Nothing I do is as hard as wait around for a spouse who is at sea. I wouldn’t be a ship’s master under any circumstance. I bow before you.
I have a dead serious and simple question. What is wrong with the idea of a M-60 machine gun on each boat, to repel pirates with? Keep it in a locker, mount it on a rail when need be. Keep it locked up in port, some kind of licensing deal will need to be worked out, I’m sure. But it’s simple enough, should sink the small boats, and crews generally have some warning they’re about to be boarded.
I think the effective range of a M-60 is about the 500ish yard effective range of a RPG.
I’m not saying it’s the best solution, but I’m trying to see the downside of a single weapon like that.
Edit: I wish we hadn’t donated my great-great-aunt’s diary to a museum. There was a quote or two I’d like to share about her life. Her husband was a carpenter on a clipper ship… and she never knew what he faced till he came back. If he told her.
For one, you’re never 100% certain that whoever is approaching you is going to try to take the boat until maybe they get really close. At which point you’re in a gun battle. The attackers will just strike at night then.
And you can certainly stock most ships with a gun but then you need to have at least one person on every ship who’s willing to kill someone. You also have to get around the laws regarding armed ships at ports in different countries and such, even if the weapon is ‘stored’ when not in use.
Also, where do you mount this gun? Front, back, port side or starboard? The little speed boats they use are very manueverable so I’d imagine they can stay on the side of the ship that the gun is not on.
I think if you start arming the ships like that then you’re just going to have a continuing escalation of force between the ships and the pirates and the end result will be that people start dying/ ships get sunk instead of the relatively peaceful piracy that’s going on now.
I guess you didn’t read the previous pages. Many reasons why this is not advisable/feasible has already been given.
Uncommon: Rail mount. Just bolt it to the appropriate side of the ship’s rail when needed.
Mighty: I did, but I thought most of the discussion was about lighter weapons, with arguments about licensing and about range. I’ll re-read.
While I imagine the end result would be similar, I almost think just ignoring the pirate ships could work. What are they gonna do, start sinking the ships or killing crews? They’d piss off pretty much the entire outside world, and be empty-handed.
One of those things that I imagine the odds are good, but I sure as hell ain’t going to be the one to try it first.
How many captains do you think you would find that when threatened with death are willing to answer “go ahead and kill me and see if I care”. And how many freight companies who would rather lose a ship than pay the toll?
Anybody know what actual damage an RPG does to a reasonably sized merchant?
To a merchant of any size, quite a lot of damage. To a merchant SHIP, probably not that much. All RPGs do is essentialy punch smallish holes.
I have a question for the knowledgable:
What ransom amount would be the tipping point between financial action and mlitary action?
Sailor is likening the current pirate actions to a “cough” in an otherwise healthy person. Perhaps the pirates should ask for a cool $1 billion for the next big ship they take? $10 billion? $100 billion? Why not?
How is the current attitude of “pay 'em off – it’s worth it” not leading directly and quickly down a slippery slope? Pirates are human – they’ll eventually get greedy and more extreme in their actions … won’t they?
And if the payoff costs are invariably worth it … why aren’t pre-payments just being made directly to the pirates so that ships don’t need to get hijacked?
None, sailor, which I alluded to in my last sentence.
Also – does the game change if outlaws start pirating ships in, say, New York harbor?
If that’s a problem because it’s within U.S. territorial waters … does the game change if pirates start attacking the Atlantic shipping lanes between Europe and the U.S.?
In that case (NY harbor), it would probably be easier to deal with. NY has the Port Authority, the NYPD, the Coast Guard, and US Navy all within easy reach. There would also be no diplmatic mess to deal with, it would probably be treated as a law enforcement and security.
There are a few jails within easy “commuting distance” too.
I think the key to the whole game is they must pirate a ship close to Somalia so they can use that coast for the exchange and then hide amongst the peoples. You can’t do that in most any other country. Plus, the mother ships need to be close to Somalia too. Else we’d blow them out of the water - they’d stick out like a sore thumb.
It’s possible to board a vessel underway without the coerced assistance of the crew. Once they’re aboard, pirates would be pretty tough to ignore.
And kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? They get steady money on a regular basis this way. Asking for too much, to the point where the cost is no longer worth it to the company, is a sure way to upend the current situation, which is working pretty much perfectly for the pirates.
They won’t overstep themselves for the same reason they won’t kill crew or treat them badly. As soon as it becomes worse to cooperate than to resist, the crew will resist (or the company will hire security), and the goose stops laying eggs.
This is what I alluded to earlier in the thread. I wouldn’t really be surprised if the pirates got organized and started working this stuff out with the shipping companies ahead of time. But I don’t think that will happen unless and until the pirates get the resources needed to know whose ships they’re going to attack ahead of time. I don’t think they really know right now, do they? They just grab whatever ships pass through their territory, then find out who to bill afterward?
:shrug:
Maybe not tomorrow, but eventually … how could they as fallible humans resist? Power corrupts.
The goose today can lay 20 golden eggs per attack. Why not ask for a little more, like 21 eggs? Perhaps they’ll keep inching it up?
To put some of this into perspective, let me remind you that piracy is not exclusive to this region. In fact Somali pirates are pretty benign compared to other areas, Southeast Asia for example. There have been reports of ships completely disappearing (as crew and ship not heard from again) in some regions. While it is believed that the ships are kept and used I don’t know but just guess what happened to the crews.
Ships receive frequent piracy reports from the world over, so that they can keep an eye open depending on where they go. Haiti and the Dominican Republic have reported a few cases of piracy, in the neighborhood, but basically this have been confined to ships anchored nearby.
Whichever policy, agreements or laws have to take these other cases into consideration too.