It would work fine, except that you'd actually need 2 2-man teams. At 1500 meters, you need a spotter. The odds are better in close quarters when you have 4 guys, too.

From the weapons handling I've seen in pictures of the Somalis, a kid with a Marlin 22LR could take out a full boat load of pirates without having to reload the tubular magazine.

The pirates would just upgrade to Chinese QGJs or maybe 25mm or 30mm auto cannons. Cleaning out the pirate nests on the coasts and getting a working government back in Somalia is probably the only real long term solution.

They studied Liberian Infantry Tactics. It's not their fault.

The pirates would just upgrade to Chinese QGJs or maybe 25mm or 30mm auto cannons.

I think you've not thought it through.

I've thought of this exact plan myself (or forgot where I heard it) and wondered why it hasn't been implemented in dangerous areas. There are some problems with it.

There would be no deterrent effect protecting unarmed ships because the pirates would just approach their targets and break off at the first warning shot. For various practical reasons crews must give warning shots instead of just unleashing a torrent on the pirates.

There is some risk that ships that defend themselves might be sunk or damaged by the pirates to deter other ships from defending themselves. A couple of fifties would make it difficult for the pirates to sink a ship, but the pirates might think of a way. The pirates don't need to armor their entire boat. A single modest size armor plate might be enough to protect the engine, fuel, and crew, from the front, long enough to get within range to punish resisting ships by damaging or sinking them. The pirates might also be able to outfit their boats with small artillery if that becomes necessary.

The pirates would just upgrade to Chinese QGJs or maybe 25mm or 30mm auto cannons.

A 25mm cannon is the main gun on a 25 ton Bradley, and it's powerful enough to make the whole track rock gently as it fires. It's also pretty darn heavy, and the ammo is heavy and expensive too. The Army had trouble mounting it on 19 ton 8 wheel Stryker.

You could probably rear-mount a .50 cal, though that's obviously not terribly effective for raids. Even if you could mount it facing forwards and it didn't make your skiff capsize and the pilot wasn't bothered by the sound and the rain of hot brass, I'd be awfully surprised if you could hit anything. Usually when you do gunnery in trucks, you have two trucks: one is stopped and firing while the other advances. They just don't make great brakes for speedboats...

The pirates might also be able to outfit their boats with small artillery if that becomes necessary.

Their target would stand a greater chance of being hit by a stray meteor.

If the world really is powerless to stop piracy, why isn't it an individual initiative to defend yourself?

I'd like to see a cruise to the coast of Somalia, BYO gun and ammo. Troll up and down the coast for awhile until the pirates show up and have at 'em.

In the 19th Century, they used to shoot buffalo from trains. It was considered good sport at the time. Fifty years from now we might not be able to do it, but if they can't stop piracy, how are they gonna stop us?

How much you wanna bet that as soon as the first privately armed vessel that 'attacks' the pirates, all the navies of the world put their foot down and that will be that.

Some comments presume that the pirate would stick with small speedboats. I don't think they would. They would mount the auto-cannons on larger boats and use them to provide covering fire for speedboats. These guys are not stupid and have lots of small unit tactics and fire-fight experience.

Call it a vacation.

http://neveryetmelted.com/2009/04/30/cruising-for-pirates/

The devil is in the target ID; you can't open up at max range. Until the pirates do something "piratical" they're fishermen, out for a cruise (in eel-infested waters). It is, nominally, a free ocean; they can relatively easily maintain masquerade until close enough to make a high-speed run-in. Pair up the boats, and one offers cover fire while the other makes a high-speed boarding run. Another couple of boats for decoys and target discrimination is out the window.

In short, any feasible RoE makes this plan unworkable by preventing long-range engagements. The pirates just need to get into close enough range to be able to dash the boarding team in and have the covering team be able to offer effective area fire from an AK or LMG (they don't have to be pinpoint marksman, just good enough to keep the rifle team's head's down).

Better way is just to make it more difficult for the pirates to board. Wonder how well mounting 6-foot plates at 45 degrees lean-out over the rail would be at preventing boarding. Paint the outer sides with something slick and make the edges sharp enough to cut through a line after a bit of chafing (as might be generated by someone using it to climb)? Hinge them to be able to be swung in for safety in port.

If you can prevent them from coming aboard, you prevent the piracy.

The pirates can load a skid full of explosives and sink a ship

The pirates might also be able to outfit their boats with small artillery if that becomes necessary.

Their target would stand a greater chance of being hit by a stray meteor.

Actually I don't think the pirates will do such things to punish resisting ships anyway. I think a 50 would be effective and the pirates would just look for easier targets.

The pirates would probably attack the protection ships stationed at each end of the danger zone unless the ships were heavily armed. They may attack before the rifle team gets on board unless the protection ships are placed very far from Somalia. But then the farther out the attacks are, the easier it is for the navy to intercept before the pirates get home.

Arie:

The pirates really don't want to sink ships. A ship and crew held hostage means ransom. A ship and crew sent to Davy Jones' locker just ticks people off. Sinking ships is bad business for pirates, and they know it.

God bless!

All these little pirate skiffs are launched from "mother ships" more than 100 miles off shore. Position a submarine in the area to observe and detect. When a mother ship is found and confirmed ... sink it. It would be especially useful for this to occur when the raiding parties are out. When they come home to nothing, it would be a long way back to shore.

Again - how do you confirm a mother ship? They're fishing trawlers (and generally are actively fishing as well). And who supplies the sub and torpedo? Subs are lousy platforms to engage trawlers with; anyway.

The target vessels don't have to worry about destructive attacks, as noted; but the host ships for the defense teams do have to worry about it.

I'm as much for lethally discouraging the actual pirates as others - I just dont think the currently provided plans are a good idea. You can't till a pirate till he starts to act piratical, and he doesn't have to do that until he's within his own engagement range.

The pirates are businessmen. Since they fled the Italian cruise ship they recently tried to take over when the security guards started plinking back with pistols, I suspect incoming .50 BMG rounds would prove to be a fully adequate deterrent. As noted above, if the pirates fire back with anything that could sink a merchantman, they would quickly find this course of action to be counterproductive to the their objectives.

Alternatively, if the EU-zone surrender-monkey navies on-site would simply HOLD the pirates they catch rather than quickly sending them home, piracy would quickly become a less attractive line of work.

But ultimately, arming merchantmen or having military patrols in the sea lanes may not be what stops the Somali pirates. Yesterday's NYT suggests that good old shore-based Islamic Justice might eventually be enough to do the trick:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/world/africa/09pirate.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=somali%20pirates%20toyota&st=cse

Think volleyfire from RPG's by the Somalis.

While I agree with those who point out that you can't fire on the pirates until they show intent. I disagree that the Barrett .50 cals will be outgunned.

The yardages involved in covering these freighters are substantial. If the M107s are manned by teams in (or on) the parts of the bridge area overlooking the sides of the ship, than the accuracy disparity between AKs/RPGs on shakey platforms and the M107s on stable platforms many hundreds of yards away is huge. Especially when the M107 teams can present a very small to nearly invisible (and possibly armoured) target capable of covering most of the ship perimeter. And this is assuming the pirates even figure out exactly where the shooting is coming from - which is not necessarily true.

Don't forget the famous line from Black Hawk Down "the skinnies can't shoot for shit!" and a ex-special forces friend of mine pointed out that a long range shot with an AK is closer to "indirect fire" than a rifle - and just about as accurate. An RPG hit may be more of a threat, but apparantly these aren't very accurate either.

This same principle holds no matter what the pirates field in the way of armaments. Remember a hidden sniper has held huge forces at bay numerous times in the past.

What a bunch of freaking lawyers.

These are the high seas ... not a court room.

A skiff full of assholes with AKs is going to get engaged at maximum range and hopefully set ablaze, regardless of whether or not they meet your courtroom standard of "piratical behavior" ... and if the freighter captain is in a bad mood, rammed while disabled and the surviving pirates shot while they try to tread water.

