Slashdot Mirror
New Laser Makes Pirates Wish They Wore Eye-Patches
vieux schnock writes "The New Scientist has an article about a new laser developed by a company in Farnborough, UK, that aims to deter modern high-seas pirates. Devised as a 'warning shot' to 'distract suspected pirates rather than harm them,' the meter-wide beam can scan the pirates' 6-metre skiffs and make it difficult for them to aim their AK-47 or rocket-propelled grenades at the ship."
in 3...2...1
Why don't they just put a sniper or two as look out on these cargo ships? Any small boat that approaches without radio, and they have arms, you start picking them off. I'm pretty sure that my idea will be more effective at preventing piracy on the high seas. Lots of ex-military guys who would be qualified.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
This is then foiled when pirates spend $10-20 on a pair of tinted glasses that filter out red light.
I've always thought lasers, while useful, are a very bad countermeasure to human eyesight, being as they are very narrow spectrum.
Next!
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
with remaining eye.
I can just imagine a meter wide bean scanning pirates.
Seriously.
Shoot them and they will not bother anybody again.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
That's a big bean.
the meter-wide bean can scan the pirates' 6-metre skiffs
Wow, that is one big bean. Is it a pinto or perhaps a kidney bean?
Import of mirrors and mirror related paraphernalia spiked sharply in Somalia, leaving traders baffled.
> meter-wide bean
That's a huge bean!
Bottom line: I suggest before coming up with idiotic suggestions, you actually google a bit of naval history. (And yes, I did do a feasibility study on missile attack defenses based on cannon, not rifles, and even they are not a very good defense.)
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
From TFA:
"Sunglasses wouldn't help," he says – in fact, wearing them would only exacerbate the effect. That's because the glasses would not affect the green laser light – chosen because that colour is particularly irritating – but the laser would appear even brighter contrasted against the darkened background.
I'm guessing they think that people who can put their hands on automatic weapons and RPGs, sales and purchasing of which is regulated/prohibited in most of the world - won't be able to put their hands on some $25 protective glasses sales and purchasing of which is not regulated/prohibited anywhere in the world.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
On the other hand it seems russians have already solved the problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmKFMao9lHc
I thought there was some international weapons treaty that said developing laser weapons with intent to blind is a no-no (burning enemies to death is okay).
Pirates only do what they do because they are poor and are just trying to feed their families.
Imagine they actually invested it in the cause of the problem!?
It will not be long before pirates will implement their own counter measures. In related news, the price of mirrors has gone up in the last 2 months...
Killing people is illegal, and that in most of the world "but they started it first" is NOT a valid excuse?
Also, gun license from one country is just a piece of paper in another. And most countries don't allow civilians to own automatic weapons.
Go tell your crew "Oh yeah... when you get to your destination you will all be arrested, ship will impounded and you will all end up in jail. BTW, we don't have a consulate in that particular country. Also, their police might just shoot you to be on the safe side. Good luck and safe sailing."
And then there is all that morality of killing another person thing. See... not everyone grows up to be Jared Lee Loughner.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
In other news, fish are mysteriously dying all over the planet.
Levon Barker
Simpler solution would be to have a ship or a platform offshore, just on the international waters as close to the port as possible to act as an armory. Cargo ships check in their weapons into the armory, sail into the port, unload, reload, return, pick up their weapons and go their way. Between the armory and the port, a distance of about 10 or 20 miles, the Navy or the Coast Guard of the country should provide escort and patrol services with destroyers and cutters.
That would be a sane and cheap solution understandable to one and all. All the news reports about gizmos like laser beams really have an entirely different purpose. Some company somewhere making a key component of such a system is looking for investment or begging to be sold out. The PR firms step in, come up with such "news" stories and create some media interest. Once the company got bought out or got its investment goals met, these news reports also would melt away like fog.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Cost and international treaties are two big reasons why merchant ships aren't armed. If you want military on board with weapons, well a 24/7 hour crew is going to cost a fair bit of money. Merchant shipping tries to cut costs as much as possible.And you aren't just going to put a crate of machine guns and sniper rifles on board and hope that the ship's cook or the 18 year trainee engineer on a cruise ship are going to know how to operate them correctly in an emergency situation, probably more likely to end up hurting themselves or the passengers than anybody else.
Plus international treaties come into play. It's all well and good suggesting you're going to mount miniguns etc or even just AK47s on your ship but a lot of countries aren't too happy about armed merchant ships turning up in their harbours. Can't imagine American authorities would be too happy about accepting an Iranian ship sailing into New York with a crew of marines on board manning deck mounted rapid fire machine guns.
