OT – Errrrrrrr Pirates

[Hornblower]

My opinion, which I will not attempt to force on anyone is, do what the USN did in the 1820-30’s in the West Indies under David Porter – eradicate the problem..

[stuman]

After thinking about it, I think maybe I see the point Dixie's dad might be making. These particular pirates have, as a rule, not been harming seamen. So a merchant sailor, given guns by his ship owner, all of a sudden is putting his life at risk for the sake of cargo.
 
So let the world's various navies deal with it. Which I bet they will do eventually.

[LST Express]

This sort of thing must just be an annoyance to the shipping business. When piracy elevates past annoying, then things will probably change.

[mikemike]

@ rtrapasso:

... for instance, the guys that boarded the German naval tanker the other day were set free...

They were not set free, they were turned over to the Kenyan authorities for prosecution, Germany having an agreement with Kenya covering this procedure as the question of jurisdiction in such cases is apparently quite thorny.

@ Hornblower:

Captain William Bainbridge must be spinning in his grave.. "out of the pirates range of fire."

Those pirates are often armed with RPG-7s, and what an RPG can do to an AEGIS destroyer with a lucky (or competent) hit is not pretty. (Just look up what the Royal Marines on South Georgia did to an Argentinian frigate with a Carl-Gustav). I don't know what replacing an AEGIS array would cost, but surely, if Bainbridge caught an RPG into its electronics, the first thing the Board of Enquiry would ask would be, "Couldn't you have kept out of range?"

Concerning the arming of Merchanter crews:
It's a typical U.S. knee-jerk reaction to most problems to just give everybody in sight a gun, but

- given that the pirates are usually armed with AK-47 and RPG-7, the weapons would have to be assault rifles or, more probably, machine guns. Crews would have to be trained in the use and care of such weapons, and the legal problems, even in the U.S., would be interesting
- Merchant crews nowadays are cut to the bone numerically for economic reasons and might find themselves outnumbered, especially on smaller ships
- on many merchant ships, most of the sailors will be from countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and similar countries with low labor costs; arming those crews might generate a more serious threat to crew and ship than the pirates
- if you arm merchant ships it won't take long before some trigger-happy guy will turn, say, a boat full of harmless Kenyan fishermen into a sieve. Blue-on-blue incidents are no rarity even among professional soldiers. I'll let you imagine the consequences.

You might, of course, hire mercenaries to do the job, but if you look at how those "security advisers" took the US and Iraqi governments to the cleaners, it might be more cost-effective for the shipping companies to pay the occasional ransom.

You also risk triggering an arms race: the pirates are not short of money, and Africa is not short of arms dealers; pirate boats might quickly sprout heavy machine guns or even 20/23mm cannon, making civilian crews think twice about offering resistance.

I think the only way to counteract the Somali pirates is use the classical methods: put all civilian shipping in the threat area into escorted convoys, best have armed helicopters in the air over those convoys at all times, helicopters seeming to be an effective deterrent. Preemptive hunting of pirate boats raises the problem of identification which seems not to be trivial.

In former times eliminating the bases was effective, but there are no civilian authorities in Somalia that could be coerced to anti-piracy measures, and the pirates are sure to have the support of the local population. I also can't imagine any country being eager to go into Somalia after the way the USA burnt its fingers in the Somali mess (see Black Hawk Down).

[Curty]

ORIGINAL: Hornblower

My opinion, which I will not attempt to force on anyone is, do what the USN did in the 1820-30’s in the West Indies under David Porter – eradicate the problem..

With what measures available to you at the time, ( in other words, reading over what people have said,in this thread)

We have a situation that may have been handed over to the Naval Commander responsible for those local waters. The government is saying to you (to avoid POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS IN CONGRESS) (in other words its Congress that is handing the problem over to you as local Naval Commander in that part of the world,and anything you do is your responsibility!(Which, incedentely wipes the BLAME from them). Basicly the secretary of the Navy has come to you with 'its over to you fat boy' , but if you f*** up its your rep on the line, your entire career, whish no-doubt you have spent your entire naval life building up with great respect from all those concerned could all of a sudden come crashing against the rocks of public concern from the national/International community!

What a situation you are now in, such as we as 'armchair Naval commanders' in WITP on average never give any concern to!

