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Mariners Develop High Tech Pirate Repellents
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that owners of ships that ply the dangerous waters near Somalia are looking at options to repel pirates including slippery foam, lasers, electric fences, water cannons and high-intensity sound — almost anything except guns. One defense is the Force 80 squirt gun with a 3-inch nozzle that can send 1,400 gallons a minute 100 yards in any direction. 'It is a tremendous force of water that will knock over anything in its path and will also flood a pirate's ship very quickly,' says Roger Barrett James of the the Swedish company Unifire. Next is the Mobility Denial System, a slippery nontoxic foam that can be sprayed on just about any surface making it impossible to walk or climb even with the aid of a harness. The idea would be to spray the pirate's vessel as it approached, or to coat ropes, ladders, steps and the hull of the ship that's under attack. The Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, a high-powered directional loudspeaker allows a ship to hail an approaching vessel more than a mile away. 'Knowing that they've lost the element of surprise is half the battle,' says Robert Putnam of American Technology Corp. The LRAD has another feature — a piercing "deterrent tone" that sounds a bit like a smoke detector alarm with enough intensity to cause extreme pain and even permanent hearing loss for anyone directly in the beam that comes from the device. But Capt. John Konrad, who blogs for the Web site Gcaptain.com, says no anti-pirate device is perfect. 'The best case scenario is that you find these vessels early enough that you can get a Navy ship detached to your location and let them handle the situation.'"
An M-16 with a full clip.
Brett
a firearm, worked as a defense against boarding parties hundreds of years ago, it will work just as well now.
Actually, in their minds, it will make the pirates more willing to kill. After all, if people will potentially shooting at you, you're more likely to shoot first if someone looks funny. Frankly, I'm a fan of the convoy idea. Heck. One destroyer could protect a dozen commercial vessels, I'm sure.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
I thought the whole idea of not arming crews was to prevent possible death to the crews. Do these people think that only applies to GUNS, and not other forms of arms? The pirates are armed with guns, RPGs and the like, not fucking water pistols. They do not have a "stun" setting. Does anyone in their right mind think the pirates, after getting a ship flooded or tasered aren't going to actually use the weapons THEY have? Do they expect the pirates to say "Gosh, you fought fair and humanely. We'll just ignore all that extra effort, pain and discomfort."
Wrong.
How about just adding armed and trained guards to the ships? Maybe armed and trained escort ships? Q-boats? A Naval destroyer sitting in the main bay, shelling their HQ?
Or is this just the kinder, gentler pirates of the 21st century?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
"pirate repellents"
WTF are we talking about... TICKS???
"We're getting boarded... must not have sprayed the pirate repellent last night..."
The best pirate repellent is two squads of armed marines. Just have the ships pick them up in the port before the gulf of Aden... and drop them off in the port after, where they can board the ship going the other way.
Much cheaper than flooding the area with warships... and more effective to boot.
To be fair, ninjas and special operations/forces are pretty much the same thing. Ninjas were pretty much feudal Japan's special forces. Their legendary superhuman abilities and magical powers are merely the results of their skill and efficiency. The incredible feats performed by the Navy SEALs and other special forces, while not as easily attributed to magical powers, their feats are often considered superhuman in that the average person could never perform the kinds of things SEALs can.
In short: NavySEALs == Ninjas
Does not make sense. Pirates aren't movie aliens and Marines(TM) are known to work quite effectively against them. Marines cost to feed and shelter anywhere you put them so you might as well assign them to ships that are likely to be boarded and let them get some work in. Two squads of Marines do not take up very much space at all (particularly in respect to the capacity of these cargo ships). Their presence would have a negligible effect on crew and cargo. They do cost to train but that money is again going to be spent anyway no matter where they are stationed. They don't get paid all the time that they are on guard (assuming we are talking about United States Marines). They draw a monthly paycheck whether they are on guard duty off the coast of Somalia or stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else. We have plenty of them, they are easily replicated to a point, and can be rapidly sent wherever they're needed. Slippery foam covered pirates wash off and come back to try again. Dead floating in the water until the sharks get there pirates are no longer a threat.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Yes lets debate between lethal and non lethal firearms instead of addressing the actual causes of the problem. Like an ineffective government and global inequality
Oh give me a fucking break. "Global inequality" doesn't give you the right to start holding human beings hostage for ransom money.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Personally I am rooting for the pirates maybe they can drive up the cost of the goods being transported making more local or regional options viable in areas of commerce and energy supply.
Forget your anti retard pills today? If you're rooting for them, you have to realize that most of the shipping there goes INTO Africa. They would be raising the price of aid to areas where local and regional options are insufficient. The pirates are shooting their own region in the foot for their own profit... it helps no-one. I say nothing works better against pirates than hot lead.
Remember, terrorism isn't about money, it's about instilling fear in people, i.e. terrorizing. So if you start shooting down every hijacked plane, what actually happens, is that the terrorists will use their readily available supply of martyrs to continuously hijack airplanes with no other intent than getting shot down. Then you either keep your word, shoot the planes and the people within, and soon nobody in their right mind will ever board a plane again (public uproar notwithstanding), or you don't shoot the planes and start negotiating with the terrorists.