Hostage rescue at sea?

[lazymanc]

Some of you may have heard a month or so ago about a Ukranian cargo ship which has been hijacked by Somali pirates.

Now the cargo was a rather dubious cache of soviet-era weapons and dozens of T72 tanks, supposedly heading for Kenya but now discovered under further examination to have been heading for Sudan. The pirates themselves were supposedly unawares of what the ship contained until they boarded it, but they have threatened to destroy the ship along with everyone on board if the ransom of $20 million is not paid.

Ignoring for the minute the fact that the crew were delivering arms to a regime guilty of mass genocide and probably deserve anything they get...

Would it be possible to perform some kind of special forces rescue mission in this situation or is that completely in the realms of Holywood fantasy considering the number of bad guys (approx 50+) and the sh*tload of military hardware on board?

I would imagine said pirates are probably a rag-tag bunch of thugs with sod-all military training, but a boat is probably a fairly good defensive prospect with all the narrow corridors and threats to scupper it? (This is going purely from my avid video-game habit and probably has no basis in reality! )

I know we have a couple of military / special forces types on here so I'd be fascinated to hear your opinion on the matter?

A couple of torpedoes should do the trick, get the hijackers and keep the hardware away from the junta.

[yorkie_chris]

Bit harsh on the crew like!

I do wonder how pirates manage to capture large ships like that with small boats, surely a couple of blokes with GPMGs would make mincemeat out of them.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Bit harsh on the crew like!

I do wonder how pirates manage to capture large ships like that with small boats, surely a couple of blokes with GPMGs would make mincemeat out of them.

Under GMDSS they have to carry liferafts with a bit of warning crew would be fine lol! They flank the vessel with extremely fast ribs and board it using grapeling hooks on mass entrance to the med (Gibraltar Straits) is a real hotspot for it and even naval vessels have to be on guard.

I think we should all offer our amateur opinions on this until the thread is at least 2 pages long and then let Dangerous Dave blow us all out of the water. Metaphorically speaking.

My own take is that killing the pirates is easy, saving the crew is the difficult bit...

It probably would be possible, Chances are if it was done by the UK the SBS would be inserted into the area by Sub and crack on from there, or dropped of in ridged raiders out the back of a CH-47.

I am quessing but i am sure DD will eloborate on how the SBS lads might go about it if it happened in UK waters.

Originally Posted by Tiger 55

I think we should all offer our amateur opinions on this until the thread is at least 2 pages long and then let Dangerous Dave blow us all out of the water. Metaphorically speaking.

My own take is that killing the pirates is easy, saving the crew is the difficult bit...

Teehee

Personally I reckon I can do it on an XBox so I don't see why it should be any harder in real life....

[timwilky]

Slightly off topic, but re the somaili pirate generally.

I find it strange that they have been permitted to operate for so long.

I would have thought it was not beyond the capability of Nato/UN etc to send a disguised ship into the area, as and when the pirates appear, blow them out of the water. Once it has happened a few times they are going to think before attacking any vessel.

[Paul the 6th]

send steven segal to sort them out. Haven't you seen under seige 1 & 2?!

I'd love to hear the opinion of someone like Dangerous Dave on this. However, I feel that he may not be able to give his opinion in as much detail as we'd all love to hear it.