News Somali Pirates seize super tanker

[mgb_phys]

So your gameplan is: let's kill them without them caring. Someone else work out the details

Welcome to PF Mr Rumsfeld!

 

[turbo]

Piracy is a great-paying job with low risk to the pirates, so trying to kill them all is problematic - the guys in charge can recruit more crews. Even more problematic is rescuing them from the sea after you destroy their ships - what do you do with them once you have them?

Maybe my Warthog (A-10) suggestion would work, after all. Just have the ships in the region follow coastal routes, to stay within sortie radius of the 'Hogs.

 

[mgb_phys]

Or naturally you ask an astronomer!
Freeman Dyson was one of the inventers of operational research in WWII - one of his conclusions was that is was pointless attacking U-Boats in open ocean (impossible to find) or U-Boat bases in France (too strong and too much risk to civilians).
Instead you looked for the milchcows - the large supply submarines that refuled and rearmed the U boats. These craft were unarmed, too large to manouvere quickly and had to remain in known locations for a long time - so easy targets. Sinking one of them put a dozen U boats out of action.

RIBs can't reach a ship 500km offshore without support. So instead of having $Bn missile cruisers chasing after and firing $M missiles at every dhow that comes within range you just find any boat that is sitting in the middle of the ocean not moving (from satelite imagery) send a destroyer to stand by out of AK47 range and ask what it is doing - and then sink it with cheap 30mm cannon fire.

 

[Borek]

sink it with cheap 30mm cannon fire.

I have long ago suggested that good machine gun is all that is necessary to deal with the problem. Guided missiles, cruisers etc. are an insanely expensive overkill.

Put two real machine guns on every fourth ship and two mockups on each one of the other three. It's called russian roulette.

 

[Proton Soup]

So your gameplan is: let's kill them without them caring. Someone else work out the details

i think it would be better for you as a person to kill them without caring. if you put hatred behind it, it only hurts yourself. what details?

Piracy is a great-paying job with low risk to the pirates, so trying to kill them all is problematic - the guys in charge can recruit more crews. Even more problematic is rescuing them from the sea after you destroy their ships - what do you do with them once you have them?

Maybe my Warthog (A-10) suggestion would work, after all. Just have the ships in the region follow coastal routes, to stay within sortie radius of the 'Hogs.

no, no, no, that is not the plan. you don't rescue them. that would be problematic. these are not sailors nor soldiers.

 

[turbo]

I have long ago suggested that good machine gun is all that is necessary to deal with the problem. Guided missiles, cruisers etc. are an insanely expensive overkill.

Put two real machine guns on every fourth ship and two mockups on each one of the other three. It's called russian roulette.

That could be scary on some ships. Let's say you have a tanker carrying volatile chemicals and the crew starts firing at pirates only to get return fire via machine guns, RPGs, etc? Boom!

 

[Office_Shredder]

i think it would be better for you as a person to kill them without caring. if you put hatred behind it, it only hurts yourself. what details?

I don't think you understood. Your contribution to the "let's kill them" plan was that it should be done emotionlessly. That's not a contribution at all. Who's going to kill them? How will they pay for it? How will they kill them? How will they find where to kill them? How do you find out who's supposed to be killed?

These pirates have to be more than a little creative, I don't imagine they'll continue sitting out in the ocean in unmarked boats not respoding to hails by a navy if that's how warships identify which boats are pirate ones and which ones aren't

 

[out of whack]

That could be scary on some ships. Let's say you have a tanker carrying volatile chemicals and the crew starts firing at pirates only to get return fire via machine guns, RPGs, etc? Boom!

I was thinking the same thing. Pirates attack tanker. Tanker fires back. Pissed pirates sink tanker to teach everyone else a lesson for the next time. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Banks and 7-Elevens train their staff to fully cooperate with robbers for good reasons.

 

[Borek]

OK, tankers are out of the question

Still, I don't think you need billion dollars hardware to deal with the problem. We were talking TOWs, Javelins, Hellfires earlier - for the price of one launcher and few missiles you can put heavy machine gun on many cargo ships, making them much less likely to become targets. When targeted ships start to reply with fire, pirating becomes high risk job and there are less pirates. Right now they don't have to fear anything.

