Pictured here is the France's Poodle-class warship "Redditon" [French for 'Surrender'] with crew of 5 entering port to be painted white before deployment to Somalia to take on the pirates.
Posted on 04/05/2008 7:39:50 AM PDT by HAL9000
Hilarious
Pictured here is the France's Poodle-class warship "Redditon" [French for 'Surrender'] with crew of 5 entering port to be painted white before deployment to Somalia to take on the pirates.
The attack in the article is not yet up on the IMDB Live Piracy Map: http://www.icc-ccs.org/extra/display.php?yr=2008. but it seems to me that with the quantity of traffic in that area, it would be sensible to provide IR night and day satellite monitoring of all vessels in the area. Most of the attacks shown were not coastal, but mid-channel.
Also, mercenary armament packs and crews could be made available to ships making the passage, transferring from incoming to outgoing vessels in the danger zone, in a revolving door tactic. It wouldn’t take many pirate vessel sinkings to discourage attacks. What would be the cost compared to the loss of a multi-million dollar vessel or ransom money or crew lives? Insurers should be vetting this situation a bit harder. The maritime agencies of the shipper nations could be putting their heads together more effectively.
Yah, I caught that just after I posted. (forehead slapping sound). Just the same, a choke point such as this with a high volume of traffic could be made safe. If the shippers are too cheap to provide security, the insurers should be doing at least that as well as pressuring maritime agencies to put their heads together. Having effective radar watches can catch approaching vessels from 50-100 miles distance. Coded ID could be issued the captains of every legitimate vessel in the area. Any boat attempting to appear as normal passing traffic without a code would be suspect. Problem is many ships travel at night on autopilot with no one at the helm or on radar or deck watch, being kept short-handed as an economy measure..
Maritime/historian ping re: the French alliance with the USA.
One of my coworkers is from New Zealand and he told me that the main reason NZ didn’t send any troops to assist in the Falklands War was the outboard on their troop transport was broken.
Exactly. I operated with CTF 150 two years ago. These guy are all about holding the crews and vessels hostage for ransom. There is concern that in the future they could actively assist terrorists but that is not what they doing now.
Exactly. I operated with CTF 150 two years ago. These guy are all about holding the crews and vessels hostage for ransom. There is concern that in the future they could actively assist terrorists but that is not what they doing now.
Trying to hit a rapidly moving target at a range of 200 yards or more, using an AK, while sitting in a bobbing and rolling boat, is much harder than you might think. Especially for people who aren't marksmen in the first place
In WW2, navy ships had to pretty much fill the sky with lead to bring down strafing planes
Would say Socotra, but the enviros would howl.
And what were those strafing planes airspeed? They also had a human in them so their SA is in the here and now, not through a datalink.
bobbing and rolling boat, is much harder than you might think.
The same would be true for the guy in Nellis working through a datalink to bring guns to bear. I could buy a Hellfire, but that would be way to expensive, the reload would mean little coverage. And there ain't no way the US is going to be blowing up $1000 dollar boats with Hellfires without something better in them than your average Somali pirate.
How about an AC-130 just doing a run along the coast blowing away every little boat it sees?
Less of a problem with that, but there are only 25 of them. Rather kill terrorists in Iraq an Afghanistan with them because they are a force protection asset. Getting rid of Somali pirates this way is about the same as getting rid of Mecca, not going to happen.
It would have been nice if they sent something that would at least SCARE the pirates.
Ah, Jeez..You only wanted them SCARED ? Blast, we might have might have pushed the envelope a bit, and decided to kill half of them.
Elderly looking or not, the Commandant Bouan apparently did her job quite well, along with the French troops so many posters felt free to insult, wouldn’t you say ?
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