British Engineers Design Anti-Pirate Laser
- Thread starter Scott Bullock
- Start date
HA! Well then they deserve all they get, you can't dodge taxes then act surprised when your country isn't around to help. I don't know what the Panamanian Navy is like but I don't imagine it has much reach. Still, vessels sailing/steaming under a their proper nation's flag should really have a naval escort or Marine contingent.albino boo said:
At the very least large cruise ships (with so many potential hostages) should have a Naval attaché to advise on appropriate defensive action and co-ordinate with friendly Naval forces such as most up to date security briefing analysing intelligence of pirate and terrorist activity in the area. Though I don't have any evidence this isn't done already...
Mind you, if these shipping companies are so mercenary to steam under a flag of convenience I think they'd much rather hire actual mercenaries to defend their ships from armed invaders. I think they may be cheaper and easier than this laser system.
That's not a very good example, though I can see what you are getting at. But that was Total War, it don't think it's very relevant here and kinda backfired by triggering a global nuclear arms race though it didn't lead to nuclear war, it did get awfully close.Firehound said:
I think a better example would be Iranian Embassy Siege in London; terrorists try to take hostages and make demands, then the SAS burst in and utterly destroy the terrorists, saving all but one of the hostages. Again, Special Forces around the world got so good at foiling Terrorists' attempts at taking hostages that they seemed to give up. Now terrorists don't ever even try siege hostage taking, they never get their demands met and would be lucky to even get out alive.
Russia apparently has a very unorthodox method of countering abduction of their nationals: go on a killing spree. That is to hunt down anyone with the most tangential links the the kidnappers and kill them horribly, it forces the Terrorists to come to the negotiating table as their confederates, friends and even family are picked off. Israel also did much the same in retrograde with avenging the Munich massacre, it forces only the suicidal to attempt terrorist action and contrary to what the prevalence of suicide bombers suggest, only a minority are willing to give up their lives (and even then only after much "grooming" and manipulation).
So let me get this straight... you're aiming a weapon at the pirates that can't stop them but will really piss them off? This seems like a bad combination of factors.
And there I thought this was another stab at DRM through the development of a new optical drive... (Whew!)
Also, if the world went by your rules, the excellent film 'Triangle' (the one with Melissa George) would've been cut rather short.
Wow. People being fired on by foreigners for fishing in their own national waters...? Sure, that's not gonna come back to bite you in the arse.Firehound said:
Also, if the world went by your rules, the excellent film 'Triangle' (the one with Melissa George) would've been cut rather short.
Because you'd also have to train the crew to use them properly and deal with the occasional mishap inherent in their use.dsmops2003 said:
Better solutions would be lighter armaments. A few medium machine guns, a handful of shotguns, rifles and other personal weapons and you'd have a boat that is better defended against a pirate attack and it would be cheaper to acquire and train the crew in their use.
Well, it isn't the worst idea ever given one attempted hijacking was foiled by a Geriatric hurling deck chairs at them.Ghengis John said:
Or they'll get close to a ship, receive a few warning shots, get pissed and sink the ship. You'd think with the war on terror going on, fewer people would want to become terrorists. In fact, with the promise of certain death, you'd think fewer people would strap themselves up and explode. You start hunting pirates, you give people a bigger reason to hunt you, quite simply. Because they won't see it as self-defence, they'll see it as militarisation and call it wrong.Firehound said:
And remember that the laser could quite easily deter more than one skiff at a time. It won't break their eyes, but it will certainly fuck with them. It will fuck with them enough to give the cargo boat a chance at gaining some distance.
And a tear-gas grenade launcher wouldn't hit anything. It'd just splash in the water. And that'll be it. Gas the fish. You bastard.
Except that lazers are directional weapons, and only affect a small area. I mean, if you have two or three skiffs in a tight Delta Formation, yes. If they have a slightly intelligent leader, which mosto fthem have, they won't come in all from the same side.Thyunda said:
Also- their wasting thousands on a useless laser, they can't invest in researching attaching floaties to gas nades?