This is why using submarines to sink motherships is a good idea ... you can't serve papers for an excessive force lawsuit unless you can prove what country's sub did the deed.

Oh yes, and if some Somali mother ship shows up with a 20mm cannon or 5" gun, they'll be pretty obvious from a fair distance away and a decision made then whether to engage or not. Also, they'll be uncommon and probably easily tracked by military forces.

It's exactly the same principle as civilian concealed carry! They don't always have to be used just because they're available. But without a CCW you don't even have the option.

My previous comment about CCW seems to have been quarentined, so here's the short version.

This is EXACTLY the same situation as civilian Concealed Carry (except think ships instead of civilians and Barret .50s instead of pistols). And the arguments against it fit the same mold as well.

Having a concealed carry weapon doesn't mean you must use it if it is certain to get you killed. However, there will be times when having it will be much better than not having it.

"Yesterday's NYT suggests that good old shore-based Islamic Justice might eventually be enough to do the trick:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/world/africa/09pirate.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=somali%20pirates%20toyota&st=cse
Posted by: zippypinhead at May 9, 2009 09:56 AM"

Ya right. Just like it stops growing heroin in Afganistan.

"...if some Somali mother ship shows up with a 20mm cannon or 5" gun, they'll be pretty obvious from a fair distance away and a decision made then whether to engage or not."

Well, if some Somali fishing trawler tries to open up with a 20mm, assuming it doesn't shake the boat apart (I doubt a 5" gun would be practical on the sort of fishing boats they're using), they might get away with it once. But they will be committing an egregious enough act of war that I daresay by the second time they try that sort of stunt, the relevant military forces will be thinking "air strike." Any trawler with that sort of armament is not only going to be very conspicuous, it's going to be public enemy #1, and the odds of it ever getting back to port in one piece will be pretty small.

.50 BMG return fire from trained hands is more than any of these pirates can handle. Frankly, I think two guys with Remington 700s chambered in .30-06 or .308 (both of which can easily reach out and touch someone at much longer range than 7.62x39 AKs) is likely to be enough firepower to fairly easily hold these clowns at bay.

You guys are mostly blinded by the light of your own reasoning.

No armed teams can ever board a merchantman unless the ship's insurer gives the OK. Since these ships' insurers would rather pay the ransom, deal with late cargoes, etc, just how much chance is there that the London barristers are going to approve ANY armed security?

If there was the slightest desire in the shipping industry to end this piracy, it would have been ended right after it started up.

As for treating the pirates too well when they are captured, there is a treaty which specifies that ALL captured pirates are to be landed in Mombasa and turned over to the Keynans.

President Obama scoffed at the treaty when he hauled the injured kiddie pirate from the Maersk Alabama before a judge in New Yuk City.

There is specific judicial treatment available for pirates, and they are easy to capture. The fact that few ARE captured shows how little interest there is in ending the pirate problem.

"You guys are mostly blinded by the light of your own reasoning.

No armed teams can ever board a merchantman unless the ship's insurer gives the OK. Since these ships' insurers would rather pay the ransom, deal with late cargoes, etc, just how much chance is there that the London barristers are going to approve ANY armed security?"

Yep, you're right.
signed,
"blinded by the light"

Is it just me, or is anyone else struck by the similarities of this (both pro and con) to the US CCW debate that has been going on over the past decade?

Kristopher wrote:
This is why using submarines to sink motherships is a good idea ... you can't serve papers for an excessive force lawsuit unless you can prove what country's sub did the deed.

Kristopher's idea above could be a game changing idea for this problem. There could be some issues though. Could pirate "victims" subpoena navy records to find out if our sub did the deed? Could the subs complete the attack before the pirates can get hostages on board? Could helicopter or jets intercept in time without being identified(I doubt it). Would every pirate boat start carrying a hostage? Could subs from a country with a less friendly court system do the deed. Could a plaintiff subpoena US navy records to find out what other navy the sub belonged to? Do the pirate motherships carry a large number of innocent fishermen? Would it be acceptable to the international community for a country to just start sinking boats and killing people secretly without giving them a chance to surrender?

It sounded like a good idea at first but I'm less enthused than I was. The best solution would be for all countries to let ships carry a little protection. Every country recognizes the need for armed police. It's crazy not to recognize the need for ships to protect themselves in the face of rampant armed piracy. Putting full time police on every ship or providing navy protection is just impractical. I guess that portion of people who think the cannon balls should be banned, think there is some other solution like providing some loving and nurturing to the nation of Somalia.

The USN has a wonderful anti-pirate platform. It is tested in
the naval gunnary range off SoCal, past Catalina.

The whole stabilization and positioning system from the
M1A1 Abrams tank is de-armored and mounted on skid.
Twin 50 BMG belt-fed guns with compensators are mounted
where the main tank gun would go.

Typical target practice is 1000 yards. The boats run
at 40 knots, but are only 35' long. They can put lots of
holes in a 1 meter target on the power, blasting across
the waves.

Put a few of these systems on merchant ships. Link the
ammo HE AP HE AP Trace. Explosions, holes and fire
delivered from 1000 yards. Problem solved in a few months.

The pirates are businessmen. Fine. Make them dead businessmen.

Let me get this straight - you guys are proposing that every small craft that approaches within 1000 meters of a protected vessel be taken under fire by the rifle teams or other weapons systems? Because that's what it sounds like to me. And that is about as likely as being able to destroy the shore bases of the pirates (another favorite suggestion of airmchair tacticians). You *might* be able to get away with firing warning shots, I suppose. And if they don't sheer off; and ti turns out that the people in the boats weren't armed when you hole shoot off their engines? What then? (And that's the best-case scenario).

The submarine idea to target motherships is laughable - a fishing trawler is a very poor torpedo target, not enough draft. And still falls under the target identification problem. These are functional fishing trawlers that happen to supplement their catch by mothering the speedboats. Sinking every fishing trawler within 1000 km of the Horn of Africa is not going to get much traction.

Better to invest in passive antiboarding equipment and techniques. If the pirates can't grapple or board, they can't take the ship. As mentioned previously, they can't mount any weaponry capable of destroying or even doing much more than superficial damage to a serious oceangoing vessel. Look for analogues to the anti-scaling techniques using in castles, or maybe concrete "bombs" to drop overside into the boats once they pull alongside and attempt to grapple. These have the advantage of not (necessarily) increasing manning requirements, and not placing "weapons" on board the ship at any point.

The analogy to CCW is apt; in that most places in the US disapprove of a CCW permit holder shooting someone when they are across the street and approaching the permitee with no overt hostile intent displayed.

The pirate attacks are deplorable - no question. If caught, the pirates have given up the protections of the civilized world, no question. But in the present circumstances, you can't ID a pirate vessel until the grapnels are flying (by which point it's too late).

"Let me get this straight - you guys are proposing that every small craft that approaches within 1000 meters of a protected vessel be taken under fire by the rifle teams or other weapons systems? Because that's what it sounds like to me."

You're missing an important point. As I understand it, these ships can be as long as 700 to 800 meters. I don't know for sure but it wouldn't surprise me if the bridge was close to 100 meters over the water. This means that a pirate boat RIGHT NEXT TO THE SHIP and obviously intending to board her can still be many hundreds of meters (or yards) away from the bridge (or a Barrett .50. And then there are the pictures of boats with half a dozen people all armed with RPGs and AKs. Not hard to establish intent there.

As far as stabilized tank-like turrents go. You just went up at least an order of magnitude in cost. Hard to beat a couple of Barretts and some armour plating for cost effectiveness.

As i postualted over at Transterrestrial, a couple af JMB's Ma Deuce .50 machine guns would do the trick.

It is far easier to train a competent machine gunner than it is to train a competent sniper.

