Outruns, what is this shit sounds like the black house is running the anti pirate scheme.
Pitiful. Like a hawk chased by blue jays.
Just PITIFUL.
They RAN AWAY instead of engaging?
What is going on?
I damned sure don’t like the idea of a US Navy vessel running from the bastards! This is absolutely disgusting!
upi UnAmerican Political Indoctrination.
The USNS Sacagawea (the second in the line of Lewis and Clark class ships) is armed with 2 to 6 12.7 mm or 7.62 machine guns.
Don’t see any armament listed for the USNS Lewis and Clark.
Correcting a design flaw maybe with the Sacagawea?
Why are WE running??
Are we practicing for maneuvers with the French?
Lawd Almighty, why aren’t the puckers pish pood?
We are a nation of wimps, I absolutely cannot take it. What a disgrace.
We out ran em??? !!
Huh...
The might U S Navy is turning and running from pirates in skiffs????? WTF????
If the Navy ship was carrying munitions, wouldn’t there be a chance a rocket propelled grenade or small arms fire from the pirates might blow up the whole ship?
If so, running away from a fight seems the right thing to do.
Class and type: Lewis and Clark-class cargo ship
Displacement: 41,000 tons (41,700 t)
Length: 689 ft (210 m)
Beam: 105.6 ft (32.2 m)
Draft: 29.9 ft (9.1 m)
Propulsion: Integrated propulsion and ship service electrical system, with generation at 6.6 kV by FM/MAN B&W diesel generators; one fixed pitch propeller; bow thruster
Speed: 20 knots (37 km/h)
Ballsy - attack a USNS ship? One would think such vessels would be an excellent trial platform for ship mounted non-lethals, if such things exist. Problem is probably range. Your non-lethals may not have the effective range to deal with RPG’s and 50’s.
Another thing you might try would be smaller versions of drones. They are developing some sweet new smaller-form factor missile types that ride better on smaller drones.
Another surprising sort of thing: We used to operate these ships that had large dirigibles on tethers. On the dirigibles were radar. Around the dirigibles were surface assets and guard ships. The guard ships protected the radar asset. The other surface assets were used to pursue vessels of interest.
A combination of one of these radar ships, a helicopter carrier, and some patrol boats and you have an end to piracy off of Somalia. There’s about 700 to 800 miles of Somalian coastline in the Gulf of Aden. Not impossible to bottle up. Air assets can make quick work of the distance, and they’ve got enough firepower to give bad guys a moment of pause, even if you don’t want to kill them with it.
Not going to happen.
With all that ammo on board? McGyver + Swiss Army Knife = Lots of dead pirates.
Back in the late 1960’s and early 70’s ammunition ships along with the oilers and supply ships were actually USS Navy ships and were armed. To bad we now contract those services out.
US Navy runs from two pirate skiffs??
Surely, that is simply not possible. The Lewis and Clark has to be French.