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rockspider -> RE: paying ransoms to pirates (11/21/2009 2:59:32 PM)
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I agree on your idea a long way, but your plan of action is not to well thought out. Consider what happens in a pirate attack. A few high powered rubber ducks mounted with extreme high powered engines "suddenly" appear with heavily armed tugs on board and treatens to shoot anybody doing any of the in several treads mentioned dropping stuff on to them. Which allows them to attach various climping stuff to get on board so they can seize the crew with handweapons.
Well one rifle or handgun in the hand of the crew is suicidal. So forget that. The idea of converting an old ship in to a stool pidgeon is way to elaborate. The answer is really quite straight forward. 200 - 300 guys made up in details of maximum 10 man units, drawn from all countries involved. We have our hunters and the frogmen, the brits their SAS, the jews "the boys" i believe they are called "Seals" in USA. All countries have such units, some better than others. They board absolute normal freight ship in the area and sail along hidden from view.
As it is would be totally unacceptable to shoot on inocent people in this situation you really have to let them show their intend, but that is quite clear when they under 250 m from the ship. Their order of battle is no secret as every merchantman have radars which can see them many miles away. What you see on that screen is a target where suddenly several target seperate from. Due to the extreme high fuelconsumption of those rubberducks their range is strictly limited and therefor attached to a much slower and bigger wessel which serves as a mother ship.
When the attack is unmistakeable under way the special OP's forces appear on the merchantman and in reality 3 rubberducks needs only 3 handheld surface to surface missiles to be blown to hell and gone. The chance of an actual firefight is minimal, as anybody knows, who sailed in a rubber in those waters. They buck and hop in a way, so hitting a barn with a handgun is totally impossible on a 100 m. I have done a lot of scuba a bit further south. The pattern of the the ducks leaving the mothership is quite unmistakeable that something nasty is about to happen, but the warning is normally early. At least 15 minutes many times an hour. As a neath little coup de grace. You contact you friendly neighbourhood aircraftcarrier captain and give the coordinates of the mothership who dispatches his not so friendly F16 pilot who on getting there could fire a single air to surface missile in to the mothership or decide to be a cheapie and just let rip with the ,5 machine guns for a single strafing run. Either method guarantied to see the mothership on the bottom of the Indian Ocean ASAP.
For the Chandlers, i am quite surprised, as Mauritius is really way from what up to now been considered Somali pirates hunting grounds. I have not seen the coordinates where the piracy took place, but if they came from India via Maldives to head down the Mocambique coast as is the sort of standard route for yachts (trade winds and currents dictate that) the should have been about 2600 km of Somalia. The route over Seychelles heading down the Mocambique Channel is more used and still considered safe, but only 1300 km of the Somali Coast.
The above scheme would require the oldest aircraftcarrier in the US fleet parked north of Seychelles, or depending on the Seychelles cooperation just a couple of jets on the island and might be the same in Saudi or Oman. One or 2 high speed armed patrolboats to move the special forces from ship to ship as they leave an enter the target zone.
Maybe it would be a good idea to let one of the rubberducks escape only killing half the crew. So a few can adventually get back to Somalia to tell about the new experience of being a pirate.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Aneirin
The understanding in maritime definition of piracy, is crimes carried at sea by private individuals for private ends. So if that is the case, these current pirates are outlaws in the country they hail from, as I am sure piracy there is against their laws too. So if a pirate threat to shipping exists, then the country whose waters the pirates operate in should be told to sort it out, else risk others sorting it out. If there is a threat to shipping, it needs resolving, send a warship there to blast the things out of the water, as was that not the purpose of military vessels in the first place, protect shipping and there trade.
Ransoms, though they have been paid in antiquity, Europe paid the Barbary pirates for a quiet life, they should not be paid, these current pirates demand what they do, however unreasonable it is, because they can, perhaps they have no expectation of really getting what they demand, but why not give it a go, as the publicity the case generates they know is sure to act in their favour, they may even get the large sum they demand, there is always an outside chance.
But these present day pirates know also it is unlikely that a foreign warship will hunt them down, as they know foreign powers are very scared about what they do in foreign waters, they know military action will be seen worldwide, and there condemned, so in reality, they are sitting pretty until the unexpected happens, and needs to happen to protect all shipping, be that trade or other.
All it needs, is an old time raider, a warship disguised as a merchant ship, lure them in with promises of fat goods to be seized, then drop the hoardings and blast them out of the water.
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