To Alan A. If the pirates are boarding at the bow, ho, pray tell, is the rifle team going to be able to see them from the bridge castle at the stern? The entirety of the ship is in the way.

Your passive anti-boarding techniques suffer from the same flaw as all the other passive denial techniques (ex: barbed wire, fences, mine-fields, etc.) Without someone to cover them with active fire, they can eventually be overcome. Concrete bombs definitely WON'T work. To be effective, they would have to be huge - hence unmanagable and incapable of being aimed effectively.

Sadly, as much as I would want to simply go on a rampage and kill pirates, that simply won't fix the problem. It's like winning the lottery: even though there's a chance you could get killed, if you have no where else to turn to make ends meet, and you can make millions in one fell swoop, why wouldn't you turn to piracy?

To fix the problem, you have to attack the heart of the issue: the horrible economic situation in Somalia. If people there had a hope for a decent future, they would be less inclined to turn to piracy, and less inclined to tolerate those that do. Just like in Iraq, one can win militarily, but only by an effort in state-building can you prevent the next war.

The military will always respond, and will be an effective means of keeping people around the world safe. But what is needed is a push by others (the State Department comes to mind) to create alternatives for people. A real "carrot and stick" method if you will.

Besides, there are plenty of natural resources and natural ports in Somalia that can EASILY make the country rich. In fact, in ancient times, it WAS rich. We are missing a great chance, right now, to make Somalia a real nation (and a great ally to the US).

Everyone loves to think of ways to immediately strike against the enemy, but the real genius is in the person that fixes the issue as a whole.

"If the pirates are boarding at the bow, ho, pray tell, is the rifle team going to be able to see them from the bridge castle at the stern? The entirety of the ship is in the way."

I suspect that boarding at the bow would be extremely difficult if not impossible. But let's say they succeed. They still have to get to the crew or bridge, etc. A little bit of prior planning on the part of the captain/crew would allow coverage of any hatches (now locked and dogged) to the ship's interior by the Barretts. Getting on the boat is only half the battle if they have to traverse the length of it to the bridge. A locked steel door by itself can eventually be defeated. A locked steel door covered by a .50 Barrett is another matter entirely.

The hardware is of little consequence.

What is essential - and generally missing - is the desire to fight back, and let someone else waste his day fretting about the consequences.

Without that mind-set, the Light .50 is just a paperweight.

"To fix the problem, you have to attack the heart of the issue: the horrible economic situation in Somalia. If people there had a hope for a decent future, they would be less inclined to turn to piracy, and less inclined to tolerate those that do. Just like in Iraq, one can win militarily, but only by an effort in state-building can you prevent the next war."

This was already tried once, remember? In general, the people with power don't want help. It's a challange to their power.

I'm not buying.

Hardening the target isn't the answer. Destroying the motive is.

It would be much simpler to bomb the Hell out of just one pirate enclave. Start the op in broad daylight, with CNN nearby & cameras running, broadcasting the news all across the region. Follow-up with gun-camera broadcasts of the sinking of every local pirate floater near that base.

Remaining pirates would make adjustments to career choices.

"The hardware is of little consequence.

What is essential - and generally missing - is the desire to fight back, and let someone else waste his day fretting about the consequences.

Without that mind-set, the Light .50 is just a paperweight."

Exactly! Just like the CCW issue! Not everyone (or even most) has the desire, but that's no reason to take away from those that do.

The problem with your proposal is it costs too little. It does not give chances for "experts" and the "international communities" to bilk the ship owners. Ergo, your simple, cost efficient, anti-piracy proposal will not be adopted.

It's my understanding the only way these pirates are boarding the much larger ships is via grappling hooks. I like the deterrent effect of blowing them out of the water too but why are the ships crew apparently unable to cut the ropes to the grappling hooks to prevent boarding in the first place? What am I missing here?

"Hardening the target isn't the answer. Destroying the motive is.

It would be much simpler to bomb the Hell out of just one pirate enclave. Start the op in broad daylight, with CNN nearby & cameras running, broadcasting the news all across the region. Follow-up with gun-camera broadcasts of the sinking of every local pirate floater near that base."

It is not an either/or situation. Hardening the target does not preclude bombing the hell out of them.

Again, this is exactly like the CCW situation. Having a concealed weapon does not make police obsolete. It merely gives the potential victim more options - such as not being a victim.

Is it just me, or does anybody else find all this hand wringing about "making sure they are pirates, before we shoot" just a little inane? What legitimate reason would a small boat have for approaching a merchant ship? Yes, upon occasion there will be engine trouble and/or a medical emergency; but I would venture to guess, that on most occasions, when you see a fishing boat speeding toward your ship, it isn't because Achmed's appendix just blew out. Besides if the "pirate ship" goes down with all hands, exactly who would be left to complain? Enough of those "incidents" and I'm sure legitimate Somali fisherman, would decide that - discretion being the better part of valor - it would behoove them to move away from - rather then toward - any approaching merchant ships.

We can armchair this all day, but the pros are already on the job.

Max Hardberger is not just a Freighter Captain, but a maritime lawyer. Quiet work doesn't always get noticed except by the bad guys.

Arming the vessels seems like a great solution. So, why hasn't anyone done it? Because according to international maritime law that makes the merchant vessel a war ship and is against the law. Next solution please.

If noone can stop piracy, then the citizens of the United States should do it.

Oh, the US government would stop it, in our home waters?

There are several strategies. Each with a countermeasure.

Step 1. Arm merchantmen. That is the method proposed. Countermeasure: pirates move to armed warships.

Step 2. Convoys excorted by warships. Countermeasure: Separate warships from convoy members with mines (WWI and WWII torpedoes were a form of hasty minefield)

Step 3. Secure the Coastline. This is what stopped the Barbary pirates. Spain, France and Italy took over the Moroccan, Algerian and Tunesian coasts. Countermeasure: Gurrilla war against the occupying powers.

The author is proposing a modest, affordable, available, proportional response to the current dilemma of piracy.

It will work. Night-vision optics handle the only other eventuality.

Ending poverty in Somalia??? I seem to remember that this has been attempted several times. I don't think the pirates have exhausted all their vocational options before trying piracy. It is an opportunity and they made a choice.

A large ship is much more stable than any ship the pirates will have access to. A few trained marksmen with .50 rifles can defeat any boats that would hazard a trip alongside the ship. They pull up beside you and you shoot holes in their boat, motor, and friends. They will find something else to do.

Oh yeah the next solution. Small fixed wing aircraft with longer on station time patrol the AO and call for Helo gunships to respond to incidents. Small units attack the mother ships. Small units attack the coastal enclaves that host the leaders. Improve pirace issue and do not diturb the anti-terror petri dish being run in somalia. www.strategicservicesgrp.com

During WW2 the allies used "Q" ships, armed merchantmen with guns hidden behind folding rails. They were very effective in countering U Boats in the Atlantic.

No doubt about it, the "nays" have it. We can't beat them. Might as well just surrender to the superior culture. At least no sensibilities will be offended.

Here is a textbook example of why seagoing vessels should be manned by a lawyers' draft. Once there was juried proof of the attackers' intent, you all could squat and pee on them. Or, to be safer yet, in their general direction, after a urine test. Here's hoping your automatic door locks fail someday, and you get to "to business" with such "businessmen." Be sure to carry a copy of all relevant treaties.

Right now piracy is just an annoyance to shipping firms. Introducing armed countermeasures just ups the ante and forces the pirates to come up with better training, better tactics, and introduce a level of terror on their part to "serve as an example". This gives Al Quaida an opening to create/solidify relationships with the Somalis who are doing this (those who have the money to invest in piracy - hence those who have money and power in that country). It could turn Somalia into another terrorist base camp and give Al Quaida practical experience with attacking maritime traffic - experience they would use.

