Red Sea piracy attack - First-hand report.

[brianrunyard]

I agree training counts, I used to do a lot of shooting, but I still think four gunmen with a pistol, is a bit different from eight armed with automatic weapons taken out with a shotgun.
If I'm wrong, congratulations to him, I'm just airing my views.

 

[Sea Devil]

Re: Red Sea piracy attack - First-hand report.

When I was attacked they too opened fire whilst a way off - far enough off for me to dive down - put out a mayday and get back out - they were coming from ahead - starboard bow - 3 boats each crammed with refugees (which confused me at first) and with about 6 armed crew in each boat. Armaments were mainly AK's couple of Uzi and one or two also had hand guns. Bambola took no hits and I believe the shots were intended to let me know how serious they were. Josephine the German single hander sailing in company with us took one hit to the rigging almost parting a shroud.

I am fairly certain they do not want to kill yachts people as politically that would raise the stakes. Being in a group does not appear to help as a group of yachts was attacked one week later from astern - they ran for it - hotly pursued and only when one pirate boat blew stacks of smoke from its exhaust did they give up the chase.

As I posted else where - I will go round Africa next time.

Quick note: if the attack mentioned is the same incident of about 10 days ago then over 100 women children and men that were passengers (being smuggled from Somalia to Yemen) in the pirate boats were drowned - the pirate boats that did not sink went back and picked up their pirate crew mates...... One reason I would not have fired at the attacking boats - had I got a weapon - is that they were crammed with very scared men,women and children

 

[ongolo]

Re: Still a conundrum

I have also analized as far as possible Peter Blakes case. He had to go down below to get his gun.

He did something wrong.

a) if you have a gun it must be readily accessible

b) you must be in a mental state to observe possible threath and have a number of plans for different scenarios

c) he came up or tried to come up from below with gun in hand, moving forward made him noticeable (one watches if somehing moves) and because he is moving he cannot shoot very well abnd I doubt that such an event was ever discussed with the crew so that they could distract the pirates and give him a chance or at least got out of his line of fire.

d) he should have stayed below and picked them off as he got a chance.

e) we have observed, that you can detect hostility in advance and even if not sure, the armament is readied, if there was no threath, you put weapons away, then it was a manuoever for the crew.

He had a weapon on board, but was certainly either not trained or hoping and hesitating to use it. That is wrong, if you pick up a wepaon for defense, you must be mentally prepared use it and to kill. I have seen a guy with a loaded AR-15 freeze up like a statue because he did not have the nerve to pull the trigger.

It is no use to say that such a thing will not happen to yourself, until you had a chance to test it, that is why I always wanted to know, if a guy I hade to depend on, had shot somebody. If he did, I had no problem, if he did not he was suspect.

A weapon is nothing but a tool, and you need to practise routines, like you practise MOB recovery. Or the speedy disposal of a seriously bleeding pirate and the instant cleaning of the blood so that it cannot be proven that you did somebody out of their misery.

I wonder if I should not produce a little pamphlet with a couple of tricks and do's and dont's for people who carry weapons.

Anybody can be unlucky, but there is a very good chance that I would have survived if had been in Blakes position.

ongolo

 

[PaulS]

Re: Red Sea piracy attack - First-hand report.

When you consider the thousands of rounds fired in battle for every casualty it almost comes down to pure luck that anyone gets hit at all. A rifle is more difficult than most people imagine fire rapidly with any degree of accuracy. That's what makes the choice of a 12 guage shotgun an almost ideal defensive weapon for situations such as described. It fires a pattern which has a better chance of hitting something.
Just an observation...perhaps inaccurate.
Opponents of weapons on board generally seem to have little first hand knowledge of them while proponents generally are quite familiar. Is this a case of the lack of knowledge breeding fear, or familiarity breeding contempt?

Paul

 

[BrendanS]

Re: Red Sea piracy attack - First-hand report.

303 Lee Enfield for me.

I'm comfortable with it, and no one that I hit will shoot back.
AK47's are OK, but inaccurate at anything but close range

Back to the bunny farm for me!

 

[Guest]

Re: Red Sea piracy attack - First-hand report.

On an evenly gently rocking boat, accuracy becomes a highly academic subject.

 

[snowleopard]

Re: Red Sea piracy attack - First-hand report.

a fine weapon. i could regularly put 2 rounds through a 6" circle in 3 seconds from 200 yds with a lee-enfield no. 4 but that was lying on a nice firm firing point. on a boat at sea with return fire i doubt i could hit the QE2.