solution to pirate problem

I love watching friends fight ...

Now cut it out.




As the pirates would say..."ARRR, matey BLACK SPOT!! BLACK SPOT!!"
 
I see someone beat me to the Q ship, the more things change the more they stay the same. The Q ship may be the best answer here. Most of the other options mentioned are way to expensive to maintain on station for long if at all. The other possibility is to allow companies to hire or employ a crew of anti piracy troops with some light to medium weapons. If the the Somoli's ships were worth a crap on the open market we could really regress, I believe our government still has the authority to issue "letters of Marque", and throw some privateers into the mix.
What Pres. Obama knew and how much he was involved we don't know and if every thing is done properly We won't, and shouldnt. Kudo's to the shooters and the Navy and the merchie ship's crew and captain.
 
I know for a fact that some merchant vessels carry guns on board. I was in this business for many years dealing with ship owners and the ship builders. It is not well known. The military has even trained some ship owner employees on how to best handle pirate situations as this is nothing new, it is now just more prevelant.

While maritime law does not govern guns on boats, there may be laws on guns on ships based upon the country they are flagged under.There may also be problems with the various ports the ships stop at and having guns on board. I believe, but do not know for certain , that ships can be boarded by port authority type of folks and have the guns selaed prior to coming into port and then unsealed when leaving. So, it is not maritime law but other laws that may limit guns on merchant vessels.

I used luxury yachts as an example. Why don't you see many of these being hijacked? Cause the pirates know many are armed. Think about it, why not hijack a much smaller and easier to manage luxury yacht who most likely has a multi millionaire on board? He, or his company would most certainly pay the ransom and want to keep the episode quiet. They don't do so as they know they have a good chance of being killed

There is too much perceived liability involved between the ship owner, the shipping company and the "shippees" to have armed conflict onboard these merchant vessels and thus the reason why many are unarmed.

Mark W
 
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You are right John. The krauts also used disguised converted merchantmen as commerce desroyers and they were very successful with them too.

You know your maritime history,
Harry
 
aren't MERCHANT SHIPS and aren't bound by the same rules.....

You maybe right that there are some cases where merchant vessels can have small arms....and you are likely very right that one fo the reasons they don't arm themselves is for insurance purposes.....

Maybe Bill Wasson will read this and comment.....

Seems that waht I see is that the average pirate they are delaing with is a few guys in a small boat with AK's and RPG's a grappling hook and a makeshft ladder.....It stuns me that any ship could be "taken" by Pirates of this nature....hell you'd think if nothing else a couple of crewmen could drop a drill press on em.....boom end of Pirate threat......

I'm sure its not that simple but there sure doesn't seem to be much level of sophistication involved and that they could be easily thwarted......


Steve
Click to expand...
I used to be a merchant mariner and there are no international rules prohibiting the arming of merchant vessels. I remember on one of my transits of the Panama Canal, where you have to have a Panamanian pilot on board during the eight hour transit, chatting with the pilot about this as we were armed. This was back in the late 80s, the Pilot said that most large ships are not armed for insurance reasons, but at that time, every Chinese ship that transited the canal was armed to the teeth. Like someone said earlier, the guns and other arms are locked in a secure gun locker, with only the captain having a key.

As numerous ships are pirated each day without any risk of harm to the pirates, and the fact that the crew of this American ship fought the pirates off for three hours with fire hoses, this is very fraustrating to me as it wouldn't take much investment to arm and protect these merchant ships. I think that up till now the owners of the major shiplines have looked at the risk-reward economic equation and determined that the odds of a multi-million dollar lawsuit if someting went wrong versus the odds of having to pay a ransome, and the fact that up till now the pirates haven't hurt anyone, favored the status-quo.

Regarding arming the ships, the reality of a large ship at sea versus the tiny rag tag wooden motor craft, favors the large ship even if the little boat has rocket launchers. The ship is relatively bullet proof and huge. One or two guys with a high powered rifle would have a great height and stability advantage over the small boat speed around below, to say nothing of more potent arms. I can understand the owners reluctance to arm merchant crew without proper training, but how about we place a small contingent of retired Seals or such on every third ship? Kind of like the Sky Marshall program on airliners. Or the decoy ship is a great idea. We've got to make the pirates think long and hard about the cosequences, as up till now, there haven't been any for them. Not knowing whether or not they are going to be fired upon with lethal force would be a start.

