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Air Cannon Ties Pirates In Knots
Hugh Pickens writes "Numerous high-tech devices have been proposed to help ships cope with piracy on the high seas. Now a company has developed a ship-borne launching device that fires a net or coiled rope into the path of pirate vessels using compressed air with a range of up to a range of 400m. The payload net or rope, which has a parachute attached to the end, will unravel and lay out across the surface of the water so that as the pirate boat travels through the water its propeller shaft will pick up the line and become entangled. 'With the trials and testing we've done, it has taken us some 45 minutes to cut and disentangle the line from the propeller itself,' says Jonathan Delf. 'Within that time of course, the target ship is on its way and hopefully help has arrived in the form of naval forces or helicopter support.' The system can be fired up to five times off just a cylinder of air like a simple scuba tank." The video mentions that the device can also fire a payload of golf balls. The systems have recently been sold to "several large shipping companies that travel near the oil-rich Nigerian Delta, which, like the Somalian coast, is rife with piracy."
when the pirates use this on ships themselves?
No text.
What is going to keep the pirates from using something like this to their advantage?
Nice idea. I absolutely hate it when crap gets stuck in the prop. Not sure how fast these things could be reloaded though and it would be easy to spoof using a water pressure (jet) lower end, although I doubt your random Somali hijacker is going to have the cash to upgrade their motors.
I really like the golf balls though.... Totally mean spirited...
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Just shoot the fuckers already. Pretty soon there won't be any more of them.
I think the number of pirates would be reduced if the shipping vessels had small autocannons mounted on them. No jalopie fishing trawler can take a burst of 35mm AP shells for very long. Problem solved.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Are we really that politically correct now that even killing a pirate is wrong?
Pirates. Not a down-trodden minority.
Kill them. All of them.
It's the right thing to do.
Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48, and am what some people call "mentally retarded".
Good enough to kill with even.
Does this remind anyone of the machine gun on the Not For Hire from Phillip Jose' Farmers River World series? Sure, it shot plastic bullets, but close enough.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
the RIAA has requested testing of their own anti-"pirate" air cannon that shoots a surge of electricity down a suspected "pirate's" electrical connection. Municipal utility companies: you're either with us or a godamn terrorist.
I'd happily pay you Tuesday for a biopsy today!
Not all boats have propellers. This won't work against jet boats.
Better known as 318230.
Many countries have laws against commercial ships carrying weapons under their flag. And even more countries have laws against armed foreign-flagged ships docking at their ports. It gets real complex real fast. Non-lethal weapons keep a captain or shipping line's options open.
Totally agreed. The problem is that foreign ports don't like to have evil guns on private ships in their harbors. Lately, though, it seems things are turning around: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/20/an-anti-pirate-policy-that-works/
The trick is telling the difference between pirates and fishermen, or other innocent people. With this, big deal if it's used against the wrong person. With bullets it's another story. Leave the killing to the pros.
Golf balls at high speed will kill. Sounds like you're moving into real weapons now.
It seems to me to board your ship, these pirates must pull up alongside. And your ship will be a lot taller than theirs. Why not fire or just plain drop a large cannonball (sphere of metal about a foot in diameter) through the deck and hull of their ship? It'll sink quickly and they'll be in a really bad way.
You could even use a video camera to look down over the gunwale and aim so that you don't have to be in the line of fire to do it.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Wouldn't the pirates just go around the rope? I mean, if it's got a big parachute attached to it, it can't be that hard to see what the merchants are doing...
Self defense its self is politically incorrect these days...
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
To save money they should us "reload" or used golf balls. They could use the lowest A grade since they don't care about surface imperfections.
Mount deck guns on merchies traveling through that part of the world. Sink pirate boats when they approach. If you need something more close-in, perhaps surplus 20mm Oerlikon or 40mm Bofors guns from that same period would do.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
What's wrong with a good 'ol Ma Deuce?
Why all this squeamishness to try to find a "non lethal" way to disable pirate boats?
They're bloody pirates.
A nice 5" deck gun firing relatively low velocity HE rounds is easy to train on, quite lethal, and remarkably easy to mount on the deck of a merchant ship of any appreciable size.
No, but most countries aren't going to let your ship in their waters let alone to dock in their ports if it is loaded out with machine guns and torpedoes.
And shooting fisherman whom you mistake for pirates in generally frowned upon.
These are pirates. Why disable them? Just lob a few torpedoes into them and sink them.
Seriously, why on earth would you want to defend yourself or a cargo ship worth millions of dollars with a compressed air "rope" thingy that can also shoot golf balls? Install 50 cal machine guns, a few rocket launchers, and teach the crew how to use them.
Find a pirate vessel, sink it. Don't look for survivors. Soon there will be no more pirates.
Also, this flying rope reminds me of the spider wires that the air force dropped onto the electrical-power plants of Serbia during the NATO action against that country in 1999. The spider wires short-circuited the power plants and cut off power to the parts of the city for hours. The aim was to avoid hurting the civilians (because NATO wants their support) and, specifically, to avoid damaging the civilian infrastructure.
Sometimes, being nice works (e. g., in the case of the NATO action against Serbia), but sometimes being nice does not work. The pirates are not innocent civilians but are hardened criminals. Pirates should be killed , not protected from a military assault by the French Navy.
Not surprisingly, this flying rope appears to be the product of British engineering. The French military, under President Nicolas Sarkozy, is not likely to develop such a "nice", "let-us-be-friends" weapon: Sarkozy is the toughest, most pro-Western leader to appear in Old Europe in the last 50 years.
they should use srixon zurc's if they're going to use golf balls for the piercing ball flight and lower launch angle
lets hope the pirates dont get clever and start catching them and putting them on e-bay as one hit wonders
Before you attempt to kill them, you have to be certain that they are a pirate. Legally certain, not just Slashdot certain.
Fouling their prop doesn't require quite such a high standard of proof, and gets the job done, at least till they get their hands on some jet boats.
It's also not too smart for a pirate to escalate from a small disabled boat -- if someone on that ship had some means of firing back, that could only be deployed against proven pirates, well, you just gave them proof.
Just shoot the fuckers already. Pretty soon there won't be any more of them.
If it's always clear weather, and daytime, and all the boats have transponders so that you never make errors in identifying which boats are pirate and which aren't, that might be reasonable.
If you are, say, reliable 99% of the time... and, say, one boat out of two hundred is a pirate-- you'll be shooting two innocent fishermen for every pirate.
And it's always harder to identify the bad guys in the real world than it is in the movies.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
No.
There's no trick to it.
If you're approaching a large commercial ship of any kind, plying its trade in the waters off the coast of East Africa, and you continue to ignore the many and varied warnings to do otherwise, you deserve to get shot. The innocent people you're concocting out of thin air for the sake of juvenile, devil's advocate, argumentation... is breathtakingly naive.
I have a feeling you're a part of the Confetti Generation.
Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48, and am what some people call "mentally retarded".
Yeeeeah. He was... fishing... at night, in stormy weather, a thousand miles off the coast of Somalia, but within 300 yards of the only merchant ship within 50 nautical miles.
That's the ticket.
The tipoff would probably when they start coming at you with highspeed boats (they only use slower larger "fishing boats" as motherships, they need small highspeed boats to catch their prey) and start firing warning shots with machine guns and RPGs.
The real reason they are not using real weapons against the pirates isn't because the couldn't be sure they were shooting the right people, but rather because docking at ports becomes much more complicated legally when you are carrying weapons.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
If I were a navy commander, instead of shooting the bastard pirates, I would rather prefer keeping them alive and using them. As long as the pirates are alive and well, they can be manipulated to disrupt an enemy states transportation of vital material, gather intelligence, wreck panic and fear in an enemy state's civilians/government, etc.
Who do you think are providing the coordinates of victim cargo ships to the poorly equipped pirates?
The whole "pirate fighting" thing is a scam. Or rather, a game played by major military forces in which the pirates are not the objective, but the material.
Do you really think the pirates are so tough an enemy for a superpower like the USA?
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Ok. How about this. Your ship is not armed because it wants to be able to dock anywhere in the world. So you've been under attack and fighting them off with water cannons. You got some friendly navy on the radio and they send a chopper your way. So it's like... 10 minutes out when the dudes in the ship start turning tail. What the hell do you do? Fuck up their props. Just like how mace is used instead of guns in some cases, you'll use this device instead of guns in some cases.
But yes. Just shooting them when you get charged by dudes in speedboats would be a nice solution. Too bad the economics don't really work out.
Arm the crew when they get into hostile waters. Put the arms under lock and key when they leave hostile waters.
Announce before entering a port that you have weapons, but they are locked up. Let the harbor pilot have the key and verify weapons are secure before allowing the vessel into port. Then get the key back when existing the harbor.
That's a bad idea. Typically the pirates don't kill the crew. If you started having hostile crews using lethal force against pirates, you may see the pirates escalate their attack and use more deadly force. In the end everyone loses.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
I thought it was pretty clear that the best way to deal with pirates is with lawsuits and DMCA notices. I don't see how throwing more interwebs at them is going to help.
The group on Whale Wars should test this puppy out.. They can't seem to launch a proper prop fouler line for anything..
This is an excellent point, but in my opinion it doesn't go far enough. Most of these pirates are people under the age of 21, and most do it out of necessity. Bringing weapons into it would just turn a bad situation into a killing field.
Good sigs are hard to think of, bad sigs are a waste of time, that is why I invented, this lousy rhyme.
Someone with mod points like pirates...
Don't confuse the issue with facts.
Most of the people doing the actual "pirating" have been pushed to it by their government. The source of the problem isn't greed, it's necessity (with a decent payoff, too).
moox. for a new generation.
This word "commandeered" ... I do not think it means what you think it means.
you lose the internet.
How difficult would it be to equip ships with Browning M2 .50 machine guns and man a watch for incoming pirate vessels. The Browning M2, with an maximum effective range of 1.2 miles, could turn those pirate skiffs into driftwood long before the pirates were in AK-47 or RPG range. Shoot em full of holes and leave them for the sharks; when word gets around the piracy doesn't pay, the pirates will forced to give up or be killed. From all appearances the pirates are in it for the money so they will give up if piracy doesn't pay; after all, dead men tell no tales and spend no money.
+1 Insightful
Yes...we are that politically correct. It's wrong to kill anyone now...haven't you heard? Especially bad people. Bad people aren't really bad you see...they just have had a bad childhood or are misunderstood. It's even possible that they are actually just trying to make a living off the corporate monsters that own the shipping lines. These evil corporate people make lots and lots of profit and should share it with the pirates so they can buy food and mp3 players for their children. After all, pirates are people too. arrr!
You say that as though (a) the pirates didn't already bring weapons into it, and (b) there really are no other options for the pirates. (a) they have, and (b) I don't know the situation well enough to comment (and I doubt that you do, either). However, you also seem to skip something: if one enters priracy - the use of deadly force to steal stuff - one is explicitly accepting the risks that go along with it: death induced by those who fight back.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think an M2HB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_Browning_machine_gun) would work better, but that's just me.
Seriously, I think it is time for nations to let cargo ships going this route arm themselves. We can set limits to the type and amount of weaponry, as well as require things like it be locked by the captain when the ship comes to port, but this is getting silly. I don't think it is right to tell the sailors that they can't respond when fired upon.
It also seems to be the only real solution at this point, well unless the world is interested in going in to another unstable region and trying to enforce their way, however it seems there is a recent example of why that is perhaps not a very good idea.
Actually, of the two of you, it looks like you're the one who sees himself as an 'internet tough guy'.
That was a pretty ironic post.
Your pedantry is noted and dismissed as the steaming load of crap it is. There's a reason nobody likes lawyers.
See how long they can chase you with this trained on them.
Start figuring out what ports these ships are using and then bomb the [redacted] out of the ports
tell the nations that own the ports if they don't want to be NEXT then they should start dealing with the pirates themselves.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
This was actually my first thought. The remains from a single shot of this contraption may remain afloat for a long time and hurt several animals. Still, Jonathan makes a good point, assuming vessels are often sunk and not just held for ransom, Any facts on this?
