Posted on 09/27/2008 6:02:31 PM PDT by george76
A U.S. destroyer off the coast of Somalia closed in Saturday on a hijacked Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and ammunition, watching it to ensure the pirates who seized it do not try to remove any cargo or crew.
Nikolsky said the ship was anchored near the Somali town of Hobyo and that two other apparently hijacked ships were nearby. Hobyo is in the central region of Mudug, south of Puntland. It is a natural port and does not have any facilities.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The story says the vessel is Ukranian not Russian. Ukraine would more likely ask for USN help, not Russian.
So Kenya now wants a cut of the terror business?
Use it for live fire exercise and send it to the bottom of the ocean. Don’t let the Ruskies get the tanks and ammo back.
It’s nice to see that despite our problems, the US and Russia still cooperate where it counts, such as countering piracy.
Putin might offer the same choice that the Soviet Union apparently offered the Iranian students before the ‘students’ took our embassy.
Most likely a Ukranian flagged ship but carrying Russian military hardware bound for ?? We don’t know.
The tanks belong to Kenya if the sales has been completed and Ukraine if they haven’t been. Russia would have no legal title to the tanks, but they might get a salvage fee.
I hope the pirates try.
Probably contingent on delivery...hence the RS naval vessel. The will use speed, surprise, and violence of action. If the USN decision-making lags, they will go it alone. RS wants to flex, and it will.
Yes.
True...but it’s carrying 33 Russian battle tanks.
In the way Lt. Stephen Decatur did in 1804, at least.
A few “Q”-ships could solve the problem.
Q-Ships
Updated - Saturday, 17 August, 2002
Introduced towards the close of 1914 by the British and French - and later deployed by the Italian and Russians navies - Q-Ships were deployed as an initially although decreasingly successful anti-submarine weapon. Alternatively referred to as Special Service Ships or Mystery Ships, the purpose of Q-Ships was straightforward: to trap enemy (usually German) submarines.
Invariably comprised of small freighters or old trawlers they were loaded with hidden guns in a collapsible deck structure. In practice U-boats would hail Q-Ships flying (in the case of the Royal Navy) the merchant red ensign and, in the period before the implementation of Germany’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917, a so-called “panic party” would apparently abandon the Q-Ship prior to the usual German policy of approaching the enemy vessel so as to sink it with the minimum depletion of ammunition.
At this stage the use of torpedoes to sink relatively small vessels was officially frowned upon.
Thus with the U-boat effectively lured towards the apparently abandoned vessel the Q-Ship would run up the white ensign and the deck structure would be collapsed by the remaining ship’s crew revealing a series of up to four manned guns, which would immediately open fire.
Initially successful the Q-Ship ploy resulted in the sinking of some 11 enemy U-boats by the British and French. As the war progressed production of Q-Ships notably increased so that by the war’s close the British alone deployed 366. However the Germans quickly developed a certain caution in approaching small enemy vessels, wary of decoys.
the Ukrainian ship Faina was en route to Kenya
I’d imagine that there is no way they are going to let those tanks fall into their hands and with the amo that is probably on that ship alongside of them I bet that it would make a very large boom before it sinks?
“Q” ships...seems like a submarine shadowing a merchant ship would have the same effect.
Yeah.. but think of the reaction of the Pirates.. hehehehehehe
Sounds like the spanish inquisition which has many weapons and no one expects.
would be priceless...I seem to remember an old movie about a “Q” ship. As I recall it was a German ship, though.
We need to send two brigades of lawyers and environmentalists and some friendly 9th circuit judges to “splain it to them”!!
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