Posted on 04/08/2009 5:25:46 AM PDT by Jeff Head
A shame we don’t have those any more (Thanks Mr. Clinton!)
Hmmmm....I wonder if some of the Crewmen thought about bringing their own “Personal” weapons on board and had a chance to get to them,,,,or the Penguins of Madagascar got on board and took on the Pirates? (Hoover Dam! Rico! Status Report!)
I’ll go with that...I remember watching the end of that fiasco on TV when I was in hihg School....Glad that when I joined, I was in “Regans Navy”, not his.
Hope this plays out well. Another "lets roll" moment. Hope they are safe.
True. That is very sad.
I don’t think that ERGM is the way to go. Nothing quite as intimidating as a battleship bristling with heavy guns.
By the way, I’m really saddened about the berthing of the Battleship Wisconsin.
(Being from WI myself).
Well, at least we still have the magnificent carrier Reagan.
Sigh.
“is now the worst Ex President.”
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Only till Obama leaves office, only until then.
Here’s is how you stop it.
You haul one of our old liberty ships out of mothballs. . Equip it with turbine engines and sophisticated sensors all around. Man it with a 100 or so Marines armed to the teeth. In fact, put several of these to sea.
Paint them nine shades of rust and put smoke pots in the old stacks to make them look like easy pickings. Limp them along through pirate infested waters.
When pirates attack they all die. Put their bodies in the boat they came in (if it still floats) and set it adrift.
No fanfare, no news articles, claim no knowledge. After a while pirates will notice that their guys go out but don’t come back except for the occasional skiff that washes ashore with bullet riddled bodies.
They’ll stop.
That would be a great idea, but Congress won’t give the money to do that (anyone know of a Cargo line that isn’t using one of it’s ships right now? Vigilanties At Sea!). Now comes the story of the Pirates having the Captain as a hostage, so we’re still in the same boat (no pun intended). Hopefully they have the closest USN vessel heading towards them at Flank Speed and it has a Seahawk aboard that can drop a Ships Security Force on board that can take this mess over.
Barack Obama sure ain’t no Tom Jefferson.
I don’t see us sending any Steve Decatur’s over their to kick ass and take names.
“Nothing quite as intimidating as a battle ship bristling with guns.”
To deal with these pipsquikes we don’t need a battleship, we need patrol craft. Something on the order of WWII PCE’s, PC’s, SC’s, PTB’s or PGB’s, even AAF crash boats. Coast Guard Cutters, even PCF’s. All with modern electronics and armament, of course.
What we need more than weapons is the will to use them.
VietVet
The owners of these shipping lines ought to get together and do this themselves. Pony up a couple ships and hire mercs. Pay them extra for each dead pirate.
Until these guys start dying by the boatload, they’re not going to stop. And the longer it goes on the better they will get at it.
These pirates aren’t targeting random ships. They have contacts in ports who notify them of particular ships and cargos. Any on-sea action needs to be accompanied by dealing with the criminals in port connections.
Negotiate? Sure...
1...
or
2...
They pick.
(2 to the Chest, or 1 to the head)
As a tax payer I’m more inclined to choose 1 for obvious reasons.
Amen to that.
It would have been nice if the USS Cole had opportunity to protect herself.
I’m sick of the muzzles put on our most excellent military.
Apparently most of the crew got into a safe room/area near the steering and the pirates could not find them. The prirates had sunk their own skiff, but the Captain of the container ship negotiated with them to take one of the ships life boats and the did so and got into it with the captain.
In the mean time, the crew had captured a pirate and you ended up with the crew and one pirate on the ship, and the other pirates and the captain on the life boat.
The crew arranged for a trade with the pirates, their man for the captain and when the crew gave over their captive, the pitrates renigged on their end. And that's the latest.
Coalition ship soon to be on station.
I understand that. That’s why the shipping folks themselves would be better suited. They could set up the “dummy” manifests that identified a ship as carrying cargo the pirates might want.
Many of these attacks are also targets of opportunity. Indonesian and Phillipino pirates engage in target of opportunity attacks more often than not because of the proximity of hiding places among the islands.
If some old cargo ship wandered in close, going slow, with some juicy looking containers on deck, they are not going to pass it by just because they did not get a call from their port contacts.
The thing to do would be to have several ships of different types set up in this manner. That way the pirates could never be sure which ship might greet them with a crew of trained mercs. Should any live to tell the tale and describe the ship that is....
It’s time to chum the waters off Somalia with pirate bodies. Sharks need to eat, too.
“The only good pirate is a dead pirate!”
How about everything over 500 lbs.?
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