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
A cheap, simple, easily fabricated cage around the prop solves this for the pirates.
Design it so the rope/net just slides below the prop. It'll add some drag, slowing them down a bit, which may help, but a larger engine solves that.
Just another corp' making money from fear, while providing no real protection.
I have read that one primary reason that the shipping companies don't allow weapons on board is that they fear they'll be used against their own ships. A non-trivial percentage of merchant crew members are bottom-of-the-barrel sailors, who might not be as trustworthy as desired. Give them easy access to weapons, and they might decide to do a little hijacking of their own - from within. Millions of dollars of ransom is a pretty powerful temptation.
With that said, I'm all for arming them anyway - just give the captain indisputable control over access to the weapons, to remove the temptation.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
I think the mod saw the "shoot pirates" and thought "file sharers must die." I mean the if they had air cannons mandatory to be installed in your computer that would put you in a net on an illegal transfer you would be pissed too.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
He was fishing until he got caught in the storm. Storm took out his radio and blew him off course until nightfall. Fortunately he found the only found the only merchant ship within 50 nautical miles and was sailing to it to ask for help.
If they are firing on you, they are a legitimate target both from a moral standpoint but also in terms of maritime law. I'm not saying that cargo ships should urn around firing on any boat they see. However, if a boat fires upon them, which this pirates do, they should be allowed to return fire. Doesn't really matter who the people in the boat are or claim to be, there is no reason for them to open fire without provocation.
That's what you have to remember. It isn't as though the pirates show up with fishing rods and politely ask to come on board. Were that the case, well nothing would happen as the cargo ship would continue on its way. They come up and open fire on the ship, generally with AK47s and RPGs. This doesn't do much to the ship, a cargo ship's hull can take a hell of a lot more than that, but is rather dangerous to the crew. I think the crew should be able to shoot back.
As Brock Samson once said, "I'm so keeping this thing, it's the first net-cannon I've used that actually works, they usually just mess up the guy's hair."
Name...That...Autocomplete!
Yes, I think these would do the trick.
Q: So - you saw the boat approach. It had people inside and you could see they were armed. They opened fire with warning shots over your boat. You looked through the scope of your rifle at the shooter. What did you feel?
A: The recoil of my rifle.
If I was in a 30ft yacht or a 500m container ship, if someone approached my ship on the high seas, I would be VERY wary, and the instant anyone tried anything rash, I would instantly perforate them with overwhelming firepower, especially if I was in a small boat, as I would feel much more vulnerable. If I'm in a small private boat, I am NOT in the mood for taking visitors in the middle of the ocean of any size or variety and would consider ANY such visitor a threat. If I am in a giant commercial ship, I am ONLY interested in properly flagged and responding government vessels coming for a visit. The rest are either pirates or Darwinbait.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
So they had water cannons, noise makers, and now a flippin' rope cannon? Give those ships real guns with real bullets already! These pirates mean business. Any resistance these pirates meet is often returned with lethal force. Giving in to them and paying ransom is just calling for more of the same. Pay the Danegeld and you don't get rid of the Dane.
These ships need to have weapons that can match or surpass what the pirates have. Bolt a 25 mike mike to the deck if you must. Some little ship comes screaming up to your ship with guys carrying machine guns and rocket launchers shooting at you then its weapons free. They understand return fire. Make it too difficult to be worth their time and the piracy will stop.
All of this less than lethal crap has got to end. Give those ships real guns with real bullets!
Yep, I'm a bit perturbed over this. All this politically correct crap is getting people killed.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
It's not like there's much economic harm to bombing those little pirate countries to smithereens, unless we overdid it to to point where we get a global nuclear winter. Even if nuclear weapons are used, I doubt anyone would care enough to invoke MAD.
Yeeeeah. He was... fishing... at night, in stormy weather,
... in eel-infested waters ...
John
What kind of environmental damage could this cause?
Before you attempt to kill them, you have to be certain that they are a pirate. Legally certain
The high seas are under the laws of no nation; remember that many of these pirates are operating and attacking more than 200 miles offshore. If you are being pursued by an unknown craft which refuses to communicate and gives chase while matching your course changes, that is pretty clearly a hostile act. Firing upon the pursuing boat in such cases is justified in self defense, especially given the recent history and reputation of those waters for piracy.
for hundreds of years. It's called the cannon. In all seriousness, these pirates are chasing down ships and rapidly boarding them with AKs. These are ragtag groups of pirates. They couldn't compete with a cannon or a simple semi-automatic rifle.
It's ridiculous that all of this effort is necessary. Shoot them.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Maybe his engine died and he drifted? Not every motor in that part of the world is in pristine condition. I'd rather not blow someone up if they actually were innocent. Especially since the pirates rarely kill people.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Bringing weapons into it would just turn a bad situation into a killing field.
Maybe you should tell that to the guys with the AK-47s. Hint: They aren't on the merchant ships.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Are we really that politically correct now that even killing a pirate is wrong?
Pirates. Not a down-trodden minority.
Kill them. All of them.
It's the right thing to do.
You pussy. Killing's too good for 'em! I say disable their vessel with a net, pelt them to death with golfballs, then take their boat with any booty they've already collected. Also, I hear Somalis make for good eatin'. Mmm mmm!
Are we really that politically correct now that even killing a pirate is wrong?
Oh you can kill them but there are a few things to consider first:
That said if you can shoot them dead, I'm pretty sure no one will mind. Provided you are in international waters AND you can prove your case that you didn't just murder someone AND you can explain why your ship is armed AND you can somehow figure out a way to kill a group of pirates that out numbers yours and is probably better armed.
I don't know about you, but being an American I would rather take my chances in a gun battle with the pirates (a rail mounted Browning M2 heavy machine gun would be very useful against pirates armed with AK-47s and RPGs fired from small skiffs) than be taken as a hostage back to Somalia where any Americans will almost certainly be turned over to the local Islamic militias and beheaded. In fact, after the incident with the Maersk Alabama the Somali pirates have already threatned to do just that.
No, but most countries aren't going to let your ship in their waters let alone to dock in their ports if it is loaded out with machine guns and torpedoes.
Who said anything about machine guns and torpedoes? Any semi-automatic rifle with a reasonable magazine capacity would suffice to defend against these types of pirate attacks.
And shooting fisherman whom you mistake for pirates in generally frowned upon.
Fishermen don't usually approach container ships with AK-47s and RPGs.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
That is the same philosophy that said never try to stop airplane hijackers, just do what they say and you'll eventually be let go.
Of course, if the pirates read this they are going to say - 'hey, great idea. Why chase down these ships when we can just disable them.'
That's a bad idea. Typically the pirates don't kill the crew. If you started having hostile crews using lethal force against pirates, you may see the pirates escalate their attack and use more deadly force. In the end everyone loses.
On the other hand, escalating it so the pirates have the potential of a real consequence (death versus sent back to shore with a slap on the wrist) is exactly what needs to happen. It would discourage them from trying to make easy money by being pirates, and put pressure on the vritually non-exist govt of their contries to do something about the problem.
Our chief weapon is surprise... surprise and fear.
And ruthless efficiency.
Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48, and am what some people call "mentally retarded".
How difficult would it be to equip ships with Browning M2 [wikipedia.org] .50 machine guns and man a watch for incoming pirate vessels
Difficult? Not at all. Expensive? Definitely - especially once you factor in insurance and extra manpower. Legal? Completely illegal in most ports. Sensible? Probably not given that piracy is actually extremely rare and that there is at best a vague legal framework supporting you if you shoot someone at sea - even in self defense.
There are a lot of reasons they don't arm merchant ships. Most ports will deny entry to any merchant ship that is armed. Most crews are not trained in combat. Pirates in practice rarely kill the crew members of vessels they attack. Most merchant ships have very small crews and normally are badly outnumbered by the pirates attacking them. Ships sailing in territorial waters may be subject to laws that are against them shooting a pirate even while under assault. And it goes on and on. Seriously, if it were as simple as arming the vessels, don't you think they would have done that already?
The Strait of Malacca is arguably the area with the most piracy. Over 50,000 ships pass through the area annually. There are at most a few hundred incidents of piracy worldwide each year (less than 300 in 2006). Now go ahead and justify the cost (financial and legal and moral) of arming all those ships against a very unlikely hazard.
Most of the people doing the actual "pirating" have been pushed to it by their government. The source of the problem isn't greed, it's necessity (with a decent payoff, too).
No, Somalia hasn't had an effective government in almost 20 years. If they had, there would be police and coast guard and someone to answer for the pirates. Territories are controlled by warlords, plain and simple.
They may have been pushed into piracy by their local warlords - by the lack of government, if you will, but not by the Somalian government.
But no matter why they became pirates, they are still pirates, and they deserve the same fate as pirates throughout history. Swift, irreversible justice. Doesn't matter if they're volunteers or conscripts, on drugs, just kids, old fishermen, or whatever -- they've all proven themselves by heading out to sea to commit murder. For each pirate sent to the bottom of the sea, the people back home become a little more scared, and a little less willing to head out on another attack.
The sea is a lot more brutal and less policed than Central Park, and things don't turn out nice and neat like a cop booking a mugger.
John
Before you attempt to kill them, you have to be certain that they are a pirate. Legally certain, not just Slashdot certain.
As a general rule of thumb, there are three things that need to happen before deadly force is justified:
Pirates approaching a boat armed with AK-47s have met all three of those variables. They have the ability and opportunity to do the crew harm and have demonstrated an intent to do so. Under the laws of most nations you are entitled to respond with deadly force in such a scenario.
Fouling their prop doesn't require quite such a high standard of proof, and gets the job done
Yes it does. You can't just disable boats on the open ocean and leave their crews at the mercy of the sea and elements.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Why not make a paint ball - filled with wretched smelling stuff/tear gas, etc - incapacitate the whole boat.
Or make it filled with infra red visible paint - then the Navy can do a flyover, pick out the boat and sink it.
..........FULL STOP.
Typically the pirates don't kill the crew.
So what? Being kidnapped and held for ransom is not an experience that most people would care to go through. The laws of most civilized nations regard kidnapping as a crime that you can resist with deadly force. It's a serious violation of the person. The only worse crimes are rape and murder.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
"...Americans will almost certainly be turned over to the local Islamic militias and beheaded. In fact, after the incident with the Maersk Alabama the Somali pirates have already threatned to do just that"
Isn't this an argument not to kill pirates? As I recall, they made that threat in specific response to one of their own being killed.
It's not a matter of political correctness to say that it's wrong to kill people and best to accomplish your goals without killing people. That is a matter of simple morality.
It's also not a matter of political correctness to know that your "tip" is just a plain-bad idea. More often than not, people who say "just shoot them" are people you've never been in small arms fire exchanges. I know you're a slashdotter and all, but fire fights are slightly more complicated and difficult than the point and click interfaces to which are you are accustomed.
Firing a weapon from a moving boat to another moving boat, trying to hit people on said boat or even hit the moving boat so as to disable it before said boat rams you is no easy task. Firing at them once they're actually on your boat is not such a hot idea either since you risk hitting your own crew or damaging and disabling your own vessel.
And then there is the inherent safety hazard of simply having weapons on the boat. The increased risk of accidental injury and the increased risk of purposeful injury (ie, crew members lose their tempers and decide to settle an argument once and for all). I will admit that the latter scenerio is unlikely but still something to be considered when injecting firearms into any situations.
The best defensive measure against pirates are ones that keep them off your boat with as little danger to all involved as possible. So I say congrats to the people who developed this and I hope it works for those in harm's way. And I hope I never embark on a three hour tour with Braintrust here...
You foul their props at 400m, they'll punch a hole in the side of your cargo vessel with an RPG at 400m easy as pie
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
sailing? hell, you can't get blown 1000 miles off course in a day.
Reboot macht Frei.
