Maybe a simple way to stop pirates with out killing......

[RayP.]

Navy should buy/build a container ship,load it with dummy/empty containers with 2 hidden 105's(for last resort use)but the main guns would be 2 very good snipers armed with .50 cal. Barretts capable of hitting boat engines at 1,000 yds. or better,a dead in the water pirate ship is no threat,the 105's can take care of any heavy self defense need.

RayP.

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[Vern Humphrey]

That's called a "Q Ship" and is an old trick. Q Ships were used in WWI and WWII to decoy Nazi submarines.

It's not a bad idea, but we need to understand the pirates' inteligence system. If they have confederates notifying them when a ship leaves port, we need to generate the signature of a genuine trading vessel when in port.

And ideally, the Q Ship should kill the pirates -- all of them -- and sail on, leaving the people on shore to wonder what happened to Ahmad and his crew.

[RayP.]

That's called a "Q Ship" and is an old trick. Q Ships were used in WWI and WWII to decoy Nazi submarines.

It's not a bad idea, but we need to understand the pirates' inteligence system. If they have confederates notifying them when a ship leaves port, we need to generate the signature of a genuine trading vessel when in port.

And ideally, the Q Ship should kill the pirates -- all of them -- and sail on, leaving the people on shore to wonder what happened to Ahmad and his crew.

I remember the "Q" ships that's why I brought it up,but I left out the "killig" aspect of it because of the public outcry it wil create,after all the pirates are just trying have a decent life(by stealing from every one else),but if it's a case of self defense then it's a diff. story,public does not understand that there is no "govt." there,ransoms don't go to help people,"tribal leaders" keep it for themselves.

RayP.

[John Kepler]

That's called a "Q Ship" and is an old trick. Q Ships were used in WWI and WWII to decoy Nazi submarines.

The US Navy built/converted exactly 5, count'um 5 vessels as "Q-Ships" in WW II. Of those 5, one (AK-101) was sunk with all hands by a U-boat (U-123) they never saw, one (IX-93) nearly sank out from under her crew due to its atrocious hull condition, and the other 3 simply wasted crews and fuel to no good purpose until they were re-converted to Merchantmen/Patrol Craft/scrapped in late 1943. Not a single U-boat was sunk, attacked, or even located by ANY of the "Q-Ships" in WW II!

FWIW, British experience with "Q-ships" in WW II was similar to or worse than ours! Only Winston Churchill thought they were worth the candle.....one of those intuitively "nifty" ideas that worked a LOT better in historical fiction than it ever did in reality!

[M1 Rifleman]

When the pirates are being knocked off, this will tend to cause the others to question and think twice about the viability of their chosen profession.

[John Sukey (Deceased)]

If you remember Q ships then you remember the object was to send submarin4es and their crews to the bottom.
Now wiping out the pirates will cause NO public outcry, if nobody knows about it.

[John Sukey (Deceased)]

But then, the pirates want to board a ship rather than sink it. so a Q ship would work quite well today.

[John Kepler]

OK fine....buy who's gonna pay for it, who's gonna crew it, who's gonna run it? The US really doesn't have a dog in this fight. Our Merchant Marine is functionally non-existent (fewer than 100 vessels, 90% of them either in the Great Lakes or tankers running a rut between Valdez, AK and West Coast ports (and they only exist due to a piece of 1920's protectionist legislation called the Jones Act). The remaining 10% are re-flagged charters from foreign companies (Maersk is a Norwegian company) doing business for the US Gub'mint (another requirement of the Jones Act!). We have NOTHING for the Navy to protect!

[RayP.]

OK fine....buy who's gonna pay for it, who's gonna crew it, who's gonna run it? The US really doesn't have a dog in this fight. Our Merchant Marine is functionally non-existent (fewer than 100 vessels, 90% of them either in the Great Lakes or tankers running a rut between Valdez, AK and West Coast ports (and they only exist due to a piece of 1920's protectionist legislation called the Jones Act). The remaining 10% are re-flagged charters from foreign companies (Maersk is a Norwegian company) doing business for the US Gub'mint (another requirement of the Jones Act!). We have NOTHING for the Navy to protect!

Aren't the people who man those floating casinos in the Merchant Marine,or is it just a maritime union that they are in?,during Desert Storm 1 I heard a couple of them talking about a possible call up.

RayP.

[John Kepler]

Aren't the people who man those floating casinos in the Merchant Marine,or is it just a maritime union that they are in?,during Desert Storm 1 I heard a couple of them talking about a possible call up.

RayP.

Possibly, but not all....depends on where they are. River sailors aren't classed as "Merchant Marine", and have different documentation requirements. As for Unions, the "River Rats" have different unions than the rest of the "Blue-Water" industry....a LOT of them are non-Union...a lot of the rest are Teamsters. The Unlicensed crew in US-flag vessels are SIU (Seaman's International Union), SUP (Sailors Union of the Pacific) or USW (United Steel Workers...I was a member of USW Local 5000 for a lot of years).

Licensed personnel are different. Many are also Naval Reserve, particularly those that graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy (Annapolis-North)