Why in the world would I want to 'deter' someone from pointing AK-47s or RPGs at my ship? If I actually thought I was in danger of being overtaken by a pirate ship with those weapons I'd much rather just blow them out of the water and be done with another ship of vermin. This article's intro really has me perplexed. Do I want to help conspirators make better decisions, or protect my crew that I am on the high seas with for eternity by cleansing the waters of such riff raff with a real weapon like AK47s and RPGs of my own. Or better yet, a skin melting micro wave gun that will make the scumbags of the high seas feel as if they are cooking alive. I think that would change their minds faster than a visual deterent they can look away from or have filtered/reflective glasses to make the laser meaningless.
Can't imagine American authorities would be too happy about accepting an Iranian ship sailing into New York with a crew of marines on board manning deck mounted rapid fire machine guns.
What do you think they're going to do? Invade America with a few marines and machineguns?
In any case, the weapons would be dismounted before docking and then locked in a safe by customs. If the crew remove them from the safe while in dock, then you throw them in jail or shoot them.
...for most of the world's history, merchant ships were *heavily* armed for the sake of defending against pirates.
You want to make a dent in piracy? Bring back armaments to merchant vessels.
to put multiple drones high up in the sky (like 60K feet). Have them track the various boats. Most importantly, they track boats/ships that came into contact with each other. If an attack is spotted/radioed occurring on a ship, then the drones launch smart bombs against the SMALL crafts AND THE MOTHER CRAFT. The most important one to get is the mother craft.
da Sloop
Oh yeah, that's what you want, blinded guys with AK-47s! Can you spell collateral damage? :-)
Is the goal here for the pirates to eat the bean and then suffocate in the resulting gasses? Sounds like a plan to me.
If a ship deploys such expensive technology as this, they must have something valuable... So lets send more pirate ships to capture it.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
What do you think they're going to do? Invade America with a few marines and machineguns?
Thank you for saying what he should have already known. It won't take crates of weapons to start with, and the only time you need to have anyone armed is in KNOWN dangerous waters. The route between NY and UK? Um, probably don't need it for that route. Going around Somalia? Good time for weapons. You don't need the snipers on guard for the entire journey, or even most of it.
Personally, I say you take a fake cargo ship and roam around the area with a full compliment of trainees and give them some real world experience. I have no moral problem with taking out people who are armed and dangerous and whose only goal is to harm others.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
The engineer in me says, "This is a laser because the light is generated through stimulated emission," but the kid in me says "The lasers from the GI Joe guns don't spread out like that; that's not a laser."
Yarrrr, ye should be using the right technology for the job!
Unfortunately, auto-darkening welding helmets wouldn't be fast enough to do the job; they're pretty good for arc-welders starting up, but a laser swinging across them is going to be pumping in the energy before the sensor has time to react.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
As the song says, being a pirate is all fun and games till somebody loses an eye...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It makes it hard to aim their weapons? They're on skiffs in the ocean! It's already hard to aim! Way to go inventing something that does nothing!
--Forest C. Adcock--
So they'd just have to wear glasses with optical notch filters to defeat thus?
Re: Safari and Slashdot disabling copy/paste - I've noticed this too and it's crap. Any idea what's going on there?
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
Other side of the story is that for example on the Somalian waters the international navy basically gives cover to illegal fishers and waste dumping passers-by. Lasers and other kinds of experimental weapons can also be tested to real live subjects (and later deployed back in the home countries). Of course piracy is a profitable business too, but the moral baseline here is really fluid.
...it won't work more than once.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
As a resident of dear peaceful northern europe, I'd say killing pirates would be met with a shrug from most people I know. "Well done" might be considered a bit distasteful or discurteous, because as you say most people would not feel good about such a deed regardless, but you would neither be punished under self-defense laws nor socially ostracized (by most). Any argument to the effect of "but killing is wrong" is ridiculous and a neurotic defense against the fact that the world is quite simply a horribly unjust and violent place, and making it less so often require force. However, you should obviously not kill unecessarily - but a laser like this would only be useful as an antipersonell defense in conjuction with other weapons. Blowing a pirate vessel out of the water would obviously only require "ordinary naval weaponry" (low-calibre autocannons?), and that (as people point out so feverishly) wouldn't be a moral transgression due to the circumstances. If however your intent is to capture the pirates alive out of a sense of mercy (capturing being a requirement, as setting them free would only make them go for another target) it would seem to me that you need them to surrender, somehow, and that would probably require the threat of immediate, deadly force. These being hardy men who keep alive on the seas, beset by various diseases (I've heard) I don't think it would be productive to assume anything less would suffice.
Emotions! In your brain!
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1013057/laser_safety_glasses_tutorial_demonstration/
Won't take long. Nothing like a $20 part to defeat a $1million dollar weapon....
