Somali Pirates hit a new high... er low
 

Stunning act of piracy

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,453030,00.html

If I was a pirate, I'd seriously consider that as a potential target. Or maybe Abramovich's luxury yacht. Taking care to avoid the missiles and other defence systems he has set up on that thing.

This is the biggest heist so far ... the Saudi's are not going to be happy.
They could even cut off Kenya's oil supply for this one.

Whatever happened to that russian ship loaded with tanks anyway?

Isn't it stunning how civilised we deal with the problem?

If it were up to me, some fast attack boats and frigates, some missile-armed helicopters, and blazing guns and flying vampyres whenever a pirate contact pops up on the screen, gets reported, gets sighted, or a home port and a home village of pirates gets identified. Problem solved.

Instead the german frigates: seeing an attack, observing while being forbidden to do something, anything, and then writing a report. That is what I call superior civilised ROEs! :up: The effect of deterrence is immense. And keeping precise record of one's own failure is important.

I wonder if they send the pirates maybe even a weather update, to make sure they safely make it back to port, those poor and handicapped little fellas.

Sounds like a nice hunting ground for some Little Birds armed with FFARs. What else for do we sent combat units into the region? For just writing reports? That could be acchieved with a rubber boat of the city police and a traffic cop with binoculars as well.

Politicians... :damn: :dead:

Still anchoring at Eyt (pirate home port).

Time for the UN to ask for naval support from a coalition of countries and start doing convoys.

Actually the title should be:
"Pirates go to new (ship) lenghts"
:rotfl:

Re convoying, the problem with that is that international maritime trade is a merciless business. Some pilots of airlines complain about underfunded maintenace and low wages, in merchant traffic, these are standard.
Ships and crews are pretty much considered expendable, all the more because most of the ships are second hand and most of the crews are not from the same country as the owners.
Convoying would cost shipping companies more than losing the odd ship and crew to pirates.
Also, these ships are usually flagged under cheap flags. And as far as I know neither Liberia nor Cyprus are renowned naval powers.
Also, the great shipping companies like Maersk or HAPAG-Lloyd are not the ones to lose ships.
HAPAG ships give Somalia a wide berth and move quite fast, above 17 knots. At high seas, a Dhow or RHIB will have trouble catching them. Not to mention that for those companies, neither ships nor crew are expendable, some of them even register their ships under their national flag(!).
It is the bottom tier of maritime traffic that suffers, and those companies do not have the political leverage Maersk, P&O or HAPAG have.

One of my first responses would be: If a port is identified as a pirate haven and is used once for that purpose, it would be bombed.

I too support military strikes against these guys. We need to send a message of cruise missiles and bombs to these guys and reduce their speedboats to matchsticks.

We also need to get a LOT more multinational armed patrols in the area. Maybe even set up a "no trafic zone" where any vessel under a certain size will be terminated on sight.

Arent we already doing something like that? Combat units we have in the operation's area. The problem is the ROEs. the Russians for example are allowed to open fire, as far as I do know (not sure, though). that'S why the mere fact that they were going in was enough to scare away the pirates trying to catch the Saudi freighter. especially the western navies seem to have ROE that bind both their hands on their back.

wasting cruise missiles on tiny nutshells worth 100 $US only is a waste of money. As I said, CAS with FFAR and autocannons would be sufficient. eventually a Hellfire for those tough guys raising their RPGs at helicopters. One should get a deal with the Americans that they station one of their helicopter-carriers in the area and establish a pattern of area-covering air pastrols. Ships and nations trafficking through the area could be taxed, like a toll station on the highway. I do not see why America should pay for such an operation alone.

Skybird Im supprised at you, what about the enviromental impact? :hmm:

If the Somali government (and I use that term loosely) can't stop these guys, A multi-national colaition should go in there and wipe these guys out. Safe havens and ports that support these guys need to be bombed. Pirates need to be taken out. Shipping companies have to stop paying ransoms. Special Forces should be kept in that area specificly for taking these guys out. Convoys with proper ROE's need to be utilised. We need a few multinational aircraft carriers there to provide constant air patrol, also with proper ROE !
Lets see how they like it whenever they try to hijack a ship and their port gets turned into a burning heap !

According to this Royal Navy Marines were recently engaged in a shootout with pirates were stupid enough to shoot at them (Russia may also have been involved). Also:
- The Indian Navy around Somalia may be using a different RoE than Western navies involved.
- An older post (I didn't see it on the front page and didn't dig for it) has a merchant captain's account of coming under attack by pirates and a NATO P-3 dropping ordinance on them.

PD

There is none worth to be called that. The place is a true anarchy.

Hm? You mean 20 liters of gasoline, most of it burning after the nutshell was hit, maybe poisoning the ocean there?

Must....not....romanticize pirates...*strains*