Just shoot the fuckers already. Pretty soon there won't be any more of them.
By them, do you mean pirates or fisherman?
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
Bad people aren't really bad you see...they just have had a bad childhood or are misunderstood.
And sadly, an unfortunate end
Reboot macht Frei.
Horsedung. There are more potential hostile crew's than pirates. Eventually the crews kill the pirates down to only a few, and then the crews win.
The US military has alread killed the pirates out of necessity; the United States has a long term policy of not negotiating with terrorists, hijackers, or hostage takers. Appeasment only makes the aggressor more aggressive and paying ransoms is not good long term policy. The horse is out of the barn on this one and Americans should avoid capture by Somali pirates at any price. Remember that it is the Somali pirates who are the villains in this business, they attacked first and the US Navy responded in kind. They got what was coming to them.
So a semi-automatic rifle is going to suffice against AK-47s and RPGs?
Greetings and Salutations...
If all of you chicken hawks REALLY think that blasting pirates out of the water is the best option, I would suggest this:
1) Band together (facebook is a good option).
2) Pool your savings and buy a freighter (lots of them parked now, and available for cheap).
3) Join the crew, and bring your biggest guns along.
4) Cruise the Somolia coast a few times and have fun blasting the pirates.
5) PROFIT!
Now...do not be too surprised if, after the second or third time you blow a group of attacking pirates out of the water, you find yourself
visited by support ships with RATHER larger guns.
Pleasant Dreams
Dave Mundt
YAB - http://blog.beemandave.com/
But fishing line is a big problem in protecting marine animals; it seems like intentionally stranding hundreds of yards of the stuff might have some negative impacts on the surrounding aquatic life.
Because shooting at people instead of trying to solve the underlying problem has limitations, you know. C'mon people, you re giving slash dot a weird meaning today.
Yes, it would. A semi-automatic rifle is exactly what you want for this. You've got guys in an open boat within a few hundred yards of you. Nice clear line of sight. A fully automatic weapon is just going to waste ammo. The only real use for full auto is suppression -- and that really isn't in the cards on the open ocean.
Shotguns would also be useful. Sometimes the pirates like to sneak aboard ship in the dark or during bad weather. The shotgun is the perfect weapon for that type of fighting.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
200 miles out to sea and you've just disabled their boat perminately - i'd say you've basicly killed them anyway by leaving the to die slowly from thirst.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Are'nt these really bad. Like they kill whales or something.
Im in favor of real guns.
Yes, seeing as even a RPG hit or two at or below the waterline won't sink your boat, whereas taking out 2 or 3 pirates pretty much fucks up their entire plan.
Fire vs Fire
Spanish trawler attacked by pirates
Also here: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/11/29/spain.pirate.attack/
"200 miles out to sea and you've just disabled their boat perminately - i'd say you've basicly killed them anyway by leaving the to die slowly from thirst."
Ok, I'll admit that I didn't RTFA. But I did at least read the summary where it says, "With the trials and testing we've done, it has taken us some 45 minutes to cut and disentangle the line from the propeller itself". So, I don't think anyone is being 'left to die slowly of thirst'. Is your reading comprehension really that poor?
BTW - I'd be more concerned with retribution from any pirates that might manage to catch you should this 'defense' fail. Methinks they might be a little pissed at that point.
"Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing - and it was everything that I thought it could be."
And what did history tell us about dealing with buccaneers?
Nothing short of a punitive and lethal land campaign, killing and maiming their loved ones, burning their homes and raping their cattle will stop them. I suggest you bring one or more Scottish regiments for that last bit about the cattle though.
http://www.6inchboot.com/
He was fishing until he got caught in the storm. Storm took out his radio and blew him off course until nightfall. Fortunately he found the only found the only merchant ship within 50 nautical miles and was sailing to it to ask for help.
Let's just sprinkle some crack dust on him and get out of here.
I've seen Somalia in 1990. It was by far the poorest place I've ever been to (and I've been to quite a few poor places), tryly a sorry sight. Kids weren't starving on the streets but people were ready to try desperate things for my lunch money...
After my visit they've had 20 years of civil war. I don't want see what the place looks like now.
To me it's quite clear that there is an endless supply of young men ready to take any risks in that area. You can't stop these guys by making pirating dangerous, you need to make it impossible or unprofitable.
Why not simply equip the relevant ships with high powered machine guns (M61 Vulcan for instance - 6.000 shots per minute) which will make mincemeat of any pirate (and their boat) stupid enough to come within range?
Doing so solves two problems:
- It stops any pirate attack
- It decimates the active pirate population effectively
- It most likely also discourages potential pirates from going into business
These guns are also fairly complex mechanically so it's unlikely that any captured guns (how?) will be of much use for the pirates for long. They're also hard to mount and use from a small boat like the ones usually used by pirates.
Maybe they just REALLY want to borrow a cup of sugar...
You can't just disable boats on the open ocean and leave their crews at the mercy of the sea and elements.
Which is why you do it and then call the authorities to either capture or rescue the disable boats and their crew. If you really were in danger then you saved your lives and cargo, if you weren't then you pay the price of non-lethally attacking another boat. You still should do your best to make sure you really are disabling a pirate ship but if you do make a mistake it's a far less dire mistake than sinking the other boat and killing the crew.
Sapere aude!
I was surprised it hadn't already been mentioned...
EM Railgun? Any projectile at 2520 m/s (mach 8) should get the job done. =]
EMRG
So they had water cannons, noise makers, and now a flippin' rope cannon? Give those ships real guns with real bullets already! These pirates mean business. Any resistance these pirates meet is often returned with lethal force. Giving in to them and paying ransom is just calling for more of the same. Pay the Danegeld and you don't get rid of the Dane.
These ships need to have weapons that can match or surpass what the pirates have. Bolt a 25 mike mike to the deck if you must. Some little ship comes screaming up to your ship with guys carrying machine guns and rocket launchers shooting at you then its weapons free. They understand return fire. Make it too difficult to be worth their time and the piracy will stop.
All of this less than lethal crap has got to end. Give those ships real guns with real bullets!
Yep, I'm a bit perturbed over this. All this politically correct crap is getting people killed.
It's only about political correctness if you're a fucking moron.
Say we start arming all merchant vessels with whatever they want or need to protect themselves. Cool. Dead pirates everywhere. Shipping essentially becomes sending masses of military vehicles at other countries. Are you people so short-sighted that you don't realize what that leads to? Accidents. And that leads to war.
How do we tell the shippers from the pirates anyway? If we got two black guys firing at each other on deck when the military comes to the rescue, how do we tell who is defending? In your action movie mindset the miltary kills/wounds them both and sorts it out later. In real life that is an unacceptable solution.
Or, imagine dictators sending tons of commercial vessels at their enemies who then go unload and take it over. "Oh? These tanks and helicopters? err....they protect us against pirates. Can never be to safe, y'know! I'm just here to deliver my shipment of sex toys and stuffed animals, honest!"
It would destroy their jobs if they couldn't be trusted to port to offload their crap. The entire global economy would slow down. What do you think about the economic impact Mr Genius Libertarian?
Yes, Surely such mistakes could never happen. To be fair, there were pirates on board the vessel (they had hijacked it), but also the original crew, and it was a trawler, not a "pirate mother ship".
To me it's quite clear that there is an endless supply of young men ready to take any risks in that area. You can't stop these guys by making pirating dangerous, you need to make it impossible or unprofitable.
Dead men generally don't get to enjoy booty. That unprofitable enough for you?
So by your line of thinking, if someone thought YOU were "bad" (whatever that means), you wouldn't object to them killing YOU? Jews were "bad" by some people's definition, so I guess that was OK too, huh?
"Killing all the bad people" won't make the problem go away, it just makes room for the next wave of "bad" people. Grow up.
more rubbish in the seas to choke turtles, sharks and dolphins
So more guns is the answer? You're asking to give them a reason to start using the guns, which they very rarely do now.
Well Ralph... The world doesn't want you. Please stay in Texas and play with your NRA friends.
I don't understand why everybody is hung up on this fear of 'making mistakes'. Why is it every time that somebody suggests arming potential victims somebody else comes along and starts worrying about friendly fire? It rarely works out that way in the real world. It's even less likely in a maritime setting.
Just stop and think about it for a moment. Small craft do not follow merchant ships around for no reason. They have a pretty good incentive to steer clear of them. When approached, the merchant ship will respond with a hailing device. If it's some innocent situation then this fact will be discovered fairly quickly. If the small craft is filled with guys armed with AK-47s whom match every change in course then it's a fairly safe assumption that they have nefarious intent.
Putting arms in the hands of the good guys does not turn them into trigger happy nutjobs that kill random innocent people at the slightest provocation. The three concepts that I outlined above are standard operating procedure for police departments and armed civilians around the world. This isn't rocket science.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Hmm, the last time I remember an American crew being taken hostage by pirates, the pirates got their heads shot off by Navy marksmen. It doesn't seem to have affected their behavior much; the same American ship was attacked a second time a year later. Except this time they drove off the pirates "with gunfire and a high-decibel noise device."
Yep, I'm a bit perturbed over this. All this politically correct crap is getting people killed.
As opposed to the solutions that would actually work. They'd get other people killed.
(But I see what you mean, and agree...)
How does any even semi rational and logical mind make the jump from "Return fire when fired upon" to "Mass Murder Genocide Retribution"? You sir, get the troll/flambait/ Idiot of the day award!
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
It doesn't matter that they "rarely" use their guns. They are kidnapping people. Kidnapping is an extreme violation of the individual, second only to rape and murder. Under the laws of most nations a kidnap victim is entitled to respond with whatever force is required to preserve his or her freedom. In no nation that I know of are you expected to lie down and surrender when faced with such an extreme violation of your person and rights.
At what point do you think it's ok to start fighting back? Why should innocent people be left completely defenseless in the face of such horrible crimes? Even if the concept of self-defense bothers you, can't you see the futility of paying ransoms? All we are accomplishing is to encourage them to violate more innocent people. When does it end?
Yes, more guns is exactly the right answer. More guns will always be the answer when the bad guys are the only ones that possess them.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
My pirate ship has sails and you insensitive clod!
I don't think pirate attacks are common enough for defense webs to become a significant ecological problem, at least not compared to the junk already dumped into the ocean.
Table-ized A.I.
Perhaps its time to create a common treaty among our common trading partners where certain weapons and certified defense personnel are allowed on board.
Table-ized A.I.
Fortunately he found the only found the only merchant ship within 50 nautical miles and was sailing to it to ask for help.
With a rocket launcher?
these somali pirates do what they do because for decades european and american ships have overfished and dumped toxic waste in somalian waters, ruining the fish stocks. when fishermen can't fish, and with no government, they get a little desperate.
pirates very rarely kill the crew. they treat them quite nicely! they are often very happy as they will soon get millions of dollars.
arming ships is an awful idea that would never pass outside of american territorial waters. we do not need to give untrained merchant seamen access to machine guns. or 'private contractors' (mercenaries). they have done fine without them for years.
the navy has big guns. a beefed up international taskforce (not the tiny EUFOR fleet of about 12 ships & a smaller NATO fleet) would do the job well. unfortunately sometimes violence is necessary.
some people at slashdot have blood lust. it's very disturbing. perhaps it's because you can freely blow pirates out of the way without any (percieved) moral consequences - and they have had so much practice at doing this virtually.
Browsing through this thread I have yet to see any kind of politically correct motivated posts. Seriously nowadays if you would oppose to dropping a nuke on the whole of Somalia on the grounds that it would could cost us some money because we trade with the country and because we want to keep dealing blood-diamonds/oil/cheap prostitutes/drugs or whatever with Somalian crime-lords, you would still get the "you're just being politically correct" answer thrown at you. Most people in this thread oppose on practical grounds, which seems weird to some politically incorrect people because surely killing a problem is always the most practical solution, right?
