Blue water security has historically relied on fire hoses, limited small arms and more recently LRAD. There was an incident in 2005 where a cruise ship evaded pirates off Africa using evasive action and LRAD but the role LRAD played was questionable.
I know police and military have used LRAD for crowd control but is there a clear consensus wrt it’s effectiveness on board? Would you old salts feel safer with LRAD? I question if the distance from device to target would render it ineffective. Can anyone share experience?
While we are on the topic, is there value to armed security teams on board while transiting dangerous areas?
I think the secret is keeping the pirates off the ship. Once they are on, you’re done even if armed.
We had 2 onboard a ship I was on. They were only good out to about half a mile, and even then, they weren’t incapacitating. More of an annoyance really.
And yes there is value to a security team onboard, but it depends on they are. We had an active duty US Navy group who had rules of engagement that they followed and kept a vigilant watch and weren’t trigger happy. They were also armed to the teeth and any idiot approaching a ship with a .50 cal firing deserves to be blown to bits. I don’t know how the private firms are.
Lookouts onboard the tanker first noticed the pirates approaching their vessel in a skiff at a distance of 3.5 nm. At a distance of 300 meters, the onboard unarmed security team engaged the skiff with the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) while ship’s personnel not on the security team or bridge watch team mustered in the citadel. The skiff fired at the vessel and continued to approach. The security team fired warning flares, which landed close to the skiff. The pirates continued to approach and fire upon the vessel. After the security team fired two more flares close to the skiff, the pirates aborted but followed the vessel for another 15 minutes before heading toward a mothership noted in the vicinity.
LRAD’s are too bulky, unwieldy, expensive, the operator is not protected and they have not proven to be effective at deterring attacks. Flares are better for warnings as they are cheap and portable.
So far armed security has been 100% effective. The best are active duty U.S. Navy teams, private teams vary.
If I was a pirate and had a boatload of AK-47’s & RPG’s at my disposal, I don’t think an inaccurate flare would slow me down much. Instead, I’d lay down suppressing fire and lob 1 RPG on the deck. While the crew is scrambling for cover, out come the boarding ladders and game over.
If I was a pirate and had a boatload of AK-47’s & RPG’s at my disposal, I don’t think an inaccurate flare would slow me down much. Instead, I’d lay down suppressing fire and lob 1 RPG on the deck. While the crew is scrambling for cover, out come the boarding ladders and game over.[/QUOTE]
The tools used for defense of a ship in HRW (High Risk Waters) can be divided into two categories, lethal and non-lethal. Like it or not, there is a requirement in some cases to warn small craft before the use of deadly force can be authorized. Using light weapons such as AR-15 for warning shots is problematic for a number of reasons. Some limitations are, short range, the shots can not be heard above the noise of the boat’'s engine, the spray from the round is not conspicuous during the day and can not be seen at night. Another limitation with using warning shot is that they can be lethal as in the case of the Enrica Lexie.
In some case there is a requirement to warn small craft using non-lethal tools only.
Your question is regarding the effectiveness of the LRAD. My answer is that they have not proven to be an effective deterrent. As far as the use of an LRAD for warning, I think flares are a better tool as they are cheap, light and portable and they can easily seen both day and night.
If the situation calls for the use of deadly force then flares are the wrong choice if other, more powerful tools are available .
If you are working on a school project likely you already have read the U.S Coast Guard’s guidance on the use of force for self-defense. If not it is PSA (3-09) and can be found here.
Examples of imminent danger include, but are not limited to, aiming or firing weapons at a U.S. flagged vessel with individuals embarked, or an attempted armed, non-consensual boarding, … It might also include the act of brandishing weapons directed at crewmembers or security personnel, where there is a reasonable belief that the attacker(s) also has the means and opportunity to inflict great bodily harm or death on the individual or others in the vicinity.
and
when confronted with a person or vessel that poses an imminent danger of death or great bodily harm, personnel and vessels to which this guidance applies may use reasonable force, up to and including deadly force, in self-defense or defense of others.
I know LRAD has been around a while as an anti-piracy measure, but now we are looking at it for a whole new purpose. Our client wants their contractors to equip their vessels with this to deter vessel incursions within a 1/2nm CPA. Anyone else have any experience with this?
Sounds illegal, freedom of the seas and whatnot. If it’s an obvious aggressor than that’s different, but what you’re doing sounds more like walking around w pepper spray and using it if someone walks within 5 feet of me. Unless of course you have the right to create some type of exclusion zone. Maybe I’m reading your question wrong.