HOW MUCH WOULD THAT MAN LOVE TO TO BE THINKING WHEN HE WAKES UP THE NEXT DAY...OK SO ITS JUST ANOTHER TURN IN PBEM.SO I MESSED UP MY PREVIOUS TURN..BUT THERES ALLWAYS TOMORROW TO CORRECT THE SITUATION!

Over to you....

[2ndACR]

We got burnt in Somalia because the politicians would not allow us to go help our guys because of the "civilian casualties" that would entail. Because every person with a gun between us and our guys would have been blown away without hesitation. The media has a hard time seperating true civilians getting the heck out of dodge when the bullets are flying to the "civilians" who are engaging us or helping to engage us.
 
I know alot of soldiers who would love to go back to "skinny land" and take on anyone packing a gun.

[mikemike]

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

We got burnt in Somalia because the politicians would not allow us to go help our guys because of the "civilian casualties" that would entail. Because every person with a gun between us and our guys would have been blown away without hesitation. The media has a hard time seperating true civilians getting the heck out of dodge when the bullets are flying to the "civilians" who are engaging us or helping to engage us.

I know alot of soldiers who would love to go back to "skinny land" and take on anyone packing a gun.

Soldiers are often gung-ho about riding into battle, but I think the USA has its plate full enough at the moment dealing with the mess in Iraq, the quagmire in Afghanistan, and, if we're really unlucky, the catastrophe in Pakistan, to engage in any large-scale ground operations in Somalia. To stamp out the piracy tendencies, you would have to occupy half the country and try to establish local authorities able and willing to suppress anyone tempted to go pirate, and that would be a darned tall order - neither Indonesia nor the Philippines have managed to do that.

edited: removed inflammatory statements

[TOMLABEL]

ORIGINAL: mikemike

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

We got burnt in Somalia because the politicians would not allow us to go help our guys because of the "civilian casualties" that would entail. Because every person with a gun between us and our guys would have been blown away without hesitation. The media has a hard time seperating true civilians getting the heck out of dodge when the bullets are flying to the "civilians" who are engaging us or helping to engage us.

I know alot of soldiers who would love to go back to "skinny land" and take on anyone packing a gun.

Soldiers are often gung-ho about riding into battle, but I think the USA has its plate full enough at the moment dealing with the mess in Iraq, the quagmire in Afghanistan, and, if we're really unlucky, the catastrophe in Pakistan, to engage in any large-scale ground operations in Somalia. To stamp out the piracy tendencies, you would have to occupy half the country and try to establish local authorities able and willing to suppress anyone tempted to go pirate, and that would be a darned tall order - neither Indonesia nor the Philippines have managed to do that.

edited: removed inflammatory statements

You under estimate the capabilities of the US - heck, even the capabilities of France, GB, Italy, Greece, Israel even. In order to stamp out the piracy stemming from Somalia, you would not need large scale ground operations. A few small nice raids in-country supported by one carrier (if you even needed that) would make them think thrwice about pirating again along with a concerted surface naval threat.

It's so easy, so easy that it was done before, and yes, even before that....

T

[2ndACR]

Nope......do not have to any of the above.......I have no problem with mass punishment.......pirates head to certain cities.......take out everything in those cities........Nation building is a waste of time and money.......they want to live in a cesspool then they have that right.......they want a working country, they can take on the thugs and build one.......I will help, but not do it for them......but when that crappy lifestyle infringes upon other's.......then they deserve whatever happens to them.

Iraq and Afghan was both done wrong........do not nation build.......go in do the deed (kick butt etc), throw someone in charge, inform said person "keep your looney's in check or I will come back and repeat the process". I do not care if it takes them 50 years to dig themselves back to the "prewar" level they were at. Sooner or later, they will get really tired of a few looney's causing them grief.

Watched it happen in Iraq.......we got hit by a IED and lost 2 soldiers.......nearest city (which was about 1/2 mile from site) suddenly lost power, was harrassed for everything until they handed over the bad guys.......they never did hand them over, but 1 week later 5 perps were found outside the town dead. We never had a problem from that town again for the rest of our tour.......I have patrolled many a town in Iraq and you can tell when the bad guys are in town or nearby just by watching the people......(note, most of the small towns classify any new people bad guys)......this town had about 1500 people in it, those 5 thugs scared them into us lossing 2 good people, but a heavy hand......no one went out of that town due to our patrols, and the people got really tired of it.

But, yes, we (the USA) has our plate full right now........but last time I looked, there are alot of other countries out there, besides the USA.