PjotrP
Two words to solving this whole pirate shinanigans....Bait Boat. Yep sail the seas with a Merchant Boat packed with explosives ready to become remotely detonated as soon as said pirates board. Ker-Pow!! Bait boat one, pirates 0.
Of course all shot pirates are going to be labeled as innocent fishermen, as their weapons and other evidence sank with their ship.
As we all know there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature. Therefore, more pirates must mean the Earth is cooling down, and the effects of Global Warming should subsequently subside.
http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/
They have an episode about firing "alternative" ammo from a cannon.
http://mythbustersresults.com/episode92
If someone modded the air cannon to fire heavy chains at a high enough pressure, it can be very lethal.
If it's always clear weather, and daytime, and all the boats have transponders so that you never make errors in identifying which boats are pirate and which aren't, that might be reasonable.
Transponders? Just look for a black skull-and-crossbones flag, no?
you can stop it by making it a lethal 'profession'
1 bad result in 200 is 99.5% reliability.
"The pirates are in this for the money, not primarily because of ideaology; if it looks like the could be killed then they might reconsider their chosen line of work."
And what exactly do you think they can do instead? This is Somalia, not New York or the Paris suburbs. There is no work. Because there is no functioning government, large fishing fleets from other nations have fished the locals traditional fishing grounds bare. Their traditional work no longer exists. You have young guys, with no hope, going hungry. We're not talking USA-poor, you've only got last year's playstation and your car is ten years old, we're talking African poor. There are no food stamps in Somalia, if you don't bring in money you starve to death. Or you can take your chances and become a millionaire overnight. Fishermen have always died on the sea, I'd say the gamble is still seen as better than starving to death slowly.
A dozen deaths isn't going to make these young guys think "oh I'd better go to college and learn how to become a sports therapist instead" because there isn't a functioning education system, there aren't jobs down the local MacDonalds... we've got to think in far bigger terms than "kill them all". That just doesn't work, we got to work out how to improve the country and the region so there are better options than becoming a pirate.
Hey paint ball them!
Then the police can track them on land if they use long staining paint?
Or is that too obvious?
Stuart http://stuarthalliday.com/
We call them pirates but not one of them has yet killed anyone.
The first kill was by a French military team (they accidentally killed an hostage). I know that Han shot first, but doing so in this situation just sounds unethical to me.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Somalis make for good eatin'.
Sounds like A modest proposal.
The pirates themselves are under no compulsion to use such non-lethal weapons...
(Load the cannons with grapeshot me hearties, we'll sweep the decks clear before we board)
Are we really that politically correct now that even killing a pirate is wrong?
Pirates. Not a down-trodden minority.
Kill them. All of them.
It's the right thing to do.
Careful, the Mafiaa might start quoting you.
Will it just float around until another (innocent) boat gets entangled in it?
How about we bring back the Q Ships ?
Just have a few navy ships dressed up like cargo ships. When the pirates get close enough for positive identification, the navy personal blow their asses out of the water. It was pretty effective against u-boats.
The Q ships would be cheap, and could be reused so long as the pirates did not get away, dead men tell no tales.
An pirate with an RPG woundn't stand much of a chance against a navy person with a TOW launcher. Also because these are navy ships, when it comes time to port, they can just ID themselves as such, and remove the camo.
i've seen "tree huggers" foul propellers with line
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_Wars
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There's also the question of stability arguing for semi-autos against AK-47s and RPGs. AK-47's and RPG are terror weapons, they are not very accurate especially when fired from small boats bobbing about in the waves. A semi-auto from a nice stable large ship with, say, a mile range should be adequate for warning shots or lethal shots. Several of them on board with some 50-cal machine gun backup for those pirates who never know when to say when would make the pirating profession less enticing.
Shuttling the weapons between ships outside a port will keep them out of the port. Or weapons lockers would work as well. It would certainly be cheaper than sending the world's navies to defend the Geneva Convention which, when put to Ahmed the Pirate, he responded, "We don't need no stinkin' Geneva Convention."
nobody mentioned using reason on them?
"Just another corp' making money from fear, while providing no real protection"
when you stop thinking, and depend upon stereotypes of behavior to describe the world around you, you defeat your own ideology by making yourself look brainless. fact #1: prop fouling is a valid tactic that works, and you say as much in your own comment. fact #2: there are real threats in this world, such as pirates off somalia
are pirates off somalia baseless fearmongering by big media to scare clueless fools... or real entities? then what the hell is "Just another corp' making money from fear" suppose to mean? pffft
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, we could dispatch Hillary Clinton to talk to them....too cruel? I don't know what's gotten into me this morning, I need to get back in touch with the little girl inside me...
In no nation that I know of are you expected to lie down and surrender when faced with such an extreme violation of your person and rights.
Expected, maybe not, but certainly advised. Faced with a potentially violent kidnapper, who in most cases will have the upper hand (if the kidnapping is even slightly well planned), the fight option is likely to get you needlessly injured or killed. Any sane country advises it's citizens to do exactly that -- lie down and surrender. It simply offers the best chance of survival.
Of course something needs to be done, but shooting them all is just ridiculous. There is no need for us to resort to behaving like animals. As someone already mentioned, most of the guys doing the groundwork are young and desperate -- in many cases, their choice will be to let their family die of starvation and disease, or join the pirates.
I say instead of spending the money on this crap, get yourself 5 ninjas... that should be enough to take out all the pirates in the area! I recently saw the movie 'Ninja Assassins' and have been training to be a ninja, contact me if you'd like to hire me full time once my training is complete.
Inconceivable.
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
So, all fishing (a.k.a. priate) boat crew members put on life jackets or, if they have it, get in life raft.
Abandon (fishing, pirate) boat.
Merchant/Commercial ship spends two hours picking them up ONE-BY-ONE.
Searching each.
Restraining each.
All are just fisherman, fed and sheltered and dropped at next port of call.
Not all "fisherman"? All pirate (oops., fishing) boat members put on trial and, if guilty, executed within 30 days of conviction.
Not hard.
Hundreds of thousands die prematurely every day in the world due to malnutrition and disease. Why not deal decisively with pirates who increase that number by increasing shipping costs for staple supplies like wheat and other grains/grasses?
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Boats with dead engines rarely out manuver and chase big ships with big engines. Not hard to distinguish between "dead engine boat" and "boat that is actively countering/intercepting us".
Come on, time for a dose of reality.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
I think the weapons lockers would be just fine. Restrict access to the captain and one or two of the other senior crew. We trust these guys to pilot tens of thousands of tons of steel without killing anyone. We can trust them with a few small arms.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Sad. Agreed.
A few gullible opportunist kids would die in the first couple weeks. No, I don't like it. But, the gang leaders do what works and stop doing what doesn't (like all organized crime).
But, here in the USA, we don't usually consider an 18 year old gang member who murdered/threatened an innocent person as a victim. Why do so with Pirate Kids?
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
I don't understand why everybody is hung up on this fear of 'making mistakes'. Why is it every time that somebody suggests arming potential victims somebody else comes along and starts worrying about friendly fire? It rarely works out that way in the real world.
If anything the "friendly fire" argument would make more sense in the context of not arming/disarming "cops". Especially given that when this happens the shooter tends to get special help to keep them out of jail.
Putting arms in the hands of the good guys does not turn them into trigger happy nutjobs that kill random innocent people at the slightest provocation.
If anything this is less likely to happen when regular people are armed than when police and soldiers are armed. Possibly because being paranoid is always considered to be a bad state of mind to the average person.
On the other hand, escalating it so the pirates have the potential of a real consequence (death versus sent back to shore with a slap on the wrist) is exactly what needs to happen. It would discourage them from trying to make easy money
I seem to recall similar reasoning was used to argue for the U.S.' "three-strikes" laws and how putting a stop to revolving-door prisons would put a stop to drug violence by making people worry about a real consequence instead of just an easy way to make money.
Hasn't worked has it? When people are desperate enough they stop caring enough about negative consequences and when they're young enough they won't believe that those negative consequences will happen to *them*.
Faced with a potentially violent kidnapper, who in most cases will have the upper hand (if the kidnapping is even slightly well planned), the fight option is likely to get you needlessly injured or killed.
Surrendering to them and leaving your fate in their hands is an even worse option. You are leaving yourself completely at the mercy of someone whose motives are unknown and whom has already demonstrated a willingness to use violence to achieve his ends. In the face of such violence I would fight to the death before I would leave myself at their mercy.
It simply offers the best chance of survival.
You are assuming facts not in evidence.
Of course something needs to be done, but shooting them all is just ridiculous.
Where did I say "shoot them all"? I simply want our crews to have the ability to defend themselves. They won't get shot if they don't try to attack our ships. I'm sorry but it's asking too much that people willingly leave themselves vulnerable and surrender to such an egregious violation of their person and dignity without a fight.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
200 miles out to sea and you've just disabled their boat perminately - i'd say you've basicly killed them anyway by leaving the to die slowly from thirst.
In which case you need to carry some additional life rafts that you can give them. Anyway according the the article this only diables the boat for under an hour.
http://myjunkmail.blogspot.com/2009/11/ultimate-adventure-cruise.html
...rifle = no pirates.
Of course, any defense will lead to the warhead vs. armor race as the pirates adjust (for example shrouding their props to avoid coiling, or welding steel plates over critical areas to prevent .50 cal long rifle shots) versus commercial ships purchasing 20mm weapons. It's surprising given the monies involved that some of these ships don't carry them already. There must be some law against them arming.
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Well, perhaps countries that have such restrictions will just find that fewer commercial ships sail under their flag (at the expense of revenue) - that's fine, each to their own. If commercial ships want to protect themselves, they will pick flags that allow it.
As far as "ports of call", see my "locker ship" proposal up-thread.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Military needs to learn from them, and disguise some military ships as cargo vessels :)
It'd take more than that. The modern pirates tend to know not just which ship is carrying valuable cargo and what it is but also know exactly where it is stowed. You'd have to fake an entire loading terminals' activity at least electronically. It'd be easier to set some Marines on board with particularly valuable cargo.
Loading and load distribution takes into weight and destination, so that containers can be taken off the top, in sequence, while maintaining the balance of the ship. Thousands of containers are routed in what amounts to a packet-switched network of 20- and 40-foot containers. Packing is all done by fairly simple computer programs, which if they are run on Windows are as good a being publicly published for the pirates. Sure it would be possible to bribe someone and get that information, but this is one of the few cases where Windows makes things easier to get.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Is there any reason land-based technologies like DRM don't work against piracy on the high seas?
What if a pirate ship fires one of these on your ship first?
If I were a pirate, the risk from these devices would not deter me. What have I got to lose? However, the risk of being blown in to a fine pink mist might deter me. And the act of being blown in to a fine pink mist certainly would.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Agreed...
:)
:)
:)
But... Drones
with infrared cameras
and guided missiles
Priceless...
a staff of 12 in the Midwest could deal with most of this if alerted by the ships' captains.
Again, WHY MAKE THIS SO HARD? THE PIRATES ARE THUGS WITH NOTHING TO BACK THEM UP. They remind me of "sword vs. gun" scene with Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark which gets spontaneous applause when shown in theaters.
Why agree to play the game by the losers' rules?
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Historically, the most effective strategy has been to find out where the pirates live, then send the navy there to point big guns at their homes.
Good luck explaining to the coast guards why you opened fire on them(*).
(*)Especially with bullet though your skull.
That's a bad idea. Typically the pirates don't kill the crew. If you started having hostile crews using lethal force against pirates, you may see the pirates escalate their attack and use more deadly force. In the end everyone loses.
If, on the average, 20% of the pirate attacks result in all the pirates being killed...
Pirate recuiting gets harder.
Unarmed ships will still be taken...
But pirates can't kill the crew members of unarmed ships (a dead guy isn't worth much ransom).
Unarmed ships decide each month (unknown to the pirates) if they want to continue to be prey or invest in protection.
Think game theory...
