Posted on 12/19/2008 11:39:03 AM PST by Flavius
Keeping low to avoid being shot, a sailor lights a Molotov cocktail before throwing it at Somali pirates trying to board his ship.
He and his crewmates were expecting trouble and had prepared dozens of the makeshift grenades to repel an invasion.
Their cargo vessel was attacked in the Gulf of Aden by pirates using speedboats and armed with heavy machine guns and rocket launchers.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Kudos to the Chinese crew ... bravely done with improvised weapons.
Previous headlines that I saw deleted the ‘malatov cocktail’ part.
Very different when headline cruising and punching the link.
(Also much better than the added “... also used fire hoses”.)
Those are some great pics, but I didn’t see any eye patches, wooden legs, or parrots on the pirates’ shoulders.
Need to get these guys some automatic weapons.
Very Nice!
Glad these sailors for away safely.
Also hope the pirates are now enjoying some well deserved 2nd and 3rd degree burns all over their bodies.
I find it ironic that the source of this account would be British. Seems these fishermen displayed a whole lot more gumption than did the British sailors who were taken hostage some time ago.
Having an automatic weapon pointed at me would be bad enough, but a rocket launcher?! I would have a mess on the deck to clean up.
At least someone has the guts to face these pirates head-on (other than the Indian Navy).
Nice work!!!
As a lingering effect, the pirates may now get lead poisoning.
For all who don’t know, the IMO (International Maritime Organization) forbids weapons aboard commercial ships, mostly in deference to those countries that don’t want weapons aboard commercial ships in their harbours.
It’s not the fault of the shipowners that they don’t put weapons in the hands of crew.
There’s a lesson in here somewhere.
What is the jurisdiction of the International Maritime Organization?
"Never mess with a Chinese when he's been drinkin' beer"???
What are they drinking? “Tsing POW”?
OK ... reported to be ducking to avoid gunfire.
BUT ... guy in the back is watching calmly.
BUT ... camera, likely at eye level, is not taken from a ‘take cover’ position.
BUT ... how much time would it take to prepare all those bottles and rags. And mighty big beer bottles by the way (see cans on deck)
BUT ... only one guy preparing to throw a bottle? To fend off the pirates ...
BUT ... all bottles neatly arranged, even to the point of having most of the labels turned around.
My guess? This was all staged. It might never have happened at all as represented. This is their Gulf of Tonkin to bring ships over and get some blue water practice and some SIGINT and ELINT intercepts from the good guys.
I call BS on all this.
A perfect opportunity to resurrect Letters of Marque. Direct warfare does not have a great track-record against stateless entities. There are better tools to deal with asymmetry, and Letters of Marque are among them.
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