John
 
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on the "legality" of arming Merchant Marine Vessels.....I'm still pretty confident that the insurance issue stops them from doing anything pro-active like shooting the little thugs when they attempt to take over a ship....

I'm hearing now that the four "muggers" that took the American hostage were 17 and 18....teenagers with AK's and Rocket Launchers that are willing to try to capture a ship from an small outboard are clearly "motivate" even if they aren't particularly bright...pretty amazing actually, at least to me....

I see that since the rescue the "pirates" have taken an additional (4) vessels and an additional (60) or so hostages sending a pretty clear message that they there is no way they can be stopped under the current intervention rules.....(I was reading this morning that there have been (78) attempts of which (17) were successful so not all of them succeed but I guess if the boat is small enough, the pirates determined enough and the crew see's little difference in being a hostage and being a crewman and won't resist that a ship can be taken)....

As I recall History the Military armed the Merchant Marine in WWII successfully and it would seem that American flagged ships could be protected against the current pirates pretty easily by putting a security force on any American registered ship that was transitting the area of the pirates operation....jthat won't stop them from taking other ships whose thought process seems to be, "buy insurance for the possibility, let the ship be taken, let the insurance company pay the ransom, and "what the heck" deck hands are easy to replace.....with that attitude I think we'll be seeing successful pirates for a good while...

Be interesting to see what the current administration does with this...make sure that American flagged ships are protected or take it further and protect other countries flagged ships that won't, or can't, protect themselves....the area is HUGE and response time would have to be quick to get there between the time a threat was reported and the action was over cause by the time they're on the ship its over cause we all know we aren't going to sink a ship and kill hostages in the process.....Be neat to see them at least take out the Mother Ships that support the little guys but those are likely protected by hostages as well.....

Again thanks for the correction..

Steve
 
The only solution to this “problem” is to treat piracy as it has been treated throughout its history; AS A CAPITAL OFFENSE. There is no excuse for leniency. Allow no safe harbor. Allow no safe passage. Allow no compromise. Hunt them down and kill them. Treat them like the vermin they are. Destroy the villages in which they live. They are treated like rock and roll stars in their home villages. Let the fierce hand of justice rain down on them in the comfort of their homes. Then and only then will their neighbors and families shun them. It won’t be so popular and glamorous to be a “gangsta” if your ass is hanging from a tree in your village.

“God bless our troops..................... especially our snipers”


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Ray,
Neat toy but maybe not too practical. At 60 lbs it's not going to be mobile enough to keep locked up and pull out at the appropriate time. Then you have to figure out how to have it command the correct field of fire when dealing with the flexible approach paths of small boats. How about a Barrett 50 semi and a qualified marksman. The 50 would be big enough to take out the engine or seriously hole the hull and/or fuel tanks at a distance without having to "Blast" everyone on board. Obviously there will be possible casualties on the pirates part but not the full scale slaughter of the Gatling gun. Steam on, and let their mother ships decide if the individuals are worth saving or not. Might even be a nice way to identify the mother ships to the US drones above.

Ah heck I got to go fishing!

Hope the trout don't laugh at my flailing.

Scott
 
I won't get into the debate, but the Alabama is my brother-in-law's ship. He is the Chief Engineer but was not aboard during the hijacking (but is on the replacement crew). He is good friends with the Captain. I don't care who you voted for or against. Things went right from the Commander-in-Chief down to seaman first class. This ended exactly as it had to, except the 4th pirate should have been given a life jacket and a chance to swim back to freedom in Somalia from the site of the hijacking.
 
Touché ( I actually worked on 20mm Vulcans when I was stationed at Ft. Lewis many moons ago. An awesome weapon. 1st/67th Air Defense Arty)






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Hi Eric. What a great idea! I'd forgotten about that whole scenario. Here's a piece of trivia for you.. Some of the first , if not the first federally recognised commerce raiders (holders of federally granted letters of marque) were Eastern Shoreman who set out in their sail powered oyster boats from the Cheasapeake. One enterprising captain sailed his bugeye across the Atlantic to raid ships in the English Channel, capturing a couple before turning home.

Can you imagine what some Blackwater USA types with fast boats and a get out of jail card could/would do in that enviroment?
 
Security services ain't cheap either... A shipping company can probably burn a million pretty quick that way too, but it won't likely be covered by any insurance the way a hijacking might be and it will likely cause other potentially unsafe situations for ships and crews... not saying it won't happen... but it's clearly not a cut and dried business decision....
 
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