvival.com/ps/military_fms/fm_21-76_us_army_survival_manual_2006.pdf
======
CamperBob2
I hope the rest of the advice is better than the advice for magnetizing a
compass needle:

    
    
       If you have a battery and some electric wire, you
       can polarize the metal electrically. The wire should be 
       insulated. If not insulated, wrap the metal object in
       a single, thin strip of paper to prevent contact. The 
       battery must be a minimum of 2 volts. Form a coil with
       the electric wire and touch its ends to the battery's 
       terminals. Repeatedly insert one end of the metal
       object in and out of the coil. The needle will become an 
       electromagnet.
    

No, the needle will not become an "electromagnet," once it's outside the coil.
It won't even become a good permanent magnet if you follow these directions,
because you'll tend to demagnetize it every time you withdraw it in the same
direction you inserted it. (I actually tried it with a power supply, a spool
of wire, and a couple of screws. Dropping a screw through the coil in one
direction 10 times will give it the same amount of magnetism that moving it in
and out about 200 times will impart.)

In any case, none of this has anything to do with the battery's voltage except
to the extent that it provides more current per turn. A 1.5V 'AA' cell would
work fine for creating a compass needle unless you wasted your time with those
instructions.

But hey, at least now I know that polar bears are best avoided, and that
drinking kerosene will get rid of intestinal parasites...

------
pessimizer
Lots of knowledge in here, but my favorite piece has always been this
treatment for intestinal parasites:

"Tobacco: Eat 1 to 1.5 cigarettes. The nicotine in the cigarette will kill or
stun the worms long enough for your system to pass them. If the infestation is
severe, repeat the treatment in 24 to 48 hours, but no sooner."

~~~
dmishe
Very nice. Is that some kind of US military standard issue cigarette? Because
they so many varieties in content now.

~~~
valarauca1
To your actual question yes and no. In the past, yes. Currently no.

I think its more the principle. Nicotine, like caffine was evolved by planets
as a pesticide. Animals (like parasites) that don't normally come in contact
with it, likely don't have resitances to it.

Highly evolved Apes like us, are simply to big and evolutionarily advanced to
be killed by such a small dose of poison.

~~~
pessimizer
>Highly evolved Apes like us, are simply to big and evolutionarily advanced to
be killed by such a small dose of poison.

I think it takes eating four cigarettes to kill you.

~~~
aranazo
A cigarette contains up to a gram of tobacco with a nicotine content of 0.5 to
2 percent. A recent estimate of nicotine's human LD50 is in the range of 0.5
to 1 grams. A four cigarette dose would seem unlikely to be lethal.

~~~
pessimizer
[http://www.inchem.org/documents/pims/chemical/nicotine.htm#P...](http://www.inchem.org/documents/pims/chemical/nicotine.htm#PartTitle:7.%20TOXICOLOGY)

    
    
      7.2.1 Human data
        7.2.1.1 Adults
          The mean lethal dose has been estimated to be 30 to 60 mg (0.5-1.0 mg/kg) (Gosselin, 1988).
        7.2.1.2 Children
          The lethal dose is considered to be about 10 mg of nicotine (Arena, 1974).
      7.2.2 Relevant animal data
        Dog:     oral LD50:   9.2 mg/kg 
        mouse:   oral LD50:   3.3 mg/kg  (RTECS, 1985-86)
        rat:     oral LD50:   50 mg/kg
    

0.5-1.0 mg/kg, not 0.5-1.0 grams. Don't go eating cigarettes.

edit: [http://abcnews.go.com/US/paul-curry-
convicted-1994-nicotine-...](http://abcnews.go.com/US/paul-curry-
convicted-1994-nicotine-poisoning-death-wife/story?id=25881116)

edit2: I see what you saw -
[http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00204-013-1127-0...](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00204-013-1127-0/fulltext.html)

------
remarkEon
If you guys enjoyed this, you'll love the Ranger Handbook. Still have mine
from when I went through :)

[0]
[http://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ranger.pdf](http://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ranger.pdf)

~~~
steveplace
Since we're on a roll, here's a CIA manual on tradecraft

[https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-
intellig...](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-
intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/Tradecraft%20Primer-
apr09.pdf)

~~~
remarkEon
Oh wow this is a great one. Can't find the link online but some of the older,
Vietnam era field manuals concerning radio-wave propagation and the NVIS
effect are pretty amazing. Not as usefully today in the age of SATCOM, but a
great skill nonetheless.

------
Jhsto
For the curious, here is also surviving guide in a pdf form issued by Finnish
defense forces in 1985:
[http://www.puolustusvoimat.fi/wcm/61ba4180411e702ea19ee9e364...](http://www.puolustusvoimat.fi/wcm/61ba4180411e702ea19ee9e364705c96/luonnonmuonaohjelmalumo1985.pdf?MOD=AJPERES)

You probably can't make much out of the text, but pictures may be worth
looking of, even though most of the traps demonstrated are illegal to make
during peace. There's also cooking recipes in the bottom of the document,
which contain oddities such as soup made from sprigs of a spruce. Though my
personal favorite must be the depiction of how to kill a moose with a knife by
jumping on its back.

~~~
arethuza
Paddy Ashdown describes in his autobiography how one of the survival
instructors on his SBS course introduced himself by place a live frog between
two slices of bread and eating it and then saying "Survival is simple, if you
can do that you will survive, if you can't do that you won't".