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
You will be arrested at your next port of call. Which part of "illegal automatic weapons" did you not comprehend?
As for the morality - I am talking about your Joe Average not being a coldhearted killer.
Being social and tribal animals, most of us are actually empathic towards other humans, regardless of their orientation towards us.
It hurts you when you hurt another human being. Unless you're a psychopath.
That is why actual shooting is a very small part of basic infantry training.
You are not there to learn to shoot - you are there to learn to FOLLOW ORDERS WITHOUT THINKING OR QUESTIONING.
Shoot when told and shoot to kill - every time.
And it takes a bit of an effort to override millenia of evolution and to condition your Joe Average into a G.I. Joe. And even then, they may be unable to actually shoot someone.
So you would either first have to train your civilian mariners to be killers, and then deal with the problem of releasing them on your streets with PTSD they picked up along the way, or you can just as well give them brooms instead of guns.
Cause they will shoot into the sky, into the sea, into the deck - just not into another human being.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
How about a laser-guided nuclear mortar?
Don't know which parts of that suggestion are actually tongue-in-cheek...
japanese whaling fleet will use it against Sea Shepherd
the problem is international maritime laws and treatys. while on the "high seas" use of deadly force is authorized, in each individual port in each different country the laws concerning firearms differ greatly.
also consider the training and safety measures to properly secure firearms on board a ship... there are many implications, and other things to consider rather then just blindly arming a crew of a merchant ship.
use of less then lethal force is becoming quite popular lately... a company in California is making a super amplified sonic device that has proven quite effective. it is in use in many countries for riot and crowd suppression and US service members
in IRAQ and recently Afghanistan are now using these at check points to stop and deter suicide attempts.
several mechant marine companies are currently testing these devices on board ships.
Snipers on board a large ship may in therory sound great, but consider a well trained sniper is very expensive and it takes years to develop the skills necessary to "pic off a human target ona rolling ship".
(USMC 77-83 Marine Corp Sniper) while it is quite possible and has been done by navy seals several years ago to rescue a merchant captian Terry something or the other.. these men were highly trained and very few
in the world could. Imagine the cost and training associated to place a sniper on every ship in the ocean? millions of dollars. then consider in each country the permitting and registration fees. yes they must declare
firearms on board in many countries or face sanctions, fines and even being barred from further docking.
this is why the use of less then lethal force is becoming very popular, lasers, sonic and even high pressure water cannons on merchant ships. cheap effective and legal. even in international waters there are maritime laws that these large cargo ships must obey.
Everyone knows that the only reason nearly every country in the world has battleships off the coast of Somalia is cordon off the submerged stargate!! Thispirate nonsense is just an excuse. ITM!
I remember watching this show years ago about life of the Alaskan Natives. They had fashioned a sort of eye protecting goggles that had a thin slit across. This was to protect the eyes from the blowing snow and the bright light from the sun reflecting off the snow on the ground. Using something like this the pirates could position the slit to guard against the beam and still provide vision of at least a portion of the ship. Perhaps a set of these goggles in "reverse" which has a horizontal dark stripe which can be placed over the beam by tilting the head.
All this less lethal crap is nonsense. Just about every time I read another one of these stories I can come up with a counter action that is relatively simple. What these ships need to fight off the pirates are real guns that shoot real bullets. Even a handful of .30-06 bolt action rifles would provide a considerable deterrence to these thugs on the water. I would suggest they get something more powerful though if they can afford it. I'm thinking that a 25mm auto-cannon like the one on top of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle should be standard equipment for cargo ships that traverse the open sea. Add a few .50 caliber or .30 caliber rifles as well. Every crew member should be trained in their use as well as having access to small arms, such as pistols and shotguns, in case some do make it on board.
Properly arming the cargo ships against piracy will be impossible so long as the ports these ships service do not respect the life of the very crews that bring them their goods. Laws need to change. As it is right now most nations consider an armed crew an act of war rather than an act of self defense.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
the meter-wide bean can
What kind of beans are they?
The Admin and the Engineer
Where we're going we don't need welding helmets.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
For no apparent reason, the demand for welder type masks has increased sharply in the regions of Somalia, though no new construction has been reported.
--
Seriously. Lasers? I hope they put them on sharks, at least that may scare some pirates off.
No. What you do is you arm the ships with real weapons - large caliber machine guns and some heat seeking missiles and you kill the pirates. Always kill them.
You can't handle the truth.
buy a robotic sniper from south korea.
As it was hastily noticed, protective glasses will soon be used. Just take some soldering glasses and shoot/navigate towards the reminiscent light.
