please leave off witht hew stoooopid posts

as you well know, collateral damage is a big political problem and affects military operations all over the world

bombing the entire port in a region's major city is not an option

there are ways to trace pirates however

Virtually every country with a coastline has a navy of some sort. Most are like our Coast Guard - near shore coastal defense. But, several countries have real-live "Blue Water" Navies.

As an aspiring regional or world power, India - like China - has more than one might think. The Chinese recently 'floated' their plans for a carrier. Several countries have 1 or 2; we have 10 or 11.

Building helicopter type carriers makes sense for many countries - they are well-suited to coastal defense, anti-piracy/hijacking, and to the coming relief ops that will be needed as more and larger coastal cities are hit by storms and flooding. They are also a good R&D project preliminary to building your own big-ass 24 hr. round the clock attack carrier fleet....

We have amazing weapons systems, unparalled in history.

BUT... you have to ID the target and communicate that to the payload. Steering the payload in is no problem in comparison.

You have ports (already discussed); mother ships, and small craft some of which are "fast boats."

Ideally, you'd like to tag a pirate boss or his facilities with a sensor/communications package.

I will let you all think of ways to do that.

An alt. is to watch & distinguish a mother ship from others, then hit it and try to swat the small craft as they scuttle away...

Now, do you taxpayers want the US to do all that? Or do we have other things to do with our personnel and materiel?

Most other countries do not have the same level of capability.

The real solution is what was done re the Straits of Molucca - that is a military/policing/political solution. But it takes a while.

A lot of countries are being hit/annoyed by this -- that means it will not persist for very long. I advise against booking any "scenic cruises" in the area for now, however.

India has a very good navy...including two surplus British carriers and a bunch of subs. They fly a wide variety of aircraft from their surface ships.

We have come to look down on smaller navies because we don't think they are very, "sophisticated".

How's that working out for the pirates?

The US Navy is still stuck on the 11 aircraft carrier paradigm and doesn't seem willing to budge...much like the Battleship navy of the 20's and 30's.

Since this tanker is owned by the Saudi's it seems we (US Navy) could/should charge a bunch o' bucks to save their a$$. But then we should price the wheat we sell them by the price of oil too.

I suggest we keep our nose out of other people's business and just sell the Saudis the needed equipment and support services, otherwise we're telling the world the US is a hired mercenary. Our national defense isn't out for hire yet is it?

The Saudis are free to hire Blackwater or any equivalent security force to protect their assets.

Sherwood

well, like it or not, we are the main defender of the high seas

it makes sense for others to help out

Randy,
This is a rare occasion where we disagree. It makes more sense for the tanker owners to take the necessary steps to protect their property. If we can rationalize this as part of our national security, so be it. Otherwise, I'd rather we spend tax dollars over here or on things more pertinent.

Sherwood

Well, I get your point but it is arguable that this would be in our National interest in the long run. Having said that, we should charge the Saudis for saving their ship....if we do so. I think these tankers and other commercial ships have hired private security in the past and will likely go back to that.

In the past, our Navy would just lay waste to the port cities of the pirates and that was that. They soon learned that piracy was not a good long term career plan. We should do the same now.

Well, we could always call it a training exercise. It's the patrols - esp. the air patrols that are spendy.

But - hey - you convinced me. Let the ship owners do it. Of course, they have not yet found it economic & instead just let crew and cargo sit (14 times - on news this pm) or pay ~~$1M. I guess each owner pays that every couple or few years...

Latest news suggests that it is not the responsibility of the international community to protect shiping lanes from pirates as much as it is the ship owners to protect their own fleet. With that said, the idea of placing armed "soldiers of fortune" onboard ships coming through the Gulf of Aden could be a deterent if well armed and organized. Like shooting fish in a barrel, the sharpshooter with the long range shot on a larger vessel in a rolling sea will fair better then the Somali with a less sophisicated weapon on a smaller craft in a rolling sea. You would have to screw the rules of engagement when approached and assume that the approach is with an intent to harm.

Either way the Pirates of Somali are amazing with their primitive skiffs, low level technology and lust for riches. A rag tag force of fisherman take on the world!!!! I see a movie in the future!

I for one would be first in line at DisneyWorld's upcoming new adventure ride, "The Pirates of Somalia".........................I have to wonder if they return to the villages drinking rum (fermented goats milk), hanging with the local sluts and telling tales of their adventures to all who listen.

Don't you wish you could have seen the look on their faces when you opened up on them? "Yaaahhhr.......doh!"

What would it cost to add a Phalanx system to a freighter or tanker? Can they target an RPG? I'd guess it would do a serious number on a small boat.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/..._Firing_lg.jpg

NAIROBI, Kenya — Somali pirates have collected more than $150 million in ransoms over the past year, Kenya's foreign affairs minister said Friday, calling on ship owners not to pay when their vessels are hijacked.

In the past two weeks Somalia's increasingly brazen pirates have seized eight vessels including a huge Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil. Several hundred crew are now in the hands of Somali pirates.

