Hijacked Ship's Captain Dies as Pirates Demand Ransom

[Sonarman]

Tensions are running high in the battle against the Somali pirates (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=apbj3AxPXEGE&refer=africa).

[Frame57]

Perfect scenario for a Kilo class sub to angst the bloody pirates....

[Skybird]

Why sacrificing the innocent crew of that ship? Angst the pirates by flattening their not so innocent homevillages where their loved ones live - so that they must fear to get kicked by their own people if they carry on.

[Blacklight]

Ufortunately, a huge portion of these pirates are the law enforcement people being funded by their own government. There have been several times after hijackings/ransoms that the officials who came to investigate were reccognized as some of the people who did the hijacking in the first place. :nope:

I think they need to send some special forces in for some covert Rainbow Six style action personally. These career pirates need to be taught a serious lesson. They've taken over 60 ships this year and most of the time, the shipping company just pays the freakin' ransom!

[Kipparikalle]

Well, this is going to end soon anyways.

The American Destroyer is holding up the ship until the Russian battleship arrives.
Now THAT should scare the crap out of the pirates.

On the sidenote; the ship is reported of carrying T-72 tanks, I wonder what the Pirates are actually up to...

[Jimbuna]

looks like quite a lucrative business they've set up for themselves :nope:

Time to shut it down :down:

[August]

Why sacrificing the innocent crew of that ship? Angst the pirates by flattening their not so innocent homevillages where their loved ones live - so that they must fear to get kicked by their own people if they carry on.

I rarely agree with Skybird but he's spot on here...

[joea]

Why sacrificing the innocent crew of that ship? Angst the pirates by flattening their not so innocent homevillages where their loved ones live - so that they must fear to get kicked by their own people if they carry on.
I rarely agree with Skybird but he's spot on here...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Burning_of_the_uss_philadelphia.jpg

http://symonsez.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/tripoli.jpg

Hint: Shores of Tripoli, Barbary War. :know:

[Skybird]

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/5251/cbu87largecl3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

hint: distance weapon, type: CBU-87/B CEM area ammunition for destruction of soft targets. No land invasion needed. :know:

[Jimbuna]

Just as easy...send a Tomahawk or three:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-109_Tomahawk

[Skybird]

Just as easy...send a Tomahawk or three:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-109_Tomahawk

Too expensive. There is no hightech defense you need to defeat or evade. And no point target, but an area target.

[August]

Hint: Shores of Tripoli, Barbary War. :know:

So you think we'll kick their butts and force them to accept tribute for their hostages? :-?

[bookworm_020]

Time to bring back the Q ships!

[UnderseaLcpl]

Wouldn't ninjas be the obvious solution? ;)

[Sailor Steve]

Isn't that an oxymoron? I mean, if they did the job the way ninjas are supposed to, it wouldn't be so obvious.

I think.

Or maybe I don't.:-?

[HunterICX]

Time to bring back the Q ships!

And Flower Class escorts!
let them pirates know why we SH3 players fear them :p

HunterICX

[Konovalov]

It's no surprise that maritime war risk charges are going through the roof on certain sea lane routes and destinations.

Ninjas are oh so 80's.

All future SINKEX excercses should now be held off the east coast of Somalia with the pirates providing live moveable targets. Almost forgot. Rescue the hostages first. :arrgh!:

[baggygreen]

I genuinely don't understand what is going on behind the scenes here.

Twice in the past week the world's largest shipping companies have condemned maritime security efforts by naval forces in the region, and they have pleaded with nations to actually start doing something about the pirates.

Yet, in the same news story, they mentioned an attempted attack by pirates on a bloody USN underway replenishment ship! dont worry the pirates weren't harmed though, the USN only fired warning shots.

Warning shots. when an enemy is attempting to engage and board you.

Whats really going on? Why are their rules of engagement so obviously restricted? We had navies going a-pirate huntin back in the 19th century, lets do it again! maybe us subsimmers can put together a pool and give a prize to the navy who sinks the most pirate skiffs!

[XabbaRus]

See if I had a freighter going there I'd have it armed with a 20mm cannon hidden away and blow the pirates up.

The evidence sinks......

[joea]

Hint: Shores of Tripoli, Barbary War. :know:
So you think we'll kick their butts and force them to accept tribute for their hostages? :-?

Errr no, was only thinking of the "kick their butts" not tribute. :-?

Checks history - oh snap.