Bill, you are just a decade or so behing the times. Somalia is already an Al Q base camp. the rest of your reasoning is adolescent.

Joan of Argghh!: We can armchair this all day, but the pros are already on the job.

Yeah, the professional repo men. "Kidnapped crew members? Ha, ha! Yeah, we're vessel recovery, pal. Read the fine print. And call the Marines."

Did you even read that website? Moron.

"Arming the vessels seems like a great solution. So, why hasn't anyone done it? Because according to international maritime law that makes the merchant vessel a war ship and is against the law. Next solution please."

A couple of Barrett .50s hardly make a vessel a war ship - except to anti-gun international lawyers.

Again, this is exactly like the national CCW issue. Except here it's IANSA, et. al. and the UN mandated treaties parralleling the anti-gunners and state laws forbiding "shall issue concealed carry permits". The real fight is not with the pirates, it's with the international anti-gun factions - and just like the CCW fight it will take years (or decades) of fighting to change. BUT, IT CAN BE DONE! It just takes will and persistance. In this case, on an international scale. First step, withdraw from the disarmament treaties or negotiate an exception for non-fixed weapons. (I'll admitt this is unlikely.)

The fault with all of these plans is that not one of the governments involved has the will to implement any such plan. If they did they could send in their navy to sink every single motorized craft along the coast in this area. Probably a two or three day exercise for the USN.

Would you sink innocent craft, sure but there were lots of innocents in Berlin as the allies bombed the place flat. And what would the local, nonexistent government do about it anyway? There would be an international flap but within 90 days no one would remember it except for the locals.

As for the idea of using subs, do you guys know how much a single modern torpedo costs? Of course that didn't stop Clinton from blowing up camels with cruise missles.

Here's an idea that covers all bases. Put four CROWS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Remotely_Operated_Weapon_System) mounts on outriggers; one port side and one starboard, fore and aft. Same basic idea, but when you sail into dangerous waters, they drop four operators,the control packages in suitcases, along with M2s and ammo. Give the operators a cabin, they setup the guns, wire the control packages, and wait. A suspicious "fishing vessel" makes a high speed run at you, you warn them off once, then you button up the ship and the operators go to work with the CROWS. The pirates have nothing to shoot at, so they can pepper the exterior with small arms fire for all you care. And with two on each side even a lucky hit on a weapons mount means you're still boned. At the end of the danger zone, lift off the guns and the operators.

"...Introducing armed countermeasures just ups the ante and forces the pirates to come up with better training, better tactics, and introduce a level of terror on their part to "serve as an example". "

Bull. This was another anti-CCW argument that never panned out. And just like the anti-CCW argument the proposed solution is to submit to terror in order to prevent terror. In other words "just lie back and enjoy the rape and maybe they won't kill you afterwards."

In the Straits of Malacca entire (unarmed) crews and ships have mysteriously vanished no doubt killed by pirates as they seized the ships. They just wanted no witnesses.

All these excuses for proclaiming preemptive failure - "We can't do X because pirates will do Y to counter." - are a sign of mental illness. If you ran your whole life this way you would never get out of bed.

I think a lot of people here are missing the point. But, a few of you get it.

Where there is a will, there is a way.
Including stopping pirates completely.
There is absolutely NO WILL here.

It's a cozy little deal.
The insurers charge big time.
The "shippers" reqard it as a normal business expense. Their customers pay the tariff.
Nobody cares about an occasional ship.
It's just aother business expense, just not real predictable.
The ship's crew of "little people" is expendable.

Hey, I wonder if the insurers hired the pirates ?

I don't think "fixing" the local economy will stop the piracy. Remember, the guys are Islamic, and in their culture it's perfectly acceptable to extract money from the infidels.

Next time a pirate skiff comes alongside your freighter, accidentally drop a 70-pound cast iron pump housing overboard.

Oopsie!

So far I have not heard an obvious choice. Micro convoys of 5-6 ships on the same course and retrofitted Hughes 500 choppers. If a 100' yacht can house one of those choppers a 5-600' ship should have no problem. Each chopper has a 2 pilot crew for rotation purposes. Now you have reduced the headcount. A MaDeuce is mounted for defensive purposes.

If an encounter occurs the chopper is launched and engages the 'fishermen' at a distance. At the end of the convoy run the chopper takes off and picks up a convoy going back the opposite direction.

www.oddtodd.com/IFC-Pirates.html

The problem is not the Ak 47s, whose effective range is 300-400 meters, but the RPGs whose range is in the 1 KM area depending on warhead. Also, radar, (instead of or in addition spotters)available cheap commercially, would probably be required to spot pirates at appropriate distances, at night and during foul weather. The radars can be put on "Auto pilot" to sound alams when small surface vessels approace at distances at 1KM or closer.

"To fix the problem, you have to attack the heart of the issue: the horrible economic situation in Somalia. "

That is a load of BS.

We've had horrible economic conditions throughout large parts of the world since before recorded history. Yet despite that, we had a modest period where piracy was a thing of the past in most places.

The problem with Somalia isn't poverty, it's anarchy. (also responsible for the poverty, I might add) The solution for piracy is the same as it has always been; KILL THE PIRATES. When more take their place, kill them too.

There is no excuse whatsoever for a bunch of barbarians with AK's and RPG's in speedboats to be seizing our merchant vessels - the only reason they manage it is because we don't allow shipping the tools and ability to fight back.

Speaking of RPG's, they're the real problem. They have a much longer effective range than anything short of a M2 .50 cal MG. Solution? .50 cal MG. .50 rifles are probably not going to work well enough from the deck of a ship. Crews should also have a few 12ga shotguns on board.

A lot of you people obviously have never had to deal with use-of-force decisions, especially the "you can't just shoot at everyone who comes within 1000 meters!" crowd. BS. Of course you can - there is NO legitimate reason for some dinky-ass motorboat full of somalis getting within 1000 meters of any oil tanker, container ship, private vessel, etc. Simply fire warning shots so they turn their ass around. If they don't turn around, KILL them. Period. End of story.

You can't open up on an unidentified vessel; that is against the admiralty law and makes you a pirate yourself (barring being a warship or equivalent, EG a privateer with valid letters of marque and reprisal). Once they threaten you with weapons, of course, all bets are off. But until then, they're at most a hazard to navigation. This isn't UN international law, this is good old law of the sea stuff.

Keep in mind the goal - it's not to kill pirates, it's to prevent pirates from boarding the vessel. Killing them will do that, all right. But how politically/legally feasible is it?

Once they're on the ship or demonstrating the desire to board, they're fair game. They're also likely either in the shadow of the target vessel or on board in an envirnomnet that has decent cover and shares a lot of similarity to MOUT.

The crew can secure the bridge, engineering, and other critical spaces against intruders, *if* they are aware the vessel has been boarded. The appears to have been one of the reasons the pirates left the Maersk Alabama from some reports. But modern merchant vessels have really small crews - not enough to keep an eyeball watch on all portions of the ship. This is why they don't just cut the ropes upon being grappled - the crew may not know they have been grappled. And technical surveillance means have to be weatherproof against the maritime environment, one of the more rugged environments possible (salt air is incredibly corrosive). Small craft are notoriously poor radar targets (as small-craft sailors discover fatally every year when they get run over).

So what can a large cargo/tanker vessel do to prevent the pirates from boarding? As I suggested upthread, make it difficult to impossible for the priates to climb aboard. A 6' to 10' sheet of metal slanting up at 45 degrees from the side of the ship creating a long overhang. Sharpen the edges (there's some safety issues there, but I can think of a couple of ways around) such that a rope will be cut through if the rope is being used to climb up. They'll need to be removable, of course.

BTW - I cheered (literally yelled "whoo-hoo" when I saw it on CNN) when the USN popped the identified pirates. I'm a gun owner and a proponent of both CCW and open carry. But no CCW advocate that I know of champions the "right" to shoot someone who is approaching you.

