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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.'"
Why the hell NOT guns?
It's what the pirates use. And it's been used for hundreds of years as the first deterrents. Even our military used cannonfire against the first pirates when they captured one of our civilian vessels back in the 1800's. Those pirates then were Muslim during 1700Barbary War, and gee, the pirates are still in Muslim lands.
What else than guns? Try RPGs.
That's what pirates, no, Peoples of Islam understand. Power.
________
In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Upon inquiring "concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury", the ambassador replied:
It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.
Wikipedia snippet from First Barbary War
Oh spare us the BS. The pirates aren't hijacking fishing vessels or garbage barges to police their waters.
Spare us the BS. That's not even close to what he said. If that's really what you heard in your head when you read the GP's post you've got some seriously out of whack filters.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I really am not accustomed to hearing an AUSTRALIAN sounding so damned ignorant. Your prejudice stands out loud and clear, however. Redneck. Billy Ray. Missura. You sound just like a refugee from the Los Angeles ghettos.
And, apparently illiterate as well. I said people LIKE ME. Read it carefully, you little hippy puss. People LIKE ME. Are you going to badmouth all the ANZACS who have died around the world, to protect your worthless ass? Anzacs who went ashore in godforsaken places with my dad in world war 2? People LIKE ME, and LIKE MY DAD, and LIKE MY SON.
No, you are NOT like any of us.
And, no, you wouldn't be procreating without people like me.
Get over it, you sheltered little pussy. You don't have the answers to squat. If you can possibly get untangled from your Mama's apron strings, you should get out in the world, and learn what real life is all about. Join the service. Serve. Give something of yourself. That is, if there IS anything of you that is worth giving.
If you're man enough, you may have the privilege of meeting my son in Korea or Germany. IF.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br