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Uh huh. I'm reminded of the old adage that a liberal is just a conservative who hasn't been mugged yet.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It's not the fear of making mistakes, it's the fear of making deadly mistakes. Fouling the prop of an innocent boat (admittedly, unlikely 200 miles off the coast of Somalia) is still a mistake, it's just much less likely to be a deadly mistake.
There's also issues with merchant ships being armed (I don't understand all the reasons, I just recall that it was the case), and the political/public relations issue with how we treat a failed/failing state like Somalia. Piracy's bad because it injects money, but bad press (because we "kill their innocent fishermen") is also bad.
But, the next attempt to take the Maersk Alabama failed immediately...
BECAUSE THEY HAD SECURITY AND FOUGHT BACK.
And your point was?
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Actually that's not far from the truth. Escalation of naval power did little to stop the pirates of the Barbary coast until someone got smart and pointed the ships' guns at the homes and palaces of the pirates on land.
> Do you really think the pirates are so tough an enemy for a superpower like the USA?
That's exactly what they said about the vietcong and the taliban.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
From now on, whenever you think "lethal weapons on civilian ships would stop piracy", I want you to consider that this is the same as "lots of armed Chinese marines in Los Angeles Harbor would stop piracy". Then put yourself in the shoes of a President trying to push some kind of international convention permitting that.
Thank you.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Yes. You are a typical American. A misinformed gunslinging person. Please don't interfere with international politics.
You like guns, and typically you prefer to win the battle just by having a bigger one than the other guys. All fine until the pirates are lucky and capture your boat with the 120mm twin cannon and cruise missiles. Then what? Oh, that's right. America always has a bigger one.
Also, the crews of all boats, also American, are kept on their own ships. Those guys are in it for the money, not religion. Nobody gets beheaded. Stop listening to FOX news.
ah...
[Intentionally left blank]
It's the high seas - international waters. Some fuckhead marchant ship starts shooting it's overwhelming firepower on my small fishing boat. Not that they are scared, just bored, and once done no one complains they say.
Darwinbait
Just shoot the fuckers already. Pretty soon there won't be any more of them.
Yeah, just like executing and imprisoning spammers has helped tremendously to slow down the worldwide spamming epidemic. It's guaranteed to work!
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
When a ship gets close enough to you for you to be able to visually signal them one of two things are happening. One, the ship's radio is out, and when they get into visual range they'll respond to your visual signals. Two, they're pirates about to assault your ship.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Instead of trying an offensive solution to the problem, how about a defensive solution? :
- Bind the ship'sfunctionality to a master key, without which it is impossible to set active even by an experienced engineer
- Equip every cargo ship with a panic room that is safe against most common explosives.
Once pirates attack, the crew pulls off the key and hides within the room. Without the big ship, pirates will have trouble escaping with the cargo and with the crew being safe in the room, they can't take hostages either. So all the crew has to do is wait until the navy arrives and sing "Yohoho!".
Only if they find the bodies... Last I check the fish do not talk.
Many commercial fishing vessels already carry weapons (usually Ruger Mini-14s) to deal with sharks they may happen to catch. With a good sight and some practice, anyone can become a decent shot with a rifle. All these ships need to do is train some of their crew, and lock up a couple Mini-14s (hell, even a couple semiauto M-14s, they only run about $1200-1500, easily affordable). They get attacked by pirates, break em out, and start shooting. These pirates come from a country where people routinely starve to death or get killed in their constant warfare. They have nothing to lose, so nothing short of taking everything from them-their lives included-will make them stop.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
AP:The US has raised the stakes in East Africa by deploying the 137th Air Guitar division to the Gulf Region. Commander Lt. General Ball Scratchum commented that his crack team of long haired hippie type pinko fags are the best trained US forces. "Head banging, and feint guitar playing gets the enemy confused, and off their guard."
Pirate spokesman, Suliman Fuckherfaster, commented: "Hey, we can deal with the SEALS . . . they shoot at us, and, like, we die. But these Air Guitar creeps confuse the hell out of me. They shake their heads, and make strange movements with their arms. I looked in my Von Clauswitz book, but it didn't have any suggestions."
Mr Fuckherfaster was called to lunch, with the appellation: "Suliman, Suliman Fuckherfaster!" As the press corps was on the ground laughing their asses off, Mr. Fuckherfaster responded with AK-47s, RPGs and other heavy artillery.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The USA was not a member of the Treaty of Paris, and Ron Paul has expressed interest in issuing Letters of Marque against Somali Pirates...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque
However, the price of fueling a small to medium sized vessel from Maine to Virginia or Virginia to Florida is about $10,000. Good luck getting it around Cape Horn (since Suez Canal Authority probably isn't going to like your private, armed ship coming through)
Maybe if it was a ... sailing ship? Arr!
- Sig
I don't understand why everybody is hung up on this fear of 'making mistakes'. Why is it every time that somebody suggests arming potential victims somebody else comes along and starts worrying about friendly fire? It rarely works out that way in the real world. It's even less likely in a maritime setting.
Oh, I totally agree. There is absolutely nothing wrong with mature, responsible people owning weapons with which to defend themselves. This is especially true in the case of being some 200 miles off the coast of Somalia, those ships should have deadly force in order to put up a good defense.
However, if you can disable a potentially hostile force and let the authorities deal with them then that's even better than getting involved in a firefight. It's safer for the defenders, it cuts down on the severity of mistakes, and it's much better legally and financially. I'd suggest a 2-tier strategy: first attempt to disable the attackers from a distance and then use deadly force if disabling them doesn't work/isn't possible. It's most likely to be the best of both worlds and the most sensible strategy.
In situations like this experience and good judgement are your best resources. Proper training and forethought will allow crews of cargo ships to pick the best strategy for handling potentially hostile forces. More options are almost always best in these cases.
Sapere aude!
While we're at it, can we shoot the guy posting this crap too?
Leave those pirates alone!
http://generallordisimo.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/global-warming.jpg
Exception Duck - may or may not contain chicken.
Point behind them and shout real loud "Look behind you, a Three-Headed Monkey!" and flee. It is a well known fact that they'll turn around to see.
And it's always harder to identify the bad guys in the real world than it is in the movies.
What about their pirate flag? That should do it, right?
Quote: "fire a payload of golf balls"
Do you yell "fire" or "four" before you trigger this weapon?
I don't know the situation well enough to comment (and I doubt that you do, either). However, you also seem to skip something: if one enters piracy - the use of deadly force to steal stuff - one is explicitly accepting the risks that go along with it: death induced by those who fight back.
Well said.
I think when you take a life of piracy, the risk of death is pretty much a given. I think the alternative though is that if you don't resort to piracy then you'll starve. I am aware that the situation is complicated. There are certainly reasons that Somalians have resorted to piracy when many other nations haven't. Poverty is a factor but with other nations dumping toxic waste and over fishing, and suffering no legal repercussions, piracy must seem a pretty obvious means to survival. When there clearly is no law being enforced, and the locals are suffering as a result, I can't really say I blame them for breaking the law. The international community would do well to put at least some of their effort into dealing with their own criminals.
And that's why my hovercraft is full of eels. I've had it with these motherfucking eels on this motherfucking hovercraft!
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
However, the risk of being blown in to a fine pink mist might deter me.
Okay. What are your other options? Fishing? The illegal foreign governments are doing nothing to prevent large industrial trawlers from overfishing in your area. Unlikely you'll catch enough to survive. Farming? Well, I'm sure the local "government" will make sure you almost have enough to eat. Setting up a business? That needs capital. Most of these people can't even afford shoes. The boat is worthless for purposes other than piracy.
Whats to stop pirates from using ropes to foul the props of their target?
You can't stop these guys by making pirating dangerous, you need to make it impossible or unprofitable.
Someone tell me how nets and golfballs work into this equation.
Slashdot: Where opinions are just opinions until you have mod points.
I take it you've never partaken in Extreme Fishing
Miller Lite tastes like water that's somehow managed to rot.
I do not think that word means what you think it does.
On the other hand, escalating it so the pirates have the potential of a real consequence (death versus...
What? You think only the good guys are capable of escalating?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Putting arms in the hands of the good guys does not turn them into trigger happy nutjobs that kill random innocent people at the slightest provocation.
To the hoplophobes who like to natter on about "only the military and the police should be trusted to carry weapons", that is exactly what happens. In their worldview it isn't possible that I, a mere civilian, could carry a concealed firearm on a daily basis and not shoot someone the first time I'm provoked.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
If I were a pirate, I would totally buy one of these. Disabling a ship for 45 minutes is a great way to catch and board it.
Duh... You just have to look for the pirate flag you silly !
Yes it does. You can't just disable boats on the open ocean and leave their crews at the mercy of the sea and elements.
Sure you can, if you're a pirate.
So you're just left with ports not letting you dock then.
And I guess the random sailor managing to get off his shots while being shot at by automatic weapons fire - but training or just hiring security people isn't a big deal.
"This is an excellent point, but in my opinion it doesn't go far enough. Most of these pirates are people under the age of 21, and most do it out of necessity. Bringing weapons into it would just turn a bad situation into a killing field."
And the down-side is?
The people being killed are also the ones most likely to join or to have been in the militia's/"insurgent" groups that made Somalia a living hell to begin with.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Some of the pirates were fisherman, until rich nations dumped toxic waste in the area and killed all the fish.
If someone came along and destroyed your food and livelihood, then drove past you every day, would you be tempted to extract a toll from them?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but it's not like they're all bloodthirsty monsters - some are just trying to survive.
Really? I don't live in a sane country and I don't think my country gives any advice either way, but more often I hear the opposite from the self-proclaimed "experts" (including police departments) -- co-operate with a mugging, but if a criminal tries to take you with them, fight. Maybe if my country has more kidnappings for ransom that would be different, but they're pretty rare here.
That's NOT why they "recommend" it, or I should say, not the REAL reason. Why will "the fight option ... get you needlessly injured or killed?" Because those "sane" countries have been systematically taking away effective means of self defense from it's citizenry. And they don't do this to keep their citizens safe - they do this to keep themselves safe. And it's easier to do the paperwork on a rape than a homicide.
Really? Let's extend your simile. The pirates are ALREADY "behaving like animals." The humane response isn't to continue to accommodate their behavior, but either discipline them, or put them down. When confronted with a wild dog, we don't let it gnaw on our arm because it's hungry and may starve in the wild - we either kill it or capture it (which will likely lead to it's death anyway.)
Simile's are fun, yes?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
A ... gunslinging person. Please don't interfere with international politics.
All outcomes in politics, international or otherwise, are determined by the gun slingers.
Ghandi was shot, India is now a nuclear armed country. Pacifist sentiments indicate a lack of real-world understanding. Pacifism is the stuff of fairy tales.
"he boat is worthless for purposes other than piracy."
Then burn it for fucking firewood and keep yourself warm.
Having received the shitty end of the stick, even the REALLY shitty end, is not an excuse for their actions. It is possible to have pity for someone yet still hold them accountable - why have we forgotten that?
Another question - if the ONLY option faced by ALL the fishermen in Somalia is piracy, why are they not all doing it? Perhaps there are other options than piracy - others seem to have chosen not to take to the high seas.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
There happens to be a rocket launcher on the seabed nearby, but they don't know anything aboout it.
If we kill all the Pirates, then global warming is going to go up even faster!
http://seanbonner.com/blog/archives/001857.php
-=JML=-
Bring in the Spud Cannon!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spud_gun
Cheap and fun and easy to make and use. Perfect choice for packing pirates full of healty and nurishing potatoes.
It's a lucky thing that Pirates have never heard of jet boats, because such a boat would skim harmlessly over any amount of nets or other prop-fouling stuff.
And it's always harder to identify the bad guys in the real world than it is in the movies.
Not when they're shooting at you, calling for you to surrender and trying to throw ropes over the railing, it's not.
[End Of Line]
Not a Pirate, more of a buccaneer really!
Ninjas obviously.