Edited.......this is in response to mikemike

[06 Maestro]

ORIGINAL: bobogoboom

But "guns are evil"[8|]

No no, not guns, but fishing skiffs. People don't hijack ships, skiffs hijack ships-ban fishing boats[:D]

[Hornblower]

call me stupid, but does how does one get redirected

[06 Maestro]

A first step should be to blast one major suspected pirate port to bits-not a dock, pier, or significant dingy left. It could be an excellent direct fire exercise for the navies. If there is another incident of piracy, then turn two additional ports into ruble and so on. At some point the people will reject the ill gotten goods from their former pirate heroes. If they do not, then in a short time it will be academic as there will be no more boats left.
Of course, this plan will have all the do gooders whining about the lack of humanity of it all. Just what is the solution offered by the do gooders anyway?

[Dixie]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Dixie:

It won't save lives, in fact it would have the opposite effect in all probability.

Terminus:

If civilian crews are armed, hi-jackings will NOT stop, and the violence level will escalate. In all the ships that have been taken so far, how many casualties have there been among crews (hint: not many)? How many do you think there'll be if you up the stakes?

There's plenty of evidence to the contrary regarding human nature and human events (including piracy). But in the interest of avoiding a political discussion we can agree to disagree, eh? [8D]

Sure we can agree to disagree, in answer to your post and to expand on a few more further along in the discussion...

So far the pirates have mostly been using their weapons for show. If merchant ships are armed then you have to assume that the weapons will be used, this means the pirates will have to fight to capture their targets. If they're having to fight then (a)they'll get bigger wepaons and (b)they're going to be a bit peeved when they do capture a ship (and it's WHEN, not IF) and angry people are likely to lash out against the nearest targets.
Plus there's the fact that a 40 man ship (depending on the company) might have half a dozen European/Australian/American officers, the other 32 crew will be poorly paid guys usually Filippinos. I'm not saying they're all potential pirates, but what's going to stop 32 armed men deciding that hijacking their ship isn't worth the millions of dollars they could earn when the only thing stopping them is 6 guys?...

Deep six the pirates by all means, but military action against the pirates should be left to the military. The various navies of the world are trained to fight, a merchant sailor is trained to operate a ship.
Arbritarily deciding to blow a 'suspected' pirate haven to pieces is going to help how? Before anyone calls me a whining do-gooder more concerned with human rights etc, I'll point out that a large part of my employer's work involves dropping nasty things on nasty people and I agree with what they do. You can't just wander around blitzing a village, or two, or three because pirates might live there.

[Curty]

Are you taking the F**Kin piss or what?

[SS Hauptsturmfuhrer]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Well, I can only comment on the fact that crews who have been asked about it have said "no thanks", and the people crying out for arming them aren't going to be there themselves.

This attitude really seems strange to me. I don't own any guns now and there are no plans on my desk to ever get one, but on a merchant vessel under the threat of piracy, I'd take any weapon I could get and fight like an unpaid whore to stop the bastards.

On the flip side, knowing there are still pirates roving about on the high seas does add mystique to an ocean that no longer sees the epic naval conflicts of past eras.

[rtrapasso]

They were not set free, they were turned over to the Kenyan authorities for prosecution, Germany having an agreement with Kenya covering this procedure as the question of jurisdiction in such cases is apparently quite thorny.

i had read of the Strategy Page (military) news that they were in fact set free... so, not sure what is going on here.

[Dixie]

ORIGINAL: Curty

Are you taking the F**Kin piss or what?

No. Are you?

[NefariousKoel]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Okay, will this thread be clamped before the end of page 1 or not? Place your bets!

Or somebody else could "forget" that this sort of thread is seriously frowned upon, and start yet another one...

Yeah, in the same way it sounded good when US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently said that he hoped the US Congress could rise above parochial interests and do what was in the country's best interest.

My point being the same as usual... people are morons.

I consider myself "people" as well... And if you didn't catch that, then thank you for proving my point. Again.

I don't know why you were crying thread lock. Your nonsense is the primary cause. Troll.

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: Dixie

ORIGINAL: Curty

Are you taking the F**Kin piss or what?

No. Are you?

Unfortunately, I suspect he's not...

[Yogi the Great]

ORIGINAL: Hornblower

My opinion, which I will not attempt to force on anyone is, do what the USN did in the 1820-30’s in the West Indies under David Porter – eradicate the problem..

I agree!

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