Saudi oil tanker captured by Pirates

[adam2]

The 'solution' seems to be to have half a dozen well armed fighting men on the ship - this shouldn't be hard or expensive considering the value of the cargo.

I believe that the main objection to this is that some ports deny entry to ships carrying weapons.
Therefore the weapons must be disposed of by dumping at sea when nearing a port, and new purchased for each voyage, which is wastful.
I cant the UK civil liberties lot being very keen on ships equiped with weapons docking here, they would be worried about the welfare of the pirates!

[SunnyJim]

Perhaps Somalian's are pissed off about something?

http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/f ... es/read/15

Perhaps if oil revenue helped the people who live in the lands from which we get it, rather than just helping the oil major's shareholders and western economies...... perhaps they wouldn't feel the need to hijack oil tankers?

Radical thought I know.

[biffvernon]

Gosh, looking at the causes of crime? Whatever next?
It's an interesting article - from 15 years ago - and shows how little progress has been made to help a disfunctional state.

[SunnyJim]

Yup. Probably easier to just get bigger guns and sticks.

[Erik]

Don't worry, the Spanish Armada is on it's way:

Faced with the widespread problem of pirates attacks against the boats sailing Somali coasts, one of the major trade routes of the world where thousands of boats sail, the Spanish Government is still in the front line.

And the proposal put forward by the Spanish Defense Minister, Carmen Chacón, of assigning two boats to fight against sea pirates seems to confirm it. The two boats will upgrade the anti-piracy force EU has set up in August that will be better defined during December meeting, when a list of the military vehicles EU Countries will assign to the mission will be drafted. The boats will add to Orion P-3 airplane and to 90 soldiers.

Sea piracy will be on the agenda during EU meeting, due for November 10th, when the proposal of setting up a military force in Indian Ocean should be approved. Minister Chacón proposal is that Spain could lead it.
article

... currently lost off the West coast of Ireland, but they'll get there eventually.

[skeptik]

Supertankers can't take evasive action. Merchant ships don't carry weapons, and a ship over 1000ft long is quite a perimeter to patrol anyway.

Ok ...two golf carts.. port and starboard!

I think they will be carrying weapons soon - as in the past - and keeping a better lookout.

All oil tankers are now double skinned to help prevent spills, and the steel is quite thick. I dont think an RPG would inflict much damage. Punch a small hole in the outer skin, maybe. I doubt these pirates (from the look of them) carry anything more than Kalashnikovs and RPG's - standard bandit/'freedom fighter' kit in Africa.

[Filter Feeder]

They are double skinned - but the outer hull is only about 15mm thick, I don't know how thick the inner hull is but it's probably less. Even a standard RPG is going to make a mess out of that.

Somalia is littered with old, yet serviceable heavy weapons. Somalis are renowned for mounting a whole variety of weapons onto to 4x4's and trucks to make Technicals:





Any of these weapons could seriously embarrass a supertanker, and lets be honest, they aren't going to be hard to hit.

I've seen pictures of Somali Technicals with heavy AA guns and missile systems mounted on them, but haven't been able to find any for this thread. The Somali people are adept at taking this technology and adapting it to their own needs. I'm sure mounting this stuff on a fast boat is a logical step, if they haven't done it already.

Somalis are warriors - always have been, always will be. Most of these pirates have been handling weapons since they were children. They are a force to be reckoned with. Watch Ridley Scott's Back Hawk Down if you're under any illusions just how potent these guys can be in a fire fight.

[biffvernon]

Someone, who seemed to know about these things, was saying on the lunchtime Radio 4 news that from the viewpoin of the supertanker bridge all you see is a few dhows minding their own fishing business. The after you've past them a couple of little speed boats shoot out, grapling irons thown over the back of the ship, rope ladders attached and the first you know is a guy with an AK47 opens the bridge door.

[skeptik]

Perhaps Somalian's are pissed off about something?

http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/f ... es/read/15

Time to send in the Marines. The Somali people and their oilfields obviously need to be liberated from those evil warlords.

Somalia will be next on the Axis of Evil once we've dealt with the Peoples Republic of Vermont.

Bernie Sanders - The Monster of Montpelier

[Vortex]

Ahem: tankers are in fact NOT delicate little flowers. They can absorb a lot of battle damage.

Even the anti-ship cruise missiles, with warheads designed to seriously damage naval surface combatants rather than the much-larger, heavier oil tankers, were generally too small to cause much damage to oil tankers. Attacks with other weapons caused little to no damage to tankers but sometimes disrupted a transit through the Persian Gulf by killing or injuring crewmembers.

http://hormuz.robertstrausscenter.org/security

[clv101]

Ahem: tankers are in fact NOT delicate little flowers. They can absorb a lot of battle damage.

Even the anti-ship cruise missiles, with warheads designed to seriously damage naval surface combatants rather than the much-larger, heavier oil tankers, were generally too small to cause much damage to oil tankers. Attacks with other weapons caused little to no damage to tankers but sometimes disrupted a transit through the Persian Gulf by killing or injuring crewmembers.

http://hormuz.robertstrausscenter.org/security

The first line of that report "Oil tankers have historically proven resilient against attacks." was written by Daniel Yergin, famous for being 100% wrong on oil price for the last 5 years - as soon as he finally said prices would rise past $150 they collapsed.

It suggests that 23% of oil tankers attacked with rubbish weapons, some 20 years ago were destroyed. I don't see that statistic as encouraging, they may be a bit tougher than the average ship but they are still highly vulnerable to attack.

[Filter Feeder]

Yo don't need to destroy a VLCC to make one hell of a mess and seriously disrupt the oil supply. No one's suggesting one of these things is going to sink after getting hit by an RPG or a recoilless rifle - but you could definitely cause a whole lot of damage, cause a massive oil slick, and put the ship out of service for weeks or months.

[Vortex]

The Japanese oil tanker Takayama was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) 270 miles off the coast of Yemen, media reported April 21. Nobody was hurt in the attack and the projectile caused only a fuel leak.

http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/115 ... ker_attack

This is a video of multiple RPGs - and possible some deck mounted rockets - hitting some sort of ship. The damage isn't nice - but not instantly fatal either. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bd1_1214929749

(The Iranians may have used modified warheads to ignite crude oil more readily: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread325287/pg13)

[Bandidoz]

OMG!!!!!!

I'm going to take a screenshot of that post and frame it.

I thought I'd never ever ever ever ever ever see a Vortex post containing a link to the "AboveTopSecret" site

[Vortex]

OMG!!!!!!

I'm going to take a screenshot of that post and frame it.

I thought I'd never ever ever ever ever ever see a Vortex post containing a link to the "AboveTopSecret" site

Huh?

It was a simple technical point well within the bounds of possibility.

It's not as if I was referring to Area 52 flying saucers being used by the USAF in Iraq!