Could a Commerce Raider work on the modern Ocean? , What would it look like ?
 

In the modern world, is a 21st Century Commerce raider a viable
way of waging economic war?. Could one maintain a secret cruise
and effectively disrupt enemy commerce?. If So What would it look
like, it seems a no brainer that it would probably take the form of a
chameleon like Cargo vessel that could appear as different cargo
ships under different flags, and stealthy drones with anti ship missiles
seems a good way to go about things, but the question stands,
Could you make it viable on an information age ocean ?.


MM

Somalia.

Street of Malakka.

The last has been tamed somewhat. The first is blossoming.

Perhaps a better question would be how long could a modern commerce raider operate?

Any commerce raider could operate at least once. :)

Also, you should define what you mean by commerce raider. When I think of commerce raiders I don't think of Somalian pirates. I am thinking more along the lines of the Emden. Since you are asking the question, how do you define commerce raider?

Also if a commerce raider's definition includes being controlled by a state government, how would it operate without a declaration of war or a state of OOTW existing?

Or are you thinking of a terrorist type of commerce raider?

It is tough to answer this question without some bounding of the issue.

The biggest problem for any modern commerce raider would I'd think be preventing it's prey from getting off a distress call. Gone are the days of having to warn up the ships only wireless transmitter and tap out a lengthy morse code message before having the antenna shot off by gunfire. Nowadays a simple handheld device can transmit actual live video of the attack to anywhere in the world instantly.

Then there is modern military response times to consider. Air assets can be on site nearly anywhere in the world within hours. Like Platapus said they'd get away with the first attack but would not survive for long after that.

I think he means more like what the Germans had in WWII and WWI a ship looking like a merchant but really not.I think they have used similar set ups in the Straights of Malacca and in South East Asia sometimes.

Of course they both take advantage of looking non-threatening until ready to strike.There was an article some years back in the 90s in Popular Mechanics about the tech that the Malacca/South East Asian pirates based on what captured ones had on them and they had some pretty bad stuff NVGs all kind of things and they also loved to attack at night time.

I saw a doc a while back about South East Asian pirates who are much better organized than the Somalis they seem to know when the heat is on them to find other lines of work where as the Somalis seem totally desperate maybe this is because the South East Asian pirates have been active for 30 or 40 years to some extent and Im sure that they also earn money via other illegal activities.While the Somalis are just kind of running around.

I'd say a German style raider would be overkill when you could achieve the same goal with smaller boats if you want the cargo(at least in SEA)then you can take the ship to a safe sanctuary and take what you want.

And for an official military modern weapon systems make the need for a commerce raider not needed.

Me too, as for effectiveness a worthy anti surface stealth drone
could operate at strategically safe distances from the ship to avoid
implication. just a thought. equipped with heavy jamming may defeat
the victim giving it away.

To be clear this is a Nation Sponsored declared war on the open Ocean
involving Combatants that largely rely on shipping, and by implication
of the question, one of the combatants uses economy of force.


lets call it the unlikely England v Japan. somewhat of a good match

[edit] lets further assume no assets of outside nations.

I'm pretty sure that sounds like a job for an SSN. I don't think there is any advantage for attempting to use surface vessels for the job anymore. Except possibly cost, but that would largely be negated by utter inefficiency of keeping anything on the surface. Any jamming measures would only go so far before it's picked up, photographed, and tracked down. Once it is, no amount of stealth paint and jamming will allow it to hide - a sub, on the other hand, still has some chance to hide. Even subs, which would never be seen or heard by vessels they attacked, wouldn't be immune to eventually being found by enough ASW assets - all they really need to know is a general area of its operation, and they already have a good chance of finding it. But with something that floats on the surface, that chance is 100%.

I think a modern commerce raider would be a small, quiet SSN with special design adaptations for that purpose. I could see an adaptation that would not be designed to fight other subs or carry out land attacks, limiting its armament, sensors and power, but optimizing it for stealth and ability to track and follow surface ships, with non-lethal ways of stopping its targets discretely and some sort of detachable vehicles for boarding/jamming/fire support purposes. But the sub itself would always stand off and remain stealthy.

I would agree here even for a small country it would be more cost effective to operate a few modern diesel subs to raid commerce than to operate a raider.The down side of the raider is once you use it they will figure out that you have it and hunt it down I think it would also be hard to hide the fact that you had one prior to a war starting.

The submarine is the best weapon at hand for attacking commerce shipping because it can truly hide rather well.Another issue against a commerce raider in modern times is how do you hide your guns?In the old days this was very easy but in modern times FLIR systems would be able to see the heat being given off by a hidden weapon system not to mention that the raiders own radar which it would need to search for targets with would give it away as they know what it truly was by the RADAR beams it was sending out(you can tell alot about a radar system by its own beams).

I'd really say that WWII showed that any ship being a commerce raider wont be successful for very long the Germans famously even used warships in this role early in WWII and we all know how that turned out in the end.

The combatants would have to be two fairly small nations militarily speaking for a commerce raider to be viable and only be targeting locally owned shipping.The other issue is the rest of the would be concerned about their own shipping interests and have their own naval forces in the region to protect their interests.

I think it speaks volumes about the viability of a surface commerce raider that most nations wouldn't even consider a diesel submarine viable as a raider on the high seas, at least against a sophisticated enough foe. Having to snorkel every once in a while is already considered enough of a liability for detection on the high seas... That and the inability to get out of an area at high speed underwater really do compromise even diesel subs, unless their raiding grounds are narrow, shallow seas with lots of places to hide.

Another idea: a large, well-equipped, stealthy (VTOL?) seaplane - or maybe even an 'ekranoplan'/WIG aircraft may well be a viable commerce raider. Again, it'd probably be a platform that would stand off, launching fire support and boarding parties from afar, but it could be a way to target and capture ships on the high seas before any sort of help can arrive. Actually, I think that could have been a role well-suited to the Caspian Sea Monster, assuming it could sortie undetected or loiter somewhere far at sea...

How safe would a surface raider be from satellite reconnaissance? I realize that it might be like looking for a needle in a haystack. But once it has attacked the general area of its presence would be known. :ping:

In terms of commerce raiding are we talking ships being sunk, captured or taking cargo off the target?

you have a good point, its probably not going to be very safe from satellites and stuff

Sinking of enemy commerce only

A surface vessel would more than likely succeed the first and second time possibly but with the amount of satellite technology out there I doubt it would survive long once assets were assigned to the area.

A submarine might last a little while longer but again, once assets were deployed to the area its time would be short lived.

The only time extension I can imagine for either of the two would be if no eye witnesses/survivors were left to give the vital details to what was doing the deed.