India navy sinks suspected pirate 'mother ship'

[Air 22]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27766333/?GT1=43001


:fire::fire::fire:

[BUIZILLA]

being 300 miles offshore, the escaping tiller handle chase boat ain't got good odd's of returning to home port... :cool:

[HIGH LIFE]

Several years ago I read a boat article about a 40' MAGNUM that McDonnel Douglass helped put together. It was running up the Potomic River at HIGH speed in complete darkness, had 3 crew members, had big gun on fordeck and one on the back, awsome rig !!!! HIGH LIFE

[Cuda]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081126/ap_on_re_as/piracy

[BigGrizzly]

You won't like what I am going to say.:shocking: A cool Mil paid to a well armed group of mercenaries, is cheaper then a 100 mil of spilled oil. Some times the sword is mightier then the pen and threats. Like a bully when he keeps getting away with it he develops no understanding of right or wrong. These people live where might makes right. Draw your own conclusions.

[mattyboy]

I wonder if the Indian Navy uses Apache powerboats???

[Ghost]

The Motley Fool "open letter to the pirates" (embedded in the linked story above) was slightly thought provoking, but I think it missed. On the one hand, they're right I suppose--it's a lot harder to move a supertanker's load of crude than other sorts of goods, including weapons.

But I suspect the pirates would be happy for negotiations on that tanker to last a pretty long time, giving them some safety. Seems like everyone knows the pirates could be overcome by any of several navies, and that what's key for them is always to have a pipeline of human hostages and property. (I say pipeline because the best thing for them is to keep returning people unharmed and goods largely intact, for a "reasonable percentage" ransom, encouraging further people to pay.)

If at any time they are without a good stock of both human hostages and valuable cargo that might be returned, that is the prime time for strikes and clampdowns against them. That tanker is worth a lot as insurance.

I suppose the other thing that is harder for them is to keep their human and goods hostage pipeline properly diversified, such that a sufficient number of the nations who might act against them fear losing their own.

[zelatore]

You won't like what I am going to say.:shocking: A cool Mil paid to a well armed group of mercenaries, is cheaper then a 100 mil of spilled oil. Some times the sword is mightier then the pen and threats. Like a bully when he keeps getting away with it he develops no understanding of right or wrong. These people live where might makes right. Draw your own conclusions.

Grizz, I hate to say it, but I think you may be right. I don't know if a mil would do it - a mill not being what it used to be - but it would be cheaper than an official military action and assuming the CIA did it as a 'black op' off the record then you have your deniability if things go wrong or you loose some hostages.

(did I just say that??)

It would be more satisfying to just go in guns blazing and give 'em hell, but you risk the captives and the ship a lot more than a small insertion team working stealthily.

Come on, where's Tom Clancy when you need him?

[fogducker III]

I guess this is what we can call, "boating politics".....:wink:

[BigGrizzly]

Zel I am sorry you may agree but I was serious. Not necessarily on the current tanker but for future. even 4 mill would be cheaper than a ransom. Of course the guns blasting was my first choice but politically incorrect. Of course for the future, one carrier and a bunch of fly boys, can you say target practice.

[Ghost]

Doing some back of the envelope math, I'm thinking a carrier maintaining about 15 planes in the air could make for about a 0-5 minute response time anwhere in the Gulf of Aden and a chunk of ocean about twice its size. (I don't know how many planes a carrier can keep airborne, with logistical support for refueling, etc., so I just took a stab.)

[zelatore]

Realistically, air cover is probably the only way to intercept these guys as there's just too much water to cover any other way. Do we really want to commit a carrier to this? Dunno, that's a pretty big stick, but it would do the trick.

The only issue I see is a plane pretty much has one intercept option: sink the approaching boat. That means you need to KNOW it's the bad guys. Can you imagine the $hitstorm that would blow up if we took out some fishing boat?

And you know the bad guys would do anything they could to disguise themselves as innocent trawlers or whatever. Could be hard to identify them with certainty from the air until they have closed with the boat they are attacking. Then how do you fight them off with a plane?

Choppers would allow for far more versatility, but the limited speed and range means they wouldn't be as available when needed.

Don't we pay people who know about this sort of stuff to come up with solutions to these problems? For most of us here, our military training comes down to watching Hunt for Red October one too many times...

[onesubdrvr]

Don't we pay people who know about this sort of stuff to come up with solutions to these problems? For most of us here, our military training comes down to watching Hunt for Red October one too many times...

If you had watched it enough, you wouldn't even have mentioned a darn target,... er um,... I mean aircraft carrier.

Submarine - sink 'em all, then let them prove we sunk anything!!

lol
Wayne

run silent, run deep!

[Ghost]

Submarine - sink 'em all, then let them prove we sunk anything!!

"Dmitri--you've lost ANOTHER submarine?!"

[BigGrizzly]

Actually it is in reality easy to spot the pirates. They can read a license plate from a satellite, so seeing a rocket launcher in a 25 foot outboard is easy. The thing is The US should not get involved. This is not a NATO or UN issue, it is not on their charters. In effect it is a private vessel being attacked. If it were a US government ship that would change things. Remember WE are NOT the world police. It isn't in our controlled waters, so we, as a country, are not involved. So back to the Mercenaries. The ship owners and insurance companies should pay the freight. They are making the money from shipping. Sounds to me like another company looking for a bail out. Remember in the old west the stage coach had a shotgun attendant or an escort. So in short let the others get involved instead of hanging it on the USA. Every time WE get involved it becomes an issue. I am tired of the US becoming the white knight.

[Ghost]

I read The Outlaw Sea a few years ago. It was a hodgepodge of topics, but among them were modern piracy, and also the bizarre and shadowy world of who owns (layers and layers of organizations to dodge nearly all regulation) and works the modern freighters and tankers (was turning almost completely Pakistani and Indonesian even a few years ago). A good quick read.