You can get blown off course pretty far... It is not inconceivable that a fishing ship in distress would head toward the cargo ship hoping for assistance. In fact if I was in a little fishing ship, and I was one of these conditions...
A) Someone is sick on board.
B) Radio is broken.
C) Cant navigate for some reason
D) Blown off course by friggin storm, and hoping for billion dollar ship to point you in right direction
Lotsa reasons to be sailing toward a cargo ship.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
I've heard about the conditions in Somalia... something tells me it might be an acceptable risk for the pirates.
I would support lethal force to protect the cargo ships, but I understand why they are reluctant to do it.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
You're not French, are you?
I guess that whale hunters - sorry, whale scientists - would be more than happy to have these when they meet "eco-terrorists" - sorry, greenpeace activists / sea shepherds -?
Pirates... check!
Cannons... check!
Guess history really repeats itself as people say.
What now? With this many pirates, I guess the solution to the whole global warming is coming, right?
-- SouNerd.com
Come on guys, anyone that's played a space sim before knows you don't put guns on the merchant ship. You hire escort ships (that are far more agile than a cargo ship) to guard the merchant ship on it's route. Then when you have to dock to unload the goods, the armed ships stay out of the range of the port so the problems with guns in the port is a non-issue. What's more costly? Losing money to ransom to get your ship back or paying a few escorts to guide your ship to safety?
Getting entangled in something underwatter that was shoot from the ship ages ago and that doesn't degrade, doesn't sound like a good idea!
Merchant vessel owners don't want guns aboard. There are also problems with guns when they dock at a port. There is the danger of fire from a shootout..the last thing you want at sea..especially if you are sitting on a shipfull of crude.
Well, we have companies here in the states that ban pocket knives but allow their employees to use multi-ton murder machines (vehicles).
Pansy air cannons? Tangled up in rope? .50 cal ammo could even disable an engine or turn the majority of a pirates body to red mist.
These pirates come equipped with firepower and have no regard for the value of human life.Let's protect ourselves, the crew and our cargo.
Let's get realistic.
Cannons firing Spoon shot, assorted scrap metal,Balls, glaciers points, piano wire, explosives etc. are more, much more effective than air.
Hunting rifles w/ scope and large calibre for reaching out to touch them from a safe distance. Sufficiently large
This talk of humane self protection is for scientists that live in T.V. land or other places of the imagination where bad people aren't really dangerous and Scooby and the kids unmask old Mr. Cratchet as the villain.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
You are forgetting that the pirates don't call themselves "pirates." They say they're collecting a toll on behalf of the nation of Somalia. Since Somalia doesn't have much of a government, so who's to say they're wrong?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Maybe this is rocket science. Equip the merchant ships with a surface-to-surface rocket launcher. I think just one of these fired into the vicinity of the suspected pirate boat, will have them thinking twice about attacking the ship. The launch itself is spectacularly loud and frightening. The closing speed is literally awesome. The resulting explosion, say 20 to 30 feet away from the pirates, will have them shitting themselves. I predict that a second launch will be required in less than 5% of all encounters. The icing on the cake is that this is all vastly entertaining. My fellow shipmates and I tried to be topside for every test launch we could. It was the highlight of our month.
I would think that a show of armed crew and a few warning shots would be sufficient to send a "back the fuck off" message quite clearly to any mere fishermen. I suspect the reason we don't see more crews fighting back against pirates is probably due more to insurance and maritime law issues than to any consideration for fishermen.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Seriously, haven't you morons learned your lesson. Say something stupid too loud on the Internet, someone might actually do it.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
This is the first insightful post I came across browsing at +4 from top. There are 8 (eight) +5 insightful comments discussing just shooting pirates (which is what a five year old would say without thinking first).
Now I know what everyone will now say: "This is /. You didn't come here expecting to read anything remotely insightful."
But I remember a time when I was browsing at +3 and everything I read was much more insightful than the original story. Be it from the NYT or just about anywhere. And there used to be a time I posted a lot of comments. Even some "First Post" ones. And then I started caring about karma. That is when I started posting only once or twice a month. Got modded up every single time. Often to +5. Because I only posted when I had something really smart to say. /. gone stupid or have I just outgrown it (I doubt the latter, I am not that smart).
And then I stopped getting modded up. It wasn't that long ago. What really got to me was not that I stopped getting modded up, but what other posts were modded up. Most of it was really dumb. So I stopped posting. Has
Since you seem to make insightful comments I was wondering how you managed to getting mod points for actually good posts.
Disclaimer: I wouldn't have ranted like this, but 8 (eight count em again) comments discussing just shooting pirates are too much or me. Glenn Beck seems to have really taken his toll on the US.
Not to mention that if you're carrying large guns and firing upon other ships on the high seas, I wouldn't be too sure of the fact that you'll immediately be identified as the "good guys" by the people coming to help you.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Boys anti-tank rifle. You can find them in the U.S. re-chambered for .50 BMG. Comes with a 5 round detachable magazine. Costs around $5000 on up. They should call it AT reach out and touch someone.
I imagine something similar is in new production but am not up on current .50 BMG rifles.
I drank what? -- Socrates
...choose the right targets. as in most things regarding crime these days the poor are the easy targets; not the large bankroll corporate fishing fleets or illegal toxic dumpers. *rolls eyes*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_Somalia
"During the Siad Barre regime, Somalia received aid from Denmark, Great Britain, Iraq, Japan, Sweden, USSR, and West Germany to develop its fishing industry. Cooperatives had fixed prices for their catch, which was often exported due to the low demand for seafood in Somalia. Aid money improved the ships and supported the construction of maintenance facilities.[16] After the fall of the Barre regime, the income from fishing decreased due to the Somali Civil War.
Also, there was no coast guard to protect against fishing trawlers from other countries illegally fishing and big companies dumping waste which killed fish in Somali waters. This led to the erosion of the fish stock. Local fishermen started to band together to protect their resources. Soon some of them discovered that piracy was an easier way to make money.[citation needed] Due to the clan-based organization of Somali society, the lack of a central government, and the country's strategic location at the Horn of Africa, conditions were ripe for the growth of piracy in the early 1990s.
Armed suspected pirates in the Indian Ocean near Somalia. After the picture was taken, the vessel’s crew members opened fire on U.S. Navy ships and the ship's crew members returned fire. One suspected pirate was killed and 12 were taken into custody.Precise data on the current economic situation in Somalia is scarce but with an estimated per capita GDP of $600 per year, it remains one of the world's poorest countries.[17] Millions of Somalis depend on food aid and in 2008, according to the World Bank, as much as 73% of the population lived on a daily income below $2.[18][19] These factors and the lucrative success of many hijacking operations have drawn a number of young men toward gangs of pirates, whose wealth and strength often make them part of the local social and economic elite. Abdi Farah Juha who lives in Garoowe (100 miles from the sea) told the BBC, "They have money; they have power and they are getting stronger by the day. [...] They wed the most beautiful girls; they are building big houses; they have new cars; new guns."[20]
Some pirates are former fishermen, who argue that foreign ships are threatening their livelihood by illegally fishing in Somali waters.[21] After seeing the profitability of piracy, since ransoms are usually paid, warlords began to facilitate pirate activities, splitting the profits with the pirates.[22] In most of the hijackings, the bandits have not harmed their prisoners.[23] The attackers generally treat their hostages well in anticipation of a big payday to the point of hiring caterers on the shores of Somalia to cook spaghetti, grilled fish and roasted meat that will appeal to a Western palate. They also keep a steady supply of cigarettes and drinks from the shops on shore.[24]
The Transitional Federal Government has made some efforts to combat piracy, occasionally allowing foreign naval vessels into Somali territorial waters.[citation needed] However, more often than not, foreign naval vessels chasing pirates were forced to break off when the pirates entered Somali territorial waters.[25][26] The government of Puntland has made more progress in combating piracy, evident in recent interventions.[27]
Please demonstrate what in the above comment I do not believe. I call shenanigans.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've heard about the extreme poverty too. I'm simply proposing that we up the ante until it's not an acceptable risk. Someone still needs to address the economic conditions in Somalia, but being sympathetic to or lenient on pirates is not the right approach.
On behalf of pirates everywhere, I must insist the same treatment be given to ninjas.
Fuck yeah! Blow them out the water! A rail mounted Browning M2! Boom! Yeehaw!
But, not being an American, I have a different view.
How about we worry about the hostages first? Or is it acceptable to kill everyone as long as a few pirates get killed in the process?
Did I say "yeehaw!"?
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Good luck explaining to the coast guards why you opened fire on them(*).
Why would that happen? Off the coast of Somalia, the only coast guards are the pirates.
Take a country like the US. Take the number of people who are kidnapped and ransomed for money every year.
Now take the number of people who are kidnapped and raped and murdered every year. Compare the two.
Fighting back/escaping is almost always in your best interest. If they're going to murder you for escaping, they were going to murder you anyway.
Just shoot the fuckers already. Pretty soon there won't be any more of them.
Yeah, that theory worked out so well in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Correct. A wallet is not worth your time or life to defend. You're life on the other hand, is worth every single ounce of strength and will you have available to you to protect.
Problem is you can't use JDAMs against Taliban hiding in a hut in the middle of a market square in a village in Afghanistan. You have to use other weapons, mostly boots on the ground. A pirate ship on the open ocean is nothing to a Harpoon missle - you just have to find the pirates. The answer is less CVN battle groups and more coast-guard style operations with 20mm mounted cannons.
How about we worry about the hostages first? Or is it acceptable to kill everyone as long as a few pirates get killed in the process?
A really ugly fact here is that it'd go a long ways to ending piracy in the area. Hostages are a great income for the area. Take that away, blow up the ships they take, and that would end piracy in the area. There's got to be a better way than killing everyone or the touchie feelie current approach that has the Internet Tough Guys in an uproar. Remember that piracy used to be far worse than present with a number of countries using it as a primary source of income. Why did it go away? They didn't kill everyone.
My view is that military force is probably going to be needed. Arming merchant vessels is merely a stopgap measure until some well armed part of the world decides to shut piracy down.
Killing someone for stealing is fact wrong. It's true that they are threatening to kill, but a shoot-first defense will escalate things, and pirates are quite willing to die in 100:1 ratios. I doubt the shippers are willing to pay their crews enough to motivate them equally well when the ransom is so cheap.
Don't think I'd worry about that. More guns in LA than you can fit Chinese marines in a cargo ship. I'd be more worried about that same cargo ship of Chinese Marines pulling into Portsmouth, NH or Boston. LA, though, man, you'd just get the gangs to stop shooting at each other for a few days.
What brought that nonsense into your head?
Machine guns? Plain old semi-autos do the trick better.
You sound like a typical hoplophobe, turning molehills into mountains, the better to scare yourself with.
Torpedoes! That really takes the cake!
Infuriate left and right
It's okay if they're white male Christians. Otherwise, no.
A much cheaper solution would be one or two decent rifles.
These thugs are frequently attacking cargo ships with small open motorboats counting on the fact that the large merchant ship has no arms at all. One man with a decent rifle (like an AR-15, AK, M16 whatever (even a bolt action hunting rifle))can sink them. The ship's sniper can take cover at a high point in the ship, as the "skiff" starts getting closer and not heading warning to leave, the sniper starts shooting down into the boat when they get within several hundred yards. One hit on the boat and the pirates will likely stop the pursuit and commence with bailing water before they sink.
I would wager that once counter fire starts raining down on the skiff they will turn tail and run because they know that getting closer will just put holes in the boat and eventually the people or the motor.
No matter where you go, there you are.
Become national heroes, you mean? And get rewarded and statues and streets named after them?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Easy way to become 100% accurate is to shoot back.
Remember, pirates are there to intimidate first so that they get what they want with no danger to themselves.
It should be pretty obvious that boats with guns and RPGs blazing are probably not local fishermen.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Those were the days before sovereignty-imparing deficits and debt.
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
Just shoot the fuckers already. Pretty soon there won't be any more of them.
