Piracy on steep rise
 

Germany now being the most affected state.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-912089.html

German and European reaction: well, you tell me.

Convoys and escorts - come on world, it's worked well (ish) before. :/\\!!

Precisely...a couple of dozen merchants and two helicopter capable naval vessels with a couple of fast inflatables each should do the trick.

The merchant companies and insurers each pay a fee to the naval budget to cover costs.

Usually I am not that radical but if a boat with pirates armed to the teeth sets course for a cargo ship, tanker, whatever, clearly trying to board it... just use them as target practice.

Maybe their brothers in arms will consider attacking merchant vessels in the future?

German ships sometimes already have mercenaries aboard, a decision by their owners that is made by pure desparation. Which would be acceptable if it works, and it seems to work. But by German law, these companies are not really allowed top defend their ships, and are acting in a so far only tolerated legal grey zone.

That Western govenrments allow Western hostages by the hundreds being held in captivity over months and years, exposed to physical and psychic terror, fear, disease and what ther eis more, is a scandal, and worse: it is a crime.

Armed drones, loaded with area-affecting ammo, some kind of cluster ammo. Gunships. Could you imagine what a Cobra would mean for attacking pirate boats?

That surprises me coming from you. Cluster munitions are amongst the most indescriminate ever created - Just outside Pristina airport is a field littered with them (or it was in 1999/2000), fenced off from me - although I did go in a couple of times on a proven route (some idiot put our mast up in there without checking first!!!) - but not from the handful of houses that backed on to it with kids playing in it - although they knew exactly where they lay, pointing to them and shouting 'mina, mina', the livestock didn't.

Cluster munitions either get all, or at sea will get nothing.

We'll throw in a couple each of these:

http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/3034/41hb.jpg

http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/6770/pztp.jpg

Drones would be the most cost-effective solution I guess. It would be more expensive to have ships patrolling there all the time than a drone controlled from wherever, launched from a base in Africa.

And a AGM-114 Hellfire missile is not that expensive (~ $70k?). Well worth a boat with pirates and the "show of force" effect I feel. Also, pirates could do nothing against high flying "invisible" drones.

Hang the thieves from the yard arm when captured by the navy escort could help deter the attacks, or at least help reduce the number of pirates. :arrgh!:

Where's the Christian and sense of fair play in you....throw them overboard (even if 130 miles offshore) and give them a fighting chance with the sharks and a possible swim back ashore.

Just remember folks that these pirates aren't in it to make themselves rich but rather to keep from starving.

I forgot that the cost of fuel to go fishing is more than to attack an unarmed merchant.:06:

I think he was being sarcastic... at least I hope he was :D

Then tell them to stop buying rifles, ammunition, RPGs, fast boats and fuel, and buy some food.

I wish I could earn $3m for 134 days work, of which only a couple were probably 'work'. (source - http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow...181529222.html)

Or if you've cash burning a hole in your pocket, try some investments - http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/...5B01Z920091201

Must have a word with those nice people down at the Joke Centre....could well be the next form of growth in the employment sector.