Guns on ships

one more thing to think about. how much does it cost the shipping companys when one of their armed crew does shoot some one and then the ship is stuck there during leagle investigation by what ever company the ship happens to be close to.
I don't think they can just roll ma duce out of bed and shred a skiny sky boat and sail off into the sunset. But if they could might slow down some hijack atempts.

one more thing to think about. how much does it cost the shipping companys when one of their armed crew does shoot some one and then the ship is stuck there during leagle investigation by what ever company the ship happens to be close to.
I don't think they can just roll ma duce out of bed and shred a skiny sky boat and sail off into the sunset. But if they could might slow down some hijack atempts.

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...shoot, shovel, err bury at sea, I mean, and shut up....

What needs to be done has more to do with diplomacy than anything. The US needs to set an example and tell other countries that we will not trade or conduct any business until they change their laws and make it legal for these ships to protect themselves with deadly force.

It is very clear to me that the so called "Starving Somalis" turned to piracy as a way to earn thier daily bread.

It brings to the people of that nation heros in form of successful pirates and brings in money, goods and can be exchanged for other things that the starving somalis want.

Its similar to watching our own American Indians establish a casino next to a interstate, build a parking lot, then accumulate money for a nice hotel, then a gasstation/grocery store then a town, then a city etc.... out of NOTHING but dirt and rocks.

The Somalis see Piracy as a good way to earn a living and a chance to stick a fork into western nations that are so fat on thier trade and riches beyond the wildest dreams of a dirt poor somali.

We got run out of town once. I'll be damned if we get run off the seas too.

We had this problem when the USA got started. Sent Perry over with his Ships to stop the Med pirates and stop the constant outflow of tribute meant to stop pirate attacks. We settled it then and we had to do it again several other times and also against the slave trade as well.

Europe is involved with us at sea on this as well. India also fights. Apparently Indians fight to death, no prisioners or quarter given. God, if we fight like the Indians do, eventually the Somalis run out of pirates until the next generation grows a pair.

Even the Chinese, thier ship got attacked a time or two... what did they do? Firebombs... They have been lighting off things that go boon for 3000 years. The pirates left them alone right quick too.

Question: How many crew members have been killed or injured by pirates? I have not seen any info on this, but have not been watching it carefully.

Loss of inocent life changes the act from a criminal monetary transaction to something much more actionable, I would think.

Anybody got any numbers?

Steve

Google Task force 150 And you should come up with other links and maybe more current task forces and thier activities in that part of the world.

Keep in mind that these ships are not very heavily manned... say 30 crew more or less. Once in a while the pirates did pick on a warship of some kind. I think once a pirate boat was found overturned with ransom money and 4 dead floating about... talk about davy jones locker getting his fair share off the bad guys.

We dont lose MANY people, but we do lose the use of ships, cargoes and other problems and resources necessary elsewhere. It's a problem.

Even if the ship is carrying hazardous cargo, that doesn't stop the pirates from shooting rockets and guns at the ship. I say, if I am going to blow up, at least let me be doing the shooting.

Old maritime laws are what's to blame for placing countless sailors at needless risk. Used to, any armed vesssel was considered a warship, and could thus be seized or sunk in times of conflict. An armed unaffiliated ship was considered a pirate. The only way for these ships to have immunity of sorts was for them to be unarmed. Thus it became the law of the sea that merchant vessels could not carry weapons.

Of course, back then, civilian ships could be armed with the exact same guns as naval warships, and the vessels themselves often differed very little. Armed former merchant ships could and did occasionally defeat warships. Today, that is no longer the case. Modern technology means that no civilian or cargo vessel could ever hope to defeat a naval warship in battle (note that the suicide attack on the USS Cole was not a battle; the Cole was at anchor and the attackers lost their lives).

Effectively, what it means is that it's time for merchant ships to start carrying weapons again. There needs to be some sort of reasonable deterrent to keep pirates from attacking at will. Netting at the sides of the ship that would prevent an attacker from just climbing over the rail (and leave them nice and exposed as they try to climb over the netting) would also be a good deterrent, assuming the crew was allowed to be armed. It'd foul their equipment as they tried to climb over, make it hard to return fire. And leave them nice sitting ducks for a crew member with a rifle.

