Posted on 09/02/2009 10:15:29 AM PDT by American Number 181269513
The United States is planning to deploy unmanned aerial vehicles in the Seychelles islands in the coming weeks to combat piracy. The use of land-based drones is a new approach to deter ship hijackings in the region.
The spokesman for the U.S. military's Africa Command, Vince Crawley, says several Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles will be in the Seychelles by late October or November. He says they will be used to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions throughout the Indian Ocean region.
(Excerpt) Read more at voanews.com ...
Seems like a good idea.
“US to base drones...”
Zero is going to send democrat voters there?
Not clones, drones...
We need a squadron of A-10s. In 3 months there wouldn't be a single pirate vessel afloat.
DRONES. WEAK!!!!
We are letting the pirates go too!!!
will the drones be armed or just taking pictures?
Hope they are armed with Hellfires.
You look up, and see this:
What do you do?
Whatcha goyna do when dey come for you ...
I’d volunteer for that duty.
She sells Seychelles by the sea shore.
It’s need a minigun turret right behind the sensor turret. And make it a two man remote plane with a pilot and gunner.
Why is the CIA being curbed by prosecutions. Why have community worker ROEs been implimented in Afghanistan.
Many of the pirates are LUO, from Obama's native tribe from the Kenya / Somali coast.
The drones have only one to three humans in the chain of command and the president calls the shot, which is why they will never be used to shoot the pirates.
Why not just allocate a force to clean them up, such as an A-10 Squadron? Because they will never be cleaned up, not by Obama.
Obama us weak, and derogates the USA in the sphere of freedom of the seas. The Indian Navy does a better job than the USA ever will under Obama.
We have a kindler gentler way to look like we wage war on piracy. Which means we do no such thing while looking "like" we do.
Waste of money.
But there's a crew of at least two running a standard Predator.
Zero will no more send manned aircraft to wipe out the pirates than he will send unmanned to do the job.
The problem is Zero ... not the Predators.
Can’t kill ‘em, at least according to modern euroweenie style morals:
They are not killing the crews of the ships they attack.
They treating captured crews well and returning them safely when they are ransomed.
If we start killing them, they might retaliate against the their captives and start killing crews. It would just make things escalate.
If you’re a euroweenie, there is no justification for lethal force against them.
Needless to say, the pirates know this and exploiting the hell out it.
Please note that they said they were deploying Reapers - not Predators. Reapers are well armed - see pic at post 8.
They be’s callin in a hurtin with that.
You take a shot at it.
The pirates have money for MANPADS if the want them. One of these days, probably soon, one of our choppers is going to get a very rude surprise.
They might even be able to afford some light SAM system. So they might be able to find some weapons that can reach a Reaper at operational altitude.
Another problem is, we don’t attack the “mother ships.” And the bomb or missile is waaaaay more expensive than the little zodiac boat it takes out.
Better trick would be to fly them over various African cities at night and drop some bombs on the pirate captains’ mansions then blame the explosions on gang warfare or the local government.
What is the range of an A-10?Do we have a base within the range?
The range of an A-10 is 800 miles or 695 nautical miles ( without refuling in flight)
Source:
http://www.aviationexplorer.com/a-10_facts.htm
They could fly out of Djibuti.
They also have in flight refuling capability.
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