So this whole thing seems like a bad idea to me, either it is cruel or innefective. The microwave bean is a much better idea.
free ports aren't allowed to perform a general inspection ships without cause, by their own laws. they only inspect the cargo that you wish to transfer.
if you're transferring oil from the middle east, past somalia, and to Texas in the gulf of mexico you have nothing to worry about when it comes to weapons or self defense laws, both of those places permit such actions.
firing in self defense in international waters is justified. it's not like you can call the cops when you're 200 miles from shore.
Seriously, just nuke the country from orbit and call it a day. It would be a lot cheaper than sending all those warships to patrol the sea.
The pirates are aiming guns and rockets at us and we're worried about harming their eyesight with a laser? I'm pretty sure it would be justifiable to do a whole lot more than damage the vision of a pirate who was sighting up on me with a RPG.
Why don't they breed loads of bullet ants, keep them in a tank, and then fire them as per a water cannon onto the pirates vessel?
Somalia is a failed state. you could shoot a whole village and you wouldn't go to jail. Getting into a fight with the war lord who claims that it's HIS privilege to randomly kill people may happen , though.
Works better on some than others.
Why all this concern about the Pirates well being?
Turn it up and burn their eyes out.
Turn it up even more and give them 3rd degree burns.
Lieutenant Stephen Decatur is vomiting in his grave.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
In order for a large merchant ship to spend the extra fuel to accelerate and decelerate and keep the lights on while parked at the armory, you'll need to make it more attractive to stop there. Perhaps you could provide a transfer point for some profitable cargo that's black market stuff in the adjacent countries, and don't forget hookers for the crew. The problem is that, in international waters, no country is up for defending the armory when one of the adjacent countries sends an F4 to put an end to the economic activity that makes stopping at the armory work for the people who buy the fuel and set the schedules. Also, there's the question of anchoring the armory so that it doesn't get blown in to some country's jurisdiction in a storm.
Yes, but that's because you're a person with a weird moral compass (by civilized standards) who probably grew up in a culture that idolizes warfare and violence.
The RIAA's earlier press release, where it was indicated that the association was 'very interested in licencing this exciting new technology' has been retracted, after it was revealed that there was a misinterpretation by higher ups.
"What can we say, when they were talking about a laser to disable pirates, we jumped the gun." said one manager, continuing with, "It's a shame, those low mortality rates were really good compared to some of the other proposals I have seen in my office."
After the break, read the RIAA's full press release, along with the patent application for 'shark with pirate laser on head'.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
such as the Spyder III mentioned in a previous slashdot article, http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/06/14/1716209/Set-Free-Your-Inner-Jedi-Or-Pyro, ought to be a cost-effective way to achieve pretty much the same thing at a price low enough everyone on board could have one. Sure, it may lead to permanent blindness or small fires and wounds, but in a situation like this, it seems to carry more bang for the buck, and after all... they *are* pirates.
With an effective range this long it is bound to be used on less than positively identified targets unless good protocols are in place.
What if these pirates have a functional code wheel? Or a sharpie marker, if you will? I'm making a connection to software pirates, but it sort of fits...pirates counter anti-pirate measures. And if a pair of sunglasses, ala cyclops of x-men, is all it takes to counter it...you might quickly find at least one very effective RPG coming your way. That said, that's better than 8 coming at you. Haven't read the article, just my reaction to the summary.
You think that after I kill a boatload of Somalian pirates in international waters I'm going to submit myself to Somali justice?
Because pasty white office workers are such efficient killers. I love how all the suburban kids on slashdot have this image of themselves as deadly commandos.
How do you know? I've worked with some ex-military that got their geek training in the service.
One guy was on the front lines - all that electronic gear that today's soldiers wear doesn't operate by itself. One guy had a photo of himself in Iraq: in one hand a laptop in the other what I called a short barrel M16 with a grenade launcher - he said it was a M-somethng-or-another.
International law.
Based on agreements and treatise that are supposed to prevent arms smuggling, military attacks on nations, etc. you cannot just transport weapons without paying huge fees and obtaining multinational legal agreements. In addition a crew of a ship cannot just attack and kill foreign nationals, even if they claim self defense. Why? Just think about it. Let's say some people coming on a ship from China carried weapons. Let's say they ran into a boat of U.S. citizens and for who knows what reason decided to open fire. What are the results?
Hint: There is not just one.
Why are we talking about non-lethal defensive measures? These people aren't peaceful protesters who are getting a little out of hand. They are predatory, blood-thirsty profiteers.
What's wrong with .50 BMG M2 machine guns? Effective range, 2000 M.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Are you listening Obama? Do you care about jobs?
Then authorize Blackwater (Xe) and Dynacorp to go after these scallywags in exchange for bounties put up by shipping companies. Pay out $100,000 an ear.
