Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of...

[simonpro]

Arming the crew is illegal under international shipping law.

Anyway, the media is just kicking up a fuss about this now because they've got bored of the scary credit crunch. The Somalis have been doing this for years and years without anyone giving a damn (apart from the UN ships that are patrolling down there).

 

[SiberianTiger]

I think arming crew with AK-47's would be the cheapest and surest cure. No need for expensive and fancy deck guns and stuff. They may need to add some more crew members But it would be a guarantee that pirates would likely face a balanced gun fight and they would lose incentive to attack such vessels as the price in life would be too high for them. I'm of the sort of aggressive nature that I with any weapon at hand when being invaded would rather die in battle rather than be captured.

Can you decide for the sailors who opted to work for the shipping companies without knowing they were actually opting for a marine service?

I still believe it's best to let naval forces do their job. At least, it's them who would never miss a chance for a live target practice.

 

[Redburne]

Tankers have compartimentized hulls, and the raw oil they carry does not burn. It would take a lot of RPG hits to seriously emperil a tanker

The RPG was selected at random because it sounds threatening to a layman like me. I'm pretty sure the pirates can find adequate weaponry to cause a lot of discomfort to a tanker.

But you are right. If crude oil does not burn, defense does indeed become a viable option.

and a 35mm automatic cannon will turn the pirates into shark food before they can get in RPG range.

Certainly, but you'd have to equip each tanker with several of them, manned by experienced gunners. Not cheap at all, for a sea voyage of several weeks (?).

And unless the pirates are stupid enough to fly the skull and bones, keeping them at bay could prove difficult. You'd have to engage the approaching boats at a distance and without any evidence of them being pirates. This might cause legal problems when you send some sheik's pleasure yacht to Davy Jones' locker ...

Until the latest coup I would have said that putting some weapons on deck would be enough to deter pirates. But if they are determined and start to use military tactics ...

 

[Urwumpe]

Arming the crew is illegal under international shipping law.

Not sure if this is really so - I have read accounts of German seamen, who had encounters with pirates in the past and were armed with light guns.

Anyway, the media is just kicking up a fuss about this now because they've got bored of the scary credit crunch. The Somalis have been doing this for years and years without anyone giving a damn (apart from the UN ships that are patrolling down there).

17 ships are currently kidnapped in this second in this single region. That is sure worse as before. Not surprisingly worse, but worse.

And an Indian frigate just sank a pirate ship which attempted to attack it. You can't say they don't have balls...

 

[simonpro]

The oil tanker that was recently hijacked was sailing under a Liberian Flag. They do not allow any weapons other than light arms on any vessel with their flag. The port that it was sailing to does also not allow any weapons onboard vessels at their docks.
There are very few countries that allow their vessels to carry arms, and even fewer that allow such vessels to dock in their ports.

 

[Bill LeClere]

couple of mercs, 50 cal, a few fragmentation grenades. Goodbye speedboat.

bill


-----Post Added-----


at a distance is not a problem...age old custom....it's called "a shot across the bow".

 

[Urwumpe]

couple of mercs, 50 cal, a few fragmentation grenades. Goodbye speedboat.

Last question, and you better get this right, merc. Whose ship is this?
Mine.
Wrong answer.

 

[Ghostrider]

Last question, and you better get this right, merc. Whose ship is this?
Mine.
Wrong answer.

Any merc who arrives to the point he has to answer this question should hand in his "Soldier of Fortune" magazine subscription. :lol:

 

[Andy44]

Somalia should be conquered...

I think the ships' crews need more defending and less conquering. Somalians are people like the rest of us; leave them to their own affairs and keep a more narrow focus on the pirates and the pirate strongholds, if they can be located. Thomas Jefferson demonstrated the proper cure for piracy when the US found that paying off the Barbary pirates only resulted in...more piracy. The US Navy had to lose a frigate to solve the problem then, but I don't think there is much chance of that happening today.

