[Pining_4_TX]

Well, if it were just an average person's opinion, I would agree with you, but these 2 men (as I said, both were ex special ops guys) said that it would take too many hours of training and too much expertise and equipment for these terrorists. In fact, they said they thought these men had begun scuba training but abandoned it when they saw how difficult it would be to attack using this method. Both experts said it is much easier to blow a bridge or something by hijacking a fuel truck.

[Travis McGee]

Let me, a former frogman, put in my $0.02 worth.

A scuba attack is not that hard to master, depending on the water. In very cold water with swift currents it's a b!tch. In calmer water, it would be no sweat. But I still don't think that an underwater scuba attack would be the first choice, it's just not neccesary to attack underwater!

Sure, to attack a Soviet sub base in 1975, that might call for mini subs and no-bubble rebreather rigs, and the skills of say, SEALs. But in the USA in 2002, forget all that, even today our maritime security is virtually nonexistant where it counts.

Think surface swimmers and kayaks. A surface swimmer with only his black painted face out of the water, swimming on his back using only his fins, is VERY hard to see. Stay in the shadows, get under the docks, it's easy. Tow in a neutrally bouyant 55 gallon drum filled with the demo of your choice, I'll leave the rest to your imagination, only in case some stupid rag hasn't already considered it.

Historical note: the British SBS was born in WW2 when Blondie Hasler led a half dozen two man kayaks way up the Girone River in France right under the noses of the Nazis and sank several large ships pierside. Just black painted kayaks, that's all it takes to get alongside a ship with enough demo to sink it.

I could go to any Boy Scout summer camp and get 20 kids capable of sinking most of our fleet at the dock in Norfolk or San Diego in one night. They would need a month of training and a few thousand dollars for equipment.

[LikeLight]

Tex,
These people spent years of their life going to flight school learning to accurately fly jumbo jets! They may be idiots and murderers, but they do have patience and a flair for pulling off the wholly improbable and unexpected.

[proudofthesouth]

Don't forget though, that we have trained a lot of foreign nationals (military) on our bases. I know for a fact that we have had them on our Air Force and Army bases. Training them at a Naval facility wouldn't be farfetched an idea. Just because they are from countries whose terrain is dessert doesn't mean that they aren't capable of learning underwater warfare.

[aristeides]

Learning diving sufficiently well to do this sort of thing is not so difficult that the Tamil Tigers have not learned it well enough to attack shipping off Ceylon.

[willyone]

In Puget Sound the water is cold and murky and the currents due to the extreme tides are too much for any swimmer. It would be far easier to just use a truck bomb or a boat to do damage. The Coast Guard must be trying to enhance it's roll to get more funding.