It will stimulate the economy, create jobs, and provide gainful employment for ex-military facing challenges reintegrating into the domestic laborforce. I see no downsides. It will cost the taxpayers nothing.
Then the next time these pirates approach a merchant vessel, they'll see a gunboat coming around the stern of the ship flying a US flag and ready to kick ass and take names.
It will be the economic gift that keeps giving. Just wait until the movies start to come out. "Pirate Hunter", "Pirate Hunter 2: With a Vengeance", "Rambo V: Arrrr!". America could become known worldwide as the finest mercenary exporting nation since the middle ages.
When the light hits your eye
And your brain starts to fry
That's A-More-Ray(TM)
You were shooting some guy
Now you just want to die
That's A-More-Ray(TM)
Avast me hearties
I can no longer see
Thanks to that A-More-Ray(TM)
No more life on the seas
Back to drinking my own pee
Fucking A-More-Ray(TM)
Because of dickheads using laser pointers to lase aircraft on final approach to air ports I have to get a permit to buy a 10mW, 20mW or 30mW green laser for astronomy purposes ... and now you're producing something to intentionally lase people.
Assholes.
Lasers will work great until the pirates get good laser-proof sunglasses.
The ships will totally have to upgrade to pew-pew lasers, and then the pirates upgrade to mirrored sunglasses. Or just mirrors.
It'll be a lightwave arms race.
Sig for hire.
So, you're a pirate and the merchant ships have started firing back and sinking your colleagues. What's your next move? Might I suggest that you bring a couple of hostages, staff from one of the ships you currently have captured perhaps. Now, that makes everything a bit more complicated, doesn't it?
I believe the ORIGINAL suggestion was to hire x military. NOT have the people from here do the sniping.
And the military DOES have a PROVEN history of being able to take out pirates from a moving ship.
Navy SEALs' Simultaneous Headshots on Somali Pirates Were Procedure
Taking this a step further, following the original suggestion of x military personnel being the snipers.
\
Let's carry this further shall we? How many troops have served in Afghanistan and Iraq? Collation troops, not just American. Snipers are a very active part of that. You telling me nomadic that these shipping companies couldn't entice x military snipers to guard their ships?
So basically.
You really should take time to think about your posts
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
Nice generalization of the point of view of anyone who might oppose it. Too bad it's bullshit, though.
The idea that some of us like is, basically, this "[i][b]No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury,[/b] except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, [b]nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;[/b] nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation[/b][/i]". My bolding.
You may recognize it as the fifth amendment of the USA constitution, and a fundamental principle of the rule of the law. Or may not. You gun and violence nuts seem to only care about the second.
(Oh, and BTW, the non-bolded part about the exception in the armed or naval forces, doesn't mean "rentacop on a commercial vessel".)
Yeah, bullshit strawman rhetoric about "sympathy for the criminal" make fine talking points to regurgitate, but a more fundamental point is that we usually require a jury to decide if someone is a criminal. We don't like to just take one guy's word that someone else was breaking the law.
We tried just trusting the baron or king, but it didn't work so well. That's why we started asking for judgment of the peers as early as the Magna Carta, in 1215.
At any rate, I wouldn't make a rentacop sniper a sort of Judge Death of the high seas. Even in the army, which is usually held to higher standards, it turns out that some bored people killed civilians just for sport. And crooked cops abusing their badge to beat someone up or invent evidence is pretty much a stereotype. I'd rather not get to hear "oh, well, they looked like they were coming this way and I could swear one had a bazooka" (that nobody else ever saw or found) about some local fishing boat at half a mile away.
Briefly, if I wouldn't trust a cop or state official to just decide in one second who's a criminal and who's not, and swiftly apply deadly punishment, I don't trust a private person with that either. Yes, I'm sure you'd always identify them right, and all, bla, bla, bla, but [i]other[/i] people occasionally get to decide that some abortion cop, or minister from another sect's church, or the local post office staff, or the local congresswoman deserves a bullet in the head. Or that some disabled ex-cop in Iraq deserves death just for being Arab. I mean, WTH, we had the story about a nut shooting a congresswoman just today on the front page. _That's_ the kind of guys we don't like to trust with deciding who deserves to die and who deserves to live. And we're kinda bad at knowing in advance who'll go schizophrenic next year.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Shipping companies or marine insurers hire security forces with adequate weapons and station them on a few fast boats in the Somali waters along the shipping route. As cargo ships enter the hazard zone, the fast boat rendezvous and transfers the security crew onboard. As it leaves the hazard zone, they meet up with another fast boat and get off. Later they ride another cargo boat going the other way.
