"Calif Bill" wrote in message
...



For years merchant ships were armed. Cannons. Problems with Pirates and
Privateers. Seems as if we need to regress to arming them again.


They weren't carrying millions of gallons of flammable cargo.
Somewhere I was reading that even the coal carriers had to be very careful
with firearms due to the coal dust.

Wooden warships had to be careful also. It was interesting taking the tour
of the USS Constitution in Boston. When they went to battle stations, one
of the crew's jobs was to man the manually operated bilge pumps and pump
water up to cover the two gun decks to prevent them from catching fire due
to spilled powder around the cannons.

Eisboch