Somercet said:
Yeah, the professional repo men. "Kidnapped crew members? Ha, ha! Yeah, we're vessel recovery, pal. Read the fine print. And call the Marines."
Did you even read that website? Moron.

Somercet, guess you missed the section entitled SHIPROTEK ANTI-PIRACY SERVICES? Were you looking in the mirror when you said moron?

"The problem with Somalia isn't poverty, it's anarchy. (also responsible for the poverty, I might add) The solution for piracy is the same as it has always been; KILL THE PIRATES. When more take their place, kill them too."

I'm all about killing pirates. Don't get me wrong, I was hoping the authorization would be issued to the Navy to blast the pirate "negotiator" and hang his happy butt from a mast. The prosecution of pirates should never be stopped, period.

Not attacking the heart of the problem will only ensure that prosecution efforts will continue indefinitely. Why did we rebuild Germany and Japan after WWII? Because the root of the problem (a regime dominated by militaristic individuals) was the problem. Not solving that would ensure we would, once again, be embroiled in yet another war. Sure, we could win again, but at the cost of yet more lives and money.

We did go to Somalia. And it actually was working (aid to the people was arriving, and we were slowly chipping away at tribal power). However, we had an incident in Mogadishu, and instead of staying the course (like we did in Iraq with the Surge, push through Fallujah, etc.), we bugged out and tried negotiations (which don't work with totalitarian regimes). The Ethiopians kicked the Islamic Court Union out in 2007, but didn't stay to finish the job. Fixing the issues in Somalia will take a long time, but the longer we keep putting half-ass measures towards it, the longer the problem will persist.

No amount of armament will stop piracy. They'll get cagey and find ways around it. A concerted effort to fix the problems at home that cause piracy in the first place, coupled with continued enforcement of anti-piracy laws, are the real solution.

"...No amount of armament will stop piracy. They'll get cagey and find ways around it. A concerted effort to fix the problems at home that cause piracy in the first place, coupled with continued enforcement of anti-piracy laws, are the real solution."

More anti-CCW rhetorical straw men. Of course you can't stop piracy - and your suggested "fixing the problems at home" won't stop it either. But, just like CCW, allowing ships to protect themselves will almost certainly reduce it somewhat (especially to those who defend themselves). Just like Lott showed that CCW has a general effect of reducing some crimes, I'll bet the same general effect would happen to piracy if ships were allowed their version of "CCW".

The real solution is actually "all the above" - including allowing ships to carry firearms.

There is only one thing hindering progress. Will.

Let me suggest that it is important to sink the pirates' vessels rather than leave them afloat for others to find and recover. There are weapons, bodies etc on those vessels that should not come back into the pirates' possession. Do I have any pity for the families of the pirates? About as much pity as the pirates have for the families of those who man the merchant vessels; that is to say, none.

I am a sailor. I say the only good pirate is a dead pirate.

Google" "fishing trawler submarine." Submarines are a serious menace to little boats who even just happen to be in the vicinity. A sub diving or surfacing, with little effect on the sub and without requiring the use of torpedoes, can sink a well made trawler, let alone a Somalian one.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/15/us/captain-of-trawler-testifies-on-collision-with-submarine.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2002813.ece
http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0347/D.0347.198402090020.html
Also we know who some of them are:

I'm kind of partial to using these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weaponry

These items, as a rule, won't kill. However, they'll likely be a major boon to the Somali hearing aid industry. Somali pirates may not fear death, but the thought of being deaf, dumb, and dependent for the rest of their miserable lives would undoubtedly put the fear of Allah into them.

One of the big problems here is that the owners and insurers are mainly just looking at the balance sheet. If there were a law that the ship owner and insurer were required to exchange themselves as hostages for the crew, then a solution for this piracy thing would be found real fast. (I realize such a law is impossible)

And personally I think it was disgusting that the American people apparently wanted Clinton to pull out of Somalia and let thousands in that country die, just because we lost a dozen soldiers. It's despicable to stand by and watch people die in a situation like that when you can help with such a minor sacrifice.

I am a merchant seaman, of twenty years' service before the mast. I worked for Maersk Line limited for 5 years.
Before my seagoing career, I was a Marine Infantryman.

You don't need single shot .50 cals.

You don't need rotating rifle teams.

All you need are some second-line M60 7.62 machine guns and a few shotguns so that the crew can defend themselves.

That's it.

You can't engage a vesel until it shows hostile intent, if they'd be dumb enough to lob an RPG at us, that would work...same with busting caps from an AK.

But if they don;t do that, you must wait until they throw a grappling hook on you to stream their vessel alongside and attempt to board you.

That is the moment when they are at their most vulnerable../they need to climb a vertcal steel wall, (in medieval warfare, this was called an "escalade").

That's when one of the crew will most effectively pour plunging fire down onto them and their boat.

If by any chance any of them make our decks, then the rest of the crew gets to hunt them with the shotguns, while the two machine gunners on the bridge wings give covering fire.

Shouldn't take too long...this is OUR home.

Arm the crews and keep the lawyers off of our backs, because I for one, don;t intend to leave an "educated enemy" alive to tell his chums that they need to change their tactics.

Piracy will cease when the lads who sail out to go a piratin' are never seen or heard from again.

Get a grip, folks. Not every political or foreign policy discussion is about domestic gun policy.

The thing is to escalate things beyond their 'tab'. With privateers and pirates, the cheap, easy pickings are early, when a fishing boat filled with men can come alongside a merchantman and take it.

As merchantman armament goes up, so does pirate armament, to the point that the pirate needs a cruiser-type to take a merchantman. And that leaves the pirate vulnerable to naval forces. It is the difference between a mugging and a bank robbery

From reading The CIA factpage, various Wikipedia entries, and other historical sources I learned that Somalia, otherwise known as The Horn of Africa, is basically a European invention.

The total arable land is only about 1.64% of the desert dirt they live on, and from time immemorial it has suffered from *intense* "competition" - over water, pasturage, and cattle - with the most frequent outcome being famine. "Competition" for resources (killing) that was previously carried out with spear and sword is now conducted with modern equipment: AK47s and RPGs.
Since its total collapse into anarchy in the '90's, "relief" aid doesn't get to most people but is taken by various regional warlords who declare themselves "the government." The UN relief missions constantly have their aid supplies stolen, and their history is on of miserable failure. One aspect/clan group dominates Mogadishu is a pretend "Government" - one that a large part of the rest of "Somalia" doesn't acknowledge but Europeans do - that holds Gubbmin't meetings in neighboring Kenya because it has no ability to conduct itself in Somalia.

The country is about eight or so different regions, divided by family and clans, with alliances that go back to prehistory, and it's run by a bunch of clan warlords with militias who currently dominate and support the pirate efforts - and keep something like 50% of the ransom profits. The pirates and their militia/warlord sponsors use currency counting machines bought in places like Dubai and Djibouti to count the ransom money, which that is demanded in large denomination US dollar bills and delivered in burlap sacks dropped off the boat for pickup. The currency counting machines are also there to determine true money from counterfeit.

Piracy it's very lucrative to Somalian yout's, and attracts young men with zip-zilch-nada prospects in life - kids who would otherwise never marry or own a car get a shot at the high-life if only temporarily. According to Globalsecurity.org we know who they are, too: four main groups operate off the Somali coast. 1.) The "National Volunteer Coast Guard" is commanded by Garaad Mohamed and is said to specialize in intercepting small boats and fishing vessels around Kismayu on the southern coast. 2.) The "Marka group", under the command of Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siad is made up of several scattered and less organized groups operating around the town of Marka. 3.) A third significant pirate group is composed of traditional Somali fishermen operating around Puntland and referred to as the "Puntland Group". 4.) The "Somali Marines" are said to be the most powerful and sophisticated of the pirate groups, with a military structure, a pirate Fleet Admiral, an Admiral, Vice Admiral and a "CFO."

