This whole Somali Pirate thing has me thinking..

[Gozar]

Why don't these ships that are worth hundreds of millions + cargo not hiring mercenaries with a couple of .50 cal rifles to stand watch? How much could that cost? 50 grand a month?

I would thing that you could probably see these bastiches coming for a long ways even at night with radar and infrared.

I am sure they would turn tail and go as soon as one of the pirates head exploded from a half-mile shot.

[Datawiz]

[lspencer534]

That's racist!

[thkauffman]

Maritime laws? Dunno. Just suggesting.

[Exotix]

Can a 'private navy' see off Somalia's pirates ?

Escorted convoys are a step towards tackling Indian Ocean pirates – but only security in Somalia can eradicate them.


Today

Can a 'private navy' see off Somalia's pirates? | Dan van der Vat | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk


The pirates of the Indian Ocean, based on the lawless shores of Somalia in east Africa, become more dangerous as the months go by.

But they may soon face a new challenge from a privately organised "convoy escort programme" (CEP) after the manifest failure of international conventional naval forces to deter them.

The pirates are probably not quaking in their seaboots, because they still have the upper hand in their campaign to fleece shipping companies, their insurers and even private individuals on yachts whom they suspect of being rich.

Paul and Rachel Chandler from Britain, though not wealthy, were held for more than a year.

Last week, a private yacht with four Americans aboard was seized off Oman on the way to the Suez canal.

But the serious money lies in big ships, notably tankers, and their often immensely valuable cargoes.

This month a tanker with £125m in oil aboard was stormed and two seamen died in a hail of bullets.



The insurance industry, which has a strong incentive to take action, is a prime mover behind the CEP, one of several developments that show there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to countering attacks on shipping.

Piracy is at the most obviously illegal end of a spectrum that includes attacks on commercial vessels in warfare, governed by the laws and conventions of war, via submarine campaigns (less so) and hijacking for political purposes (not legal at all).

One of Britain's first naval heroes, Sir Francis Drake, was a pirate in all but name, stealing gold from Spain on behalf of a syndicate headed by Queen Elizabeth I, which yielded £47 for each £1 invested.

Buccaneers did the same but without privateer commissions, and some became out-and-out pirates in the Captain Kidd mould, roaming the world from the Spanish Main to the Indian Ocean.

The British and Dutch fleets attacked the Barbary pirates based around Tunis and Algiers in 1816, and finally the French colonised most of north Africa in 1830.



The same mistakes are being made today as in both world wars, when Britain twice came close to defeat at the hands of German U-boats.

Shipowners took the view, then as now, that organising convoys was hugely complicated and a waste of time and money.

It took years for it to sink in that a ship arriving late was worth rather more than one that did not arrive at all.
With as many as 160,000 individual sailings per year in the region where the pirates operate, it is argued that convoy is simply impractical.

But the virtue of convoy, a body of ships with armed escort, is that an attacker must take on the escort to get at the ships. And nowadays computers can help.



Patrolling millions of square miles of sea, as a scratch international fleet of warships is doing now, is nearly useless.

That can be left to reconnaissance aircraft.
When pirates use speedboats capable of 50 or more knots, even the fastest frigate cannot get to the scene in time unless it happens to be only a mile or two away.


The pirates have hugely increased their range of operation by launching their speedboats from a long-range "mother-ship" (usually hijacked). Putting armed guards on individual ships has been tried, but may lead to a "shoot first" approach by the pirates, resulting in deaths among attacked crews.



To solve the growing menace of piracy one could go back even further in history.

In the last years of the Roman republic, Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar's ally and later rival for power, was awarded the widest commission against piracy on record.

In 68BC he was given the Roman fleet, control of the seas and of all land within 50 miles of the Mediterranean coast and told to wipe out the rampant piracy of the time, a constant threat to Rome's grain supplies.

It took two years and Pompey was awarded a triumphal entry into Rome in 66BC. But the settlement, made up of quiet deals as much as naval and military action, soon unravelled.



It is tempting to consider amphibious operations along the lawless Somali coast, destroying pirate vessels and their bases and freeing the hijacked ships and their crews.

But the "collateral damage" among captives and local people would be immense.
So would the expense.

The only long-term solution is the restoration of law and order in Somalia as a whole, with a government strong enough to clean up its own backyard.



In the short term, a modern convoy system looks like the only means of stepping up the level of protection against a threat that costs seaborne commerce hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

The CEP, a semi-official, public-private partnership of close-escort vessels equipped with fast rigid inflatable boats, is a step in the right direction.

But it will need co-ordinated support from governments, shipping companies, insurers and the navies already on the ground to have an effect.

That is clearly asking a lot.
Meanwhile, if you want your ship back, pay the ransom.




A scratch international fleet currently patrols the Indian Ocean in search of pirates, an approach that is 'nearly useless'.

[Gozar]

So, I wonder how much these oil companies would pay for a team of 20 or so mercenaries to guard their vessels?