As for arming the crews, of course I support this in principle. Even if it's more expensive then just paying off the pirates, it'll be less expenseive in the long run and help the peace of mind for crews who have to work in dangerous regions. It's also unconscionable to say that your employees must disarm themselves in the face of murderousn theives in known dangerous waters because you don't want to pay for it or your insurance company doesn't want to cover an armed crew.

Unfortunately, Simonpro is right when he says many countries won't allow armed crews to enter their ports, and in that case the merchants simply can't do business. (Funny that they have no problem with a threatening government-owned ship with all kinds of missiles and even nuclear weapons, but a handful of working guys who just want to fend off pirates with rifles are something that frightens them). So you're back to square one.

Realistic options: Provide merc security along with convoys (expensive), hope for a navy or navies to come secure the trade routes (isn't that a navy's job?), or pay the pirates (risky and, eventually, also expensive). Also one more: stay away from pirate waters (way too expensive to lost business).

Glad I'm not a merchant sailor these days. Might be lucrative to be a pirate, though.

 

[willy88]

Yar har fiddle-dee-dee, being a pirate is all right to be! Do want what you want 'cause a pirate is free, you are a pirate!

 

[tblaxland]

(Funny that they have no problem with a threatening government-owned ship with all kinds of missiles and even nuclear weapons, but a handful of working guys who just want to fend off pirates with rifles are something that frightens them)

We have treaties to comfort us . Personally, I don't have a problem with commercial ships with weapons on them docking at our ports, provided the weapons were safed and stowed prior to, and during, their stay (surely something that Customs could control, for a fee if required).

 

[adamb193]

All we need are some ninja's and we could solve this problem.

 

[Eagle]

We have treaties to comfort us . Personally, I don't have a problem with commercial ships with weapons on them docking at our ports, provided the weapons were safed and stowed prior to, and during, their stay (surely something that Customs could control, for a fee if required).

Wouldn't be terribly difficult. Just have a chest that customs can put a seal on while they're in port.

The real cost is paying the extra 2 or so crewmen who will be operating the weapons. That's at least a minimum of $100,000 in salaries, board, and training (yearly). More advanced radar or infrared or night vision goggles are another expense not to be taken lightly.

The ocean gets awful dark at night too.

Maybe there's a reason that so many countries choose to pay protection money and insure their ship and cargo. :dry:

TJ knew what to do.

 

[Dickie]

Although there are rules prohibiting the arming of merchant ships per se (think it is covered in UNCLOS, not to mention individual countries laws like someone mentioned previously), I understand that during the invasion of Iraq the RN provided naval personnel to provide security for merchant vessels traveling through the gulf - and seeing how they're on the military payroll it presumably didn't cost the companies who owned the ships anything - so I don't see any reason why we couldn't do the same off east Africa?

The problem with dealing with pirates is that if a naval vessel boards a ship and captures/arrests people suspected of piracy, you then have to work out what to do with the pirates. In many cases you can't send them back to their country of origin (i.e places like Somalia) as they face the risk of inhumane treatment if found guilty (exactly the same as refusing to extradite people to countries with the death penalty for the crime they've committed). I'm not saying this is right, but it is a factor in dealing with the pirates - although the pirates arrested by the RN recently were taken to Kenya to be tried, so maybe they've found a solution. Another issue is that of pirates taking advantage of our legal system by claiming asylum once they're on an RN ship, whereby in law the ship has to bring them back to the UK if they do hail from a country where there are human rights abuses (unfortunately as Somalia has no functioning government, it fits into this catagory) and it's plausible they might genuinely be trying to escape. Net result then is they come to the UK, apply for asylum, wait to be processed (which takes a very long time) and meanwhile live off the state - not an ideal solution for someone who was caught engaging in piracy!

Having said all that, it will be interesting to see how the EU task group works (along with the other countries who are now patrolling the region). I'm sure the capability is out there to effectively deal with the problem from a naval perspective, it's just a case of allowing the RN and other navies the opportunity to do so.