A good listening ship could follow cell-phone conversations and ransom negotiations, and a submarine crash-dive or surprise-surface could probably swamp and sink a mothership trawler. It just needs a little elbow grease to get 'er done.

Bill Haverberg, actually in this case it is. The UN and other Internalists have been pushing for the elimibation of small arms by all except the Military. They would be, and actually are, against ship being armed to protect themselves.
You are supposed to run to Mother UN for your protection but of course they have to discuss it first and we'll get back to you.

As stated there is no reason a fishing boat would have for getting within 500 yards of a tanker or merchant ship. Fire a warning shot over the bow, if they so not turn around sink them.

"Bill Haverberg, actually in this case it is. The UN and other Internalists have been pushing for the elimibation of small arms by all except the Military. They would be, and actually are, against ship being armed to protect themselves."

I agree 100%.

Joan of Aaaargh,

The professionals at the company you linked are essentially doing what's recommended at the low end of the responses suggested here. They put a trained team aboard who specifically assess the threat, warn off the approaching boats, and provide armed resistance if necessary. All the ships crew need do is maintain full emergency speed and secure flammables. The security team are all SOF guys. The armed resistance part wouldn't take long.

No shooting at boats 1000 yards off. No risking ships crew. With all due respect to Bilgeman, his recommended armament wouldn't be allowed on a merchant ship under current law as I understand it. Trained operators who board and disembark while at sea would require only the consent of the ship owner and insurance company. Unfortunately, keeping the lawyers off Bilgeman's back isn't likely to happen. Preventing the sensible response is what lawyers do. With his final point I'm in full agreement.

As far as pirates attacking the security company's base ships goes, a Vulcan cannon and minigun on stabilized mounts on each side should eliminate that threat. If Congress decided to issue a Letter of Marque and Reprisal to the security company then such weapons would be legal. A Vulcan could saw off a trawler, or even a small captured merchant ship, at the waterline while the minigun kept the pirate crew from doing anything about it. A couple of TOW launchers and a supply of missiles would help. It would take an actual warship to overcome that kind of firepower, and such could be targeted by legitimate naval forces.

If the US wanted a piece of the action, building and crewing several Raptor squadrons would be cheaper than maintaining naval forces. Kenya and Ethiopia have hosted our forces in the past. The area involved is too huge to get full coverage 24/7/365, but full coverage of unpredictable several hundred square mile areas is doable. With Raptors cruising at 50,000 feet for a full day each on station, the pirates would never know if they were under observation. Not until the missiles hit. Ships being trailed by speedboats could radio for help and flash a strobe distress code. A Raptor could see the strobe from well over 100 miles off and be on scene in minutes.

To restate Bilgeman's point, if pirate ships start simply not returning it'll get pretty hard to find crews for new ones.

The .50 cal rifle "solution" isn't a solution a tall, because sniping at distance on the open sea with small arms is next to impossible because of the bobbing of the shooting platform and target.

The SEALS were able to take out three pirates at close range (ie 25 yards) in part because of the relatively close distance, but largely because their training involves extensive shooting at sea to accustom them to that sort of shot. Most shooters can't hit *ANYTHING* at extended distance, let alone something with as demanding a weapon as a .50 cal rifle at distance.

The "solution" here is pretty simple, and its hardly novel. . .it worked reasonably well for a few hundred years.

You permit ship crews to arms themselves and exercise deadly force in self-defense against pirates. You also restore piracy to a capital offense, like back in the "good old days".

Now, neither of these things will entirely eliminate piracy, but they will raise the "cost" of piracy to the point where much of it is discouraged.

Oh, yeah, the ultimate solution is to establish a workable government in the country in question: an area that has never had one in recorded history and is no more than lines on a map surrounding a bunch of quarreling, utterly amoral warlords hidden behind hundreds of human shields.
And as for "giving them jobs," I'm sure the pirate warlords raking in $10mil a month will gladly take a job laying cinderblock as a replacement for that.
A good faith attempt to inform local ships that they will be blown out of the water if they get within 1000 yards of a cargo ship is fine by me, thanks.
Of course, we can always play by Marquess of Queensberry rules and lose. That seems to suit a lot of people just fine.

Fundamentally, I agree with you. I would just say that the proper weapons would be dual or even quad mounted .50 caliber machine guns rather than rifles. The point here being to sink the pirate craft or kill their crew and then sail off. The idea that merchantmen are forbidden from using deadly force against pirate attack is an absurdity. You start blowing these pirates out of the water and they will find something less dangerous to do. If there are legal difficulties with this I suggest that the lack of survivors would hamper idiotic prosecutions, and even when there are suvivors, they are hardly going to be in a position to file a complaint now, are they?

With as much publicity as this has generated, I'm surprised that Al Qaeda and other militant publicity hounds haven't horned in on the action. When they do this may be a good way to lure some of these really bad guys into an irrestible trap.

Agreement on the solution to piracy ... we find that there IS a winning combination!

The more this is discussed, the more logical and SIMPLE the solution to piracy becomes. The "problem" is ONLY complicated when political correctness is allowed to intervene. Ships at sea hold a longstanding "tradition" of the right to self defense and safe passage for crews, passengers and cargo. So why then does the argument get tossed back and forth like a badminton shuttlecock? The author of this post comes as close to any I've read for the solution! But as I've written before, the ideal solution is a combination of military personnel and firepower.
http://novus2.com/wordpress/?p=4493

All you armchair admiralty lawyers need to slide back up and read Bilgeman's 10 May 2009 15:52 comments.

I can see only three problems with Bilgeman's solution: 1) It's simple, 2) It's inexpensive, and 3) It's brutally effective. Sorry, 4th problem, the suggestions were made by someone who apparently knows what he's talking about.

Bilgeman is absolutely right - if small arms are permitted to the crew. Which IMHO they should be. I was merely working from the premise that the staus quo would not be upset (no arms permitted to the crew). We both identified the time of maximum vulnerability for the pirates; when they attempt to come aboard.

Reading all of the above comments leads me to the following conclusions:

There should be a simple Rules of Engagement: Any AK or RPG seen on any
small boat within 500 meters makes it an automatic target.

All crew members should be trained in the proper operation of small
arms, including but not limited to: pistols, rifles, shotguns, and
fully-automatic, belt-fed weapons.

If fire teams are to be deployed, then 3-4x 2-man teams should be used,
operating with semi-auto rifles in a caliber no smaller than .308,
preferably .50BMG (for anti-materiel purposes) or fully-automatic
weapons in the same caliber range. The fire teams are to be inserted
before and removed after transiting the area where pirates are known to
operate. No weapons in port unless authorized by the authorities in that
port, and locked/sealed in a weapons locker on a mother ship (see below).

The cost of the deployment of the fire teams should cost no more than
the annual cost of the ransoms.

There should be a consortium of shipping companies and insurance
companies that would be coordinating and funding. They would also do the
scheduling of teams and rotations. The shipping companies should provide
a couple of ships as "mother ships" for the teams.

Letters of Marque and Reprisal should be sought from all countries
involved. As you know, most ships aren't US flagged, but are flagged
under US friendly countries.

Messages should be broadcast over all the local broadcast radio
frequencies, and over the marine radio channels regarding the Rules of
Engagement, in the local languages, to inform the pirates they they have
the potential of ending up on the bottom of the ocean.

I have a friend at work who is a fellow transplant from the South, and we are constantly joking about the beating the terrorists would take if they ever had the poor judgement to bring their war to the Appalachians. He suggested we charter a red-neck cruise with a BYOG (bring your own guns) policy, and go sail back and forth along the coast of Somalia, trolling for pirate attacks. I'd bet on a bunch of good-ol-boys on a mega-yacht with shotguns and high-powered rifles against these idiots in speed boats spraying AK's everywhere any day of the week.