"We are advised that in the last 12 months, ransom to the excess of $150 million has been paid to these criminals and that is why they are becoming more and more audacious in their activities," Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula said.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Friday that the Saudi government was not and would not negotiate with pirates, but what the ship's owners did was up to them.

Meanwhile, the world's largest oil tanker company warned that it may divert cargo shipments, which would boost costs up to 40 percent.

Frontline Ltd., which ferries five to 10 tankers of crude a month through the treacherous Gulf of Aden, said it was negotiating a change of shipping routes with some of its customers, including oil giants Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and Chevron.
Related

Martin Jensen, Frontline's acting chief executive, said that sending tankers around South Africa instead would extend the trip by 40 percent.

Bermuda-based Frontline plans to make a decision whether to change shipping routes within a week, Jensen said.

"It's not only our costs, but also those of the people who have a $100 million cargo on board," Jensen said. "We're not going to make a unilateral decision so we've been debating this with our customers."

A.P Moller-Maersk, the world's largest container-shipping company, on Thursday ordered some of its slower vessels to avoid the Gulf of Aden and head the long way around Africa.

The Copenhagen-based company said it was telling ships "without adequate speed," mainly tankers, to sail the long route around Africa unless they can join convoys with naval escorts in the gulf, group executive Soeren Skou said.

The company didn't say how many ships would be affected by the decision, but said it usually has eight tanker transits in the area per month. The company says it handles 16 percent of the world's container-shipping traffic.

And Norwegian shipping group Odfjell SE on Wednesday ordered its more than 90 tankers to avoid the Gulf of Aden because of the risk of attack by pirates.

A Russian frigate, meanwhile, was escorting nine ships in the pirate-infested waters off the coast of Somalia, Russian news agencies reported. They included a Russian vessel and eight other commercial ships flying flags of Liberia, the Marshall Islands and the Cayman Islands.

The Somali pirates have the support of their communities and rogue members of the government. Often dressed in military fatigues, pirates travel in open skiffs with outboard engines, working with larger ships that tow them far out to sea. They use satellite navigational and communications equipment and an intimate knowledge of local waters, clambering aboard commercial vessels with ladders and grappling hooks.

They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and grenades — weaponry that is readily available throughout Somalia.

On Thursday, the African Union urged the United Nations to quickly send peacekeepers to Somalia but that appeared unlikely anytime soon. A U.N. peacekeeping operation in the early 1990s saw the downing of two U.S. Army helicopters and killing of 18 American soldiers. The U.S. withdrew and U.N. peacekeepers were gone by 1995.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to authorize its sanctions committee to recommend people and entities that would be subject to an asset freeze and travel ban for engaging in or supporting acts that threaten peace in Somalia, for violating a U.N. arms embargo, and for obstructing delivery of humanitarian aid.

news reports here say that Muslim extremists in Somalia are heading for the pirates, because it's worse to hijack a Saudi tanker... Then intend to address this.

Man that's gotta suck for the hostages...Muslim extremists on a mission, and we all know they don't give a rats @ss about collateral damage

There is only one way to deal with pirates and kidnappers:
Do not under any circumstances pay any ransom ever no matter what, and kill the bastages.

Once these pieces of dung realize that they won't get any money and they will get killed, they will stop piracy completely. nothing else will stop it.
A few ships will be lost, a few crews will be lost, but that is the only way to stop this fiasco once and for all.
Unfortunately scarcely few men in this world will have the appendages to step up and make that happen.

How about we go old school on these guys.

If they are negotiating and handed a large sum of money they couldn't be to hard to hunt down.

Then have a public hanging in the middle of town.

Bet the popularity of piracy would take a sudden dive.

"What would it cost to add a Phalanx system to a freighter or tanker?"

Are you serious? It would cost a fortune - it is a sophisticated radar-linked anti-missile system.

You want guards with small arms and maybe a couple of crew-served 50's -- maybe.

Even that is going to drive up your price at the pump -- the oil transport biz works on a real penny-pinching margin.

I'm curious how these guys get on board?

Many moons ago I used to sail around the Los Angeles harbor and when I got up close to a tanker and it looked as tall as a five story building.

I guess they pull up and point a RPG at the hull and demand they lower the gangway?

I KNOW, I was just joking. Plus, it would be cool to watch.:cool:

These are pirates, and grappling hooks are pirate's basic tools. However, I think swinging from ship-to-ship from the yard arms is no longer effective since pirate ships are fairly diminutive in size compared to an oil tanker.

The contemporary grappling hook is probably rocket launched and isn't even required to be stealthy since the deck area of the the biggest tanker is 339,500 sq ft., about 5 foot ball fields long (American-style). The hook would include a winch-operated cable/elevator to go up 5 stories (at least that's what I as a pirate would opt for). With a typical crew size of only about 20, there's no way the entire periphery could be effectively patrolled unless the ship had surveillance cameras and sensors.

The shops need more security. That's readily apparent. $150M a year in ransom is pretty good pirate pay.

Sherwood