The cost of this piratage is built into insurance rates and shipping charges. As stated earlier paying these bad guys off is cheaper than loosing a cargo, repairing a damaged vessel or having it sunk. So far as ships crews staying alert for boarders, some may but I have seen merchants at sea cruising on iron mike (auto steering) with no one on deck or on the bridge.

It's not so much carrying arms on international waters as it is when you dock. And you have to dock somewhere and every port I've read about prohibits any type of weapons on board a vessel. The US Navy ships are US territory when they come into a foreign port and are exempt.
As far as Lloyds is concerned I believe they are about the only ones that provide insurance for most ships at see. Your sort of "damned if you do an damned if you don't"

Ok. Let's go back to the Cold War.

Soviets have surged past the Greenland, Iceland and UK Gaps as well as closing the Denmark straits.

Dozens of merchant ships sunk the first day.

Insurance finished the second day.

We can still see this happen when Somalis use thier ransom money to acquire actual weapons capable of doing serious damage to merchant vessals or hitting back at warships.

The USS Cole is no different than a attack against a Naval Power. It is fortunate we did not lose the Cole. HOWEVER, hopefully those lost on the Cole will not be in vain as future security procedures have been tightened up and improved.

Why should Merchant Shipping meekly soak up insurance? It's all a big disposible scam if this is so.

A number of people have touched on salient points here.

One to remember is the US-flagged vessels are about as rare as working Yugos. The tax breaks for shipping companies to register in Panama or Liberia or the like just make economic sense. Now, those countries generally prohibit arming vessels under those flags, too, sinc doing so would obligate that nation's Navy to render aid.

Now, the other issue is that many merchant vessels have only minimal crews. 18-20 can be very common, needing only 5-6 per watch to operate the ship. However, a reaction force needs to be trained and available much faster than sleeping off-watches.

Also, the reaction force is going to want more money for being certified and trained and armed up and potentially losing half their sleep. So, you have an additional burden on the merchie owners. To which you get to add 'the fire house' burden--you have to pay for the reaction force every day, every voyage, even when nothing happens. The number of incidents versus uninterrupted voyages is hugely lopsided. But, skimp on your protection, and guess when/where you get hit?

The other real problem is that there can be scads of traffice especially in the coastal transit areas. Tramps, fishers, pleasure craft, all sorts of vessels--and one of those various types is used by the pirates, typically, to get close enough to do the job. Which eats into the potential stand-off distance, and shortens the reaction time for your armed force. Remember, your armed force uh-ohs and fires on a trawler that is not full of pirates, you arein as much trouble as if you let them board you. And, you really can't let them board you--ships are complicated places to defend, and worse to clear.

And, it's not a simple case of we send an O.H. Perry or a Burke frigate along to watch out, either. There are hundreds of vessels out there on all sorts of courses all of the time. Just not enough steaming hours or enough escorts to have much effect. Like the LE radio car nthe beat, the BG would fade away until the coast was clear.

I's hugely complicated. Easy answers are actually few in number. Even the rather simple expedient of finding the next bainbridge and O'Bannion is easy to ask for, but tougher to achieve.

Legally the pirates could be put down for genocide and crimes against humanity as most of the ships they hijack are carrying food aid to africa.
Just send a few bulk freighters to the area with a few hundred seals on board with heavy gear. When the little rubber dingys pull up, let the seals get range time.
Since we have such wonderful drone technology, just have a few predator drones flying around the ocean with vietnam era napalm in the bomb rack.
Pay the pilots 1,000 for every direct hit they score on a trawler with 20 dingys tied alongside. The message would get through rather fast.

hey, start napalm runs on the pirate strongholds. That would work.

The game the pirates have is that they always have multiple ships and hostages at any given time. If you attack and kill one boat load of them then the ransom and danger to the other ships and hostages under their control goes up. You are not dealing with one ship and one group of pirates at a time. An attack on one group of pirates places the other hostages at risk.

As far as I am concerned, if you flag your ship as Panamanian then call Panama for help.

The other thing to do is to go after and trace the money. The money is going into bank accounts somewhere. This is too much big money not to have some powers behind it.

