Should We Bright Back Q-Ships?

[The Big Al]

Read this if you don't get the term.

I've been following the story about piracy in the area of the Horn of Africa. It leaves me wondering. Why are we sending in easily recognized warships to deal with this?

The pirates have already come up with answer for it. They've increase their territory so naval ships are spread and there are blind spots in their net. Then, when a cargo vessel enters a blind spot, they go in and take it.

I think this is a perfect time to bring back Q-ships. The pirates would literally not know what hit them. The sign of a good Q-ship is they aren't recognized for what they are until its too late.

The pirates don't want to die. If they get blown away by what appears to be freighter, they'll take a hint. I personally believe its the best solution for this latest surge in piracy.

 

[Girafarig_Magcargo]

Something that elaborate might not even be needed. If the merchant companies would scrape up the change for some armed guards, then they can at least hold off pirate attacks until naval help can be gotten.

What might be a good exercise for NATO navies to keep them in shape for potential conflicts would be to step up from a merely patrol capability to a convoy/interdiction mission. Eventually we may have to go into the pirate bases to destroy their bases, and hopefully Obama has a little more fortitude than Clinton did if we have to go into Somalia.

 

[GrnMarvl14]

The pirates don't want to die. If they get blown away by what appears to be freighter, they'll take a hint. I personally believe its the best solution for this latest surge in piracy.

A pirate mothership engaged an Indian battleship earlier this week. I don't think they really give a fuck as to what they're attacking. I think they mostly just do it for shits and giggles. Like any good pirate would.

What might be a good exercise for NATO navies to keep them in shape for potential conflicts would be to step up from a merely patrol capability to a convoy/interdiction mission. Eventually we may have to go into the pirate bases to destroy their bases, and hopefully Obama has a little more fortitude than Clinton did if we have to go into Somalia.

I agree. And, really, I don't think there's a single country that has ships going near the east African coast that WOULDN'T want to get rid of the pirates. Even Russia would probably back us (or...do their OWN "better" thing).

Really, the pirates are a larger symptom of the African problem. Namely a bunch of pissed off people with big guns who are still, more or less, caught in tribal conflicts. If we could actually stabilize Africa (yes, I know, that's impossible), we could at least limit the effectiveness of their operations. Hell, stabilizing Somalia (something we can't do without people screaming "Black Hawk Down"...both jokingly and seriously) would do wonders.

 

[The Big Al]

There is a difference in their tactics towards freighters. They send out their little boats to board them. Such craft would be easy pray for an armed freighter. Then, more easily recognized motherships would have to approach freighters themselves.

Active intradiction would also improve the situation. I just think sitting in the water and hoping the pirates are dumb enough to approach warships isn't doing anything. Q-ships and a more active approach to protecting ships would force the pirates to think twice and make their jobs harder.

 

[Fig]

Q-Ships poses all sort of legal issues, though. And of course, chances are pirates would just adapt their tactics.

Ultimately, what we're dealing with here is commerce raiding. You deal with commerce raiding by convoy tactics, or with airpower on hunt and destroy missions, or by destroying their support infrastructure.

Forming convoys is an economically troublesome approach.

The other two, though...in the short run, I'd look heavily in sending a Wasp-class ship and proper support to the region. Maybe even two of them. This put bases of operation for between 2-4K marines within the general area, as well as sensible airpower platforms, fitted with planes designed to attack and wipe out relatively small targets (Harriers jumpjets, originally designed for this mission profile).

Would be interesting to see what would come out of that approach.

 

[evkl]

The pirates have nothing to lose even when attacking armed ships. They have nothing and get the chance to gain a lot.

 

[the gadfly]

The shipping companies have no problem spending money to secure their on-shore facilities. Yet, they insist on buying ships that can be operated by minimal crews, a dozen or so.

It seems to me to be an issue of economics. They spend money to secure their on-shore facilities because they have to. Until now, they've been able to ignore piracy. Hence, they man their ships with as few people as they can.

What can change their minds? Increased insurance costs. The more money spent on insurance, the more reason they have to find ways to avoid piracy. These could be as simple as changing routes.

 

[GrnMarvl14]

AHA, the PERFECT solution. All we need to do is get the pirates to target militant Islamic ships. Who's for donating a ship to Al-Qaeda and letting the pirates know it's filled with something valuable?

 

[Girafarig_Magcargo]

AHA, the PERFECT solution. All we need to do is get the pirates to target militant Islamic ships. Who's for donating a ship to Al-Qaeda and letting the pirates know it's filled with something valuable?

Maybe we should pull Charlie Wilson out of retirement and get him to fund the Islamic militants to fight the pirates...

Or, we could find wherever they're docking these ships and attack the pirate bases. I mean, it can't be that hard to find a giant shipyard full of huge cargo ships, and I doubt there are that many harbors in Somalia capable of holding something like a supertanker.

 

[The Big Al]

Finding them is probably easy (we on this site can probably find them using Google Earth). The trick is rescuing the crews alive. The pirates would likely kill them all if they saw navy ships approaching. Also, the countries who have had their ships commandeered would rather pay the ransom than let other countries try to actually defeat the pirates.

 

[Drakon]

Wouldn't the weapons systems be prohibitively expensive? And there's the legal problem.

And what about cruise ships?