This way the security forces and weapons are always where they are needed, in the dangerous waters. They are never where they are not needed or wanted, around peaceful ports or safe parts of shipping lanes.
The fast boats can protect themselves, as they are full of armed security forces.
Now if it's a laser then the light should be coherient.
And that should mean that it's polarized
so polarized glasses should do the trick
but then all the guys with the laser have to do is use a liquid crystal for instance to flip the polarity of the light and the glasses won't be able to cope.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Ever heard of US merchant marines getting plundered in the news? No? This is why. Cheap, Low Tech, Takes 5 minutes to train and use- resulting in a much more recognizable deterrence.
Seriously, why are they not just arming the crews of potential targets with firearms? An M60 or an M249 fore and aft will mean keep the pirates at bay. No more hijackings and no more piracy problem.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
A real pirate would NOT sail around in a 6 metre skiff.
How embarrassing.
Who else was expecting something about lasers that are going to blind people pirating media?
Fuck You Dawfiiiiiin,....
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
1. Shine laser in pirates eyes :)
2. Sell sunglasses to pirates
3. Profit
...make it difficult for them to aim their AK-47 or rocket-propelled grenades at the ship
All that will happen is the pirates will don laser lab goggles before approaching their target. Besides, even if it was "difficult" to aim, a pirate should have little difficulty hitting a huge cargo ship with a few RPGs or a machine gun.
Yes, the blow up raft they are using.
Harder, I agree, if they are using a speed boat - but still feasible.
So, let's compare:
Option 1: Kill shot to 1 pirate over 500m while they close at speed
or
Option 2: Put a hole through their craft with a side option of hitting their engine (always a bonus if you miss the hull)
Actually, the weapon noted in the article is a good idea, but needs some more work.
Why limit the range? Hook it up to a computer, set it to 'scan' put one on each side of the ship and when anything comes too close let her rip.
Why have a human operator? Have the program 'sweep' both sides of the ship - anything which comes within range should not be 'targetted' but instead 'swept' across several times.
It's only a matter of time until defence systems like this are normal for larger merchant vessels.
It's rather hard to argue with your enemy when you are blind.
It's also better than jail. Call it 'judge and jury'.
Not to defend the pirates, but once you know the whole story for that region, you start to see why they're doing it.
There is no working government along that coast. The european mafia regularly dumps toxic waste right off the shores and foreign (Indian, Chinese, Malaysian) boats invade those waters to take the fish that would be reserved for the locals if they had working coast guards. The locals have long survived on fishing and it's no longer a viable trade for them. They pirate for ransom and you rarely hear about the pirates killing someone (except for the odd captain who dies of a heart-attack, etc.) It's really not that hard to defend against these guys, it's just a little more expensive than the cost of paying ransoms.
The right solution is for the working governements of the world to stop taking advantage and/or turning a blind eye to those who do take advantage of a lack of government in that region and do a little work to actually help the locals get organized and build real states out of Somalia and Ethiopia. Of course, this isn't going to happen. These people are too poor to matter.
Personally, I say you take a fake cargo ship and roam around the area with a full compliment of trainees and give them some real world experience. I have no moral problem with taking out people who are armed and dangerous and whose only goal is to harm others.
Why would you want to take out your trainees? Because im pretty shure the pirates only goal is money.
Bitter revenge fantasies of the impotent. Do FOX know about you? You might get a show.
That's only a concern for the military. Just like using tear gas is a no-no in a war (OMFG chemical weapon!), while it's perfectly fine for use by police on unruly citizens.
My eye!
Its quite legal to have weapons on a merchant ship or pleasure vessels. They must be declared when entering most ports of the world and surrendered to the port for the duration of the stay. You get them back when you leave.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Really kid, you crack me up.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If those were "legal attacks" by Somali navy that would be an act of war.
And there is a system in place for that. Your country goes to war with Somalia.
The whole problem lies is in the fact that you can't deal with these pirates that way.
You send your navy after them - they run back to territorial waters. Unless you want a war - you can't follow them.
And wars cost money. Fuck... just getting your navy there costs money.
Extra bonus - YOU DON'T HAVE A NAVY. You are a private corporation registered in dozen countries. Many of them probably landlocked.
But what you probably do have is shareholders. Who will not like the idea of financing a war.
Fuck, they won't even pay for a little more fuel and time to get around the Somalian waters.
Those Somali skiffs don't have an unlimited range, you know?
But besides the point... Having automatic weapons (in some cases - ANY weapons) on a ship will get you in trouble with dozens of coast guards around the world.
You WILL be boarded and arrested.
And there is practically no way that you can have your private little arsenal on a civilian ship LEGALLY around the whole world.