The objection of some seems to be that any armed response will be met by an escalation on the part of the pirates. That is not a bug, it is a feature.
If the first few months of armed ships causes the pirates to escalate, then we use the next step, and add cover from Predator/Raptor drones, and then we go to Q ships. The Q ships could be run by USN crews under Naval authority, solely to entice pirates into attack. An older merchant vessel, or fleet auxiliary of transport/ oiler type, armed with a single Vulcan mount and a set of 4 quad fiftys, with Marine crewman, would be relatively inexpensive to run for a year or so. If the pirates try to upgrade to handle that, we simply authorize a few "auxiliary cruisers " with heavier armament, and send them in supported by a littoral warship. When the pirates quit bringing in funds, the number of new pirates will drop quickly.

A few facts that concern ROEs and Mother/Q ships and some of the other ideas floated here.

First, there are perfectly valid reasons for a small vessel to approach a merchant ship, constricted waters being one of them. This is the case in that other hotbed of piracy, the Phillips Channel near Singapore.

There are also vessels that will approach you to ask for water or assistance, or to sell you fake Rolexes and bootlegged DVDs...among other things.

And then there are dummies who have more money than sense...try taking a ship down the dredged channel down the Chesapeake Bay on a sunny and windy Sunday morning and dodge the doofuses in sailboats who infest Annapolis and its' nearby waters. The bridge watch prays that the sail crowd doesn't learn the "Tonnage Law of Navigation" the hard way...

So blasting holes in a boat 1000 feet away is going to put you in a heap of trouble, but fast.

That's why you wait until they fire weapons or try boarding you.

On to mothership "flotels" for goon squads. The vessel I am presently on is being chartered and used as a "Flotel" for approximately 250 oil rig workers to the tune of 250k dollars a day.

This does not include the rig rats' wages or the food they are consuming, not the fuel we burn or the travel involved, (helicopters)m to transfer personnel to and fro from the mainland.

That is a considerable cost. And you will have to have two or more of these, one on each end of the transited area, with a third vessel on standby to spell the lead two when they have to make port, (and they do)...we expect to be on station out where we are, (about 200 miles south of Houston), for 9 months...with breaks for hurricane season, when we'll run for port or stand out to sea.

We are being resupplied by smaller OSV's (Offshore Supply Vessels), bringing out fuel, food and spare parts...each of those vessels has a considerable day-rate of it's own.

And finally, we come to wages. I have a shipmate aboard now who is tring to get such a company off the ground:

(http://www.maritimearmedsecurity.com/),

He will be charging the shipowner $1,000 a day per man, with a minimum of 3 man teams aboard.
The men, depending on experience, will be sseing about $600 a day, and these will mostly be combat arms veterans with experience roughly analogous to my own.

So that adds to the "mothership" overhead.

All these costs would roughly be the same for a "Q"-ship, except that it will burn more fuel, having to be faster in order to pursue, and the cost to the shipowner of mounting and maintaining armament.

But all this is the second and third steps in the evolution, and we cannot even get to the first and most effective step...arming the phucking crews.

Now when it comes to up-gunning, I've always been fond of WWII-era 40 mm Oerlikon "Pom-Pom" guns and 106 mm recoilles rifles with beehive rounds,(but then I'm an "old-school" type of guy).

Oh, and someone above mentioned a TOW missile...they don't work well at all over salt water, the water shorts out the command wire and your missile goes anywhere but where you're aiming it.

"Speaking of RPG's, they're the real problem. They have a much longer effective range than anything short of a M2 .50 cal MG."

Uhhhh not really. People who talk about the "effective range" of an RPG are mostly people who have never fired one. I have. It is extraordinarily difficult to hit a stationary target at 1km with an RPG, even when the shooting platform is not stable. Now add a pitching deck...

So the "effective" range of an RPG is more like 500 meters, or less. (While we're on the topic, in untrained hands the effective range of the AK-47 is likewise shortened to about 200 meters.)

At 1km, even a large merchant vessel is a small target -- about the size of a matchbox seen from the side. Also, unless there's an extremely lucky hit right at the waterline, the damage from a single RPG hit is easily survivable by today's large merchant vessels.

The M2 has it all over the RPG, because it's a machine-gun, and the volume of fire more than compensates for any inaccuracy.

Finally: I'm not interested in the opinions of the Powdered Wig Department as to whether armed resistance to piracy is legal or not. If lawyers all had their way, we'd never be able to do ANYTHING, let alone slaughter a few pirates who need killing anyway.

Time for a few Q-ships to put to sea... in the hands of privateers, not governments.

So, why hasn't anyone done it? Because according to international maritime law that makes the merchant vessel a war ship and is against the law. Next solution please.

Posted by: Brad Lowe

I call bullshit.

Post the text of a US congress ratified treaty that actually says this ( and not some UN mandated bilge ).

American citizens still have the right to keep arms on board their own vessels.

Kristopher:
"American citizens still have the right to keep arms on board their own vessels."

Sadly, this is not the case.

When you sign the articles and legally join a ships' crew, you are then in the tender mercies of Maritime Law.

Fairly analogous to joining the Armed Forces and thereby being subject to the UCMJ.

The poster you quoted is essentially correct in that it is international law that limits, (but not prohibits), the number and the caliber of weapons that a mercant vessel can carry.

In this, as in other things, it is the product of lawyers that place us in the ridiculously suicidal position of having to defend ourselves with firehoses against automatic firearms.

There doesn't have to be any treaty that effectively prevents crews from being armed - it's the laws of the harbors that do that just fine, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Putter aaround all you like outside of territorial waters with firearms (though please note that such waterways as the Straits of Malacca are NOT international waters per se) as long as you don't come within 12 nm of a country that forbids private ownership of firearms and display intent to touch their shore. (I'm unclear on whether their government forces can stop and search if you are not presumtively approaching the shore). There has been more than one case of an american yachter coming to grief by innocently assuming that they can leave their (perfectly legal in the US) handgun on board their ship in, say, Bermuda, and getting busted under Bermuda's notoriously draconian gun control laws.

Admiralty law much predates the UN, and it's generally pretty simple. Launching unprovoked attacks means you're a pirate, and navigating a vessel close to another is not an action justifying response with deadly force. As long as there are blankets in the world, good luck seeing the pirate's weapons until they decide to unmask. Until then, they're fishermen or boating enthusiasts out for a cruise in eel-infested waters. Which is not a crime or evidence of fell intent.

In your plan you forgot to kill the pirates.

That's correct; inasmuch as the crews are currently not permitted the means to do so. If that changes, kill them all you like - as long as it can be shown they are pirates (and mere proximity isn't good enough).

Recommission the New Jersey, shell the ports, villages and hidey holes.

All jokes and bravado aside, the age old solution is the only way to deal with this - go in, kill everyone, burn the villages and camps, and salt the earth.

Ian Argent:
"If that changes, kill them all you like - as long as it can be shown they are pirates (and mere proximity isn't good enough)."

I'll tell the Bosun that he and the boys won't be making any overtime washing down the decks where that blood and gut-spatter is...but he ain't gonna be happy about it!

On a serious note, though, in order to prove that they were pirates and trying to board, you would need video of the event...and that means you're demanding that some poor schmuck, (and that would prolly be, uhhh, me), bring a videocamera to a gun-fight.

I'm not requiring you kill them either. Though I would think that having a somali body on board a couple hundred miles from shore would be enough evidence...

Anyway, I suggested starting wiht passive anti-boarding measures such as overhangs that will make it quite difficult for the pirates to board.

I say a 20mm Oerlikon cannon on the freighters would be extremely effective. Hell, you should probably just mount a few mock up gun turrets around the ship and the site of what likes look a big auto-cannon would probably make them think twice.

Ian Argent:
"Anyway, I suggested starting wiht passive anti-boarding measures such as overhangs that will make it quite difficult for the pirates to board."

