The NAvy WERE THERE at kidnap of Lynn Rival

Woodlouse said:
It was an RFA ship. The article makes no mention of troops being onboard. The navys statement is fair, a crew of 75 merchant seamen would not have the small arms training required to take out the pirates without seriously risking the lives of the hostages.

You really can't expect a merchant crew to carry out a task that you'd expect to send special forces to do.
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No, but I am sure they could have harrassed the pirates for 2 hours until Cumberland turned up.
 
halfway said:
Why do people on this site continue to spout the propaganda supplied by these criminals. There are two uses of hostages. Think about it. The more new information released the more the second choice becomes reality.

Imagine an ex-east coast UK fisherman that had grown up in the trade and then had his only known work removed from him. If he took up arms, and took Hull marina manager hostage using children and families on his boat, as cover, and demanded millions; would you feel sorry for him? If it was found out later that the arms were supplied by a higher organization that financed the operation, and fuel, for a large cut of the money, would you feel sorry for him? The whole point of the world arms trade is to find people that have been trodden into the dirt and give them power. You do not expect the traders or terrorists to actually fire a gun? Looking for the disaffected is the key to terrorism. If it was not that fisherman, it would have been his friend the farmer with no water. There is always someone who thinks they are at the bottom of the pile. But only some will turn to crime.
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Funny that, we would have given him unemployment benefits and retraining.
Dont think we would have given them a crisis loan to go out and buy 4 250hp outboards to stick on the back of the trawler.
Also, wouldnt he just be attacking the other fisherman taking his livelihood, a bit like Iceland did in the Cod war p'raps.


Thats what we had the Crown Commissioners for in the old days - for aid to develop the nation.
 
Something is not adding up.

The reason the RN uses RFAs for this job is because the RFAs have diesel engines so they have reasonable range and endurance, unlike our gas turbine powered warships.

In mid-September the RFA WAVE RULER captured a drug smuggling boat with an armed crew of five in the Caribbean, using her helicopter.

Something does not make sense.
 
RN

Does make you wonder about the point of the RN doesn't it? If not to intervene and defend UK and its people what are they for? If they don't do anything why are we buying them 2 shiny new aircraft carriers to play with at huge expense?
I do have some sympathy with the pirates if they were genuinely fishermen. That whole area has been heavily overfished by large trawlers from wealthy countries so that the local small scale fishing has been badly damaged
 
french

one poster wrote that the French will protect its citizens and it seems very true.
I wonder how many french yachts etc with French crews will be taken by the Pirates?
Or will these Pirates think theat maybe leave the French alone as its not worth being shot dead when the French special forces arrive.
 
Woodlouse said:
It was an RFA ship. The article makes no mention of troops being onboard. The navys statement is fair, a crew of 75 merchant seamen would not have the small arms training required to take out the pirates without seriously risking the lives of the hostages.

You really can't expect a merchant crew to carry out a task that you'd expect to send special forces to do.
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Sorry but the article to which you refer & your statement are wrong.

The flight crew on all RFA's are fully trained WAFU's. Better know to you as Fleet Air Arm.
So they would have had the skills & ability to do something.
But being WAFU's they probably had more important things to do at the time, like sleeping and drinking beer.
 
Taking out the trawler is probably a non-starter, there would always be some barrister at the subsequent enquiry 'proving' that it was nothing more than an innocent fishing boat.

Taking out the skiff with the Chandlers on board was a non-starter. Snipers from a rollong ship at a fast moving skiff with the Chandlers on board? Again, a non-starter.

When the French tried it, they shot a hostage, didn't they? Is that an acceptable risk?

The article says the RFA got there after the kidnappers had boarded the yacht. That being the case, they had their hostages. I am at a loss as to what could have been done.
 
Slow_boat said:
Taking out the trawler is probably a non-starter, there would always be some barrister at the subsequent enquiry 'proving' that it was nothing more than an innocent fishing boat.

Taking out the skiff with the Chandlers on board was a non-starter. Snipers from a rollong ship at a fast moving skiff with the Chandlers on board? Again, a non-starter.

When the French tried it, they shot a hostage, didn't they? Is that an acceptable risk?

The article says the RFA got there after the kidnappers had boarded the yacht. That being the case, they had their hostages. I am at a loss as to what could have been done.
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They could have blocked and harrassed that mother ship to prevent it getting anywhere near its home base.
After all, if the hostages are killed, then they have no bargaining chip, therefore no reason for the naval ships not to blow them clean out of the water, therefore no incentive to anyone to do it again.
I presume these are not suicide pirates, and therefore have a vested interest in getting away with living to plunder another day, or not.