Wouldn't pirates stop trying to kidnap people and just kill them in retaliation? If I was attacked by less lethal means I'd be angry, but if someone was shooting at me I'd be filled with murderous rage.
Impossible!
Interesting idea...
Can this rope cannon can be modified to shoot eels?
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Plus capturing the pirate allows law enforcement to find out where their bases are, who fences their stolen goods, etc.
So instead of shooting the equivalent of a McDonald's counter jockey, you eventually get to shoot the CEO.
The said the same thing when Florida switched to a shall-issue conceal and carry state. Every traffic incident was going to turn into a gun-fight.
http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2006/07/florida_crime_r_1.php
So much for that red-herring.
Your argument seems to be a tad circular. Pirates have demonstrated those three things because they are pirates? The question at hand is how do you know they are pirates? How do you know they have AK-47's unless their waving them in the air before they get there or are they wearing a "Surrender the Booty!" T-shirt and flying a pirate flag?
The AK-47 is a little hard to conceal in a small speedboat manned by half-starved to death pirates.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
....and if the pirate brought his 10 year old son aboard?
Okay, most major shipping in this world is managed by a dozen companies. if they all basically said: "Let our sailors have access to guns in a locked cabinet managed by the captain, or we stop visiting your ports" every port in the world will capitulate. Period.
....and if the pirate brought his 10 year old son aboard?
Irrelevant. I don't forfeit my right to defend myself just because you are selfish enough to use your own children as a human shield. If you tried that on land and got your child killed it would be you who got charged with murder, not the person who was defending himself from your aggression.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Holy shit, that was the worst edited article I've read since proofing my niece's 4th grade book report.
and if you're in a fast boat like the ones pirates use in pirate infested waters, you stay away from cargo ships, lest you be confused for a pirate. So yeah, if you were in that situation and I was on the ship, I'd shoot at you and not feel any guilt over it.
Reboot macht Frei.
Piracy went away because the British empire eventually took control of the high-seas (along with France and Spain). It's hard to build an empire if your merchants keep getting sunk and or stolen. And back then, you really had to board a boat and probably face swords and knives - so being a row-boat style pirate just wasn't an option.
Glad to see you have no conscience. Well that is your prerogative, If I shot an innocent person, id feel pretty fucking bad myself.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Blackwater
Good point, I'm sure they can't afford any crazy technology like a box or towels or have made any sort of scientific discoveries that might correlate distance and nighttime with the ability to see well.
I think a lot of the hesitancy in allowing vigorous armed responses has less to do with accidentally killing an innocent, than with larger issues like the possibility of triggering an international incident. For a government, having an occasional merchant sailor be kidnapped or killed, is much less of a hassle than the diplomatic tangles that could occur when something goes wrong. If a US sailor passing through Iranian waters shoots up a pirate craft, and kills a Russian prisoner aboard, it's going to get messy.
I see a lot of pooh-poohing of the chance something might go wrong, but remember that you're dealing with real life messiness. You may not always be dealing with clear-headed thinkers. In real life you get people who are spooked, gung-ho, inebriated, or just plain stupid. Likewise, "repeated warnings" don't always carry the guarantee you think they might -- for instance, there was some case involving a civilian airplane shoot-down, where the pilots heard the warnings on the radio, and were like "Man, that other plane out there better turn around, they're starting to sound really serious!"
Current pirates may not be all that subtle in how they go about their business, but they will adapt to an armed response. Perhaps they'll start disguising themselves as innocent traffic; perhaps they'll actually be riding on innocent traffic, with some poor fisherman or local ferry getting pressed into service. Or maybe they'll have a handful of hostages from their previous pirating adventures serving as human shields. Escalation is to be expected.
In any case, it's possible the popularity of non-lethal techniques like these may have less to do with protecting sailors, and more with ship-owners looking to cover their butts on all sides without spending too much money.
Ahem, the use of deadly force to steal stuff, On the High Seas. Or if we had zeppelin shipping, In the Sky as well.
it's always harder to identify the bad guys in the real world than it is in the movies.
Easy way to become 100% accurate is to shoot back.
Good point. The premise is the boats that aren't pirate boats should be heavily armed, and should shoot at the first sign of danger. So in the scenario that your method of identifying pirates is "shoot at them" and see what happens, you're likely to get a fatal surprise.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You sir, have never seen a bar fight in a seaport city.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Shall I repeat what I said?
It's always easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys in the movies. Just look at who the camera follows. It's never ambiguous.
In the real world, this is not the case.
Trust me on this-- I've actually been to the real world (unlike many slashdoters, apparently), and "uncertainty" is a real phenomenon (also unlike many slashdotters, apparently, who have no idea what this word "uncertainty" means.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Surrendering to them and leaving your fate in their hands is an even worse option. You are leaving yourself completely at the mercy of someone whose motives are unknown and whom has already demonstrated a willingness to use violence to achieve his ends. In the face of such violence I would fight to the death before I would leave myself at their mercy.
Given that armed you versus armed pirates, the odds are in the favour of the pirates ... and that the VAST majority of pirate hostages go free (and are unarmed), then feel free to let Darwin do what he does best, and cleanse your irrational genes from the pool.
So ... it's demonstrably NOT a worse option, as so few unarmed hostages are killed.
Go off and google how many shoot-outs have resulted in the pirates being driven off. Small number, isn't it?
The motives of these pirates is to obtain cash, not to kill people. Try focussing on that. Their "ends" are to get a ransom, not to shoot you. If you start shooting at them, you give them no alternative.
I bet you own the Die Hard movies on DVD. Here's a hint - it's not real life.
So many armchair warriors in this thread. It sure is easy to sit in a comfortable room, and type about how much simpler it would be if we could just shoot all of the pirates.
The sames sorts of people as you claimed that Florida would turn into the wild west when they implemented their shall-issue concealed carry laws. "Accidents" like that just don't happen.
Besides, by the time the military shows up, the pirates either own the boat, or they're dead. Either way the captain still has his radio.
You assume that the pirates are in it for something other than money. Wrong! They are all in it for the money.
Now, take a country like the US ... aha! Well it seems that in the US you *are* better off fighting back, because your kidnapper is likely to be a whackjob with very little likelihood of getting away with a cash ransom.
"Oh yes, if a pirate boat came to me I'd blow them out of the water. And while I was at it I'd jump down onto their launch and finish them all off with my martial arts moves! I'd then fly back onto my ship, triumphant, my cape flying in the breeze, a beacon of truth, justice and the American way!"
Seriously folks, put yourself in the position of a merchant sailor. You're not a high wage worker, you're not a trained soldier, you're not a combat marine. You're a freaking cook/mechanic/laborer! You've never taken a life, you haven't been trained to do so, and if you did you'd be terrified for your life, you'd be thinking that if you started trying to use deadly force against the pirates then one thought and one thought only would be on your mind. "What if I try to kill them and I miss? They're going to make it through and they're going to kill me."
But hey, what would he know? He's only the guy in the most terrifying situation a man can face. Slashdotters are much better qualified to pontificate on what everyone else should do. Isn't it great to have so many experts in one place? So many people who know everything there is to know on any subject you can name? If slashdotters were a famous person, they'd be Joe the Plumber!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
to the fists of a trained martial artist.
I thought we were just dealing with pirates. Now you're telling me they're also ninjas?
The martial artist isn't a threat if he's 100 yards away.
Not if they're ninja-pirates!
Theaetetus opined: "...Let's deal with these in turn..."
Cripes! Let's not!
I sure hope you don't resort to such pedantic B.S. when when someone is pointing a gun at you (or actually firing at you). You're the type of person that is usually identified as "The Victim".
By the way, "Maritime Lawyers" are only good for arguing pedantic crap *after* you are dead or captured, "Mr. (wannabee) Internet Tough guy".
Most people can use common sense to determine if they are being attacked. I'd recommend you find some rough friends to defend you -- you seem like you could use the help.
"So in the scenario that your method of identifying pirates is "shoot at them" and see what happens, you're likely to get a fatal surprise."
Notice, I said shoot back, not shoot at them, or shoot preemptively.
I.E., wait for sign of aggression, and respond with aggression.
If they're fishermen, they won't be shooting at you to get your attention.
If they're pirates and not posing a threat (against the fundamentals of pirating), then they can be ignored.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Hairsplitting. The warlords are effectively the government for the purposes of the GP's comment.
at least till they get their hands on some jet boats
Or weed guards.
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
The ransoms they're collecting are in the multi-million dollar range. Jet boat seems like a wise investment.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Actually, that's the best proof. We arm the military and police, and that is exactly what happens. The military admittedly has supplementary training focused on making this happen, but last I checked the police don't get the same encouragement.
"Long term policy" does not "necessity" make. They killed them out of long-term policy, not necessity.
Just shoot the fuckers already. Pretty soon there won't be any more of them.
International law forbids merchant vessels from being armed for a specific reason.
I mean would you want a bunch of random foreigners in NYC or San Fran port with military grade weapons at arms reach?
Secondly it makes for questionably transportation of illegal weapons quasi-legal:
I mean if they allowed it, and they caught a North Korean bought with AKs and naval rockets on the way to Iran "Yeah... We're using these to... protect ourselves from pirates... That's right!"
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
It seems that the general population here at slashdot are assuming that these oil-tankers are full of trained marines that are not allowed to carry guns. It's really not that way. These sailors are just trained seaman that know how to operate a modern ship. They might not even be trained in the use of guns. Pitting them against people with AK-47s is really asking for them to die.
This is all a very cute discussion, what with the suggestions of flame throwers and Browning machine guns to deter pirates. The discussion of the morality of deterring pirates is good, too, though a little underwhelming. Obviously, we should try to deter them as it means we don't have to kill them or answer their demands.
But the actual issue is far more practical. http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part2.htm is quiet clear. Any practice or exercise with weapons violates innocent passage. Now, some might say that having a shotgun or some such on a boat is no big deal. Well, everything is a big deal when you're interacting with nations. It's like saying sending one military man into another country to arrest a known criminal is not a big deal. I mean, if a country is frightened of one military man how great of a country can it be? That isn't the point. If Canada or China drops even one military man to hassle even one person under U.S. authority I'm sure you can imagine the controversy and diplomatic firestorms that would cause.
Even a small militarized asset in a given nation's territorial waters is too much for any nation serious about its sovereignty. That is all of them, by the way. The right of innocent passage is main way that we can have a workable system of sea trade. The discussion shouldn't be focused on what can be put on a ship to seriously mess pirates up. Instead, consider whether this qualifies as a weapon that could cause diplomatic issues.
And this long long speach comes to one point... That-- OOOO! QUARTER!
Also, the crews of all boats, also American, are kept on their own ships. Those guys are in it for the money, not religion. Nobody gets beheaded
That is not correct. Consider that the pirates are in it for the money , on that we are agreed? Two things are true for anyone holding Americans hostage:
So, if you are a pirate who is only concerned with money, two things are true:
The pirates are already in a de-facto state of war with the civilized nations of this planet (a war which they started) and holding Americans hostage poses risk of life and limb to them. They would rather cash out by turning hostages over to the militias (who are religiously motivated terrorists that behead captives for ideological reasons) than risk protracted and ultimately fruitless negotiations with the United States government.
What's to stop a nation or group of nations from attacking Eyl in the Puntland region and bringing the problem to some sort of conclusion? Didn't the American Marines do something akin to this with the Barbary States in the late 18th century?
How about just buying an insurance policy: Hire a ${insert friendly country} Navy gunship to escort a group of merchant vessels. If the pirates attack the gunship, it calls assumes the pirate ship declared war and retaliates. Then it takes any surviving pirates prisoner (of war). Eventually all the pirates are dead or in PoW camps, where they await sentencing on Geneva convention violations.
