Captain Phillips

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

The convoy sailing times would be notified to shipping companies in advance to help them in positioning their vessels at the correct time.

Won't change a thing. The convoy leaves in 5 days but my vessel must unload tomorrow and will then remain for 4 days in the harbour waiting for the convoy to depart. Logistics aren't that simple. You have your ship in the wrong spot at the wrong time and you can wait for days if not weeks for the next convoy.

in real life terms I wonder why the convoy system hasn't been introduced

Jimbuna
It was introduced, costs went up delays increased and the pirates just shifted to beyond the convoy assembly and dispersal area, though there were also a few attacks on the ships waiting in the assembly areas.
Platapus brings up some of the cost and legal issues on armed parties, plus of course the Indians Italians and Russian have all made rather nasty screw ups with armed response against fishing boats. I think the Indians paid up compensation for their murders but the Italians and Russians murders are still ongoing actions.
Putting State forces on merchant vessels brings up lots of complications, even more complications when flagging of vessels is considered.
Putting mercenaries on civilian vessels also brings similar problems, plus has the added problem that mercenaries do seem to tend to be mentally damaged idiots and few merchant captains(or crews) would relish the prospect of having armed mentally damaged individuals cooped up in the limited confines of their ship for any length of time.

Originally Posted by Webster

the most stupid is all they have to do is sail far enough offshore so pirates cant reach them. they stay within sight of land to travel faster and save fuel in calmer waters and in doing so become easy targets. these pirates are in small open boats so sail 15 miles offshore and spend 10% more on fuel costs and problem solved.

if that cost too much then a few 50 cal, 2 on each side bow and stern and 4-8 guys who know how to man them is a cheaper solution. im not saying arm the whole fleet but just the ships that make that crossing. of course if you do that they will shoot women and children for a photo opt and throw the bodies and fishing poles in the shot up boat and scream murder.

That post makes no sense.

[AVGWarhawk]

I believe the vessels should be armed with the newest technology where real world data on the destructive force of said weapon can be obtained via use of said weapon on pirates and their vessels.

[Jimbuna]

Well, looking at that map of a few posts ago....it will soon be a major problem for India and they will probably end up becoming one of the biggest naval contributors.

After that anything can happen.

[Oberon]

India would certainly have an interest in attacking a potential Islamist stronghold, but considering that they have one right on their doorstep I'd wager that they'd restrict their efforts to coastal waters rather than take up the mantle of trade protector of the Indian Ocean. After all, there's the whole Mexican standoff in Kashmir between India, Pakistan and China which could flare up again at any moment.
That being said, things have been very quiet between India and Pakistan of late, perhaps because of all the US forces in Afghanistan, but I wouldn't place my hopes in this being a permanent situation. Decades of hatred don't go away that quickly.

[nikimcbee]

We had a pretty good discussion in the last pirate thread, but I'll say it again: Q-ships.

[Stealhead]

International sea laws are what keeps the ships from themselves being armed.Now some do employ mercenaries that armed with small arms but this can be wishy washy as well from a legal standpoint depending on whose waters you are in.

The mercs must be boarding ships at sea as having any arms even small arms aboard a civilian vessel is illegal in many nations.


The whole thing is a complex problem in many respects which is why it has not yet been efficiently mitigated and probably never will be.I say this because there has been piracy in South East Asia especially along the Straights of Molucca but also in the South China Sea since the Dutch East India Company days and they have never stopped sometimes they are less active but they have been active for over 300 years.

The other problem is that once you arrest off kill pirates more will replace them.The majority choose piracy because they have no other viable source of income.(not trying to be a liberal bleed heart it is a root cause of the problem plan and simple.)

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

The majority choose piracy because they have no other viable source of income.(not trying to be a liberal bleed heart it is a root cause of the problem plan and simple.)

[Skybird]

That other pirates may come when some pirates get killed, is not really an argument to support a view that one should not care to fight and kill them. It is neither a pointless nor an immoral fight as long as you do not limit yourself by some inner handicap that says: killing 17 pirates is okay, but from the 18th on you have a moral problem. You judge your fight either to be right or wrong, and in case of the first it is okay with your conscience. If the fight's purpose is okay with your conscience, then it does not matter how many enemies you kill. If your conscience says the fight's purpose is not okay, then even killing just one will push you into moral crisis. The number of enemies killed simply is not the argument for or against the case here.

You could as well say you refuse to shoot at some street robber attacking you, or a rapist,m because more may come after them, attacking either you or somebody else.

In the end it costs just pennies and some seconds to machine-produce a bullet or a cartridge. Producing a baby pirate and growing it to a physically strong adult pirate, costs more of both. Now do the math.

Loosing freight and ship and paying millions in ransom that get turned into more sophisticated wepaons and boats for the pirates, is worse enough. But to think about the hostages mon th and years of martyrdom, their fear and the psychic as well as physical torturere they get forced to endure, is enough an argument for me to justify any means necessary to fight pirates to their total and complete defeat and annihilation. To me it is a moral principle that your own misery does not justify that you solve it at the cost of hadning the misery over to somebody else. That you got stolen money, does not give you the moral right to steal the compensation from somebody else. That you got mistreated and fate dealt badly with your, does not give you the moral right to do the same to you. That you are starving does not give you a moral right to torture somebody else or to kill him. That may be provoking a thought to some people here, especially social romantics, but I stick to it. Survival instincts may make people to act like in ther latter example, yes. But instincts and morals are two very different things anyway. Nature knows no morals. A predator is a predator, it acts by it's design and by instinct. A slaughterer or murderer is a slaughterer or murderer, he acts beside moral rules. A pirate is a pirate. If they aim at me with their actions and attacks, at my property or at those I love and protect, I reserve the right to fight them off, with lethal force if that is adequate. And that is no moral burden to my conscience at all. A moral burden it will be if I kill accidentally, or kill the wrong one.

[Oberon]

So, in short, nuke Somalia.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

Won't change a thing. The convoy leaves in 5 days but my vessel must unload tomorrow and will then remain for 4 days in the harbour waiting for the convoy to depart. Logistics aren't that simple. You have your ship in the wrong spot at the wrong time and you can wait for days if not weeks for the next convoy.

Well it certainly worked in the 40's

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

We had a pretty good discussion in the last pirate thread, but I'll say it again: Q-ships.

As did I also.....agreed

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

So, in short, nuke Somalia.

If conventional weapons do not work, yes. And if the costs-effects calculation in your eyes is such that the operation is favourable in your opinion.

If it is not, then you will need to live with growing piracy int he future. And it will spread, and infest more and more places of Africa and SE Asia, like we have seen it spreading and growing in recent years, due to Western indifference and lack of resolve, the modern scourges of the Western world. Because you set the example that piracy is a model that pays off.

Note this, Oberon, what I said on the military options does not rule out to rebalance world affairs and global business in such ways that there is fair trade, social perspective and all that, if this ios the policies somebody wants to try. But the daily news on burning textile factories in Bangladesh, Foxcon suicides and revolts in China and slave work in third world countries in general, supported by our own major producers, does not make me optimistic on that to happen anytime soon. And it is not what in this thread, for the most, has been talked about. When you discuss military ways do not feel provoked when I show you weapons. Talk was about how to fight pirates. I gave my idea on how to fight pirates. In principle it is this: bring the war to them, and destroy their means to act like pirates.

Originally Posted by Oberon

So, in short, nuke Somalia.

Its the only way to take out baby pirates.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Oberon

So, in short, nuke Somalia.

From orbit, it is the only way to be sure