The way Captain Phillips should have ended!

[Shuck Water]

 

[jcyamaharider]

Yeah Buddy!!!! Get some!!

 

[Bruce]

Serious stuff! I would want something bigger than 223.

 

[JetPowered]

I want to see what happened to the second skiff …

 

[GTBRMC]

I am a bit surprised the ships don't carry some smaller missile systems...or maybe smart munitions, extended range RPGs (if there is such a thing***) fired at 2Km+ range. Small arms and boarding attempts can be held off with small arms like in the video, but bandits with RPGs are a threat to the whole ship and a direct hit on a small, fast, highly maneuverable attack boat with a normal grenade launcher/RPG would be improbable.

***Thinking here is a fragmentation warhead that would be shot over an approaching attack boat & detonate on a radar/heat/whatever proximity sensor...anyone know if such a beast exists?

 

[Britboater]

If you watch the follow-on vids you see the clip again and the second skiff turns away, apparently the ship owner hired two mercenaries.
Some interesting clips, one is showing the Pirates at night mistake a navy vessel, to there shock and a Russian navy ship opening Fire with some sort of canon .

 

[txav8r]

I don't know about smart weapons, I suppose you have to protect against shooting/sinking a distressed vessel, but if they are coming up on you, sink the bastards! All of this piracy stuff is a bunch of crap. It's ok for the pirates to be armed to the teeth, but a huge tanker can't? Time to do something about that and let them reconsider the situation. If the law won't let you, change the law. Losing one free enterprise ship or crew is enough to make that change IMO. Gee, I hope this isn't political.

 

[Glassman]

Gee, I hope this isn't political.

 

[Glassman]

Serious stuff! I would want something bigger than 223.

They are using 5.56 Nato rounds.

Here's a little behind the scenes info:

 

[Bruce]

They are using 5.56 Nato rounds.

5.56 Nato and 223 are very similar rounds. They are interchangeable in most firearms. It is a small round chosen by our military for low weight, small size and minimal recoil.

I would want something that would reach out further and do more when it did. The different in weight and space taken up by a few thousand rounds of 5.56/223 vs 7.62/308 is not going to make a difference on a cargo or tanker ship.

 

[Big Shasta]

 

[Glassman]

5.56 Nato and 223 are very similar rounds. They are interchangeable in most firearms. It is a small round chosen by our military for low weight, small size and minimal recoil.

I would want something that would reach out further and do more when it did. The different in weight and space taken up by a few thousand rounds of 5.56/223 vs 7.62/308 is not going to make a difference on a cargo or tanker ship.

Well yes and no. I can fire .223 through my rifle chambered for 5.56, but won't try to fire 5.56 through my mini 14 chambered for .223. The throat for 5.56 chambers is nearly twice as long as that of a .223 chamber. That and the Nato round is typically 62 grain and the .223 Remington I use is 55 grain.

I certainly agree that something along the lines of 7.62 Nato round or .308 Win would be a better choice to punch a hole through those rat bastard's dinghies and of course the trusty ol' .30-06 or even a BAR .50 cal would do the job nicely too. I think that ease of handling on the boat and availability of ammo may factor into the choices these security guys make.

But if it were my boat there would be several mini guns fore and aft!

 

[Big Shasta]

But if it were my boat there would be several mini guns fore and aft!

Agree, I think this sends a quicker clearer message.

 

[biglar155]

This is a great vid. Makes me wish I was 20 years younger - I'd sign up. Boats and Guns? Stopping bad people from doing bad things? Heck yeah!

I believe the reason they don't carry heavy weapons on the ships is because then they'd be classified as a "warship" and there are varying agreements with the various nations through whose waters they traverse that would be broken if they did so. (That sentence got ugly quickly but I refused to give up on it. Shoulda used the delete key and put it out of its misery.)

 

[Bruce]

My understanding from researching sailing around the world is that many countries have strict laws about what weapons can and can not enter their country and territorial waters. Even the, I assume AR15s, that they are using would have issues in many countries. I bet the security teams are hopping on the boats when the enter international waters and getting off before they exit international waters in many situations.

 

[Big Shasta]

I wonder if the countries they are going thorough would simply accept something like "we'll lock the weapons up unless we're in international waters". Small arms of course. Although a mini gun is small.

 

[jAMESZ28]

I would imagine they are using 5.56 because it limits the range of engagement in International waters. Heavy and select fire weapons would be hard to get licensed for and probably even harder to get into foreign borders. If I remember we actually changed some laws when all this Somalia piracy started so we could prosecute them when we caught them.

 

[Wayloncle]

I read somewhere that when some of these armed ships get close to where they are going they throw the weapons in the water because they can't take them to port (in some locations). That may be a reason for using smaller/cheaper rounds. Those are big ships, I'd find somewhere to build a hidden storage container for the weapons!