Let's just kick their butts, or do the Tomahawk or CBU thing...so this:arrgh!: -> :dead:

[Blacklight]

Most of those ships are huge and get boarded at night so the Q ship idea or putting big guns on the ship would probably be a bad idea that wouldn't work.. and they usually have from 15-20 people on board those big ships. There's no way that that few people can patrol that ship end to end all night and still keep that ship running proper. Usually, these guys board and take the crew entirely by sturprise. They also usually have schedules from somewhere a lot of times that tell them where a certain ship will be and when. That to me kind of points to their countrys' own governments' involvement in some way. That kind of detailed information would be pretty hard to get without it.
The only way to handle it would be armed escorts to watch the ship from all sides as it went through the danger zone, but there simply isn't enough money allocated to do this and we can't expect help from the problem countries. We can see what kind of help they're being (Sometimes the government officials are members of the gangs and actually order or partake in the attacks)

[CCIP]

The only solution is to make their trade unprofitable to them.

Personally, I think some sort of program of sting operations here might help. Disguise a few ships and put some marines aboard. At the same time, use satellite reconaissance and all other possible data to trace where these attacks could be coming from. Put key points in the area under constant surveillance. When there is enough data, conduct strikes and other special operations.

[nikimcbee]

I wonder if they would fall for a Q-ship? Wipe them out. Sounds like a great job for the spetsnaz or Navy seals.

[CCIP]

I wonder if they would fall for a Q-ship? Wipe them out. Sounds like a great job for the spetsnaz or Navy seals.
I don't think a "q-ship" in the traditional sense would be it - in this case, having a sizeable armed contingent of marines or some such remain below decks for several days would be enough. I don't think the pirates would stand any chance, facing a superior force on an unfamiliar ship. Otherwise I don't think there'd be much of a point of having anything else on the ship - a pirate "mothership" would probably be well out of range of a simpler weapon system, and it'd be pretty unwise to spend so much money modifying a freighter into an ASuW platform that probably wouldn't be very reusable (if at all) - the pirates would catch on. And even having a nuke shadow the "q-ship" might be too much to really be worth it. Besides, those are busy shipping lanes and tracking the exact "mothership" might be impossible on the spot anyway. That'd be a task for longer-term intelligence.

[UnderseaLcpl]

I say let the shipping companies deal with it.

If they care, they can arm their ships or employ (limited) private security forces. If they don't, whatever, they'll change or go bankrupt.

There is no need for any government to be involved in this other than to allow the sale of weapons systems and to allow hiring of armed security personnel.

[fatty]

I say let the shipping companies deal with it.

If they care, they can arm their ships or employ (limited) private security forces. If they don't, whatever, they'll change or go bankrupt.

There is no need for any government to be involved in this other than to allow the sale of weapons systems and to allow hiring of armed security personnel.

If only the impacts of maritime piracy was confined within the shipping agencies. The highly globalized nature of modern shipping means your ship may have a cargo being sent from a shipper in China to a receiver in Denmark, on a ship registered to a company in Panama, crewed by Phillipino nationals. An attack on that ship instantly assaults the interests of at least four different countries. I borrow slightly from Thomas Hobbes and believe that if sovereign nations cannot secure the safety of their people and property - at home or abroad - they are not really sovereign nations.

Spin off a Clausewitzian 'centre of gravity' approach here. Pirates are able to be pirates for two reasons. First, they're mostly dirt poor (we're talking dollars a day), and the value of a typical TEU exceeds that of the average American family's annual earnings. These multi-million dollar ransoms that are paid are even more lucrative. So pirates have huge incentives for gains that cause recruits to line up in droves to escape their crushing poverty.. Second, they don't have many risks to contend with. The warships are there, but current international law forbids them from pursuing pirates within the territorial waters of a nation, and obviously most nations that are host to pirates don't have the abilities to secure their own shores.

So how do you defuse the centre of gravity for modern pirates and reverse the high gain / low risk state of affairs? For reducing gains, maybe someday countries like Somalia will be developed to the point where new work opportunities will be more attractive than being pirates. Seriously, though, people need to stop paying ransoms for cargos and crews. That instantly knocks out the easy gain incentive. Increasing risks is easier to swallow. I don't think arming civilian shipping is a good idea; the costs of equipment and training are prohibitive, and I believe it will lead to much more bloody boarding attempts. Instead, international maritime laws just need to be revised so that warships can pursue these pirates to the ends of the earth and destroy them. Agreements to this end are already being made over Somalia, but they are only a small piece of the pie. Engage all countries with pirate infestations and make whatever concessions you need to in order to get within the territorial waters and wipe them out.

Then you will beat the pirates.