This is quite possibly the silliest substitute for a 20mm cannon ever proposed.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
I believe the US army already tested this theory in Mogadishu and it didn't work out too well.
eff that
just get the pirates broadband internet and /. accounts
you won't see them out of their rooms for years
(there are those who say this has already happened, and is only just now starting to wear off)
A) and deal with the hassles of sailing an armed vessel into every port you visit; which ports will be in a dizzying array of sovereign countries with all manner of different regulations. That this is a problem that should lead you to throw nets at pirates may be, in your opinion, stupid. Feel free to explain that to the port authority in Whereeverthehellistan and see how well that goes.
B) It's SOMALIA. The "fuckers" are already shooting each other at a far greater than you will ever contemplate, and no shortage of new fuckers is apparent.
"However, the risk of being blown in to a fine pink mist might deter me."
You don't live in Somalia. If you were one of these pirates, violent death before age 30 would be your expectation. The question is whether to be a grunt in a pirate organization or in one side of the civil war. You might like to say no to both of these opportunities, but the civil war guys in particular aren't fond of that answer. So do you want to risk probable violent death in the near term fighting for the warlord who pays well or the one who doesn't?
So you can't deter them.
You can stop them a variety of ways. None are likely to make such an impression on the next group of pirates that they will give you less trouble. Some are likely to make such an impression on the port authorities anywhere else in the world that they will give you more trouble.
This isn't rocket science.
I think people are just afraid of things that are 'wild' until they are over. Open warfare upon the seas is what makes pirate stories exciting. No one even tells the tales of those ships that were accidentally (or even maliciously) sunk even though they were not pirates.
Think also of the 'wild west'. Again, few-to-no stories of the people shot during cross-fires, drug to death by spooked horses, etc. We're only now beginning to address the genocide angle. The people of the era didn't seem to really care.
While not a 'wild' issue, per se, many a ship was sunk during WW2 upon the assumption that it was doing something naughty. Japan tricked us into killing our own troops that way.
I agree with the parent above - just let the merchants kill them. Punish the ones you can prove were wrong through use of similar force, and let the grey areas be chalked up to the dangers of being in an uncivilized area during uncivilized times.
One man with a decent rifle (like an AR-15, AK, M16 whatever (even a bolt action hunting rifle))can sink them. The ship's sniper can take cover at a high point in the ship, as the "skiff" starts getting closer and not heading warning to leave, the sniper starts shooting down into the boat when they get within several hundred yards. One hit on the boat and the pirates will likely stop the pursuit and commence with bailing water before they sink.
This reminds me of one of my favorite parts of Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash":
"It's, like, one of them drug dealer boats," Vic says, looking through his magic sight. "Five guys on it. Headed our way."
He fires another round. "Correction. Four guys on it."
Boom. "Correction. They're not headed our way anymore."
Boom. A fireball erupts from the ocean two hundred feet away. "Correction. No boat."
Just arm the crews - everyone on EVERY crew gets trained in how to use a fully automatic weapon. EVERY weapon has at least 3000 rounds available to it. "Range firing" (which can occur at sea) must take place quarterly, everyone gets certified annually. Unless you have a concealed carry license for the port you're entering, you leave your firearm on the ship when docking. At least two guards remain on-board to guard the armory.
Equip the ships w/long-range sonic technology to tell the Pirates when they're about a mile away that you're armed and they are to leave the vicinity immediately, or die.
No screwing around, no second chances, if they pull up to the side of the ship and they're not in obvious distress - and they have guns and are threatening you or shooting at you, then you kill them all. Right then and there. Leave them for the sharks. Run over the pirate vessel with your boat, crush it into smithereens, let it sink too. End of problem. No report necessary. No bullshit, no apologies, no ransoms, etc.
As for the Somali's, I feel for their plight, but figure out another option. Holding people hostage on the high seas (or any sea for that matter) isn't viable. If you want assistance in learning how to do things legally, give us a call - we're pretty damn friendly and easy to work with over here in the US, and we're always looking for an opportunity... But start with the bullshit, and you're screwed...
Couldn't this be easily defeated with a simple propeller guard, even just a few steel bars from the hull to below the propeller?
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
Fortunately he found the only found the only merchant ship within 50 nautical miles and was sailing to it to ask for help.
With a rocket launcher?
He ran out of flairs?
From now on, whenever you think "lethal weapons on civilian ships would stop piracy", I want you to consider that this is the same as "lots of armed Chinese marines in Los Angeles Harbor would stop piracy". Then put yourself in the shoes of a President trying to push some kind of international convention permitting that. Thank you.
Close but not the same. These are (mostly) ships traveling in international waters, some hundreds or a thousand miles away from the country in question.
If you have a point it's still lost on me. Even if they are hiding their arms they don't get to approach a merchant ship without communicating their intent. If they somehow manage to sneak aboard (particularly likely at night and in bad weather) then the crew still needs arms to be able to fight back.
I just can't comprehend this opposition to giving people who are threatened with violent acts the means to defend themselves against those acts. It's a fairly safe assumption that all of the armchair quarterbacks here have never found themselves in a situation where they were assaulted and/or violated and lacked the means to defend themselves.
I've love to see the merchant sailors of the world unite against this and stop doing their jobs until they are allowed to carry arms. The economy would grind to a halt and the hoplophobes would cave in short order. Unfortunately that will never happen because the majority of sailors are working under flags of convenience and have no rights. It's worth noting that most American flagged ships that have to ply those waters are now carrying arms to defend themselves. Funny how having the ability to fight back makes it harder for criminal thugs to operate with impunity, isn't it?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
This sounds quite like one of the favorite tactics of the Sea Shepherds against the illegal Japanese whaling ships in the Southern Ocean. Except instead of launchers and parachutes they use Zodiacs and balls. http://www.seashepherd.org/
Yes...you're right of course. The shipping lines should continue to let the pirates take over their ships and pay huge "tribute" to get them back. That's much better. And why do people always bring up the Jews anyway? What the hell kind of twisted logic is that? Comparing the holocaust to ridding the world of pirates. Heh. If that's your idea of "grown up" then leave me out.
Your debate skills are slightly above the average youtube commenter.
Please go somewhere else and let the big boys discuss things. Thank you.
Why? There's innocent and capitally stupid. Act like a pirate and I have no problem with you getting killed like a pirate.
Reboot macht Frei.
"It seems that the general population here at slashdot are assuming that these oil-tankers are full of trained marines that are not allowed to carry guns. It's really not that way. These sailors are just trained seaman that know how to operate a modern ship. They might not even be trained in the use of guns. Pitting them against people with AK-47s is really asking for them to die."
And the "pirates" are fishermen. Do you know what the "training" to operate an AK-47 is? "Move this big lever first. Point. Pull trigger". Aim? no need - the guns are there for intimidation, not effectiveness.
Let me turn your question around: why is it that the population on Slashdot assumes that the pirates are poor, starving fishermen driven to this life, and then they become highly equipped, ruthlessly trained, steely eyed commandos?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Just shoot the fuckers already. Pretty soon there won't be any more of them.
If it's always clear weather, and daytime, and all the boats have transponders so that you never make errors in identifying which boats are pirate and which aren't, that might be reasonable.
If you are, say, reliable 99% of the time... and, say, one boat out of two hundred is a pirate-- you'll be shooting two innocent fishermen for every pirate.
And it's always harder to identify the bad guys in the real world than it is in the movies.
If they are shooting at you, that pretty much identifies them as pirates. Kill the supid SOBs.
...As we all know, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature. So if you want to stop pirates, increase Global Warming! Go outside right now and run your SUV full throttle in support of Somalian cargo ships! http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/
it's always harder to identify the bad guys in the real world than it is in the movies.
If they are shooting at you, that pretty much identifies them as pirates. Kill the supid SOBs.
I should have mentioned, I suppose-- I thought it was obvious, so I didn't bother to point it out-- that once they have their guns out and pointed at you, it's too late.
Another one of those things that's different in the real world from the way it is in movies.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Yeeeeah. He was... fishing... at night, in stormy weather, a thousand miles off the coast of Somalia, but within 300 yards of the only merchant ship within 50 nautical miles.
If you care to learn a little geography (yes, I know that it'll make your penis smaller and attract the unwelcome attention of the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities ; but that's a small enough price to pay), you'd learn that the "Horn of Africa" sticks out into the middle of one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world - the stream of traffic going to and from the Suez Canal. Which is why it's one of the busiest areas for piracy in the world. ...) because it's cheaper. Put yourself in the position of someone paying 1$ per tonne-kilometre to ship your 40-tonne container of goods from point A to point B which are 5000km apart (great circle distance); you look at the tenders from two shipping companies, one of whom allows 500km extra travel between points A and B to allow for priate avoidance (going an extra 200km out to sea form the Horn of Africa, for example). That's $20000 extra on your shipping charges.
I'll give you another hint : ships, just like airplanes, strive to travel great circle routes between the geographical constraints of their route (start, finish, headlands
Your insurance company will pay if your cargo is stolen.
Will you, out of the goodenss of your heart, pay an extra $20000 of shipping charges to protect the seamen that you've never met? Are you going to pass that charge on to your customers? Like fuck you are. You're going to go with the lowest bidder. And the shipping company is going to fire the most expensive captains.
Oh, just for completeness, the article mentions a lot of piracy off the Nigerian coast ; certainly true ; but they don't mention the Damnation Alley of piracy : the Mollucca Straits. With Singapore not far from one end. Channeling lots of shiploads of high-value goods into one congested area. A journalist friend of mine was writing articles about this for 'Lloyds List' for the last ten years until his retirement ; it's not a new problem, it's just a better-known problem these days.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
My point is you can't open fire on a vessel without the criteria that YOU listed actually being met so it's not as black and white as slap some browning machine guns on there and light up any boat that comes close. Which means as you pointed out, there's a possibility that the pirates might get awfully close before they demonstrate intent. If you want to take the armed route you have to invest in trained professionals, not just put some guns in the hands of merchant sailors and say good luck with the close quarters combat you guys!
I'm all for having security details on ships and killing the pirates, but you have to go about it the right way. The article you linked to with the security detail? Probably ex navy seals. I know some companies have started placing details of these guys on ships in that area and they're probably as dangerous without a gun as with one. That's who you need defending ships, not some overweight sailor that's never seen combat scrambling to unlock a weapons case and fight off hardened Somalians who have grown up in a world of violence. That's a recipe for getting people killed, and in that case, it's better to lock yourself in the engine room and let the navy cap the pirates when they show up to help.
My point is you can't open fire on a vessel without the criteria that YOU listed actually being met so it's not as black and white as slap some browning machine guns on there and light up any boat that comes close
At what point in this conversation have I claimed that it's as easy as slapping on some machine guns and lighting up boats?
If you want to take the armed route you have to invest in trained professionals
No you don't. Armed professionals are still a great idea but I'd be willing to bet that most American hicks have more experience handling firearms than these pirates. In any case the crew ought to have the ability to defend themselves, armed professionals or no armed professionals.
That's who you need defending ships, not some overweight sailor that's never seen combat scrambling to unlock a weapons case and fight off hardened Somalians who have grown up in a world of violence.
"Hardened Somalians"? These pirates are teenagers that are on the verge of starving to death. And who cares if they've grown up in a 'world of violence'? So have American criminals. That doesn't mean I should surrender to one without putting up a fight.
That's a recipe for getting people killed
Yes, people might get killed. That's generally how violence works.
it's better to lock yourself in the engine room and let the navy cap the pirates when they show up to help.
That didn't work for the crew of the Maersk Alabama. Fighting back did. Imagine that.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Expected, maybe not, but certainly advised. Faced with a potentially violent kidnapper, who in most cases will have the upper hand (if the kidnapping is even slightly well planned), the fight option is likely to get you needlessly injured or killed.
Well, there's some pre-9/11 thinking for you...
Usually, such ships travel through international waters with the intention of reaching a port, where they will unload their cargo in exchange for money. Any reasonable way of extracting the armed guards before reaching the destination country (or its waters) would likely be prohibitively expensive.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
This is not original - a similar device was invented in 1941 and used successfully against enemy aircraft - it was called PAC