IIRC these ships refuse to carry weapons to defend themselves.
You saw “Captain Phillips” too!
On a serious note, the only meaningful way to protect tankers is a naval escort with anti-ballistic missiles.
“IIRC these ships refuse to carry weapons to defend themselves.”
Do you mean “VLCC?” But somehow carrying munitions big enough to fend off ships mixed in with 350,000 tons of oil aboard in a single shipment may not be the way to do it. One torpedo or direct hit from a gunship of any real size will cause a real fire and most likely an explosion big enough to kill everyone on the ship and anyone around them. Might not be a good choice.
Fear of that is what makes the Iran threat a problem and until we and the allies can accomplish a systematic detection and neutralization, which won’t take long as Iran’s capacity is not strong and getting weaker all the time along with the chance of having countries they have fired upon joining the game.
The only real problem now is how to keep it shut down. Even our own US people have been derelict with the returning of funds to Iran by Obama and Biden so they could repair and expand their nuclear weapons program. Thanks for the sour persimmons cousin.
wy69
Yeah, that’ll work,
NOT
Before going around Somalia to the Suez Canal, the Captain brought on Israeli Mercenaries with BIG BLACK BAGS of GUNS!!