Guns on ships

why? 2 reasons:

1. having firearms on board of a ship opens a can of worms from a legal point of view.
most countrys dont allow the 'import' of firearms without a lot of forulars and papers and some outright outlaw it.
look at a route a ship makes with all the possible stops, sometimes 10 countrys or more.

2. Insurance.
Lloyd’s of London does not like Guns on board of ships.
you arm your crew, you are out of Lloyd’s and basicly SOL.

the solution is q-ships. Armed naval ships that look like freighters but are loaded with marines and heavy weapons.

But the real issue is this. In international waters ships can defend themselves. Many companies do not for various reasons. Some do though. As far as entering other countries, most allow for these weapons for ship board defense, ie small arms. I have seen a few cargo vessels in my previous jobs with the block heavy maching gun mounts. I saw the guns stored at that point in time. I am sure there is some sort of rules for entering u.s. waters for this. I asked the guide about them he said they use them for mines in the middle ease but I thought at the time he was jokeing........maybe not though.

I think pulse pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Right now according to the international maritime comission pretty much all you can do is:

a) run
b) run faster and zig-zag like he$$
c) use fire hoses
d) flare guns
e) surrender and comply

Interesting.
Every yacht I worked on in Ft. Lauderdale in the 80's, had weapons on board.
(AR 15s, Mini 14's, shotguns, etc..)

I didn't sail with these vessels, I just help fix um up.
I never worked on a large ship, so who knows what they 'really' do.
Perhaps some do carry and just don't advertise this fact?

I know if MY ship was sailing in those waters.
Lloyds or not... There WILL be a weapons locker
(maybe hidden?) and personal trained to use those weapons.

I remember reading something here at THR (?) awhile ago about a guy that would take a cheapo Mosin-Nagant with him for long leisure cruises on his yacht for security. One day he had to take shelter in a Mexican harbor during a storm. Poor guy had to throw his Mosin in the sea so the Mexican authorities would not arrest him if they inspected his vessel.

If they are carrying, they're not carrying enough because they are getting picked off like crazy.

you arm your crew, you are out of Lloyd’s and basicly SOL.

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And who cares about the crew? They're probably just Malaysians or Philippinos, or some other unimportant class of people...

Er...I hope that last bit was just a joke...

*doubletap*

Er...I hope that last bit was just a joke...

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Not a joke, sarcasm.

But hey, I'll bet Lloyds really lavishes money on the families of dead or missing crew members the way it does on the pirates...

Same debate as any on gun control anywhere.

The real solution that nobody ever wants to consider is getting rid of the problem.

The defense has been on the field so long they are dropping like flies.

Time to put the offense back on the field and clean house.

the solution is q-ships. Armed naval ships that look like freighters but are loaded with marines and heavy weapons.

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A week or two ago, the pirates mistook a German Navy supply ship for a merchant freighter and got their asses handed to them. LOLOLOL

We don't need Navy gun crews with 3" cannon like during WWII on our merchant ships, but a couple of Ma Deuces fore and aft would make quick work of the pirates speed boats.

dejavue....funny I tried to start a thread on this yesterday but it was locked as off topic....

Dumbest thing ever

Did anyone else read the MSN story about the current hijacking? This is what they said as to why guns couldn't be carried on a super tanker "The attacks often beg the question of why ship owners do not arm their crew to fend off attacks. Much of the problem lies with the cargo. The Saudi supertanker, for example, was loaded with 2 million barrels of oil. The vapor from that cargo was highly flammable; a spark from the firing of a gun could cause an explosion." Never cease to amase me......

bnelson2943
Not all ships carry hazardous cargo. The latest ship has containers on it, not too likely to be hazardous vapor in a non pressure tank. even oil vapors are littly problem, its oil not gasoline.

I do not buy the insurance thing either. Why would an insurance have a greif with small arms? The loss of cargo will cost the insurance money. I would think the insurance would encourage the crew to fight off hijackers to keep from paying out cargo loss expense.

This latest hijacking was of a ship transporting food and I thought the reports said there was an 'exchange of gunfire' and that the crew reppelled the pirates and took the ship back over?

If they didn't do it with guns, how did they repel armed pirates?

There have been six hijackings in the last week. It's getting to be as bad as kidnapping in Mexico.

I don't know why the Navy hasn't set up a serious cordon through the area and offered blanket protection to any ship that flies the U.S. flag through the Indian Ocean. (Or other hot spots like near Indonesia.) From what I can see, sailing through that section right now is like, well, walking unarmed through Tijuana at 3am and hoping for the best.