The “exclusion” zones I’ve been involved in never granted us the authority to actually do anything other than “deter” vessels from entering. That meant like positioning the vessel to try and get them to go the other way and radio contact, etc. It wasn’t for us to enforce beyond that as it was federal waters, if we had that big of a problem then it was time to call the CG. Obviously different if you were being attacked.
[QUOTE=Sea Opus;141147]I know LRAD has been around a while as an anti-piracy measure, but now we are looking at it for a whole new purpose. Our client wants their contractors to equip their vessels with this to deter vessel incursions within a 1/2nm CPA. Anyone else have any experience with this?[/QUOTE]
Go ahead and do it.
Sounds really cool.
Of course when the people in the duly excluded boats sue your company and the persons operating it, it won’t sound so cool.
Ps - we got them and more, but it is strictly reserved for anti piracy / repel boarders stuff as mentioned in posts earlier. It would be inexcusable nonsense to use them for any other reason.
What kind of rounds are they using in those flare guns? I would assume that an exploding signal round (the kind we used for polar bear deterrence) would be more effective than a normal red/green flare. The sound is considerably louder than that of any rifle (AR-15 or, as in our case, .30-06) and it brings the source (explosion) closer to the “customer”. Of course, there is a danger that the round hits the water before exploding.
[QUOTE=Tups;141169]What kind of rounds are they using in those flare guns? [/QUOTE]
That’s just the thing. In the past we have used white meteor flares to attract the attention of vessel that do not respond to radio calls (shrimp boats). Lately, there have been a couple of instances where the safety of a flare gun, especially alongside a platform, has been in question. Since first posting this, I checked out LRAD’s web site. In addition to deterrence, they also have units that will transmit voice warnings a half mile away. Personally I have trouble justifying the cost of one of these units over a handful of meteor flares. Is there any kind of training involved in these things?
[QUOTE=Sea Opus;141147]I know LRAD has been around a while as an anti-piracy measure, but now we are looking at it for a whole new purpose. Our client wants their contractors to equip their vessels with this to deter vessel incursions within a 1/2nm CPA. Anyone else have any experience with this?[/QUOTE]
Sounds like your client has an idiot brother-in-law who “just happened” to buy stock in an LRAD supplier and now wants to mandate the sale of LRADs to annoy pirates.
If you’re not talking about Deadly Force, then Maritime Security is a very profitable joke, (profitable for some people, that is).
Why in the world would you want to educate pirates to what your defenses are, and then let them live so that they and their buddies can dope out a workaround?
That’s as retarded as racking your pump shotgun in your darkened house “to scare away the home invader(s)”.
The tuition for learning that I employ deadly force is the bad guy’s life.
That way the NEXT bad guy will be just as ignorant as the clown that the deck gang just hosed off the deck-plates…of course, I’m not trying to sell anything, so my motivations are somewhat different.
[QUOTE=MandolinGuy;141221]I still hold the belief that it is extremely farcical that merchant mariners are not permitted to be armed.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not so sure I would want too many of the folks I sailed with armed, huh. It is a pretty special place already when nine of the ten voices in my head tell me I shoulda stayed home and cleaned my guns…
[QUOTE=MandolinGuy;141221]I still hold the belief that it is extremely farcical that merchant mariners are not permitted to be armed.
Are any companies that you guys have sailed with using “the Guardian” yet?:
There are a lot of reasons it’s a really bad idea to just arm the crews of merchies.
Most of the crew isn’t trained to work together in combat situations, or indeed for combat of any kind. Lack of practical training means far higher likelihood of poor tactical awareness, blind spots, and worst of all, bad shoots.
Making a crew of industrial managers, operators, engineers and technicians into combatants vastly increases the crew and company’s liability in the case of a bad shoot, both criminally and civilly.
Anybody who’s sailed for a while knows that there is no small portion of mariners who should barely be trusted aboard with a knife, let alone a firearm. Licenses or endorsements are no guarantee of mental or moral fitness to handle these situations, either.
A ship’s small crew already has a job to do, and armed attackers may very well create hull damage or fires that will further strain their ability to operate the ship safely. It is not practical for a 20-25 person crew to handle evasive action, combat, fire, and emergency medical care at the same time.
For all these reasons and more, trained contractors are vastly preferable. They move some of the liability away, they’re better equipped to handle attacks, and they don’t deplete the ship’s limited manpower.