Pirates Up The Ante!

[MountainDon]

Pirates Vow to 'Slaughter' US Sailors

These guys are not too smart if you ask me. 

"We will seek out the Americans and if we capture them we will slaughter them," said a 25-year-old pirate based in the Somali port of Harardhere who gave only his first name, Ismail.
"We will target their ships because we know their flags. Last night, an American-flagged ship escaped us by a whisker. We have showered them with rocket-propelled grenades," boasted Ismail, who did not take part in the attack on the Liberty Sun.

More story here.

or here

...Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday the United States can't end Somali piracy by itself and noted that 16 nations have warships in the region, which is roughly four times the size of Texas.

..."The U.N. made it legal to go after pirates last year and to go into Somalia. Until that's done, this thing is going to continue,"

[MountainDon]

Someone suggested an aircraft carrier group... that should do the job. Shoot and bomb them out of the water within minutes of a pirate attack.

[SpoonyG]

A Marine escort group (3-4 men), only one of which has one of these http://videos.howstuffworks.com/discovery/4853-m107-sniper-rifle-video.htm, will ruin a pirate's day.

If by some chance they make it past the outer kill zone, the 2-3 other Marines will be eagerly waiting with their deadly arsenal.

A carrier is good, but that's a lot of hardware and manpower to dedicate to fighting pirates.  Plus, what if they already are in control of the vessel?

You either appease, or fight.

[NM_Shooter]

I think a security detail on the ships are more efficient.  With the area being patrolled as large as it is, scrambling aircraft would still take too long to get to the ships.  The ships would have to realize that they are under attack long before being boarded in order to make an aircraft defense feasible. 

Many of these freighters have such low gunwales that they are easy to board.  You've got to catch the pirates before they get close.

Even with security onboard, you'd still have to position guards with night vision gear to keep an eye out for attacks at night.  I think the perfect weapon for defense (short of a deck mounted .50 cal) is probably a SAW.  It would be effective out to 1000M, which is about the max range of an RPG.  Big boat with SAW vs. little boat with RPG? 

I pick the big boat.

[MountainDon]

That's probably correct. The pirate mother ships should be hunted down though.

Somalia really needs an effective government as well.

[NM_Shooter]

The pirate mother ships should be hunted down though.

Heck yes.  Actually sounds like fun.  Maybe Royal Caribbean cruise ships can offer a recreation package based around hunting pirates.  That would be way better than swim-with-the-dolphins or zipline-thru-jungle stuff.