Any boarding by pirates using small craft would need transport to the area by a larger ship.
Posted on 11/17/2008 4:30:59 PM PST by SandRat
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2008 – Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said he was shocked by the piracy of a Saudi Arabian supertanker 450 nautical miles off the coast of Kenya in the Arabian Sea.
Mullen, speaking during a Pentagon news conference today, said the Sirius Star was attacked more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya. News reports indicate the pirates have hijacked the ship and are heading for the Somali port of Eyl.
The ship is owned by a Saudi Arabian oil company and flagged in Liberia. Its crew of 25 includes citizens of Croatia, Great Britain, The Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia.
“I'm stunned by the range of it, less so than I am of the size,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The pirates have proven in the past that they are capable of planning and launching attacks on large supply vessels.
“Once the (pirates) have access, they seem to be able to get on and take over, which they've done in this case,” he said.
There are a number of military ships in the area, and American ships and crews have the rules of engagement and the necessary force needed to take on pirates, the chairman said.
The attack comes amid a decrease in the rate of successful pirate attacks on merchant vessels off the coast of Somalia, said officials at the Navy’s 5th Fleet based in Manama, Bahrain. Military and civilian efforts in the region has reduced the percentage of successful piracy attacks from 53 percent in August, to 31 percent in October.
“Our presence in the region is helping deter and disrupt criminal attacks off the Somali coast, but the situation with the Sirius Star clearly indicates the pirates’ ability to adapt their tactics and methods of attack” Navy Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of Combined Maritime Forces, said in a release today.
“One of the challenges that … you have in piracy clearly is, if you are intervening and you capture pirates, is there a path to prosecute them?” Mullen said. “That's something I think the international community has got to answer for the long run.”
While the percentage of successful attacks has dropped the overall number of incidents still causes the chairman concern. “We're going to continue to have bring pressures on these pirates,” he said.
Agreed.
Even at $60/bbl, the cargo is worth $120 million.
Where do they put all the ships they take there? There do not appear to be barrier islands in that part of the coast, such as there along most of the US Gulf and Atlantic coasts. It's more like the pacific coast, with many fewer natural bays.
I just finished reading Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas yesterday. The author goes into this in detail. First off, in most of their ports of call privately owned firearms are strictly forbidden and being caught with one is a ticket to a long prison sentence. Secondly, there are a lot of volatile liquids and venting combustible gasses on these tankers, and to fire a gun is to invite a catastrophic fire or explosion.
There are outfits like Blackwater that do provide maritime security, but they aren't cheap, and there are just plain too many tankers out there to put security on all of them. So most of the time the owners settle for keeping the ship well lit, keeping the firehoses going full blast and aimed at the likely boarding spots, and locking up the interior of the ship like a fortress.
Interestingly enough, both the Israelis and the Russians are well known for their assertive defensive postures, and their ships almost never get attacked. Something to do with bloated bullet-riddled bodies washing up on the beach a few days after someone tries it.
If so they had enough intelligence data to position the dhows 450 nm out or they'd never catch the tanker. I'm guessing the boys may have upgraded their gear, though.
I think the general view of merchant sailors is a little more aggressive than the ones I know merit. They're just working stiffs doing a rather tough and dirty job, and risking their lives to protect their cargo is not in the job description, especially if it involves shooting firehoses at people armed with RPG's and automatic weapons. The pirates have taken (relatively) good care of past hostages, enough to prevent a life-or-death scenario from the point of view of the sailors.
More likely it will take armed professionals to oppose armed professionals (yeah, give me a cupie doll for a golden revelation on that one). It simply becomes a question of who, and when. But it will most definitely involve attacks on a civilian population and a risk of death for hostages. So who bells the cat?
The only thing likely to deter pirates. But it may not always work either, if the pirates also see themselves as some kind of Holy Warrior. These guys apparently kid themselves that they are that, calling themselves "coast guardians" or some such.
Most assureadly a Mother-Ship.
Yet that is what the article says.
It isn’t much, is it? Not even a breakwater. I would guess they anchor them out but I don’t really know. Now, a tanker this size isn’t really designed to spend any time swinging off an anchor chain(s) so the problem, as you point out, might not be all that easily addressed. Their only real option might be a threat to sink her.
That’s why Adm. Mullen’s shocked.
not an oral before the department head.
Reminds me of a girl I went to school with...
GMTA?
The F35 Joint Strike fighter(called joint because it is made to service the airforce, navy and marines)has a vertical lift off version, the one the Navy will use, and it supposedly is easier to fly than the Harrier, they are in the midst of testing it now, not sure when it will be released for duty but the Harriers we have are supposed to be able to last until then(hopefully).
One would think that there were enough fighters stationed at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, both U.S. and French, that they could mount some kind of heliborne reaction to any piracy within range of their choppers. I'm sure that the 13DBLE there would love to use their bayonets against some of those pirates.
Can't the captain hang 'em from the yardarm?
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