[NB For those outside of the UK or Bosnia: Paddy Ashdown is a former UK
politican - now in the House of Lords who had a rather interesting career -
Royal Marines, SBS, MI6 _then_ politics becoming leaders of the LibDems, the
UK's third party].

~~~
_kst_
"If you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse will happen to either of
you for the rest of the day."

------
baddox
> Reprinted as NOT permitted by U.S. Department of the Army, but by we the
> citizenry who paid for it

That's certainly an attention grabber.

~~~
gwern
It's also interesting legally: most works of the federal government are born
into the public domain. So how is the Army keeping copyright, or are they just
mistaken?

~~~
officemonkey
It's likely that the Army is not asserting copyright. They're just not
providing it for distribution.

------
molsongolden
An uncle gave me an early 90's version of this manual as a gift when I was in
my teens. This manual, along with "The American Boy's Handy Book" resulted in
days and days of outdoor activity and a plethora of failed
boats/rafts/cabins/snares/spearfishing/etc... There are some awesome
instructions in here and the print copy I have has an entire color photo plant
identification guide in the back.

My only word of warning would be to make sure the kids you expose to this are
responsible enough for the knowledge. There are some last resort things like
"how to poison an entire stream of fish by grinding up wild plants".

~~~
FantabulousDay
In what circumstance would you want to poison an entire stream of fish? Would
the fish be edible after being poisoned? Or is this for another purpose?

~~~
mitchell_h
It's a way to catch a good amount of fish, quickly, without any specialized
gear(nets, etc..). It also doesn't require you to sit there, in the open with
a fishing pole. Drop the poison, hide. Run back and collect.

They're very edible after being poisoned. The amount of "poison" it takes to
kill(really stun) a fish isn't much. No where near the amount needed to harm a
human.

~~~
molsongolden
Yep, and I believe they mention a plant or plants that only affect cold-
blooded animals so the fish is safe for consumption.

------
Luc
I was not aware Pole Shift Survival was a thing. The internet really is a
collection of wonderful things.

[http://pssurvival.com/](http://pssurvival.com/)

"The information on this site is for those who wish to improve their chances
for survival after the coming pending pole shift."

~~~
noselasd
It is not a thing. This is crack-pottery at an insane level. From the intro:
"We expect about 90 degree shift of the crust as planet-X passes earth's orbit
on its way through our solar system. "

As other comments mentions magnetic pole shift though, that is a thing and
happens every so often, about every 0.1 to 1 million years, see e.g.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal)

~~~
jpatokal
From the site:

> When will the Pole Shift occur?

> Best we can tell it will occur between May 20 and Jun 12 in 2012. See the
> source Zetatalk clues, and Crop Circle clues that give this final result.

Oops!

~~~
Tloewald
Doomsday cults missing their deadlines never seem to suffer much harm.

~~~
Semiapies
Well, they'd suffer more if they _hit_ their deadlines.

------
nether
I think a wilderness therapy company marketed toward Bay Area techies would do
pretty well.

~~~
trhway
i think bears have got nothing on people surviving through lean agile scrum
process innovatively implemented at a BigCo in a communication and
collaboration fostering open floor office.

------
zeeshanm
I think the following two paragraphs are very applicable to founders:

 _It takes much more than the knowledge and skills to build shelters, get
food, make fires, and travel without the aid of standard navigational devices
to live successfully through a survival situation. Some people with little or
no survival training have managed to survive life-threatening circumstances.
Some people with survival training have not used their skills and died. A key
ingredient in any survival situation is the mental attitude of the
individual(s) involved. Having survival skills is important; having the will
to survive is essential. Without a desk to survive, acquired skills serve
little purpose and invaluable knowledge goes to waste._

 _There is a psychology to survival. The soldier in a survival environment
faces many stresses that ultimately impact on his mind. These stresses can
produce thoughts and emotions that, if poorly understood, can transform a
confident, well-trained soldier into an indecisive, ineffective individual
with questionable ability to survive. Thus, every soldier must be aware of and
be able to recognize those stresses commonly associated with survival.
Additionally, it is imperative that soldiers be aware of their reactions to
the wide variety of stresses associated with survival._

------
secfirstmd
If anyone here is interested in the topic I can really recommend the survival
courses run by Ray Mears company called Woodlore. They are brilliant. The guys
there are so good it becomes less about survival and more about living!

------
gallerytungsten
This used to be published as "Survival, Evasion, and Escape" with the same
field manual number. I have an old printed copy dated 1969 which includes the
missing Evasion and Escape sections.

~~~
philwelch
That sounds suspiciously similar to the SERE course the military does:
"Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape". "Resistance" entails resisting
torture without divulging secrets to the enemy; in SERE training they will
actually put you into stress positions and waterboard you, which is where they
got the idea to do that kind of thing to prisoners.

------
madaxe_again
It's a great book. I keep a copy in my scram-bag, as it's the kind of
knowledge that could be the difference between life and death, one day.

~~~
ooz
So you can read the "how not to be eaten by bears" section while being eaten
by a bear?

If you're going to rely on stuff like that, its best to commit to knowledge
and practice.

~~~
madaxe_again
Oh, I know much of it like the back of my hand, and have spent plenty of time
doing outdoorsy stuff, and have found myself in a few genuine survival
situations, and I'm here to spout crap opinions on the web still, so...!

It's mostly handy for "was it the one with the serrated leaves, or the one
with the smooth leaves which is toxic?".

~~~
ooz
Good stuff. Glad to hear!

I've been foraging for 25 years so that knowledge is sort of built in (at
least in the UK) but I still won't touch mushrooms!

------
masolino
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