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I_am_Tosk

In article ,
says...

In article ,
says...
Now you're claiming that all the navies in the area are incompetent?
Wow, you're some kind of expert!!

Who said anyone was incompetent. I said we should engage the pirates
at sea,, not invading Somalia.

BUT
The other navies (with the possible exception of the Russians) are
nothing compared to us. They don't have theater surveillance
capability, their air support is limited to land bases for the most
part and they are usually using weapons we gave them because they were
obsolete.
You can hate Reagan but he built us a heluva navy.

All of the NATO navies are integrated into the US's theater surveillance
systems.

The real problem with these surface assets is they are slow to respond
if there is a lot of distance involved. That is why you need to find
the pirates, track them and be there when their course and a likely
target ship course meets.

30 knts over water is fast when you are moving an 500 foot destroyer but
it doesn't do anything to get the assets, 5 inch 50's and RIBS with USCG
officers and PO's and navy sailors putting M16's on the pirates.

Predator drones and a Global Hawk are probably the right tools. We are
the only ones who have them.

The problem is the cost and time on station. We need a base within
operating range of the area. A predator costs about $4.5 million and has
a 24 hour fuel load before it becomes an anchor. They have a 2000 mile
radius but that means you have to get it there, do you operating and
then get back to land. And, with a 135 MPH you would need to have
several aloft at a time.

I still say profiling is the answer. You have profilers that know the
fishing grounds and patterns. We can watch a lot of vessels in theater.
When you see "fishing boats" that are not following the profile, or are
suspect based on that profile, you put a couple extra sets of eyes on
them. If they launch out small skiffs or show themselves moving away
from a fishing area toward a ship, or shipping area, you start to move
an asset like predator drone closer and watch them more. If you see that
skiff moving toward another vessel, and then get a SOS from that vessel,
you can pretty much just let that predator vaporize the skiffs before
they get off that first RPG, and then go address the mother ship, and
address I mean vaporize them too...

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