Just try to imagine the hassle of registering every single firearm you have in every single country along the way.
Do they even allow foreign nationals to have guns? Or civilians at all?
The sea is NOT the Wild West. There ARE laws. You want to break them?
Be prepared to live like the Somalis and WITH the Somalis then - cause you will be put in jail in another country that has a functional coast guard.
As a civilian, or a corporation that does business you MUST obey laws unless you want to suffer consequences - from lawsuits, to a ban on entering a country, to jail time in a foreign prison.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The solution to stop somali piracy is that foreign industrialized countries should NOT fish the "Horn of Africa" seawaters until depletion, so local negro fisherman could also obtain the fruits of the sea to feed their people. They are turning to piracy because their dinghies pull empty nets 99% of time currently. Some big factory ship was there and trawled up the ocean from 0 to 1000 meters and now the waters are simply empty of life. And when those big ships leave, the dump industrial waste overboard, because Somalia has no govt to regulate and stop pollution. Considering that, I would become an RPG-wielding pirate myself, if I saw such nastiness going on!
"With your remaining eye, do not look again directly into the source of laser light."
We don't need to arm individual merchant ships. African piracy is the reason why the Marine Corps hymn has the phrase 'To the shores of Tripoli' in it. Have the navy shell the coast of Somalia into oblivion. Make it very clear it is in response to rampant piracy from there, and that we will do it again without hesitation to Somalia or any other country that harbors pirates.
Fortunately, where I sail on the ocean, we don't yet have to worry about pirates. But there is a real challenge in identifying actual pirates vs. people who are merely on the water. Add visibility problems, language barriers, and that pirates probably want to remain stealth for as long as possible.
Not every non-tanker is a pirate. Ships aren't always easy to avoid. They turn, and not always in predictable ways. Someone may try and move out of the path of a ship and inadvertently move into the soon to be path. Targeting some family who is out fishing, a disabled vessel, or telling Lance to open up with the forward fifties at a merely suspect target a mile way, is not acceptable. And yet, you don't want to let actual pirates get close.
Attacking someone with any sort of weapon just because they're within a half mile or mile is not reasonable. This isn't like CCW, where the threat tends to be closer and more obvious.
You don't need a "laser" for this. A spotlight will do the same thing, be easier to maintain, and probably cost less.
Look up "Q Ships". There have been some calls that something of the sort be done, but it hasn't happened yet.
I also cook
Well thank God for armchair tacticians, I'm sure the shipping companies never even considered arming the crew until you showed up. Everyone else assumed they already considered this and have a good reason for not arming their crew... but you... you're a fucking genius!
Cost and international treaties are two big reasons why merchant ships aren't armed. If you want military on board with weapons, well a 24/7 hour crew is going to cost a fair bit of money. ...Can't imagine American authorities would be too happy about accepting an Iranian ship sailing into New York with a crew of marines on board manning deck mounted rapid fire machine guns.
Ok, several people have mentioned such a law without any citation. If you're going to insist that a law exists that regulates X, you have the burden to prove that it exists. Why am I supposed to do your homework for you? A quick google got me this page, which discusses such a "United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)". This site says the following:
There's also some blah-blah about having to fire warning shots first, etc. Hmm...I wonder, how many warships does the UN Navy have? Heck, if they had any, they wouldn't be allowed to mount guns. So...enforcement is nil.
I find the aversion to violence that has become so manifest in Western countries in the last four decades or so to be disturbing...almost the expression of a collective death-wish. I'm talking about violence in defense of life and property, of course, not about the violence of the robber, rapist, or pirate. I believe that this failure to see the distinction between justified and unjustified violence is a sign of moral decline, or—to be more precise, perhaps—a decline in our collective ability to make moral distinctions.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
This type of weapon is banned by the United Nations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Weapons if it causes permanent blindness, which is quite likely on shorter distances.
Most modern piracy happens in the waters off Somalia as ships exit or enter the route through Suez. Ships could sail around Africa instead of going through the canal, as was done for a number of centuries before Suez. No idea if that is even cost efficient vs. paying the ransom.
And while no nation is required to allow armed vessels to dock in its ports, martime law does indeed allow armed vessels within a nation's territorial waters. Warships travel through the Panama canal all the time, and in fact such ships are designed so that they can fit through the canal. This classification is called "Panamax". Same goes for Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.
here is your solution. A PMC company sets up shop in Cairo or Western Saudi Arabia and another shop in Kenya. Boats then contract to pick up a security team via helicopter before they get to the hot spot and then the team egresses the ship once it has passed by the hot spot. PMC owns and runs the helicopters. All this happens in International waters, all personnel are "trained" and no one has guns in port. This also leaves the corruption and theft that happens in port undisturbed.
