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Should ships be armed to combat pirates?

Arm the ships?

  • Yes

    Votes: 152 81.3%

  • No

    Votes: 20 10.7%

  • Offer the pirates carrots

    Votes: 15 8.0%
  • Total voters
    187
#281
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Published On Mon Mar 14 2011

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Ashok Sharma - Associated Press​
NEW DELHI—The Indian navy captured 61 pirates who jumped into the Arabian Sea to flee a gunfight and fire on the hijacked ship from which they had staged several attacks, a navy statement said Monday.

Two Indian navy ships also rescued 13 crew members from the fishing boat Sunday night, nearly 1,100 kilometres off Kochi in southern India, the statement said.

The pirates had hijacked the Mozambique-flagged Vega 5 in December and had used it as a mother ship — a base from which they staged several attacks in the vast waters between East Africa and India.

A patrol aircraft spotted the mother ship Friday while responding to another vessel reporting a pirate attack, the Indian navy said. The pirates aborted the hijacking attempt and tried to escape in the mother ship.

When the Indian ships closed in Sunday night, the pirates fired on them. The hijacked vessel caught fire when the Indian navy returned fire, the navy said.

The pirates as well as the crew members jumped into the sea from the burning vessel, but were taken out by Indian sailors, the statement said.

The pirates were carrying about 80 to 90 small arms or rifles and a few heavier weapons, likely rocket-propelled grenades, it said. The statement did not describe any casualties among the navy, the fishermen or the pirates in Sunday’s clash.

The navy was checking whether the pirates were from Somalia or Yemen. They were being taken to Mumbai, India’s financial capital, to be prosecuted for attacking the Indian ships.

Piracy has plagued the shipping industry off East Africa for years, but violence and ransom demands have escalated in recent months. Pirates held some 30 ships and more than 660 hostages as of February.

The owner of a Bangladeshi-flagged ship that was held for more than three months said that the vessel and 26 crew members were released Monday.

Mehrul Kabir declined to say whether any ransom was paid for the release of the M.V. Jahan Moni, which was seized off the Indian coast while transporting nickel ore from Indonesia to Greece, but the media in Bangladesh reported the pirates were paid $4.2 million.

“All the crew members on board are safe,” Kabir told reporters in Dhaka.

The Indian navy’s third anti-piracy operation this year followed the capture of 28 Somali pirates last month and another 15 in January. Both groups also are to be prosecuted in Mumbai.

Indian warships have been escorting merchant ships as part of international anti-piracy surveillance in the area since 2008.

Several nations, including the United States, are prosecuting pirate suspects their militaries captured but other suspects have been released as countries weigh legal issues and other factors.

The prosecutions, the growth of criminal gangs participating in piracy and the ever-increasing ransoms have heightened confrontations.

Five Puntland security forces and two pirates were killed earlier this month during a failed attempt to rescue Danish captives taken from their hijacked yacht to a pirate stronghold in the semi-autonomous northern region of Somalia.

Weeks earlier, four Americans on a hijacked yacht were killed by pirates under circumstances that are still unclear. A U.S. Navy destroyer was shadowing the captured boat at the time, and 15 pirate suspects were arrested after the gunfire.
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#284
baba said:
Why not arm these ships that are in the Somali pirate danger zone? Would security personnel with 50 cal machine guns and RPG's (or something more accurate) put a stop to this?

You could argue it would increase the violence towards the ships, but I'm not convinced they could get to the ships to do much harm...or even want to try after the first few pirate boats are sunk. Violence or not, we are just playing into their hands at this point and sending unarmed civilians into imminent danger with every ship.
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I think the crews should be able to defend the ships. The problem is that an ocean-going ship is required to hoist the flag of a country and if people from that ship fire on someone from another country, regardless of their level of douchbagocity, the leaders of the DB's country will probably claim that it was an act of war.

Personally, I think they should just use the pirates to chum the water.
 
#285
I think commercial ships operating/transiting Somali waters should be retrofitted with turret-mounted GAU-8/A weaponry (30mm, 4200 rounds/min). Just the sight of these things would strike fear into the hearts of the pirates.

This weapon would virtually vaporize any small craft filled with would-be pirates in a matter of seconds..

Once word got out that ships carried these things, the smarter pirates would likely pursue another line of work.
 
#286
The decks are so large and flat today I don't know why they don't drop a couple of containers with heavy weapons by helicopter with a squad of marines to man the guns. And just transfer the package to the next ship to run the pirate zone.

Actually I think I do know why. The nations selling the flags of convenience will cut into their profit margin if they actually sent their militaries to protect "their" ships.
 
#291
nickbass79 said:
I will help you out. Shooting out of a Blackhawk is harder than shooting off a ship. Heard of this story?
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That was a hostage situation. Highly unique. The OP is asking about the effectiveness of arming commercial shipping. Having a defensive armament/personnel to stop a high-speed pirate attack boat at range before it turns into a hostage situation.

Naturally, having snipers in aircraft shadowing commercial vessels would not cost-effective, imo, and I doubt any country would be willing to provide a fleet of Blackhawks to follow the commercial shipping through Somali waters.
 
#292
skychief said:
That was a hostage situation. Highly unique. The OP is asking about the effectiveness of arming commercial shipping. Having a defensive armament/personnel to stop a high-speed pirate attack boat at range before it turns into a hostage situation.

Naturally, having snipers in aircraft shadowing commercial vessels would not cost-effective, imo, and I doubt any country would be willing to provide a fleet of Blackhawks to follow the commercial shipping through Somali waters.
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It was still snipers on a ship, right?:eyebrow: An even better situation would be not to have hostages, just pirates. Shadowing a ship on a helo wasn't what I was saying, it's harder to shoot out of a helo than a ship is what I said. At least that's what I learned in SOTIC. You?

Oh, and having a few shooters on a ship is more cost effective than a defensive armament/personnel. Less guns, less people.
 
#295
Gun battles with pirates all sounds very exciting, but from what I understand about this is that the shipping companies look at it from a risk/reward perspective. Sure, you could arm the ships and fight off the pirates, but the cost of the ships themselves - not to mention the cargo - is so great that it costs you less to just pay the ransoms than to risk damaging or sinking the ship in the fight.
 
#299
I met a guy ex Royal Marines who was on holiday from doing the "deterence" thing. He let the pirates get close enough to see who was on board, flash some hardware and they would turn tail. He reckoned sniping long range off a ship was no easy thing and the last thing he wanted was RPG's headed his way which might get lucky.
 
#300
Downunderwonder said:
I met a guy ex Royal Marines who was on holiday from doing the "deterence" thing. He let the pirates get close enough to see who was on board, flash some hardware and they would turn tail. He reckoned sniping long range off a ship was no easy thing and the last thing he wanted was RPG's headed his way which might get lucky.
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That would definitely be easier than sniping, but the you are well within range of an RPG. RPG's usually self destruct around 800m, so a round close the their bow would deter them without further conflict. Just my thoughts. ;)
 

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