I don't know how much experience you have firing crew-served weapons off the deck of a naval vessel. I have plenty. I promise you, even under the calmest of conditions, the accuracy is very, very poor. And, the ships own armerment was designed to sink or engage much, much larger targets.
From a few hundred yards, (which I understand is how far the Navy is standing off) you would just as likely hit what you weren't aiming at (like the captain) than what you were aiming at.
Maybe we need automatically tracking guns that could be focused on a target like this (if a cruise missile would have too much blast).
Reports are the captain was immediately grabbed and brtought back to the lifeboat, this was observed by an unmanned drone. The logistics of getting the captain out alive are not simple. For one thing, the lifeboat is covered, so flipping it does not flip everyone in teh water. If you could flip them out, he is tied up and easily could drown.
One would think the pirates need to be told that if they harm the captain they are dead, but that still doesn’t get him free. If you theraten to kill the pirates, they threaten to kill the captain.
Everyone wants to armchair quarterback this. Getting the captain back alive is tricky. It’s after this incident is over that we need a military plan to attack the pirates. And even then they will threaten their hostages.
From a few hundred yards, (which I understand is how far the Navy is standing off) you would just as likely hit what you weren't aiming at (like the captain) than what you were aiming at.
I'm sorry to hear that. I sounds like more or different training is in order. Accurate fire on small boat size targets is vital in order to protect US Navy ships from attack by suicide bombers. Hitting moving targets when the gunnery platform is moving isn't easy, but it can be learned. Just ask any guy who operated a .50 cal gun on a WWII bomber.