 

[SiberianTiger]

I maintain that the most effective way of solving the Somalian piracy problem would immediate establishing of the convoy service for the shipping, and making it mandatory for the shipping companies to use this service.

Prior to crossing the piracy risk zone, the merchant vessels must gather in the rally ports and once their number reaches a reasonable size, they are escorted by navy ships in order towards a disband point across the piracy risk zone. The possible end points might be ports like Suez (Egypt), Duqm (Oman), Toamasina (Madagaskar), Mumbai (India), Colombo (Sri Lanka). All of them seem to lay beyond the reasonable range of the pirate boats operating from the coast of Somalia.

My reasons are:

• risk effective - navy ships are much more capable of preventing pirates from boarding a ship than any possible measures that can be taken aboard a merchant.
• historically approved - the practice of sailing in convoys was devised exactly to fend off pirates and is half of millenium old. It was also effective during wars, but much more so when escorts have a firepower advantage over possible attackers. Today's use of convoys is running ships over routes across the Arctic, but they use icebreakers instead of naval ships.
• low cost - the possible expences from following the new order for the owners are lesser than paying rebate to pirates and suffer from disruption of the delivery due to ship's seizure. Also, no need to spend money on armaments and such.
• no requirement for additional assets - the navies are already there, but they are mostly doing patrolling and are incapable of being everywhere simultaneously.
• navy practice and usefulness - in a peacetime, the navies are mostly busy "polishing the brass parts" and chacing each other for training. Lending real protection to real endangered people is much more useful. Also, the crews will get some real training they are so long for.
• cooperation - it's best to cooperate than not to.
• fun for the sailors - navy sailors will go to distant seas to see the world; merchant sailors will enjoy traveling along with other vessels.
• non-intervention - the proposed measures won't directly touch Somalia as a state. Nobody would perform a marine landing or something. Hence, no problems associated with granting a UN mandate for such an operation (whose efectiveness would be disputable anyway).
• no law violation - this is a completely lawful proposal, opposing to hiring mercenaries (which is a spreading of crime and unrest itself) or arming the ship's crews as was mentioned here.
• deterrent effect - only the most blatant pirates would risk attacking a convoy escorted by 4 or 5 escorts with choppers on CAP. Others would prefer to stay back, hoping for an easier prey - thus the decrease in the total number of ammo actually fired.
• humanity - due to the above, less need of turning Somalia citizens to shark food.
• curing effect - when the profitability of piracy ends due to this measure, people who might become pirates would seek their livelyhood elsewhere. Hoopefully, through less offencive jobs.

Possible contras are:

• bureaucracy barriers - how do one make so many treaties with shipping owners and other counterparties so concurrently?
• lack of the united will - don't really know how to cope with that.
• delays on shipping - some will be there, of course. Also, ships will have to visit the ports they did not have a need to visit.
• risk of collisions between ships - when they are moving in order. Oh, well... Let them hire more experienced helmsmen.
• possible sparse coverage - there may be routes I forgot about.

How about it?

 

[Urwumpe]

How about it?

Is the traditional solution to dangerous waters.

But still, I think the problem is not the danger of the waters, but the fact that Somalia is no intact state. Not even a sovereign state by definition. Somalia is a state of chaos. There is no Somali government which can be taken serious.

You can now attempt to control the oceans - thanks to motherships, the pirates have no a range in excess of 1000 km from the Somali coast line. or you can control the coast.

I personally think controlling the coast is maybe the less friendly solution, but the most effective. Send the Islamists to heaven, take a few warlords with them, install a bureaucratic monster as government, but ensure that people in Somalia can survive without resorting to crime and especially piracy.

We are not talking about a situation like in the Strait of Malacca, where pirates can hide among the usual high traffic. Somalia has become the modern Tortuga. Possibly without importing 1650 prostitutes, but I won't bet on it.

 

[cjp]

Found this in a newspaper this morning:

Another way to scare away pirates :lol: