John Paul Jones or Lord Nelson could take 'em.
Posted on 04/04/2008 10:10:42 AM PDT by presidio9
Pirates seized control of a French cruise ship Friday off the coast of Somalia, France's Foreign Ministry said.
A ministry official said details about the attack were scarce, and it was not clear how many crew members were on board the ship or if there were any passengers.
The ship is in the high seas in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean.
The official declined to identify the vessel or its owner.
The ministry has set up a crisis center to deal with the situation, said the official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Pirates seized more than two dozen ships off the Somali coast last year.
The U.S. Navy has led international patrols to try to combat piracy in the region. Last year, the guided missile destroyer USS Porter opened fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to a Japanese tanker.
Wracked by more than a decade of violence and anarchy, Somalia does not have its own navy and
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Thanks for the info. I didn’t know that. Good for the Frenchies. My comment was a riff about the incident some time ago when they had to tow the thing, for some reason or other..
Well, frogs are waterborne. ;-)
The Frogs were poorly led. They had more and better tanks, good aircraft, and plenty of decent troops. They just lacked the doctrine the Germans had developed to use them together.
Of course, everybody but the Germans lacked that doctrine... and paid in blood to learn it.
If the French had good leadership they fought well, for example, Bir Hachiem, where they fought the Afrika Corps to a standstill, then, surrounded, broke out and escaped.
Gee, let's see here. Lessons learned and procedures developed over close to a hundred years, or what Rambo writes on an internet forum. Tough call.
On your average cruise, you've got a bunch of old geezers who are WWII and Korea and 'Nam vets (o.k., us 'Nam era folks aren't geezers QUITE yet). Not to mention those of us who while not veterans are well versed in the use of small arms.
My dad was an Engineer in WWII and was quite capable as late as the 70s of putting two well-placed shots in a burglar on a dark rainy night with his father's double barrel Parker (when you care enough to send the very best.)
I've fired a bunch of oddball stuff including a water-cooled Vickers MG, and it's not rocket science. If the cruise ship told off the veterans to man the heavy stuff and let the rest of us handle the rifles, it would probably work sufficiently well to scare off pirates looking for easy pickings.
Besides, better to die on your feet etc. etc.
Gee, those prodcedures worked great on 9/11/2001. And they worked great on the Achille Lauro, too.
They work great for pizza delivery guys and clerks at convience stores.
Not.
John Paul Jones or Lord Nelson could take 'em.
The article doesn’t say if the pirates used strong language or Super Soakers.
Hell, they could market the cruises that way. I'll bet a lot of guys would like a chance to take a pop at some Islamofascists.
We carried a couple of those my last deployment but didn’t have them out very much. The gunner’s mates said they were far more susceptible to corrosion in the salt air than the old standby twin .50 cals we also carried.
Sure, daytime is easy. Fail to meet any of those conditions at night and the pirates are on board. If something goes wrong and the pirates decide they don't want witnesses (such as they shoot and kill someone during the gun battle), you've simply guaranteed that everyone else gets shot and tossed overboard. Probably with your bullets.
It's counter-intuitive, I know--but that is the historical perspective. Everyone wants to be a hero. They can't be here. The pirates are after your goods and maybe the ship. They don't want to kill you. But they will. And they'll have little problem doing so unless you turn your ship into an armed fortress. Concertina wire a plus . . . it'll leave cute rust marks.
So go ahead. Name your pretty little ship the Khe Sanh. Let's see how many tickets you sell.
OLD IRONSIDES BUMP!!! I love that ship and all she stands for.
“Lessons learned and procedures developed over close to a hundred years”
Lol. What lessons learned over 100 years??? The only people who say not to use a firearm are liberals and cops looking to protect their own interests, which one are you?
Between me and you, I bet I’m the only one who has returned fire, so I’ll take my own personal experiences whereby returning fire was a lifesaver versus your distorted opinion that only Marine types are capable for self-defense.
P.S. Bullies usually run when punched in the nose. Works on the high seas, too.
I wish we had one here . . . it would be interesting to see his reaction to your cultural theories. I wonder how long it would take before he became impatient.
“Listen, I understand your desire to prove to everyone here that you are a real man.”
Well, you’re the one trying to lay claim to understanding security expertise, yet, you have no expertise from which to understand such things. Again, only stupid liberals and cops with an agenda ever try to say a person should never use a firearm in defense. You have no expertise from which to speak so we’ll just chalk you up as just another liberal who wants us all to be sheep because you think the experts say so. OH, and, uh, only liberals like to say anyone who stands their ground with a firearm is just showing bravado.
Let me know when you get your international concealed-carry permit, cowboy.
EXACTLY. My first thought. It is criminal - unless it is a trap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYvEFATaRMY
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