Britons held hostage as Somali pirates seize oil supertanker

Strife212 said:
I was thinking the same thing, in international waters why can't any country just go in guns blazing and utterly destroy the pirates, imagine if a country actually sent a naval task force down there and just started laying waste to the pirate boats.
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The problem is, the pirates tend to sit inside their countries territorial waters when they know a naval presence is around, and a full naval task force is massively expensive to waste on such a job given it'll only have an affect whilst they are actually there.

Much better to have some old fashioned fast response boats, with helicopters and marines spread out around the area (relatively cheap to keep in the area long term, much easier to find the manpower for, and doesn't detract from being able to send a full force elsewhere).

IIRC at the moment the RN doesn't have any vessels that are really suitable for dedicated anti-piracy roles, as they aren't very effective in larger conflicts so have been retired and not replaced over the years.

Of course, any serious response is going to cost money, for the boats, helicopters (remember the pirates tend to be in small fast craft so you need to be able to respond very fast), and crews - which would require a dedicated budget from the RN etc, and that would have to come from somewhere (the shipping companies would be the obvious source, but it's probably cheaper for them to pay the ransoms).
 
I just find it strange that nothing whatsoever is done - one wonders what the ransom money goes towards, presumably arms / other dodgy activities, would have thought the authorities would have been concerned about that as well as the loss of ships.
 
I think the obvious solution is either to hire mercs, or actually set up a few gun emplacements on tankers at strategic points that could make swift work of a small vessel + crew.
 
I'd heard you weren't, I'm sure that was the reason given on a discovery programme about why the crew were restricted to using high pressure hoses - unless it was a result of the law in the country the ship was registered in.
 
SBS, if we dont, it simply shows that we are week and it will probably happen again on a larger scale.
 
Werewolf said:
I'd heard you weren't, I'm sure that was the reason given on a discovery programme about why the crew were restricted to using high pressure hoses - unless it was a result of the law in the country the ship was registered in.
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Its up to the companies involved, most companies opt not to arm crews though civilian ships certainly can carry firearms if required. As an example civilian ships carrying nuclear waste will frequently have armed private security onboard.

As for the response in general the navy ships we've got in place at the moment are very capable of dealing with pirates (royal marines killed some Somali pirates just a few weeks ago) the issue at the moment is that the navy task force in the area doesn't have sufficient rules of engagement to deal with the problem.
 
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