Golden opportunity missed.


By the way, stuff the Barristers. It would probably cost less to write a cheque out to grieving pirates relatives, not that I would give a stuff about them either.
 
I would hope that if I ever get taken by pirates the RN would attempt to free me and shoot the pirate for good measure. Even if they just rammed the mother ship and sunk it it would be something. I'd be happy to take my chances.

They call themselves pirates, so pirates they are - therefore outside and beyond the law. They should be tried and shot on sight as they were in the good old days - that is how they stopped pirates before. Just shoot them, dead men tell no tales. If there is no crime then there is case for a barrister is there.
 
I think you would be safer on a French flagged vessel. They have larger Navy than as and are more willing to deal with these sort of problems.

Britannia Rules the waves... pah we should choke on those words.
 
I can agree with the sentiments but still don't see what could have been done without putting the Chandlers at un-acceptable risk. This is the real world, not Hollywood. You can't really shoot the gun out of the baddies hand.

If the RFA had arrived before the kidnappers got on boat the Chandlers boat and did nothing to stop them, then the critisism would be valid, but that's not what happened.
 
Slow_boat said:
I can agree with the sentiments but still don't see what could have been done without putting the Chandlers at un-acceptable risk. This is the real world, not Hollywood. You can't really shoot the gun out of the baddies hand.

If the RFA had arrived before the kidnappers got on boat the Chandlers boat and did nothing to stop them, then the critisism would be valid, but that's not what happened.
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And doing nothing is not an option, except everyone is H&S barmy.

Do you really imagine that NOT going into Balcombe Street (a far riskier undertaking) was an option. No

Ulltimately, sometimes you will fail, but at least, on consideration, you tried. Like the Americans into Iran back in Jimmy Carters day.

This is a modern malaise born of cuddle politics. Sometimes hard decisions taken now will alleviatte problems growing out of hand later.
Witness the 'hard' actions of the early 1970s against aircraft hijackers, and the soft send em home with a prize outcome of the last Stansted fiasco.
 
I wonder what the rule from 'on high' was in these days of 'instant communication' No bad press please, seems likely. Leaving them alone to take the captives back to land kicks it inti the grass for a while.
A
 
minn said:
something is not adding up.

The reason the rn uses rfas for this job is because the rfas have diesel engines so they have reasonable range and endurance, unlike our gas turbine powered warships.

In mid-september the rfa wave ruler captured a drug smuggling boat with an armed crew of five in the caribbean, using her helicopter.

Something does not make sense.
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no hostages??????
 
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My understanding is that because of the "legal difficulties" the rules of engagement dont allow engagement. I have a problem with that. Identification and destruction of pirates and pirate ships should be the order of the day. OK so the RN turned up too late to dispatch this bunch THAT DAY because of the proximity of hostages but they could identify them and their vessels and destroy them another day - how about tomorrow?
 
Slow_boat said:
I'm astounded.

It appears that some would have been willing to sacrifice the Chandlers in order to have an excuse to blow the pirates to kingdom come.

BTW, under international law deadly force couldn't be used after the event anyway.
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Not sacrifice and no excuse.

Well qualified risk with potentially mortal outcomes, same as any war. You don't imagine troops in any theatre of conflict don't take analysed risks every day?
The Americans call it collateral damage,we call it friendly fire when things go wrong, which, in a certain percentage of operations, is the outcome.

Yes, I am an advocate of taking on these people with a well developed strategy.

I agree that it is a fine line between being the hero of the hour, or vilified for evermore.
Just look at Thatcher's decision to sink the Belgrano, and take an inadequate force (by any standards of theoretical war) into the Falklands with all those civilians there.


Remember that all history is written by the winners.
 
There is no down side to this for the pirates.
They can take anything they want and there are no consequences.

We have just sent them a message saying you can do what you want we are to afraid to do anything.

And this lame excuse that they are poor fishermen is complete and utter rubbish.
Unless we start to take action they will do it all the more.

That ship should of done something even if it was just throw spanners.
What a complete and utter disgrace.

Rob
 
I'm quite used to making 'real time stategic and tactical risk assesment in potentially life threatening situations' (to use the jargon) and I just don't see any other action that could have been justified.

Spray the skiff with a GPMG? Try to take the kidnappers out with an SA80? Shoot them from the air (are the choppeers on RFC ships armed?)

They had hostages, FFS!

And why would it be okay to kill Somalian 'pirates' on sight in the Indian Ocean but not IRA terrorists on the streets of Belfast?
 
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