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2008-10-03 Africa Horn
Somali pirates go 0 for 4
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Posted by tu3031 2008-10-03 10:22|| || Front Page|| [1 views ]  Top

#1 A coalition helicopter chased them away? Why the heck didn't a few hellfires blow them out of the water? And Obama wants NATO and the Europeans to handle the WoT? Something really smells here.
Posted by Danielle 2008-10-03 12:37||   2008-10-03 12:37|| Front Page Top

#2 Don't go in those waters without personal protection. I don't get it. The pirates are lightly armed and they are preying on large, insured commercial vessels. It seems like the ship owners would have some Blackware types on board and the insurence companies would require it. It shouldn't take much to sink a little speed board that is only armed with pop guns. What am I missing here?
Posted by Richard of Oregon 2008-10-03 12:44||   2008-10-03 12:44|| Front Page Top

#3 A few shotguns on each ship would probably make good swimmers out of those pirates. They seem to like rubber boats.
Posted by bigjim-ky 2008-10-03 14:51||   2008-10-03 14:51|| Front Page Top

#4 Attacking those "small, lightly armed" boats isn't as easy as it sounds. First, you have two moving targets. Unless you have a halfway decent targeting computer, it's hard to hit a small boat in the water (CIWS can manage). Secondly, there are no spare crewmembers on commercial ships these days, so there aren't any available "extra bodies" to man any guns that did exist. Thirdly, no captain wants to be responsible for the death of what may be an extremely important member of his crew.

The most effective means of putting an end to this is to have a half-dozen AC-130s stationed in Djibouti, and have them fly random missions over the Gulf of Aden. They can fly high enough no one can be sure if it's a C-130 or some other type of aircraft, there are enough other C-130s around in that part of the world, and they don't have to be at maximum altitude to fly efficiently. The minute there's a ship's captain screaming about a pirate attack, they can begin to home in on the area. They have the capacity to turn either a small boat or a mother ship into tiny pieces, along with whomever is manning them.
Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot  2008-10-03 16:30|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]  2008-10-03 16:30|| Front Page Top

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