Is it terrible that I read the headline and thought 'The MPAA is installing laser and IR flash systems in theaters to detect camera lenses and blind them with lasers? Awesome!'
Turns out, this is not the story I actually ended up reading.
If I had the choice between a "distracting" laser and an RPG, I'll take the RPG 10 times out of 10.
Anyone think about using the big laser Wicked laser sell as a makeshift weapon for self defence.
The beam is enough to blind and burn eyes, flesh, paper, plastic.
Don't know the range, but 1 W laser could be enough.
n/t
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Thanks, don't tend to proof read as much when I post from my cellphone and it shows with posts like that one.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
must outweigh what it would cost to covertly pay some other Somalians to kill a few pirates.
You'd have to arm them; at which point they become a threat themselves.
Even if the hiring works, they're unlikely to keep their mouths shut; word on what's happening will get back.
I figure this is less likely if contractors foreign to the area are used.
I don't read AC A human right
...misunderstanding my point.
Personal morality and "softness" would be A DETERRENT for an untrained, unconditioned civilian which would make them hesitate when they should act.
They would be extremely unfit for the role of "killers" - which is what they would have to be.
You can paint it any way you want. Personal defense, retaliation, reciprocity... the fact is they would have to kill other people.
Which many of them would either not be able to do, or would not be able to "handle" later.
And there is no "handling" of continuously having to be on the edge for extended periods of time.
You don't just "turn off" all that anxiety and adrenalin.
Not without either prior training and conditioning, heavy use of drugs or therapy.
Civilian employees of private companies lack the first, are forbidden the second and the third... well... they might get it should one of them come home and machine-gun the office to settle some dispute.
There is a reason why every single army in the world uses psychological tests in their recruiting process.
Cause some people simply can't "handle it" - even with training, conditioning and the weight of the chain of command later on.
Some on the other hand "handle it" too well - cause they are psychos.
And if the "Dirty Dozen" has taught us anything, it's that you don't want to depend on the psycho following orders.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Let say you CAN load up your ship with weapons and armed men and sail into any harbor you like as it would be "perfectly legal".
And if you are inspected by the local coast guard, hey you have your papers signed and sealed by your village elder or whoever does that in your country of origin.
Now... lets say you are a pirate and/or a weapons smuggler. See where this is going?
There is a reason why civilian merchant ships don't have cannons any more - and it is not because there is 0% chance of needing them.
Or why civilians around most of the world don't get to parade around with a gun hanging low on their hip. Or a sword.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Thanks for replying so politely. I'm glad you know what the word is...I try not to comment on grammar and spelling but that one just bugged me. :)
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Thanks for point it out. Only way to really learn from your mistakes is to know mistakes were made. Don't know how I didn't spell it right, but oh well.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
Your defeatist attitude is sad. If there's nothing you can do but hope that some bad guy doesn't pick you to randomly kill and steal from someday, you might as well go live in a bunker.
It's not based in reality either. Few muggers would shoot before demanding what they want of a random person. They don't just go around killing people and taking their stuff--that's called pillaging. Our struggle is not against Vikings.
So you're either being foolish or dishonest. You're so afraid of having to face the reality that there is Evil in the world and that Good people must stand against it, sometimes with force, that you can't stand to consider the Truth. Maybe that's what Gore's documentary should have been about--the title fits.
I think you really should go live in a bunker so the rest of us can exercise our right to defend ourselves against bodily harm without being harassed for valuing our own lives.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
I have the right to defend myself and my family against bodily harm. I should be able to exercise that right, and equip myself with the necessary tools, without being harassed by those who are so overcome by the fear of Evil that they are unable to face the Truth that Evil exists in the world and Good people must be prepared to face it, sometimes by responding with equal force. It's really none of your business if I want to carry a gun, as long as I don't misuse it and harm anyone or anyone else's property. It's not alive; it's not going to jump out of my holster and shoot anyone on its own, just like my car isn't going to run anyone over without someone driving it. Guns do not have cooties.
In the end, I don't care whether or not statistics support concealed-carry--though I believe they do. What matters is that I have the right to defend myself and my family, and that I value the lives of myself and my family enough to protect them. What's truly sad--almost as sad as there being people who commit acts of Evil--is that there are people who would sooner see Good, innocent people die at the hands of an Evil person, than to see Good people saved by killing an Evil person who's in the act of committing Evil. All human life is sacred--but all humans have Free Will and responsibility for their actions, and justice is no more served by allowing Evil people to commit their Evil acts than by allowing Good people to defend themselves against Evil people, even if it results in the deaths of Evil people.
Refusal to face the Truth is simply cowardice, and cowards' counsel should not be heeded.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."