Posted on 03/07/2011 7:42:19 AM PST by Travis McGee
Pirates hijacked 53 ships and held a total of 1,181 hostages for ransom last year, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Forty nine of those ships and 1,016 of those hostages – from commercial and private vessels -- were seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia, a statistic that was brought into sharp relief last month when Somali pirates hijacked a yacht and on Feb. 22 murdered the four Americans aboard. Two days later, a Danish family, including three children, was taken from their yacht by Somali pirates and as of this writing had been moved to a larger pirate vessel off the Somali Coast.
These very unfortunate events and statistics are renewing and raising awareness about Somali piracy, and many piracy experts echo the advice of Amb. David H. Shinn, former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso, who notes that “leisure travelers have no business going into the Western Indian Ocean until the crisis caused by Somali pirates has ended.” The International Maritime Bureau also reports that there were 445 pirate attacks worldwide last year, underscoring that piracy is not just a Somali problem. “Hostile boardings happen all over the world,” especially in South Asia, the Caribbean, and even off the coast of Florida,” says Charles Clifton, founder and director of non-profit security company Humanitarian Defense.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
SAW
AAaaaarrrrrgue with them ...
Seems that way to me, too. Your advice is best: Ask the locals what’s going on. They always know. Same advice applies as well to diving unfamiliar waters, flying into unfamiliar airports, where to go shooting, hunting, fishing, skiing, etc. Knowledge is power and ignorance is deadly. 6P.
If they get inside shotgun range, you are screwed. Give me two rifles.
As far as sniper rifles, they don’t work on the ocean on 95% of days. There ain’t no bench rest out there, son. All shooting is done offhand, usually offhand sitting for best results.
Your sniper rifle with a 9X scope won’t ever lock onto your target. Your boat is moving, you are moving, your weapon is moving, your target is moving in several dimensions. Their boat is moving forward, rolling, yawing, pitching and going up and down on the swells.
For landlubbers, my closest comparison is to shoot from a dune buggy at somebody on another dune buggy a few 100 yards away. Or shoot from the roof of an SUV bouncing over rutted fields. At moving targets.
So, forget the sniper rifle, unless you are proned out on the fantail of a USN destroyer like the SEALs who shot those pirates. If you are on a boat, however, this won’t work. At all.
The best results are with a high velocity semi-auto rifle. You adjust your aim by your fall of shot. You correct off of your splashes, and this works best semi-rapid-fire. A bolt sniper rifle is too slow to reload and can’t use this advantage. You fire strings of semi-auto shots, shooting and adjusting as you see your splashes walking to your target.
That’s how you do it.
Yeah, so wouldn’t a SAW machine gun work best for this task?
Most of the people who are sailing around the world aren’t rich and they aren’t on megayachts big enough for “security details.”
The typical world cruiser is on a 40’ fiberglass sloop. The problem is there is no safe or easy way around Africa. 50’ waves against a 5 knot current can kill as dead as pirates.
For the past 5 or so years, sailboats have been convoying up to travel through the Red Sea, with radio comms to naval vessels who are aware of their location.
The 4 sailors killed had left ahead of a convoy for whatever reason.
BTW How are things on the Busted Flush?
A SAW would be great if they got inside of 100 yards, but the whole point is to keep them at bay outside of AK-47 range. Splashes in front of their bow are an age-old form of communication.
Warning shots would only be given to a vessel that is following, shadowing you, matching your turns etc. I’m not talking about a mid-ocean crossing situation. But if a vessel turns and follows you, that is a hostile act today. If they do it for a long time and slowly inch up, they are hostile.
A SAW would be great if you had enough ammo and were strong enough to shoot it offhand from the shoulder.
But I don’t know anybody with one. The typical AK or AR is what we have.
HOZE-EM!!! 
Maybe you need to mount a fiberglass M-2 on your stern. ;-)
Travis, you need to change your handle to Chuck Norris!
That definitely makes sense. I wasn’t aware of those limitations with the SAW.
Then probably a higher caliber AR variant would do the trick?
Wow! The caliber of that would be, what.... around 6.67? Seriously, that's a great deception tactic!
I suspect the information in this good article is applicable to we landlubbers, as well. One never knows when cruising along I-8 or I-10 in a nice car or travel trailer, one might be hijacked by a Mexican cartel for much the same reasons. Instead of being taken to a Somali port, the victims would be moved across our porous border. That day is surely coming for us, I think, as it happens in Mexico all the time to Mexicans.
“a black spray-painted plywood M-16, which he constructed at 1.2 times scale so that “it looks bigger and more threatening than a real one.””
A Quaker gun!
Don’t worry Barry will catch them, read them their Miranda rights, and let them out on bail. Then other Democrats and RINOs will give them free hospital services, food stamps, housing, and in-state tuition.
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