 

[Proton Soup]

I don't think you understood. Your contribution to the "let's kill them" plan was that it should be done emotionlessly. That's not a contribution at all. Who's going to kill them? How will they pay for it? How will they kill them? How will they find where to kill them? How do you find out who's supposed to be killed?

These pirates have to be more than a little creative, I don't imagine they'll continue sitting out in the ocean in unmarked boats not respoding to hails by a navy if that's how warships identify which boats are pirate ones and which ones aren't

no, i think i suggested that the US Navy do it. other navies like the Brits, Iranians, or whoever else is having their ships seized should join in. the navies are already funded to do this sort of thing. as was already mentioned in this thread, it is part of the US Marines' history. protecting our ships from piracy also protected the republic. it's their job. I'm not sure why you think it is my job to come up with a detailed plan for doing something the Navy should already have good experience with.

 

[jreelawg]

I don't think you understood. Your contribution to the "let's kill them" plan was that it should be done emotionlessly. That's not a contribution at all. Who's going to kill them? How will they pay for it? How will they kill them? How will they find where to kill them? How do you find out who's supposed to be killed?

These pirates have to be more than a little creative, I don't imagine they'll continue sitting out in the ocean in unmarked boats not respoding to hails by a navy if that's how warships identify which boats are pirate ones and which ones aren't

One thing is that the pirates are fishermen. If you see a Somalian fishing boats, just floating out their not moving, and you sink em all, then you get blamed for destroying Somalia's fishing industry. That in itself wouldn't look like a good mistake to be made to a country who is having a hard enough time feeding itself.

The only solutions to the problem are one, equip the ships with better defense, and two employ intelligence to figure out where the money comes and goes, and get the sophisticated guys at the top of the chain.

 

[LowlyPion]

Success breeds failure. This sort of thing will not set well and there will be repercussions for such demands.

Pirates Demand $25 Million Ransom for Hijacked Tanker

By Caroline Alexander and Hamsa Omar

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Somali pirates demanded $25 million in ransom for an oil-laden Saudi supertanker seized off the East African coast, and called on its owners to pay up ``soon.''

``What we want for this ship is only $25 million because we always charge according to the quality of the ship and the value of the product,'' a man who identified himself as Abdi Salan, a member of the hijacking gang, said in a telephone interview yesterday from Harardhare. The town is in Somalia's semi- autonomous northern Puntland region close to where the ship is anchored. The man didn't give a deadline or say what would happen if the money isn't paid.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCIG0fK4PxfM&refer=worldwide

Maybe contract with the Israelis to commando in and free the tanker? How would that be for rapprochement?

 

[LowlyPion]

Another option would be to declare war on Somalia.

If the government can't or won't do anything, go in and clean sweep the coast from Djibouti to Kenya.

 

[turbo]

no, i think i suggested that the US Navy do it. other navies like the Brits, Iranians, or whoever else is having their ships seized should join in. the navies are already funded to do this sort of thing. as was already mentioned in this thread, it is part of the US Marines' history. protecting our ships from piracy also protected the republic. it's their job. I'm not sure why you think it is my job to come up with a detailed plan for doing something the Navy should already have good experience with.

The US Marines have been fighting piracy and protecting shipping for over 200 years. Of course, they're stretched pretty thin right now, punishing all the Iraqis for attacking us on 9/11.

 

[Proton Soup]

The US Marines have been fighting piracy and protecting shipping for over 200 years. Of course, they're stretched pretty thin right now, punishing all the Iraqis for attacking us on 9/11.

the spice must flow

 

[mheslep]

Another option would be to declare war on Somalia.

If the government can't or won't do anything, go in and clean sweep the coast from Djibouti to Kenya.

If that's not tongue and cheek: Who should declare war, and who should 'go in'?

 

[mheslep]

The US Marines have been fighting piracy and protecting shipping for over 200 years. Of course, they're stretched pretty thin right now, punishing all the Iraqis for attacking us on 9/11.

The Barbary pirates were attacking US flagged vessels.

 

[russ_watters]

... And the Navy hasn't used Marines for shipboard security in something like 150 years.

 

[turbo]

The Barbary pirates were attacking US flagged vessels.

