On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:31:40 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:

On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:49:00 GMT, Steve wrote:




What will probably end up happening to solve the problem is that
either the shipping companies will tell all their captains to give
that area a much wider berth or they'll start hiring security forces
to protect the ships and not make them such easy targets. A 24 hour
watch with a few mounted and armored .50 cal machine guns will ruin
the day of those pirates in their speedboats.

When you're hauling $100,000,000 in cargo, the cost of a few extra
crew and some machine guns is irrelevant and is probably cheaper than
going around the area.

Think they're going to need more than .50's.
These Somali idiots are pretty well armed, and nutso.
They could have blasted that oil tanker with RPG rounds at the least.
And like I said, they're nuts.
It's going to take some serious killing of Somali pirates before it
stops. Probably land bombing/missile strikes.
There will be collateral damage.

They're looking for easy targets. If you're a bunch of pirates in a
little speedboat coming up to a tanker the size of an aircraft carrier
and while you're thinking of having to climb up a hundred foot rope
ladder there are guys on deck a hundred feet above you manning a few
mounted armored .50's and raining rounds into your boat while you're
still a mile out, you're gonna turn around real quick.

They weren't carrying anything to counter that. RPGs don't have
enough range. The rocket dies after only around 500m and they are
designed to self explode after less than 1000m of flight. An M2 .50
cal machine gun has an effective range (good enough to disable or sink
the speedboat) of twice that and a max range (good enough to let the
pirates know they are under fire) of over 4 miles.

And a huge freighter/tanker makes a great stable gun platform. A fast
moving speedboat does not.

Steve