Overhangs, huh? That's a bit of a job of work when you consider that an average container ship or tanker is about 750' long,(1500' feet unless you plan to install an overhang on only one side), and to weld enough plate or pipe to both make a meaningful overhang AND to be sturdy enough to withstand the maritime environment is going to mean using a bit of rigging and a LOT of structural welding...and all this is assuming that said overhang woun't impede normal but vital ship operations...like mooring.

Guns and unlimited bag limits on pirates would be waaaay cheaper.

Bilgeman:

Private property always trumps the second amendment. If you OWN the vessel, and keep it completely privately owned, you can arm it.

If you don't own the vessel, you only board if you submit to the owner's demands.

( I am sure that there is a whole load of regulatory crap in addition if you are officially flagged as a US merchant and involved in the US federal apparatus ... I will bow to your expertise there. )

Ian:

We have already recognized earlier in the thread that local regimes can make unreasonable port use demands, part of the thread was about ways to avoid this crap.

I objected ( quite rightly ) to your contention that arming a vessel was "illegal". It ain't. Owning an armed vessel may be unlawful in Europe or some third world craphole, but arming a US flagged vessel is just hunky dory under US law.

I doubt any passive measure will be effective in preventing the pirates from boarding. Given the what they make at this business they could probably get helicopters if need be. They probably don't already because it's just not needed. A sharp overhang could easily be defeated with something like a 20 foot steel leader on the grappling hook. They could also use magnets or adhesives to stick on hand and foot holds. They could probably fire spikes even into thick hulls if need be. If a single ship has a particular odd countermeasure then it would likely defeat the pirates. But if a large portion of ships have the same passive countermeasure, then the pirates will likely figure out an inexpensive way to counter it.

I think if I were sailing in dangerous waters I'd have myself a dry suit, fins, radio, GPS, food and water, a small raft with a sail, and maybe an air tank to get out of the prop turbulence and escape from the pirates underwater. Then I'd go overboard when the pirates got on board and wait to get picked up by the navy or another ship or I'd sail to shore.

Passive countermeasures don't have to be cheaper than guns - they only have to be cheaper than the ransom. As for defeating them:

Helicopters require pilots, are maintenance nightmares, and haven't got nearly enough range for the purpose. They are also easily spotted by naval forces who can then vector their own aircraft on the bogey.

The point of the overhang is to make it difficult to impossible to scale the side of the ship. These are NOT skilled climbers with an unmoving cliff beneath them. Cutting the ropes by friction on a cutting surface would be nice; but unless the pirates are frigging spidermen, I submit that crossing a 6'+ sheer surface *upside-down* is practically impossible, esp when it is moving in 3 dimensions. Make it non-magnetic and just rough enough to defeat suction-cups and you've beaten the movie climbing gear as well.

Cost - using a random metal supplier on the internet, I came out with roughly $5 USD per square foot for 20 gauge steel sheet. That's USD$45,000 for 1500' perimeter at 6' out. Round to USD$50,000 to include for support struts etc. And they only have to be mounted on a ship that's about to transit a pirate-threatened area. $50K in one-time cost and a little maintenance isn't a terrible lot of money for this.

(Now, Bilgeman's gonna get on my ass about having to chip and paint the things...)

As for the Second Amendment, what of it? It only protects you in the US, and as of today, you'll get nailed for having an AR-15 on your boat when you sail into Port Elizabeth. (God willing and the creek don't rise, that will change in the next year or so once the 2A is incorporated). Even once it's incorporated, it will never let you carry into Singapore Harbor, Hong Kong, or Frankfurt. Upthread someone discussed the economies and logistics of supporting the defense teams on an ocean-going base. It avoids the legal hassles at fairly high cost - possibly more than the cost of the ransoms to the shipowners.

In a more perfect world, the crew would have the means to fight off pirates. Even if we could put arms lockers on the ships today, though, they still wouldn't be able to engage the pirates until they start to throw the grapnels; which means that it is still to the pirate targets' advantage to have somethign that will inhibit the pirates from boarding.

...These are NOT skilled climbers...

But with the stakes involved here, they will become highly skilled if they need to. If they need to, they will likely come up with creative solutions that you and I can't even imagine.

Yet you didn't even seem to address the idea that I mentioned of having the first twenty feet of the rope be a steel cable or chain to resist cutting. They could then go straight up the rope and cable and then stick a small strip of metal over the sharp edge and climb aboard. Where is the difficulty here?

Small cheap helicopters too expensive? How about ultralights with floats launched from the mother ships and landed on the decks? Or small rockets to boost them up a couple hundred feet and then parachute down onto the ship. You've got to think outside the box here because with what the pirates are making here, the pirates will, even if you don't.

There has been a lot of claims that the rules of engagement don't allow firing on the pirates until they attempt to board. I don't see a problem there. If you're in pirate infested waters and a boat approaches to within a few hundred yards from the side or rear, then I think that qualifies as reasonable cause to fire. Every fisherman out there ought to know better than to do that in pirate infested waters. If there is a boat up ahead on an intercept course, the situation is a little more difficult but still manageable. If the boat is far enough ahead you change course to avoid it. If it changes course to intercept you then that is all the reason you need to fire. Some warning shots might be prudent. It's not likely you will face a lawsuit or murder charges, but do court procedings scare you more than being taken hostage?

Isn't this why the whole walking the plank system was originated? If the pirates repeadtedly do not return home, I think it would make fresh recruits more difficult to come by. If any started actually making it back from their enforced swims, some aversion therapy in the form of keelhauling might turn out to be an advantageous addition before the swimming lessons commenced. Heck, it might even knock a few barnacles off the bottom which would decrease drag and therefore fuel usage. Feeding endangered sharks while simultaneously saving oil,HMMM, maybe I should write to GREENPEACE.

Why do you yanks always think that you have to solve the world's problems?

If you are serious, just cut out your aid and medical supplies to Africa, and let AIDS take them out in ten years. Problem solved.

It's about time you guys, us Aussies and the Brits backed off and let the eurotrash and asians carry the load for a while. We aren't the world's policemen.

Roger Williams:
"Isn't this why the whole walking the plank system was originated?"

The modern and preferred term is now "eco-friendly pirate recycling".

It sounds "green"...that's a big, big deal now.

Helicopters and ultralights? Really? High-maintenance monsters that require skills not found in the fisherman's skillset? And that's a reason to attempt to harden the target at all short of arming up and shooting anyone who comes near you?

These pirates are not members of COBRA, and they're not James Bond. Piloting a helicopter is HARD. Maintaining it in a culture that considers mechanics work degrading will be quite difficult (That's not my opinion; read any staff study of Arab and North African armies - they don't *do* the maintenance thing). Vertical envelopment using a helicopter is a special-forces thing to do in the US for a reason, it's hard and dangerous. Much more so than climbing a rope or rope ladder braced against the hull. Again, not something a somali tribesman has the skillset to do (and not a skillset easily acquired).

Also, helicopters are hard to hide. Any ship hosting them is going to come in for a LOT of scrutiny from the various naval vessels patrolling.

Finally, freeclimbing a rope dangling from a 6'+ overhang is MUCH harder than being able to go up that same rope when you have the hull to brace against (or even an accomodation ladder left in place). if the last 10' or so of it is a steel cable; that's even harder. Also, making the 20' of header steel makes it MUCH harder to grapple due to the weight of the steel cable vs climbing rope.

Look, I'm not saying passive defenses are the perfect answer - they're not. But they don't have to be; and they don't preclude other, more active defenses (which themselves aren't perfect. An Active response requires constant vigilance). If and when, down the line, crews are allowed to arm themselves, they can stand to the firing port nearest the grapple point and shoot the poor bastand trying to free-climb the line. Until then, the can take bets as to whether he'll make it, and take cutters to the grapple line without being exposed to fire from the pirates.