There are currently no US flagged commercial vessels in intercontinental trade anymore. Yes, the Barbary pirates were attacking US commercial vessels, but they were attacking vessels of almost all nations, and when the Marines stomped on them, the Mediterranean became safer for all. Our ancestors had US interests at heart 200+ years ago, but the effort benefited all commercial shipping in that region.

 

[LowlyPion]

... And the Navy hasn't used Marines for shipboard security in something like 150 years.

I'm sure they take to training well.

 

[edward]

OK, tankers are out of the question

Still, I don't think you need billion dollars hardware to deal with the problem. We were talking TOWs, Javelins, Hellfires earlier - for the price of one launcher and few missiles you can put heavy machine gun on many cargo ships, making them much less likely to become targets. When targeted ships start to reply with fire, pirating becomes high risk job and there are less pirates. Right now they don't have to fear anything.

We now need to use stand off weapons. We can not expect a ships crew to get into a fire fight against antiaircraft guns. I am in favor of using the expensive weapons because that is what we have.

The USA has numerous storage facilities containing a variety of suitable missiles. Most of the older TOW missiles will probably end up on the scrap pile anyway.

Given the pirates' emerging new tactics and technologies, such as using 'mother ships' to transport smaller attack boats out to sea, global positioning systems and satellite phones, it should be expected that the range of pirate activity will increase," he said.

Last week, pirates seized their greatest prize yet, the supertanker MV Sirius Star, far south of the Somali coastline. The ship, carrying 2 million barrels of oil and 25 crew members, is now anchored off a Somali port.

Analysts say the Somali gangs have invested much of the estimated $150 million in ransom paid so far in new speedboats equipped with added firepower, including heavy 14.5 mm anti-aircraft machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers — a serious threat to even the largest merchant vessels.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jxCY0MWanMyUjwh42ms-gUK_2tAQD94JG02O1

 

[devil-fire]

It would be a hell of a thing if pirates stole several American made TOW weapons. I'm sure they could would be worth the trouble on the black market.

 

[Borek]

Analysts say the Somali gangs have invested much of the estimated $150 million in ransom paid so far in new speedboats equipped with added firepower, including heavy 14.5 mm anti-aircraft machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers — a serious threat to even the largest merchant vessels.

That changes situation. That's one of the Murphy's laws (Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse) at work.

 

[turbo]

That changes situation. That's one of the Murphy's laws (Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse) at work.

That brings the A-10's back into play. With adequate surveillance adapted to the A-10's response times (they are not the fastest birds in the sky, just about the deadliest to small ships, though) they could put a big dent in piracy. Keep the cargo ships near coastal routes and use land-based A-10s to protect them. If suspicious boats are closing and refuse to respond to hails, sink them.

 

[russ_watters]

I read today that they only have about 20 tankers a day passing through the area. If other merchant ships are more than that, perhaps there are a total of 50 major merchant ships a day. It seems to me the answer would then be to organize convoys. Every 6 hours you get 12-14 ships together with a frigate to escort them through the region. It's about 1500 miles, or a 60 hour trip at 25 knots. You'd need about 20 warships.

 

[Borek]

60 hour trip at 25 knots. You'd need about 20 warships.

That's assuming merchant ships will be able to keep that speed. I strongly doubt. From what I was told about 10 years ago by my uncle (who spent 40 years as a mechanical officer - or whatever it is called - on many ships) small cargo ships go at around 12 knots at best.

 

[russ_watters]

Small cargo ships, yes - we would only be able to protect the big ones this way. The speed of a ship is a function of its size, which means that you're actually pushing the capabilities of the escort ships!

 

[Borek]

Small cargo ships, yes - we would only be able to protect the big ones this way. The speed of a ship is a function of its size, which means that you're actually pushing the capabilities of the escort ships!

Something like speed in knots = 1.4 x the square root of the waterline length of boat in feet?

I think we are far from that. They are just underpowered (partially by design, partially because of the engine wear).

 

[edward]

If they would run in convoys several naval ships could protect a significant number of cargo vessels.

It worked during WWII.

 

[mheslep]

A warning in today's Brett Stevens column:

...A society that erases the memory of how it overcame barbarism in the past inevitably loses sight of the meaning of civilization, and the means of sustaining it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122757123487054681.html