a private navy is going to fight piracy. ..

I think it is because they can charge for their services and make a profit. It seems they will be offering an armed escort service to the highest bidder
 
Camelia said:
We can't afford it, over the last 50 years the UK Government has spent all the cash and sold all the assets to other countries.
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I think we could afford it, 'we' just don't think it is worth the allocation of funds and resources... Far better off waging an endless war in Afghanistan, or stationing hundreds of sailors in the gulf.

We are an island nation and we are utterly dependent on sea trade. The Navy has for years been a force to defend this trade. It seems in latter years that the Royal Navy is just being used to gain political points supporting the US government.

If British ships, personnel and produce are under threat from Somali pirates then surely it is exactly what the British government should be prioritising.

The article talks about a 10,000 Ton mothership, some armoured patrol boats and 240 marines. We could easily provide that if only we had the political will. It shouldn't just be the wealthiest (in other words Oil Tankers) that are protected.

But that's just my opinion...

Pete
 
Hi Pete, this story is exactly the same as an article in the Telegraph that was posted on a security forum this time last year. Just gone back to the link and it looks like the telegraph have re printed the exact same article for some reason.

A year on and there is no sign of even a rowing tender being made available by Typhon. Sharpe has popped up a few times trying to buy out various Marsec companies but never seems to come up with the cash.

Apart from who pays, in answer to your question of "Why cant the Royal Navy do it?!" and why the idea of a private navy is a non starter is down to the sheer size of the high risk area involved which some put at around 3 times the size of Europe. To steal someone else's analogy say all together they could muster 100 warships which would be quite formidable. Now convert those into armed response Police cars, with a top speed of 40mph, covering just one Europe!

As far as I am aware not one ship with armed guards on board has yet been taken.
 
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Lots of Navies including the ours, have been doing anti-piracy patrols. There's also been a lot of work done trying to sort out the root cause in SOmalia it's self. As a result piracy rates have dropped to a fraction of what they were.

In the mean time there's been some small scale private security measures offered to merchant ships and the organising of convoys,etc.

But whilst real progress has been made, there's been a continuous stream of delusional fantasists who have been claiming they, and their dead hard marine chums, are going to go and sort it out. But I don't think a single one of them has left the pub yet - they're too busy being bought drinks by all their internet forum sycophants.

If you go to Penryn you can see one of the last attempts. An ex-Omani Navy patrol boat has been there awhile while its owners continue to tell people they're on their way to 'sort out the pirates'.

Without significant air assets, there's absolutely no way anyone could find and intercept these pirates in tens of thousands of square miles of Indian Ocean.
 
moodyNick said:
It is far from certain that this company can actually 'do it' , ie be successful without significant loss of life, ships or cargo.

We will just have to wait and see.
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I don't think I'll be holding my breath! The only firm to actually buy a boat and get it to the area as an 'escort' was the giant American security firm Blackwater who in 2007 offered an ex-US navy ship as an escort, but they did not have a single taker for their services. Not one. The operation folded after three months.

Despite figures being bandied about that pirates are costing the shipping industry 6 billion dollars, the protection market is highly competitive. No one is even prepared to pay for western ex-special forces people, when a load of Asian 'security operatives' on board, organised by various firms in Abu Dubai, have proved to be cheap and effective.

So they're certainly not prepared to pay for a private navy when the warships of thirty countries are complimenting the onboard guards for free!

The 'waters at risk' extend to 1.1 million square nautical miles. At the moment each warship on patrol is trying to cover 44,000 square nautical miles. It's laughable that the shipping industry is going to pay to add one more patrolship to the mix.
 
Halcyon Yachts said:
If British ships, personnel and produce are under threat from Somali pirates then surely it is exactly what the British government should be prioritising.
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Thats the problem. Most of the time it isn't British ships, or personnel.

What are the navies of Panama, Liberia, and The Bahamas doing to protect their ships?
 
