It seems like every other day I hear about more Somali pirates being paid off to free an oil tanker or something. I also just watched a show about the Maersk Alabama where 3 US Navy SEALS had to blow away 3 pirates with 3 simultaneous shots, which prompted my thinking on the issue. Just noticed another one happened recently in the news. This happens all the time, being a pirate is a glorified part of Somali culture it seems.

Detecting an approaching vessel isn't exactly rocket science anymore.....so does anybody know why the crew isn't sitting at the rail armed and ready to defend themselves? I promise it wont take more than just a few groups of pirates getting shot up by a ship's crew before this starts happening less and less.

Read this cluster****:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33489603/ns/world_news-africa/

two reasons. 1) the companies that own the tankers would rather not be held responsible if a sailor get's injured or killed defending the ship/cargo.

and 2) They can't legally bring weapons into the ports they would be travelling between without a ton of hassle (and would likely get denied access to many ports flat out).

If they shot back, the pirates would just get bigger guns. As it stands now, the pirates AREN'T shooting in the first place. Do we want them shooting at oil tankers?

They need missiles...to you know..sink suspicious small craft flying rocketing towards them...

there is only one solution to the problem

Vikings... the weapons they carry tend to avoid those legal issues and both pirates and ninjas soil their pants in the presence of the awesome that is Vikings

Brett Favre is over 40 years old and I don't see what he could do in this situation.

i meant Vikings not people who play a bastardized sissy variant of rugby who refuse to pronounce their name the way it's ****ing spelled

Some ships have those concentrated sound cannons. It's not just Somalia with the pirates. It's anywhere near a coast that has poor people with access to fishing boats and AKs.

Also,

3. The pirates ALWAYS outnumber the crew by a lot.

4. They have RPG's.

5. The likelihood of being attacked is too low to warrant paid guards.

I wrote a 10 page paper about this phenomenon. It has to do with international law, and whatnot. Alot of ships deal with countries that we're not-so-friendly with all of the time, and many countries are wary of armed shipping crews. Another thing is that shipping companies worry about the collateral damage/loss of life that would possibly occur of a firefight would occur between one of their vessels and a pirate ship. If crews surrender peacably, there is usually little or no threat to the lives of the crew.

actually screw vikings...

Jedi... pirate shoots at ship with RPG, Jedi stops rocket with the force, Jedi gives the rocket back to the pirates

hell wouldn't even get that far... pirates approach ship, Jedi waves hand, pirates go home and rethink their lives

Pirates approach ship, Jedi kills the younglings, Pirates retreat to Mustufar, Jedi falls in molten pit.

Some ships have fire truck like powered water hoses which seems to be effective.

No they wouldn't. 5 or 10 million $ worth of computer controlled weaponry would more powerful than anything a bunch of dirt poor Somalians could ever bring to bear.

Yes and the cost of that weaponry would CERTAINLY outweigh the ransom demands of the pirates....

Plus I doubt that the crew want to get into a firefight over someone else's oil.

maybe the reason they don't arm freighters is because insurance companies won't cover warships???

all ships

The best pirate evasion story I've heard involved a tugboat. This tug had 2 Z-drives, which is a type of propulsion which can rotate the prop 360 degrees. They threw the tug into a fast spin, so that the pirates couldn't board.

Pirates attack ship. Men fire at pirates. Pirates fire at men. Men die. Women inherit the earth.

It just seems like when one group of men has to grapple up the side of a ship that the other side should have such a clear advantage in any sort of firefight that they could eliminate the pirates while putting themselves in little to no danger. You all bring up good points though. It's just sad that it's cheaper to simply allow it to happen and repeatedly pay them off. Even if it cost me more money I'd rather take somebody out than let them pillage me in any way just based on principal.

A better solution would be to glass Somalia. It's already a total write-off in terms of culture and economics, and it's one of the few countries where absolutely nobody living outside of its borders would be bothered if it simply stopped existing. It'd make the perfect example.

That's not entirely true, Jon. We could have the United Nations try to get them into shape by giving food and other aid to the people, and if the warlords tried to seize it we could use the Marines to protect it... Oh wait.