A U.S. military commander urged the shipping companies on Monday to provide armed guards for their cargo boats in case of piracy in the Horn of Africa.Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, who is in charge of the U.S. Navy’s Central Command fleet, said during an interview with CNN that shipping companies needed to provide a last line of defense against being boarded by pirates, including armed guards and barbed wire around the lower parts of the ship, among others.
“You need two things to have a successful piracy attack. You need pirates that are seeking monetary gain and you also need a ship that’s able to get pirated,” he said.
The commander said that two vessels survived pirate attacks last week because they had put barbed wire around the ship on the closest avenues of approach…
There really is nothing new about defensive armaments in the Merchant Marine. Vessels were armed during both of the World Wars as defense against submarine and aircraft attacks. A maximum of four 50-calibre automatic weapons mounted for raking fire – two on each side of the craft – with trained gunners – is about all you need.
A lot less expensive than a million-dollar ransom. If you can get it past the fracking lawyers.
Eideard said, “A lot less expensive than a million-dollar ransom. If you can get it past the fracking lawyers.”
Maybe the lawyers should be required to travel with every unarmed merchant ship…
Arming the ships makes “common sense” to me. Got to have “the public” behind you though to support the policy when the first bored gun crew slaughters an innocent fishing vessel. Shouldn’t be that hard given they are all foreigners.
It would probably be a better idea to give each merchant ship a squad of fully armed Marines. I know it is more expensive than machine gun emplacements, but you have trained people who can take out the pirates and the crew can lock themselves in the bridge and steer the ship.
A quick and dirty barracks can be made from a few shipping containers.
I disagree bobbo, from what I’ve read about the pirates, their tactics and their ships are very different from a fishing boat. I say give the cargo ships machine guns, that will scare away most of the pirates.
There are enough captured RPGs and rounds in Iraq to arm all of these ships. Let them have at the pirates.
Mail me a penny postcard when one of you glances at the history of armed merchant marines – instead of relying on your crystal balls.
Training personnel to use a machine gun (or a RPG) effectively ain’t exactly rocket science.
Freighters and tanker are not armored. An RPG round could cause some serious insult. These guys can now afford to buy stand off shoulder launchers, which can be fired out of the range of a .50 caliber gun. You would have to engage them with heavier weapons with explosive warheads. These are not easy weapons to man and fire, and radar controlled weapons would be too expensive. You have to take out their base of operations and destroy their ability to continue. Remember a modern freighter steams at over 20 knots. A rickety old fishing boat is not a danger, unless they contain speedboats. All this can be done with rotary and fixed wing assets. As for the captured pirates, throw them over the side, or avoid taking prisoners. So Somalia has bee screwed over by the West, what African nation hadn’t.
# 7 RTaylor said, “These guys can now afford to buy stand off shoulder launchers, which can be fired out of the range of a .50 caliber gun.”
Let them try and hit with one while in a small pitching craft, out of range of an M2… Lots of luck.
The way I understand it, one of the main reasons such vessels are not currently armed is that and armed vessel can be subject to special inspections while in port which can delay shipping. Therefore it might be cheaper to pay the ransom than incur late shipping fees from having you ship detained at various ports.
# 1 Paddy-O said,
“Maybe the lawyers should be required to travel with every unarmed merchant ship…”
Then no one would want to pay the ransom.
# 10 GetSmart said, “Then no one would want to pay the ransom.”
LOL!
Hold your fire men, that boat racing in off the starboard bow is just full of women wearing hijabs and waving their hankies.
Modern .50-calibre weapons have a range exceeding 1 mile. The .50 BMG round has an effective range of 1850 meters and can reach over 6000 meters.
#7, their is a problem with your argument. The fact is the pirates do not want to sink or destroy the ship. If they do that then they do not get any money. All the shipping companies have to do is make the odds no longer in their favor. I say let the ships be armed with 50 cals. That will in effect make it impossible for the pirate gangs to do their mischief.
Will it stop it completely? Probably not, but you can make the cost so high that it takes a huge capital investment to hijack a ship, right now all you need is a few guys in a shipping boat, with a Russian RPG, and some machine guns. Plus lets be honest, if pirates realize that all American flag merchant ships are armed, they are probably going to go find a softer target.
ok, so lets say we permit armed guards on the ships, and maybe a 50 cal. machine gun mounted on the deck.
that means when any ship enters a U.S. port, it is now legally transporting guns that would otherwise be illegal in the port itself.
how long would it be before a few al-quaeda nutbars hire themselves out as “security” so they can take a trip to New York or L.A. and go on a shooting spree as soon as they arrive?
#15 There’s nothing to stop a ship from doing that now. BTW – an officer would have secured any weapons long before entering US waters. Come up with a better excuse to keep ships as soft targets for pirates.
I’m for killing as many pirates as possible.
1. Shoot the Navy’s lawyers with the .50 cal
2. Arm the ships
3. Sink the mother ships
4. Destroy the towns they live in
By letting them ransom the world, they gain power and prestige and the nasty guys like Al Queda arrive or copy elsewhere.
This is all because the commercial ships are not allowed to arm themselves due to international law. Reverse this and we’ll see a decrease in piracy at sea. Don’t use our Navy as bodyguards.
I’m all for arming merchant ships, for any number of reasons. But to stop pirates from boarding—that is climbing up the side of the ship—wouldn’t a few strategically placed pots of boiling oil do the trick?
That would avoid all the “weapons” laws in the USA at least.