My idea is to provide US flagged ships with armed US Navy sailors. So when the pirates see the US flag they turn around and grab a Panama Flagged ship instead. Let Europe, Asia, and Arabia provide their own security. I am tired of paying their way with my taxes and blood.

Now for a "What caliber to use on pirates?" question. I think you need more than small arms. A few dual 20mms and some dual 50s should be the minimum. Also the big 40mm would be great but the automatic 40mm grenade launcher would be good to have. You need some range and you need to keep them at a distance. It would be expensive but a pedestal 25mm is worth a look. If they get past the big stuff and actually get on the ship then you need some M14s and M16s. The trick is to turn them away and let them grab an easier target. The trick is also to make the US flag a big NO NO for them.

This ship was 300 miles from shore. Thats the high seas. Who is going to "hold" a ship until they figure out just how these pirates got killed? Arm the ship. Four .50 cal would probably be enough. Add some AR 15s just because it feels right. Also, run the hot areas at full speed. Make it as hard as you can for these thugs to get aboard.

If none of this works, locate the port the pirates are using and put one of those "super bombs" on it.Air burst at 600 feet gives about two square miles of total destruction. No more problems from that port. The second port to disappear might stop all problems from piracy.

I like several ideas I've read here. Thing is its time to stop this. It will likely take killing them to do it.

Mark

As mentioned a major reason for this is the insurance companies and the laws of various ports in the world.
Further most vessels, even vessels of US companies are registered in nations with much better laws and tax benefits on most other issues.
Nobody wants to register thier ship with a nation that has legal requirements for every little step.


The insurance companies care about the money. It is on an individual basis far cheaper to force those insured to risk thier lives rather than insured cargo or vessels.
Thier lives are worth little money and they are not liable for thier deaths. The cargo and ships are worth a lot and they are liable for them.

Plus with the Navies of various nations willing to come spend billions cruising around it actauly costs the companies and the insurers little, the tax payers (or other national income in some nations) of those nations pay for it.
So why would they want to handle thier own expensive problems when they can get the US navy to do it for free?


Further governments including ours are as much of the problem. Even our own nation has caved to legal requirements on the export of arms.
The old USA let its citizens be free once they left US borders, but that is changing. In fact the US not long ago made it illegal to have an unflagged submarine in international waters (to combat the drug trade but it applies to everyone.) So they just declare worldwide laws in congress now.
The entire world is becoming governed by bureaucracy that requires legal steps and fees for every step, and adding dozens of additional steps for multiple nations on a given route to have arms is too much hassle.

A couple decades ago international waters meant just that. Today we approach globalized government and restrictions exist everywhere.

There was a time when the US was strong, stood for certain principles regardless of what the world said, and shielded its citizens from a lot of foriegn law if it conflicted with the Constition.
Today the US government would likely ship you over to another nation or imprison you itself for a violation of gun laws abroad. Standing for inalienable rights under the Constition means much less today. Today the Constition is just a legal document that other legal documents are based on, idealogy and principle are less important than good trade relations.


I also see some agenda here as well. Somalia is one of the few nations on earth not subject to UN controls and agreements. This is because it has no formal and official government in control.
That is because they never recognized the government that came to power. The Muslim Courts took effective control over most of the nation for a time. The UN wanted thier own backed government to rule even though they controlled a tiny fraction of the nation. So they pretended no government existed. They worked to destabilize and destroy the government that did exist. That succeeded
Now things are even worse.
So I see a push to get the international community to invade Somalia, install a government, and bring them under the global government. Make it another Iraq.
The only problem is Somalia has no resources to take. No oil to use to fund such a government. There is not much additional private incentive.
It would be much worse than Iraq, with much more entrenched loyal militias and insurgents complete with a clan system and no oil or other simple resource to tap into.
So there is a push, but no nation is jumping to be the nation that does it. They all wait for another fool to take on the task.

There is also a huge amount of recorded piracy off Malaysia and Indonesia. Yet those episodes are almost never covered by the media.

The problem isn't laws prohibiting carrying them on the ocean, the most telling is the port/s in which the ship is intending to pull into. Some ports allow for arms to be onboard when you pull in while other's don't. Then you have company policies (which of course are often affected by insurance costs, etc). I know some companies bring on armed militia's when they are pulling into ports that will allow them to pull in with arms. Many companies also make use of non-projectile defense mechanisms that won't harm the attackers, but make it so that they can't get within a certain distance.