6 Snipers, 6 spotters and 8 to 12 with heavy arms.

[Meeko87]

Arrrrgh why you be hatin' matey darrrrrr

[VITE1]

"Millions for defense, not one penny for tribute"

We faced this problem close to two hundred years ago. After dithering about for a few years we did something about it. We sent in the Marines and they killed all the pirate.

"The Shores of Tripoli" ring a bell?

We've screwed around on this issue for way to may years. Clean them all out

[Gozar]

I am looking at this as a business opportunity.

[Broken Wind]

Originally Posted by VITE1

"Millions for defense, not one penny for tribute"

We faced this problem close to two hundred years ago. After dithering about for a few years we did something about it. We sent in the Marines and they killed all the pirate.

"The Shores of Tripoli" ring a bell?

We've screwed around on this issue for way to may years. Clean them all out

There are parts of this earth whose inhabitants need exterminating.

[C5Nate]

Originally Posted by Gozar

I am looking at this as a business opportunity.

Most of the reports state that the pirates have RPG's.

Even though a 50 cal is nice, it cant go against an RPG.

[lspencer534]

Help me with my understanding of the way pirates work. They use speedboats; but how do they get the ship to let them on board? Threats of rocket-propelled grenades? I don't see how pirates in a speedboat, a speck in the water, can otherwise get on board a huge ship.

[Will]

Originally Posted by Gozar

Why don't these ships that are worth hundreds of millions + cargo not hiring mercenaries with a couple of .50 cal rifles to stand watch? How much could that cost? 50 grand a month?

I would thing that you could probably see these bastiches coming for a long ways even at night with radar and infrared.

I am sure they would turn tail and go as soon as one of the pirates head exploded from a half-mile shot.

It is literally cheaper for a company to pay the ransom in the event one of their own ships gets hijacked.

You're (a) underestimating the cost, (b) forgetting that they'd have to do it for EVERY SINGLE SHIP.

Also there is the issue with port rules --> NO FIREARMS. While I'm sure you could get Americans on board with allowing armed guard, the pussies in Europe who have sacrificed their gun rights to authoritarian socialist regimes would not go along with it.

[oahuyahoo]

Originally Posted by Gozar

I am looking at this as a business opportunity.

The owners of these vessels don't want them fired upon, one RPG in the hull and the whole thing goes up. Remember these things are carrying flammable oil.

[6spdC6]

Originally Posted by C5Nate

Most of the reports state that the pirates have RPG's.

Even though a 50 cal is nice, it cant go against an RPG.

A good man with a .50 (M2) will keep the people with the RPG too far away to do anything. Shooting off of a big ship is much easier than the bouncing around in a launch or even the mother ships those assholes come from.

[Nox]

Originally Posted by C5Nate

Most of the reports state that the pirates have RPG's.

Even though a 50 cal is nice, it cant go against an RPG.

Originally Posted by oahuyahoo

The owners of these vessels don't want them fired upon, one RPG in the hull and the whole thing goes up. Remember these things are carrying flammable oil.

An RPG doesn't have nearly the range of a .50 caliber weapon. An RPG-7 self detonates after a few seconds, maybe 900 to 1,000 meters. Even then accuracy beyond 500 meters is iffy because they would have to lob the projectiles in. RPGs make shitty anti-personnel weapons, and it would take many RPGs to do damage to a modern ship. It's not going to explode in a huge fireball, and shooting one RPG is not going to cause a tanker to blow up any more than shooting a bullet at a car is going to cause an explosion. That's all Hollywood. If RPGs were that significant of a concern, they could easily erect stand off barriers around ships, but again, one RPG is not going to sink a tanker or cause it to blow up. If you had a competent .50 operator, you could easily take out an RPG operator before he could even get off a shot.

[VITE1]

Originally Posted by 6spdC6

A good man with a .50 (M2) will keep the people with the RPG too far away to do anything. Shooting off of a big ship is much easier than the bouncing around in a launch or even the mother ships those assholes come from.

RPG range is max 1,000 meter, M2 .50 is 2,000. effective max 6K plus.

[Kerrmudgeon]

Um.....Exotics, do you really think anyone is going to read that book of a reply!...

I do think that armed escorts through those waters is a business opportunity. Smart Somali pirates should organize and do it legitimately.

[Nox]

Originally Posted by 6spdC6

A good man with a .50 (M2) will keep the people with the RPG too far away to do anything. Shooting off of a big ship is much easier than the bouncing around in a launch or even the mother ships those assholes come from.

More likely, they would be using either a Barrett or an EDM Windrunner system rather than an M2 for more precise directed fire. The SEALs who took out the Somali Pirates were using SR-25s for what it's worth.

What would really work well against pirates would be FLIR equipped CIWS systems.

[VITE1]

Originally Posted by Nox

More likely, they would be using either a Barrett or an EDM Windrunner system rather than an M2 for more precise directed fire. The SEALs who took out the Somali Pirates were using SR-25s for what it's worth.

What would really work well against pirates would be FLIR equipped CIWS systems.

OR

We can blow the ever loving crap out of their home port and kill each one we caught immediately. Kind of like we did 200 years ago.

That worked.