Pirate Threat !!!!

I read that very soon after it came to the attention of the sailing interweb, but Googling for anyone called Nowlin connected with the the US navy draws a blank, except when connected with this story.
 
So what? I could google my name with Canadian Navy and get nought - and I'm still in. I don't think navies as a rule post the names of their members on the internet. Why don't you check with IMB or check the IMO piracy reports; maybe they have something on it. Or go to noonsite, and use the email address submitted by Mr Nowlin to contact the Coalition Task Force around the Gulf of Aden and ask them.
 
Thanks for the IMO link. Must be getting even more cynical than I had imagined. I'll put it down to age and a deep suspicion of Americans with guns.
 
okay
the bottom line is do you want to carry a gun or not, if you want to you must face the fact that if you pull it out in times of danger you must be able to use it, a good farmer friend of mine was faced with burglars, he had his shot gun with him, the burglar faced him down, he couldnt pull the trigger.
then there is the bullshit with the authorities,
now lets get creative, africa, offshore, the flare off the end of the production platform goes out, the accepted way of lighting it is to fire a flare from a flare gun thru the gas and bingo, unfortunately the drongo who ordered the flare gun mixed up his cartridges and they would not fit and vica versa, hmm flares, gun dont fit, hmm got some threaded pipe, machined a fitting to screw on the end with a pin that could be hit with a hammer, voila a crude cannon, the point is if you want to you could make up a crude cannon that looks like a piece of pipe that wouldnt interest foriegn plod, keep a stock of flare cartridges or 12 bore double 00 that again shouldnt excite too much interest and if nothing else would give a bit of moral support if you started banging them off at a stern chaser, me if i was going past somalia etc would make it my biz to get an ak 47 along the way in that part of the world and wouldnt hesitate to us it, drop it in the oggin before the red sea and bobs your whatsit.
 
what a load of bollox!
i used to "work" in angola, went there in 76, AK 47s were like arseholes every one had one, good friends of mine didnt survive AK wounds but i can assure all forum members that AK rounds when fired at Nissan 4wds from the road side , maybe 2 mtrs, go thru the doors (2mm steel?) then into flesh and stay there, first hand knowledge!!
so they dont go thru 1/4" steel and come out the other side with the velocity of 44 magnums.
stu
 
Possibly, though I guess the behaviour of a bullet passing through the side of a car and then a human body may behave differently from one fired at close range at steel. I couldn't tell you what thickness of steel it would penetrate, but I reckon a body, being essentially liquid, would absorb the bullet's energy relatively quickly, a bit like a sandbag.

eg. I too knew someone who was shot with a Kalashnikov. The bullets were fired from some distance (probably a building a little distance away) and several of them passed first through the bodywork of his Mercedes, through the back of his chair and then through his torso. In this case they did exit the other side of his body. He reckoned incidentally the fact that they had passed through his car first saved his life in taking some of the oomph out of them first.

1/4" steel sounds to me to be a bit thick to be penetrated, but on the other hand I wouldn't take the car/body example to prove anything, and much may depend eg. on whether it's fired at right angles. Anyone know what thickness armour plating in bulletproof cars is?

There are of course different kind of Kalashnikovs - even the AK47 is used in short and long barreled versions, with different muzzle velocities and different penetrative power.
 
[ QUOTE ]
youre guessing, yawn yawn
stu

[/ QUOTE ]
Try learning some manners. The bullet holes were not guesses as I saw the entry and exit holes.

As for how much steel can be penetrated, I'm not guessing because I don't know, as I said. You clearly don't either.
 
OK, I had a look through some gun sites and the ones I saw are unanimous that an AK47 round WILL penetrate 1/4" steel. Here's one of them which discusses the characteristics of various cartridges, about halfway down the page it gets to the "7.62 x 39 mm Soviet Caliber: (7.62 mm Russian Short, 7.62 mm M43 Combloc)". To quote that site "The 7.62 x 39 is capable of penetrating 3/8-inch steel plate."

There're lots of other sites that confirm it. Try typing "AK47 penetrate steel" or similar into Yahoo or Google if you're interested.
 
Well, its dependant on a lot of factors.
Bullets can be made to spin through the air, rotate for directional stabilty, or a musket ball is free acting.
Bullets can pass through humanely, or can be made to inflict non fatal damage. It is far better in military terms to have 50000 enemy casualties, rather than 50000 dead, as casualties cause the most strain on the enemies logistic chain.
Muzzle velocity, weight of ball, shape and base material all have their part.
A bullet can be made to pierce by being say copper coated, or break up like a cross cut lead dum dum.
It also depends on whether the ball is still accelerating, or is decelerating when it hits the target.
Certain bullet types are dual mass which again will give a different result.
Then one must consider the angle of trajectory or entry. A perpendicular entry will carry a reasonable straight path , but introduce anything at an angle, and the results are very different.

Last but not least, is the steel itself. The material ranges from soft low carbon mild steel, to chobham style armour, multi layer, with very clever molecular grain lays which prevent bullets passing through. Similar and ditto things like kevlar and makrolon armour.

So its not to predict, I guess.

Its not easy this subject, and its still sickening.
 
That is one scary site. I wouldn't accept anything I found on the internet as gospel. Throughout North America there are road signs that have served as practice targets for the walking brain-dead. I have never seen a sign that has been penetrated completely - and I would say these signs are 3/32 inch thick. Now I can't confirm the calibres used, but since .308 win and 30-06 are common for hunting, I would estimate that an AK-47 would not penetrate 1/8 inch steel, unless it was using armor-penetrating rounds. To penetrate 1/4 inch steel, you would need a .50 cal. This is just speculation mind you.
 
everyone with false passport

ok, but naysaying doesn't always mean giving balance. The dead passport can be shown to be out of date if you're so petrified of officiladom. "Everyone with false passport" ?- I don't know anyone who has a spare as described. Jeez.

Not every thread has to be a fight. You aren't looking clever by naysaying. So far you've had no new ideas but every one else is oh so very wrong, or so it seems.
 
Agreed that the sites can't be taken as gospel, but there were an awful lot of them, and they all pointed the same way. But it seems (try Wikepedia for example) that one of the design requirements of the M16 Armalite was that it must penetrate 34mm steel at 500 yards - this was to make sure it would go through the old US steel helmet (though why they should want to shoot their own helmets I don't know). The AK47 of course uses a more powerful round, so it seems eminently believable that it would go through the 1/4", especially if fired at close range from right angles.
 
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It also depends on whether the ball is still accelerating, or is decelerating when it hits the target.

[/ QUOTE ]
On a point of detail, the ball is decelerating all the time from the moment it leaves the end of the barrel! It would take a REALLy strong puff of wind to make it accelerate /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
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