Just like bait cars and female cops dressed like prostitutes, its fair dinkum to provide the bad guy and opertunity to break the law, and to pounce when he dies.

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by the Police, by the Military, by a PMC, yes.
but not by a bunch of backyard commandos and spaceshuttel doorgunners that where to lazy to join the armed forces and yet still wanted to kill someone.

Blackwater/Xii recently bought a ship, they could do it and i would not oppose it, but having a bunch of people paying money for the privileg to kill other Humans just strikes me as perverted.

I think we had a post like this about a year ago,I would voulanteer, to sit on ship with a few other guys, if the money was right, if they are giving the pirates 2 million a pop, they should have no problem paying a thousand a day, per guy. 3 or 4, 50 caliber barretts should do the trick, and don't these ships have some sort ot radar sonar gadget. I was watching the movie perfect storm the other night and they could find a dingy in a hurricane. Maybe we should star a company like Blackwater .

by the Police, by the Military, by a PMC, yes.
but not by a bunch of backyard commandos and spaceshuttel doorgunners that where to lazy to join the armed forces and yet still wanted to kill someone.

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Stereotype much? Just where do you think police power comes from? Here's a few terms you might research: "citizen's arrest", "letters of marque or reprisal", "privateer"....

Blackwater/Xii recently bought a ship, they could do it and i would not oppose it, but having a bunch of people paying money for the privileg to kill other Humans just strikes me as perverted.

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So its OK to pay a THIRD PARTY to kill humans, but not OK to pay to do it yourself. Somehow, the difference escapes me...

Letters of Marque is specifically authorized and supported by the Nation that wrote the instrument. If they were to be stopped by a Foreign Nuetral Warship and had a proper letter, they will be safe.

If no letter then the law of the sea says they are Pirates and will be hung that day.

If Somali had a government recognized as legitimate and they issued letters of Marque, who are we to touch them?

It's a wide world out there and I dont mind spending a bit of fuel to route a ship a few extra days and 1000 miles further out to sea.

If the funds were right, I wont mind pulling post for 6 months aboard a ship hunting pirates to plink.

If I was rich enough have a shipping company I would tell Loyds to kiss off and I would arm my ships and hire ex military to defend my ship.

A rpg into a speedboat sure would ruin their day. That or a quad 50.

Stereotype much? Just where do you think police power comes from? Here's a few terms you might research: "citizen's arrest", "letters of marque or reprisal", "privateer"....

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what do you think what kind of people will sign on for such a cruise?
the ones that know what there skills are worth and would rather get paid to do the dirty work, or the ones that would just love to kill a other human beeing and are willing to pay 5k+ to do so without a jailterm attached to it?

So its OK to pay a THIRD PARTY to kill humans, but not OK to pay to do it yourself. Somehow, the difference escapes me...

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the difference is that in one case you pay a third party to protect you intrests, be it simple show of force or if need be by letahl force, while in the other case you let people that are willing to pay 5k or more to take a human life, do just that.

in one case, you pay someone for protection, in the other case you let people pay you in exchange for one or more Human lives.

Holy ****. I can't believe that people are advocating an instant death penalty for pirates. We either believe in, and live by, and expect, due process or we don't. Even if that means an at sea trial, fine. But talk of renting out guns and ammo for idiots who want to kill another human is bull.

From what I've read (and if anyone knows differently, please correct my understanding) the pirates have not actually killed any sailors to this point. Now everyone here knows that if they keep firing AK-47s and RPGs at ships then that number is due to rise upward from zero, but from the point of view of Lloyds and the shipping companies, why allow a change in policy that might result in deaths (and again, this is according to their views, not ours)?

Also I haven't seen anyone mention another reason occasionally presented for unarmed ships (small arms, at least): the crew sometimes cannot be trusted and with arms on board the possibility of at least one crewmember getting bought off and facilitating the piracy rather than preventing it gets very real.

My favorite idea so far is to airlift either US Marines (for US-flagged ships) or private security teams onto ships for their transit through dangerous areas.