BTW, I have read in more than one place that the Navy uses small arms (M-14s) for some kinds of mine clearing duties.

The insurance people are probably making a calculation, pay a million for loss of cargo or pay a million apiece for crew killed in a shootout. What is not being considered is what happens when pirates get a million dollar cargo or ransom. Their weaponry gets a sudden upgrade and the problem is ten times worse. They need decoy ships and pirate ships sunk. The pirates should be rewarded with huge losses of treasure and life, not profit.

There is 400 miles of open ocean from the Somali Shore that the Pirates can use to catch themselfs a ship. Naval vessals with helicopters can only cover so much ocean at a time.

I propose arming all friendly flagged crews with Marine Magnums and installation of appropriate weapons operated by Naval crews of various flagged nations that the ships sail under.

That way no ship will be defenseless.

Part of the problem and the reason for the success of the pirate highjackings is the complete and utter failure of the merchant to understand that THEY are under ATTACK as targets of WAR on the high seas for gain or profit by pirates.

In the old days of sail, there used to be what was called East Indiamen what sailed with expensive and important cargos but armed as well or slightly less so than regular Naval fighting ships of the time. They can beat down any pirate fast enough to catch em and run away from pirates too big to catch em. And stand up for a short time against another soverign nation's fighting ship in time of war until escorts can get to it.

I would have thinking that the pirates are a problem and can only be solved one of two ways.

Invade Somalia coastal areas and take it over 15 miles inland and control all inland waters and seas. OR.... arm and outfit all ships intending to transit through there with thier own weapons and marines who will live and defend those ships with actual weapons.

And make it happen.

Liabilities and legalese along with Insurance and losses etc... spin way beyond a can of worms just because some squeamish scaredy cat shipping owner is unconfortable with not arming his ships and a fighting crew to man it.

That ship owner gets no pity from me when they DO lose a unarmed or defenseless ship to pirates. Serves them right.

Maybe a bit of ransom payments will accumulate sufficiently to motivate these shipping companies TO SPEND on actual weapons and people to use them on these ships that go through there.

Otherwise we keep losing ships and after a time, no one cares anymore and moves onto the next big media blitz over something else somewhere else int he world.

Until a pirate controlled LNG ship is lit off as a minature nuclearbomb somehwhere where it hurts.


However... I have heard from time to time our US Marines and Sailors CAPTURING or killing Pirates.... OOORAH!!!! GET SOME!!!!!

I do not buy the insurance thing either.

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for them it is a simple nummber game.

you have a large cargo ship, going price for them is around 10-20 million for the basic models, with freight worth anywhere from 20-200 millions on it.

now you insure them, for a Cruise from China to Europe with a couple of stops along the line that should be around.. 200k-1million each trip?

now you tell the crew they can take weapons with them and open fire on Pirates that attack them, if the Pirates now fireback, even if beatenback, it will cause damage to the ship.
a RPG near the water line can do a lot of damage that costs millions to be fixed with all the drydock rental.

...or, you tell them they can not have firearms on board and are not allowed to use lethal force against there attacks, the chances to beat them back are very low now, but so is the chance that the ship gets damaged.

yes, now they have a hijacked ship, but they dont Care about that.
you know why? piracy is not covered by a regular insurance, you need a seperate, very expensive, one for that.

as long as the ship and/or cargo does not get damaged, a regular insurance company does not have to pay anything, not only that, the shipowner still has to pay the full insurance fee, after all there is no damage..

lives do not matter, it is a simply nummber game of Risk and profit

The best solution IMNSHO is to outfit a "pirate hunter" cruise expedition where you load up a cruise ship full of well-armed Americans [...]

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perdurabo93 for the win!

Arm merchant marines? They aren't real marines, they have no training with firearms, and they tend to be quite busy running modern ships, not stand around watching 360 degrees 24/7.
Pirates tend to sneak-up on you and attempt to board using darkness as a cover anyway.

A better solution would be to use real marines. Helo a squad onto each US & friendly-flagged ship at the beginning of the African run and helo them off at the end. Marine squads would be able to provide 24/7 security and be more than capable to engage from a distance (TOW missiles on man-portable launcher & SAWs), or physically repel boarders if necessary.

The real reason that this isn't being done is that the US and most western countries don't want to look bad in the eyes of the world for "slaughtering a bunch of starving Somalis". India OTOH, has already had several combat engagements with pirates -and they didn't take prisoners.

There's already Backwater.
How about a Blue Lagoon?

I see an opportunity here for some private security firms.