I was thinking it could be handy to have some kind of anti-piracy drone ship that can be deployed from any commercial vessel, it would be high speed thing that would be launched and then deploy a long fishing net in bow of high speed craft harassing an innocent vessel, so that the net fowls up the pirates propellers and they can’t go anywhere.
I’m not sure how something like that would comply with Marpol regulations as you’re leaving fishing nets behind, firing rounds of ammunition into the water to scare away pirates possibly also breaches Marpol, but I imagine there are exemptions for extenuating circumstances.
Nice one Spork but,they don’t deserve the nets with ill intentions beforehand. The drones already have bombs and missles. Some kid drone flyer with 50’s would have a blast. Or maybe they are already doing that? Too heavy I suppose.
It would be quite a kid who launches a drone capable of lifting a 60 pound gun with ammunition that weighs a pound for every 4 rounds, much less being able to absorb the shock of firing the thing.
WW2 guys did it. But not from a drone. Badass weapon. As I said , improbable, but they have sneakier shit than that with results. 50’s will wake you up and think you better make an alternate decision. Our guys still use them. wonder why?
I was talking about a drone boat, not an airborne one that can disintegrate people with live ammunition.
I’ve seen it first hand how easily a fishing nets can disable boats, having a drone ship that deploys nets to catch in an attackers propellers could be a useful non-lethal defense method.
Ships could just shoot out thin lines of kevlar rope in the path of oncoming pirates, that might have the same effect, kevlar floats so lines of it would get caught in their propellers.
Piracy only seems to be a big problem around Nigerian waters these days, so there might not be a big market for technology to fight it.
In the darkness of a small powerboat chasing a big ship pinging off lines of kevlar to foul their propellers I doubt they’d have the capabilities to know when to lift their outboards out the water.
If they do understand and they lift their outboards out the water then they’re stopped and the ship being attacked has more time to get the hell out of there.
I understand some outfit that had an old supply boat that came alongside the vessel outward bound from Singapore Strait heading West and the mercenaries were transferred to the ship. I could never understand why the just simply station a warship there and transfer marines to the ship with their weapons and transfer them off when clear of the pirate area instead of having warships at sea. After all you don’t have to look for the pirates they come to you. Incidentally if the drawings had been made available for the mounting for a 50 cal machine gun, the engine room fitter and welder could have fabricated one onboard. By providing ship’s drawings we could have been advised where best to site the mounting.
I was more familiar with the Oerlikon 20mm cannon which would have been devastating against small craft but was still light enough to be shipped onboard with the troops.
A Ma; Deuce cost around 15K, for the military, and around 2-5 bucks a bullet, and is a crew served weapon that requires training to use, then the field of fire needs to be considered, a single weapon mounted on the stern would be useless if the ship was attacked from the front, it is far more cost effective to simply have a couple of guards with rifles.
I was talking to someone worked on a ship operating offshore Ghana, because of the risks of Nigerian piracy they had some Ghanaian navy personnel on their vessel who were armed with M-16s, but they only had blank ammunition, no live rounds. The guns were there just to make loud noises and scare potential pirates away.
Two new freight ferries to be put in service across the Oslofjord will be built in India. Fully electric powered and intended to be operating autonomously after a test period:
I know, they are all idiots and don’t know what they are doing.
Perhaps since retirement he has no productive use of his time. No hobbies, family or friends to enjoy time with. Maybe he is happy but just likes being a devils advocate. Who knows? I know people like that. Great to work with and very competent but once they stop work it becomes apparent their life revolved around their work and without it they don’t have a lot to live for so they become curmudgeonly. They are entertaining though.
