I still think a ‘master of arms’ position on a ship and a M-249 or equivalent in a secured container would deal with 9/10 pirate issues. But I am assured that arming craft is unwanted by the sailors and by any government that has a port, so that’s right out.
Maybe a ‘convoy’ where the ships get escorted by speedboats? Or something similar? We just need one guy with a good gun on any boat. Maybe they stop at point X, sailor gets on, grooves through to point Y, gets off again?
I dont think that you need to go the whole hog of converting a Merchant navy ship to heavy weapons just chopper in armed soldiers to at risk ships while they are at sea(Before they’ve been threatened) and they wont have very much difficulty taking out the untrained gangs on boats.
These people are opportunists,they’re attacking ships because its easy and comparitively risk free not because they’re poor starving,hard done by unemployed fisherfolk.
Once it becomes a practice that isn’t so risk free they’ll be deserting the piracy business in droves like the rats they are.
Any worries that uparming potential victims will cause a resulting arms race are a little absurd,the pirates are limited by training and availability as to which kinds of weapons they can practicably use in their crimes and unlike Afghan or even Iraq there is no terrain for them to hide behind.
I already suggested convoy in another thread. The thing about convoy that’s hard to wrap your head around is that it’s offensive, not defensive, in nature. It puts all the targets next to warships, so that either the warships get to attack the raiders or no raid takes place.
Yes, it’s costly and laborious to organize, but if you want to nullify the pirate problem, it’s vastly cheaper and easier than a ground invasion of Somalia.
I agree with the Q-container theory. But I also agree with the concept that we need to level the shorelines as well. If the infrastructure supporting the pirates isn’t there to begin with, the problem disappears.
Q-ships failed completely in WW2 - not least because subs no longer risked surfacing to sink by gunfire, they just torpedoed them.
The chances of encountering one would still be vanishing small, given the volume of shipping traffic out there.
I think there are three solutions to the pirate problem.
As Glee suggests, fixing Somalia will go an incredible way to stopping pirates.
Private Maritime Security. Each boat that so chooses has a paid, vetted and certified armed dedicated security force aboard. Once within statute limits, the security forces hand off the safety of the vessel to the naval forces or coast guard and stand by in a craft off shore until their ship returns. if the ship is to be in port for several days, provisions at each port for security vessels must be made that the weapons be secured by local authority or left in the craft while the security detail is tendered ashore.
UAV Patrols. Start with 5 UAV’s make one of them armed.
Ditto on points 2 and 3.
If the merchant ships themselves could operate UAVs, they could scout for pirates ahead and steer clear as well as report their position to naval patrols and other merchant ships. Arming them would be a little more controversial, but worth considering, as attacking pirates from over the horizon would nullify the escalation issue.
You really haven’t been reading this and the numerous threads on this topic before this one have you? Because it seems we just keep going around in circles. This has been addressed many times before. You no clue what you are talking about and I am not about to repeat the explanations which have been given repeatedly. Please inform yourself before just blurting the first stupidity that comes to you.