IDF confirms Houthis hijacked ship in Red Sea, says it is not an Israeli vessel - Galaxy Leader

would need much boat a good 12 gauge and some double O buck to have stopped the whole thing. but companies refused armed security

there are only 2 US fleets in the area and numerous air bases and they just let this happen

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More info at that thread.

I am amazed that a ragtag group of middle eastern “Rebels” have, and successfully operate, a working helicopter.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the government of the Bahamas, a thriving Island Archipelago, does not own one single helicopter.

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“Ragtag” group of rebels might be somewhat understated. They’ve been rebeling in Yemen for nearly 30 years, they control probably twenty percent of the country, number of fighters in the hundreds of thousands, and they’ve had ballistic missiles for quite some time, with a history of attacking ships. Hell they attacked a Saudi warship not that many years ago.

Helicopters might be new to the repertoire, but this sure ain’t the Bahamas.

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They have probably had a lot of military training in Iran.

Same for Hamas, their fighters probably had training in Iran to prepare them for the recent terror attacks.

The government of Iran allegedly provides all these terrorist groups with a lot of military training.

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Unfortunately a 12 gauge doesn’t have the same range as an assault rifle and even if you were widely successful with helping a couple to paradise the gratification would be short lived.

A line thrower into a tail rotor could potentially cause a terrorist helicopter to crash.

But on the other hand if the attempt fails they you will have some very angry people looking for blood. Very risky to try something like this, if it fails then some crew will probably get shot.

If they wanted the protection afforded by the USN then they should have been flying the Stars and Stripes on the stern.

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So
They have taken an empty car carrier with a non-Israeli, multinational crew.
If they were regular pirates there would be a ransom involved, but what are they after, and from whom, prisoner trade, cash, ceasefire, what ?

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my thought was to pepper the helicopter

Bruce, ya don’t know what you’re talking about. . . Hogsnort is correct. 12ga effective range - about 50 yds, but consider that the 9 pellets, about .32 caliber have dispersed into a pattern about 4 feet in diameter. So the likelihood of a damaging hit is pretty small. Now, let’s consider the muzzle velocity of the shotgun round. It’s about 1300 fps. 50 yards later, it’s subsonic. If you’re going for the helo, most likely all you’ll do is piss off the occupants, and it might not even penetrate the skin of the aircraft.

Ah yes. The occupants. They are armed with 7.62x39 ammo, with a muzzle velocity of 2300 fps with an effective range of 200+ yards.

If you’re planning to go RAMBO, you’d be better off with a parachute flare into the open door of the helo!!

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I think Klaveness has a more realistic idea. A hundred mtrs. of line in the rotor would probably cause the chopper to crash.
The problem is it may crash onto the ship causing a major fire and death/injuries to the crew.

PS> An added bonus is that line throwers are available on all ships, causing no controversy.

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Light up an EV

That keeps anyone sane away

And possibly even Houthis

you missed the point. the ships to be armed

The US made a big mistake when it pressured the Saudis to stop bombing the hell out of the Houthis.

That in turn prompted the Saudis to shift closer to Iran.

The Houthi’s are just like Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Islamic Jihad, Al-Qauida, and other terrorists and/or Iranian proxies. The only solution is to completely wipe them out, and wipe out the religious leadership and military infrastructure of Iran, so that the Iranian people can set themselves free.

But why is that our job?

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Apparently there’s another one:

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