On 1/10/14, 9:52 PM, John H. wrote:



The problem with fighting back with small arms or rockets, is they can

stand off a ways and sink you with theirs a lot easier than you can hit

them in their tiny boats... or run a cable and disable you, then hit you

with the rockets...That is what I heard anyway, as a reason why the

bigger ships just can't fight them off with small arms....

The .50 cal machine gun can shoot a mile off. Being a machine gun, it can put a lot of rounds on target. Why they don't put one on every ship is beyond me.



Most merchant vessels, even American-flagged ones, have minimal crews
these days, and at night, when the majority of pirate boardings take
place, the number of able seamen and lower rank officers on watch duty
is even lower. Further, the shipboard radar sets on merchant vessels
aren't likely on the high seas to pick up a small, low profile "pirate"
vessel from among the rest of the clutter on the screen. What will
arming merchant ships with 50-caliber machine guns do? It will ensure
that more merchant ship crew members are killed. There are many who
believe that firearms are the answer to every outbreak of social unrest
and crime. The fact that more Americans are killed with firearms every
day in their own country than have been killed by the Somali pirates in
decades should tell us something.