Help US Navy Hunt Pirates

[hellosailor]

Public comments on the AWACS Federation of American Scientists :: E-3 Sentry (AWACS) indicate the range of the marine radar system is in excess of 200nm, so by πr2 we get a circle of ocean 3.14*200*200 or bout 125,600 square miles covered by just one AWACS on station. That's a pretty good start, considering the station can be moved as you eliminate targets from that area.

I'd also expect image recognition systems, working from satellite or AWACS, could easily differentiate between "this boat is trawling" and "this boat isn't". Task a Predator for a looksee, or one of the many cheaper drones, and see if the warm bodies are in motion (like fisherman at work) or snuggled up out of the spray, like pirates in transit. Ain't rocket science, just requires someone to say "Pay the bills, task the equipment".

Cap'n Bill, you can buy it or not, as you please, but the Really Good Toys are and always will be calssified, and no one will allow any other their real capabilities to come out before they must. Top speed of any US carrier? Classified. You can get numbers, but you know what they say about numbers and figures and lies. If the real numbers about anything military get out--then people can get killed. So much as I think some of the classifications are nonsense (since the numbers can be and often are deduced) that's the way the game is played.

Which doesn't mean the assets can't be tasked, and the simple end result "Sighted ship sank same" can't happen.

But someone STILL has to say "OK, send me the bill" and with all the military actions happening now, and the current state of the US economy? It's cheaper to allow piracy than to fight it. The shippers pay, they pass it on the customers, the customers can't complain much. In the long run they pay the same or less than they'd pay in tax increases, and end result is the same, except "No politicians were harmed in the making of this movie".

Like many jobs, it will go undone simply because no one wants to pay the bill.

[Sailor g]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Public comments on the AWACS Federation of American Scientists :: E-3 Sentry (AWACS) indicate the range of the marine radar system is in excess of 200nm, so by πr2 we get a circle of ocean 3.14*200*200 or bout 125,600 square miles covered by just one AWACS on station. That's a pretty good start, considering the station can be moved as you eliminate targets from that area.

I'd also expect image recognition systems, working from satellite or AWACS, could easily differentiate between "this boat is trawling" and "this boat isn't". Task a Predator for a looksee, or one of the many cheaper drones, and see if the warm bodies are in motion (like fisherman at work) or snuggled up out of the spray, like pirates in transit. Ain't rocket science, just requires someone to say "Pay the bills, task the equipment".

Cap'n Bill, you can buy it or not, as you please, but the Really Good Toys are and always will be calssified, and no one will allow any other their real capabilities to come out before they must. Top speed of any US carrier? Classified. You can get numbers, but you know what they say about numbers and figures and lies. If the real numbers about anything military get out--then people can get killed. So much as I think some of the classifications are nonsense (since the numbers can be and often are deduced) that's the way the game is played.

Which doesn't mean the assets can't be tasked, and the simple end result "Sighted ship sank same" can't happen.

But someone STILL has to say "OK, send me the bill" and with all the military actions happening now, and the current state of the US economy? It's cheaper to allow piracy than to fight it. The shippers pay, they pass it on the customers, the customers can't complain much. In the long run they pay the same or less than they'd pay in tax increases, and end result is the same, except "No politicians were harmed in the making of this movie".

Like many jobs, it will go undone simply because no one wants to pay the bill.

It's sad it's a money issue. That is the reality... Who will pay? I'm sure they have the ability to count the hairs on a gnat's.. nose. They must be able to tell the fishing boats IF they want. The problem is if we wait too much later the problem will get so big it will be harder to handle and the personal cost of lives lost will be a real tragedy. If all countries involved contributed it would be fair.. Or take spoils from the country that can't control it or allows it.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Jon Hacking

And pirate mother ships just look like fishing boats, so they're hard to distinguish from the good guys, even by trained professionals.
.

That did'nt stop us Brits when we were blockading Rhodesia... anything approaching the Mozambique coast was checked out... merchant shios also look the same but they were still searched if headed for port... and their manifests did not sound right...
Stop and Search... innocent no harm done... weapons on board... impounded the vessel and detain the crew...
But then... it was a 'White Regime' so we weren't being racist...lol

[David_Old_Jersey]

Apparently Somalia has joined the Tea Party. Does that make them freind or foe?

Official Top Secret Pentagon Battle Map

[goboatingnow]

You have to laugh at the nonsensical ideas trotted out here. Do some research and listen to both the navies present and the commercial capitals.

Problems
(1) the area is huge and shipping converges on it from everywhere.

(2) even if you think you've detected a possible mothership or a raider, you have to get an asset there that can interdict it. Interdiction means stoping and boarding not just tasking an aircraft.

(3) everyone forgets the big issue. There are approx 800 hostages many are used as human shields on these motherships. Are you seriously suggesting sacrificing thoses lives. What moral authority gives you that right.

(4) many of the hostages are held all along the coast of Somalia in any invasion or blockade these would all be killed. Obviously these of course aren't nice White Americans there is a strange type of untermensch approach to Somalis.

(5) banning fishing would condemn ordinary Somalis to starvation and drive them into further piracy.

Let's leave the gung-ho nonsense to Rambo movies. Real life is slow messy full of grey. The worlds major maritime powers all have presence in the gulf of Aden, some like EUNAVFOR have quite a presence. They will supress it, in time, bit a long term solution requires restoring law and order in Somalia. Until then all we can hope for to subdue it.

Dave

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

You have to laugh at the nonsensical ideas trotted out here. Do some research and listen to both the navies present and the commercial capitals.

Problems
(1) the area is huge and shipping converges on it from everywhere.

(2) even if you think you've detected a possible mothership or a raider, you have to get an asset there that can interdict it. Interdiction means stoping and boarding not just tasking an aircraft.

(3) everyone forgets the big issue. There are approx 800 hostages many are used as human shields on these motherships. Are you seriously suggesting sacrificing thoses lives. What moral authority gives you that right.
What moral autority do we have to abandon these people to their fate?

(4) many of the hostages are held all along the coast of Somalia in any invasion or blockade these would all be killed. Obviously these of course aren't nice White Americans there is a strange type of untermensch approach to Somalis.
First the're innocent starving fishermen, now the're murderers, which is it??? What would you prefer? A life of imprisonment and torture, or a possible chance of rescue? Obviously any solution needs to give these people the best chance of escape possible, doing nothing isn't working so far.

(5) banning fishing would condemn ordinary Somalis to starvation and drive them into further piracy.
Give me a break! Most Somali's receive UN food aid now, banning "fishing" would not change the numbers significantly. If they were innocent fishermen we wouldn't be having this lovely conversation.

Let's leave the gung-ho nonsense to Rambo movies. Real life is slow messy full of grey. The worlds major maritime powers all have presence in the gulf of Aden, some like EUNAVFOR have quite a presence. They will supress it, in time, but a long term solution requires restoring law and order in Somalia. Until then all we can hope for to subdue it.
True enough, the shortcomings of the current response is treating piracy as an individual crime, when it has in fact become systemic of an entire nation. Delaying response out of fear for the hostages only gives them time to capture even more people who will be in danger, already ransom demands have escalated, soon they will be beyond the point of anyones ability to pay, then the hostages will be executed one by one until ransom demands are met, or they are met by armed response. This has happened so many times before this result is inevitable. Dave

I would not want to be a hostage in this situation, this will only end badly.

[hellosailor]

Dave?
"(1) the area is huge"
Huge is a relative term. Compared to either theater of WW2, the area is small. And considering that "reconnaisance" back then meant you had to have slow moving vessels and eyeballs in every square mile? The area is really really tiny in comparison. One AWACS, one 400nm diameter circle of ocean, and you can keep the circle moving at +450 knots, it isn't static. Eight hours at 400 knots, and you can examine a swath of ocean 400 miles wide and 3200 miles long, that's what? 1,280,000 square miles of ocean? from one AWACS pass in one shift, and they can work 3 shifts a day. HUGE.
And that huge 1.28 million square miles is still TINY compared to satellite recon.

"(2) even if you think you've detected a possible mothership or a raider, you have to get an asset there"
No, you don't. Unless that suspect is conducting an attack, all you have to do is flag it and watch it. Sooner or later, it leads to a mothership, or a port, or a victim. Or it unloads fish at a dock. You may have days and days to get an asset there, and if the asset is a Predator that can eyeball the target invisibly with cameras from a mile up? Or any camera asset? There are gobs of smaller cheaper drones and recon aircraft out there. That's about all you need, you follow through with a bomb or missile from a separate asset. The phrase from the Falklands is "One missile, one ship" and it still applies.

"(3) everyone forgets the big issue.... Are you seriously suggesting sacrificing thoses lives."
Now, that's nordering on a political or moral discussion, and:

" What moral authority gives you that right. "
Please don't go there, the mods probably will close the thread if morals and politics are discussed.

We're discussing "what can be done" not whether or why it might or should be done. Just what can be done, when or if anyone decides to do it.

[niel12]

To my mind there is NO justification for piracy. The US has the capability to root this evil out and make it safe for all boaters. The Somali goverment has no control over their citizens whatsoever and frankly if they attack a vessel in international waters "What comes arround goes arround"

Perhaps all the yacht clubs in all countries should approach their governments to act against this form of terrorism nowaday called piracy! A good time for this seems to be just before an election. Just maybe we can convince a sailing politician to put the wheels in motion so this blatant piracy can end, frankly if the Somali government cannot control its citizens and their inability is the result that unarmed sailors become their targets ... Take out the damn Somali government, its of no use to its citizens good or bad anyway!

The Indian ocean have enough natural contenders to cope with and also some of the most beautiful spots in the world which now is unaccessable not because of sailing windows or storm winds but darn pirates!

If the US, or any country for that matter, is scared maybe we can hire the Iraeli army, they werent afraid of Idi Amin when he treatened the Jews in Africa they just flew in collected their citizens and that was it!

Love they neigbor the pirate to smithereens!

[GordMay]

"Somalia: A Country in Peril, a Foreign Policy Nightmare"

The first half of this report provides an analysis of the current crisis in Somalia. The second half critically examines why international policies toward Somalia have produced disastrously unintended results, and makes an urgent case for a review of those policies.

Here ➥ http://www.enoughproject.org/files/p..._rep090308.pdf

See also “15 Years After Black Hawk Down: Somalia’s Chance?”
➥ http://allafrica.com/download/resour...7253c8b5dc.pdf

[niel12]

Thank you for the report and the general view, surely Somali piracy originate from home, how does one justify this? This bring me to another question; Somewhere i read or was told that our current piracy problem is criminaly instigated, in fact i heard the Mafia was behand it funding boats and hardware like rocket launchers etc. Money demands are paid into foregn accounts. Peculiarity is that they knew exactly which boat travels where and when and when. if a yacht comes in between your'e just statistics, pay and shut up or.... Surely the FBI and or CIA can look into this, i guess its fair to say a little more than smoke meets the eye! When the Somali pirates run out of cash and fuel piracy might end.

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by GordMay

"Somalia: A Country in Peril, a Foreign Policy Nightmare"...

Good one, Gord. Many people, including our politicians, want to treat native Africans as if they're Europeans. They aren't, & most such attempts are bound to fail.

It's not the African's fault. If you read "Guns, Germs, & Steel" he says that many parts of the world, including all of sub-Saharan Africa, didn't have domesticatable plants or animals until they were brought from Europe (~200 years ago down south, more recently in the interior). This means that Africans have had to be hunter-gatherers, often nomadic. They've never had the several thousand years that Europeans have had in learning how to form communities, towns, cities, & larger civilizations. It sounds simple, but it's not - Look at how long it took us. Their value system is very different from ours, especially how they value life.

We're expecting them to catch up to us, to learn what took us several thousand years of "social evolution", in only a few decades. Ridiculous.

To deal with the (many) issues of Africa, we need policy makers who know how to deal with Africans AS Africans, to understand, respect & cater to THEIR values. It may be politically correct to just assume they'll behave like Europeans, but that's really rather silly.

[Jon Hacking]

Some good points here, Sailor.

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"(1) the area is huge" Huge is a relative term. Compared to either theater of WW2, the area is small. And considering that "reconnaisance" back then meant you had to have slow moving vessels and eyeballs in every square mile? The area is really really tiny in comparison. One AWACS, one 400nm diameter circle of ocean, and you can keep the circle moving at +450 knots, it isn't static. Eight hours at 400 knots, and you can examine a swath of ocean 400 miles wide and 3200 miles long, that's what? 1,280,000 square miles of ocean? from one AWACS pass in one shift, and they can work 3 shifts a day. HUGE. And that huge 1.28 million square miles is still TINY compared to satellite recon.

If you look at the Piracy Tracking Map, you'll see that many of the attacks are in or near the corridor that the multinational fleet is trying to keep open. This means that the mother ships have to be visible to the fleet for much of the time. If the Navy can't identify them when they're looking right at them, I think it's a bit much for an AWACs or Satellite to do so.

There are about 300 ships coming into the N Indian from the Red Sea or Malaca Straits every day. It's ~2200nm across the pirate area. Your average 15 knot freighter will take ~6 days to transit the pirate zone. That's 1800 legitimate ships the navy has to watch over at any given time. But there are also several hundred (mostly) fishing ships coming in from all over. I think it's a bit much asking the navies of the world (who probably don't communcate that well with each other) to track that many ships.

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"(2) even if you think you've detected a possible mothership or a raider, you have to get an asset there"
No, you don't. Unless that suspect is conducting an attack, all you have to do is flag it and watch it. Sooner or later, it leads to a mothership, or a port, or a victim. Or it unloads fish at a dock. You may have days and days to get an asset there, and if the asset is a Predator that can eyeball the target invisibly with cameras from a mile up? Or any camera asset? There are gobs of smaller cheaper drones and recon aircraft out there. That's about all you need, you follow through with a bomb or missile from a separate asset. The phrase from the Falklands is "One missile, one ship" and it still applies.

We actually do have a Predator team working from the Seychelles. I heard (an unsubstantiated report) that the Brit military watched as that Brit couple were captured, but didn't act because they didn't want to hurt someone. And they couldn't get an asset to intercept in time.

Originally Posted by hellosailor

We're discussing "what can be done" not whether or why it might or should be done. Just what can be done, when or if anyone decides to do it.

You're absolutely right. Complaining is easy. Coming up with constructive ideas is much more difficult (& much more valuable - mine is still to quarantine the Somali coast, but I'd love to hear others)

[niel12]

The peril of the Somalian people is not in question, piracy is! No matter how much one refer to the Somali's as undeveloped, unprivilaged nothing can justify taking the piracy law in ones own hands and rob offshore boats!

One wonder where the intelegence to operate high speed boats come from, it takes a certain amount of intelegence to run these boats and plan the diffrent piracy projects. Where did they get the money from in the first place to fund these boats? Must the yachting community wait for politicians to first educate the Somali's, untill then it's OK do the piracy thing!

There is no way that any country can develop Somalian people within the next 20 years if not longer. Remember they are not exposed to the same oppertunities as what the American Negro's got once they were liberated and educated.There is no infra structure in Somalia, no proper health care, schools are a farce, there are no decent roads and they do not live in decent (western standard ) homes with running water and lights! And to cap it all they breed like rabbits so how on earth does one think politicians can change all that goes a little beyond me. United Nations yes, but then arn't they too busy bombing Libbia, or are they?

I still believe there is no excuse for piracy, nothing, nada! So find the guys who sponsored the boats, deal with them and maybe, just maybe the piracy in the Indian ocean will stop!

[hellosailor]

John-
Bear in mind that a naval vessel isn't normally equipped with the same intelligence analysts that go over aerial reconnaisance. Nor do they have the same equipment available, in terms of dedicated computers and analytical programs. It just isn't a "field" operation although perhaps, like aircraft carriers, it is a new idea that might be worth looking into.<G>
A photo analyst can and will look into all sorts of mundane details that are only available with the luxury of time, multispectral sensing (IR + visible + radar +UV, etc.), and computer programs. For instance, you can spot a 40' open boat and observe it to see:
1-How many men are on it?
2-What kind of fishing gear is on it?
3-How many men usually crew that kind of gear? This many?
4-How often is that kind of gear deployed? Is this boat doing it that way?
5-Where do these boats usually operate? This boat?
6-How long do these boats usually stay out? From what port or ship? This boat?
7-How often are those nets (etc) hauled in to land the fish? And when they are hauled in, are they usually iced? Does my IR image show ten thousand pounds of ICE in the main hold? That's a lot of many for pirates to spend, if they're not fishing.
8-Does a real fishing boat change course and veer towards or away from military and civil vessels when it sees them? Does this boat? Or, does it change course to seek/avoid those vessels based on...radio instructions? While they are out of sight?

An analyst can look at all this and probably a hundred more mundane details, and track them over time, to decide what the boat really is. This is typical intelligence photoanalysis, not something special! You show those guys a tank truck on the highway, they'll tell you the make and model and how many thousand gallons are in the tank. All day all night, they play "what's wrong with this picture?"
They can't tell what brand of cigarette the crew are smoking, but yes, they can tell if a man on deck is smoking or not. Figuring out whether a boat is really fishing, or faking it? A piece of cake, just not the kind of cake they serve at sea, afaik. Maybe by now, they do, but there's no reason to put those guys at sea.

I'm thoroughly out of date with the current state of the art in this field, but I can tell you, even the declassified stuff from 30-40 years ago would be more than adequate to do the job. Having cheap drones and live video instead of damned expensive satellites (with finite limits on how many times they can be repositioned and how many film cartridges they carry) are only two major improvements they've got now. Someone still has to pay the bill, but that bill is much smaller than it used to be. No one has to risk another Gary Powers incident to do this part of the job either.

Speaking of which, yesterday's nooze repeated rumours that the US now has a "stealth drone", i.e. not a Predator but something with less capabilities but similar to a B2 bomber, so it can lurk without being picked up on radar. The US has admitted one of those was involved in the Bin Laden raid, so the Paki's wouldn't notice one of our drones was hovering in the area for long times.

[pjop]

MMOWGLI is Massively Multiplayer On-Line Wargame Leveraging the Internet. Kind of spooky, maybe kind of fun. You decide.
No, really. . . go to Wannabe SEALs Help U.S. Navy Hunt Pirates In Massively Multiplayer Game | Fast Company
Anyone read the Ender's Game series? Strange how fiction becomes reality.