It was 75 feet away in the dark on choppy seas, says CNN.com:
I have to say, I find it deeply satisfying that the President has well-trained, heavily-armed people who can do this kind of thing virtually anywhere around the world. Good riddance to the pirates.
They didn’t parachute onto the ship. They parachuted into the sea with a raft, and the Bainbridge picked them up. I doubt they did it covertly.
Will we ever see the actual footage of the shooting on youtube? You know that there were multiple cameras keeping the boat under constant surveillance.
Would that be something that would fall under the freedom of information act?
One of the few cases where this acronym is not 100% clear from the context! 
I would doubt if it wasn’t covert. Not very difficult. Go in at night. parachute far enought away with the destroyer between the lifeboat and the dropzone. Get in the raft and scoot up to the ship. I doubt the pirates had advanced optics.
My doubts were not because I didn’t think it was possible, but because I’m not sure why it would be necessary. It’s not like the pirates would be able to do anything about it. A night landing would presumably have added to the risk.
Without addressing if it needed to be done covertly, I think the fact that they parachuted in means it was done covertly. If stealth wasn’t desired, wouldn’t it have been easier to helicopter in?
Helicopters have much more limited ranges than fixed-wing planes.
With my little bit of knowledge (just enough to be dangerous) I would say that they probably train more at night than the day. A jump into water with no one shooting at them is practically a vacation. The reason I think they would want to keep it secret is that it would be an unusual event that might frighten or panic the pirates.
They could shoot the hostage. I figured they would go in covertly to keep from agitating the hijackers more than necessary. ETA: Like Loach said. Fuck, I’m a slow typer.
Are there other American hostages in the region that could be endangered because of this mission? I would guess the SEALs do this on a fairly regular basis (relatively speaking) but without so much publicity for that very reason.
The special ops version of the Blackhawk, the MH-60 Pave Hawk, has inflight refueling capability.
There are a lot of conflicting news reports. Several say that a different team was dropped with a zodiac from a C130, and attempted to approach the lifeboat, only to draw fire from the pirates and retreat (presumably to the Bainbridge). The idea of parachuting in seems a little strange, given that the Navy can just shuttle them out in a helicopter. But maybe these guys supposedly dropped in the water are the same ones on the boat. (Or there were two teams in the area – there are supposedly some SEALs on the freighter in Mombasa.
Otherwise, regardless of the term “sniper” being bandied about, it’s certainly possible (and I think likely) that the team were using carbines (m4) or submachine guns like the HK MP5, probably on 3 round burst. A magnifying scope at such a short range is almost a liability. CQB sights also give a much superior ability to re-engage if anything goes wrong. I assume the seals were in a sort of duck blind setup on the fantail. I would think the shot wouldn’t be “easy”, but it wouldn’t be a very low probability shot or they wouldn’t have taken three of them at the same time.
Finally, several reports say the DD was moving around a lot, and maintaining a larger distance from the lifeboat. The FBI negotiators convinced them to send the hand-stabbed guy aboard to negotiate/get treated, by sending a zode to pick him up. The lifeboat was starting to founder during this, so they convinced the pirates to hook up a towing line due to the rough waters. They were probably towing the boat along making steerage, which would have eliminated a little of the relative motion between the boats.
Does this mean we could protect ships by having marine sharpshooters on them? Could a good sniper hit huys approachong a ship, in a speedboat? If we assigned 3 men to eacjh of the 70 or so USA=flagged ships, that would be around 210 men=a pretty reasonable defense against piracy.
Maybe just make it a part of BUDS? Live target practice!
Well obviously arming the crews or putting soldiers on the ships would be a solution…HOWEVER that’s impossible because most companies won’t allow it due to the possibility of mutinies; also most countries will not allow armed ships to port. I’m sure there are many other barriers but those would be the 2 impassable ones.
Pirating is nothing new, it’s been around continuously since man first sailed. It’s just been publicized the past few years due to A) Pirates of the Caribbean movies and B) multiple high-profile attacks in a short time. I don’t believe the amount of pirating occurring is up more than modestly recently.
Can you explain this? Who do you feel is likely to mutiny, and why?
One thing to consider is that the lifeboat was being towed, and would have been inside the wake. The Bainbridge could have maneuvered even further to act as a wave break. So it probably was bobbing up and down a bit less than you would think. Not to take away anything form the amazing shots, but some kudos has to go to the crew of the Bainbridge as well.
Even more fun (just imagine the expressions on the pirates’ faces!): Q-ship - Wikipedia
Putting snipers on board = bad idea
These pirates are pretty rich–they can afford some pretty decent weapons…it would just fuel an arms race. The pirates would get some pretty big guns/rocket launchers & if they came under fire–they could sink the ships. Not exactly what they want, but it would make a point. Plus 3 snipers per ship is woefully short. The typical pirate team is made up of at least 15 pirates.
Also, allowing merchant ships to be armed may sound like a good idea…but think it all the way through. How comfortable & safe would we be if heavily armed merchant ships from various middle-eastern/African nations were allowed to pull into ports in L.A., New York, etc.? Probably not a great idea from a national security standpoint.
I’m under the impression that these pirates already have machine guns and RPGs. I’m not sure how much “bigger” they could go and still maintain their element of surprise, let alone have actual training in handling the weapons.
A boat full of pirates with AK-47s and one man with an RPG is already “better armed” than a few snipers with scoped bolt action rifles. The question is can the pirates fight back at a long distance with any level of competence? I would say the answer is no.
Just as comfortable as I am knowing that we search something like 1 percent of all shipping containers that come into our ports. If someone really wanted to smuggle armed men into America, it wouldn’t be that hard.