Pirates

BenBurch said:
Is it just me, or does anybody else think it's time to sink anything leaving a Somali port? An actual effective close blockade.
Click to expand...


BenBurch, I apologize.

I had you pegged as a Prius-driving, tofu-sucking, tree-licking, all-human-life-is-sacred, probably-knitting-in-public-where-people-can-see-you kind of guy.

I was wrong.

I hereby nominate you for Commander in Chief and Supreme Leader of the Navy, and wish you well on your new endeavor.
 
BenBurch said:
Lyrandar. Radar moves at the speed of light.
Click to expand...

... That's nice, but I'd worry more about the speed of the ships involved, since they're going to be the ones deploying any actual forces to investigate a ship or take a ship back from the pirates.

I admit I was thinking of a model more like what we have now, where we react to distress calls and hope to arrive quickly enough to make a difference before the pirates have hostages to negotiate with. Even adjusting to a full blockade - stopping everything - doesn't help all that much though. That will be more effective at the cost of higher resources... and as long as conditions on the ground in Somalia are favorable to piracy, we have to keep up that higher expenditure or things will regress. Are you really so eager to add another indefinite military project to the list of things the US is trying to do? (For that matter, you didn't really address my point about the number of ships we have available, so I remain unconvinced we actually have the forces to try this at all.)
 
Lyrandar said:
... That's nice, but I'd worry more about the speed of the ships involved, since they're going to be the ones deploying any actual forces to investigate a ship or take a ship back from the pirates.

...
Click to expand...

Aircraft intercept the vessels and order them to stand-to and await inspection.

Those that do not are sunk.

Consistant with the rules of blockade.
 
BenBurch said:
Ah! OK, then we need to have some more frigates.

What is the incremental cost? It's expensive, but as dudalb points out these vessels would be at sea anyway. We'd have more high speed running, and more helicopter sorties, so the fuel costs would be higher. Resupply would be more expensive at that distance.
Click to expand...
Are we talking a few million or hundreds of millions or more?


BenBurch said:
What is the value of not having ships taken on the high seas by pirates?
Click to expand...
Not much. From a purely American parochial point of view, I'm only aware of the ship last year and this yacht. There may be and probably are more and as stated below it's complicated by the registry of the ships and defining what's American.

BenBurch said:
What is the value of security?

What is the value of the nation not bowing to piracy?
Click to expand...
I didn't think the nation was bowing to piracy. Companies have made economic decisions that it's better to risk it and pay off the pirates when necessary. That has exacerbated the problem because the pirates know they're going to get paid off. I've read one place the pirates made $238 million in 2010.

BenBurch said:
This is complicated somewhat by the fact that many "American" merchant ships (in fact almost all of them) have their papers from Liberia or some other place where inspection amounts to paying a couple of thousand to the inspector.
Click to expand...

This just seems something that the UN should be doing. (I know, but one can dream.) It should be a multi-nation task force, not just the US. From not just a cost point of view but geopolitically it would be beneficial if the USA was just part of it and not the gunslinger from the west in to clean up the town.
 
BenBurch said:
Aircraft intercept the vessels and order them to stand-to and await inspection.

Those that do not are sunk.

Consistant with the rules of blockade.
Click to expand...

Okay then... if you intend to order them to stand-to from the air, you're going to want to use helicopters. 17 out of your proposed list of ships can carry them, so assuming you're smart about your deployment, you should be able to get response time around a 20 minute maximum. I'm not sure it would work out that well in real life, but I'm willing to concede that.

Unfortunately, you're still ignoring personnel fatigue. In order to maintain that time, every ship that carries them has to have a helicopter ready to go immediately. Since all of them, except the carrier, only have room for two helicopters, this means they get to be on alert for hours on end. And then they still have maintenance and training... and then sleep and food...

Oh, and the most common helicopter you'd end up with is the SH-60B, since that's what the frigates are designed to carry. An antisubmarine helicopter. It probably can sink a surface ship (I think they can carry Hellfire missiles) but that's not something they'll have a lot of experience with.

And as much as I usually don't like to repeat myself... you still haven't addressed my concerns about numbers of ships. In fact we've just added another list of required resources. This plan would require at least two entire helicopter squadrons, probably more. This is theoretically possible, at least, unlike the frigate numbers, but again, most of those squadrons have missions already...

Spindrift said:
This just seems something that the UN should be doing. (I know, but one can dream.) It should be a multi-nation task force, not just the US. From not just a cost point of view but geopolitically it would be beneficial if the USA was just part of it and not the gunslinger from the west in to clean up the town.
Click to expand...

There is a multinational task force out there now. Multiple NATO countries as well as China and Russia have ships out there, as I recall.
 
Spindrift said:
It should be a multi-nation task force, not just the US.
Click to expand...
How many nations do you think are even capable of contributing to such a task force? Then you remove the ones who are capable but unwilling, and you end up with... a task force comprised of 95% US ships.
 
WildCat said:
How many nations do you think are even capable of contributing to such a task force? Then you remove the ones who are capable but unwilling, and you end up with... a task force comprised of 95% US ships.
Click to expand...

Yes.

This, BTW, shows the crying need for the new Independence class of LCSs that are on the ways right now. We have one in commission and one working up. We also have one Freedom class (a class of one) vessel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom