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Date Posted: 19:46:23 11/19/08 Wed
Author: John Tredrea
Subject: Re: Convoys, Anyone?
In reply to: Albert Parker 's message, "Convoys, Anyone?" on 11:53:10 11/19/08 Wed

>Latest news from the Indian Ocean is that an Indian
>warship chased a pirate "mother ship" used as an
>at-sea base for small boats that attack, board, and
>seize merchant ships on the high seas. After an
>exchange of gunfire, the "mother ship" caught fire,
>blew up, and sank; of two accompanying small boats,
>one was abandoned, the other escaped.
>
>According to a news story, "U.S. Navy Commander Jane
>Campbell of the 5th Fleet said naval patrols simply
>cannot prevent attacks given the vastness of the sea
>and the 21,000 vessels passing through the Gulf of
>Aden every year.
>
>"'Given the size of the area and given the fact that
>we do not have naval assets - either ships or
>airplanes - to be everywhere with every single ship'
>it would be virtually impossible to prevent every
>attack, she said."
>
>Umm . . . The slightest knowledge of naval history
>would reveal a sure method of protecting large numbers
>of merchant ships transiting a large area:
>CONVOYS! Convoys limit the number of
>targets to what can be protected by available
>warships, and ensure that to attack any merchant
>vessels, raiders—whether "Pirates of the Caribbean,"
>North Atlantic privateers, U-boats, or "Pirates of
>Somalia"—will have to fight escorting warships.
>Convoys are potentially expensive because the merchant
>ships must gather at some point (say, in this case,
>places like the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Suez,
>and the Cape of Good Hope) and wait for escorts to
>become available. In wartime in the 18th, 19th, and
>20th centuries some belligerents with large merchant
>marines criminalized sailing without convoy. But even
>without that, ship owners in, say 1939-45, didn't want
>their ships sunk, and the merchant seamen did not want
>to freeze to death in the North Atlantic, so they
>accepted the delays.
>
>From the same AP story, "Separate bands of pirates
>also seized a Thai ship with 16 crew members and an
>Iranian cargo vessel with a crew of 25 in the Gulf of
>Aden, where Somalia-based pirates appear to be
>attacking ships at will, said Noel Choong of the
>International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting
>center in Malaysia.
>
>"'It's getting out of control,' Choong said.
>
>"On Tuesday, a major Norwegian shipping group, Odfjell
>SE, ordered its more than 90 tankers to sail around
>Africa rather than use the Suez Canal after the
>seizure of the Saudi tanker Saturday.
>
>"'We will no longer expose our crew to the risk of
>being hijacked and held for ransom by pirates in the
>Gulf of Aden,' said Terje Storeng, Odfjell's president
>and chief executive."
>
>Sounds like convoy conditions to me.

Convoys are great but a bit expensive. I understand that these modern day pirates are operating on the cheap by mounting outboard motors to small boats. Tracking and intercepting these small craft with frigates and destroyers is hardly cost effective. As memory serves me, the Caribbean pirates were finally driven out of business in the 1720s when the great powers with an interest in the region combined their resources and went ashore and cleaned out the shore facilities of the buccaneers –and then made sure that they stayed cleaned out.

John Tredrea (AKA Edward Thatch, Captain, Queen Anne's Revenge)

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