The other point is that our navy, and the same is true for all western navies... Is wholly I'll equipped to deal with the issue.... So to combat five guys in a speedboat with some ak's and a rpg we are sending billion dollar destroyers with weapons that can take down a supersonic jet at 100 miles etc...

So we have the incredibly capable an expensive assets running up costs doing a job which could be done at much lower cost with a much simpler platform....

The real solution lies in solving the issues ashore politically, as well as providing better on ship security and surveillance.... Concentrate on protecting the assets and taking away their shore facilities and it's job done...

Sending out Ashleigh Burke destroyers and type 23's may look good but it's not very cost effective...


But the situation does appear to be improving... The situation ashore has changed, and the number of attacks is way down
 
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Halcyon Yachts said:
I think we could afford it, 'we' just don't think it is worth the allocation of funds and resources... Far better off waging an endless war in Afghanistan, or stationing hundreds of sailors in the gulf.
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Well we would need to build some ships to start! So back to my original question, can we afford it?
 
Update from a Pal

"Blackwater have had their private navy in the Gulf of Aden for 4 years now. This is nothing new." :rolleyes: ;)
 
Why not adopt the Royal Navy technique of blockading the coast of Somalia ala France in Napoleon times. No need to patrol a million square miles of ocean.

The US Coast Guard blockade their own country for goodness sake without patroling the vast Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

I have twice approached the US coast in a Yacht and had a CoastGuard helicopter overhead on both occasions.
 
OGITD said:
"Blackwater have had their private navy in the Gulf of Aden for 4 years now. This is nothing new." :rolleyes: ;)
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Not true. It started (with 1 ship) four years ago but folded after less than three months as no shipping company was prepared to pay for their services.
 
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TimBennet said:
Without significant air assets, there's absolutely no way anyone could find and intercept these pirates in tens of thousands of square miles of Indian Ocean.
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Agreed, but you don't need air support to escort a clutch of small yachts along the Red Sea and into the Indian Ocean.

Boo2
 
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Boo2 said:
Agreed, but you don't need air support to escorts a clutch of small yachts along the Red Sea and into the Indian Ocean. Boo2
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Neither do you need a 10,000 ton ship and a cluster of patrol boats, which is why no one will pay for their services and that's why the only people spouting the idea of a private navy are still down the pub talking about it and not actually anywhere near Somalia.
 
In terms of cost effectiveness, a machine gun or two on each boat at risk from pirates I would have thought would probably solve the problem although I know that's not an option for sailing yachts.

Or do the pirates use larger ships to actually attack? I thought they used mother ships and ribs. If a rib attack is repelled, surely it would be easy enough for the ship attacked to report the incident - thereby giving a rough location for the mother ship which could then be targeted quite effectively from the air.

A small attack air force could be rotated between various countries so no one would have to bear the cost full time.

Maybe the problem isn't really big enough for countries to get together.
 
If the current ships the navy have are not fit for this propose then maybe their lordships at the mod should be looking again at requirements. The big problem is that there are no positions for higher level staff on board small ships.
 
Burnham Bob said:
...do the pirates use larger ships to actually attack? I thought they used mother ships and ribs.
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I thought the threat from pirates wasn't so much an assault on the cargo-vessel's inadequate defenses, but a threat to blow 'em up with grenades...so the size of the attacking vessel wouldn't be much of an issue.

Certainly would make a great bit of Youtube footage, if a pirate-team attacked a 'Q-yacht', which turned out to be packed with mercenaries...:rolleyes:...might make pirating a less popular living down that way, too.
 
dancrane said:
I thought the threat from pirates wasn't so much an assault on the cargo-vessel's inadequate defenses, but a threat to blow 'em up with grenades...so the size of the attacking vessel wouldn't be much of an issue.

Certainly would make a great bit of Youtube footage, if a pirate-team attacked a 'Q-yacht', which turned out to be packed with mercenaries...:rolleyes:...might make pirating a less popular living down that way, too.
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I suspect the problem is for many of the pirate 'foot soldiers' is that the choice is go and maybe get shot, or don't go and definitely get shot. These guys are so far down the food chain they are expendable
 
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