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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."
I'm not a boatologist but I would imagine that large cargo ships have significantly stronger propellers and engines than the small craft that pirates use. Their engines would probably shred anything the pirates could throw at them, much like in the Indiana Jones movie.
I'm not well versed in the subject, but I believe it has something to do with their classification under maritime law. I don't think merchant vessels are allowed to carry weapons of any kind.
Err, the massive propellers that most cargo ships use make trying to foul one useless? Unless that rope you're using is 20cm thick or better, good luck with fouling a prop whose average diameter would often dwarfs the pirate's boat entirely with room to spare. Hell, good luck fouling the prop by ramming your entire boat into it for that matter...
Maybe you meant the golf ball cannon option? Umm, okay - you only have to get the balls up 5-10 stories high, not counting superstructure, let alone the bridge. RPG's are probably more plentiful than golf balls in that part of the world, and tend to be a lot more portable, methinks.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
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.
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.
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.
I vote for boiling oil.
The group on Whale Wars should test this puppy out.. They can't seem to launch a proper prop fouler line for anything..
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
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
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
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.
It might take 45min to clear up a small prop - but if you foul a prop of a massive vessel like these you're in for a day's work
Not to mention the fact that a merchant ship's propeller (often) is submerged under the hull, out of reach for any "rope cannons" or whatever you'd call it. Outboards are, of course, a completely different story. I'm a sailor and have seen several people get a rope stuck in their outboard propellers. It's probably the worst thing that can happen to you, 45 minutes is a very conservative estimate especially since TFA mentions specally-made kevlar ropes.
A range of 400m is also mentioned, but if I was a skipper of a merchant ship 400m is far too close. Add the effects of wind, fog and waves range and accuracy diminishes quickly. At 400m all the pirates have to do is to fire an RPG round over the deck to prove their point, then it's game over.
Quantum hacker.
Having been in the military - The number of people willing and able to kill other people, even when you're in mortal danger, is still fairly low, and those who ARE willing and able usually go home with significant issues to deal with.
Some ships will have crew members willing and able to use lethal force against pirates, but the GP still has a good point.
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.
I think the problem comes only when they come into ports that prohibit weapons.
Solution... Just outside the jurisdictional boundaries of the ports (usually very safe places) weapons are offloaded to "locker ships" (for a fee of course) and are loaded back aboard as the commercial/merchant vessel passes back through.
A new commercial opportunity. Perhaps gWeaponsOffload.com.
Not hard. Why do people make this so hard?
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
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.
Pirates wouldn't need a jet propulsion boat, they just need a rope cutter on their propeller shaft.