Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Somali Pirate Mother Ships

OK, you are the Somali pirate "admiral" - where will you place your pirated mother ship "navy" to be in a position to interdict major sea lanes and thereby maximize the potential for success in pirating shipping? Well, for the Indian Ocean, you might place your ships like this:
A couple of recently pirated vessels have joined the Somali pirate "mother ship" ranks according to the NATO Shipping Centre:
Jin Chun Tsai 68 - 15°32N 059°19E is assessed as being used by pirates for piracy operations. 0447UTC 04JAN11

Vega 5 - 11°36S 042°07E is assessed as being used by pirates for piracy operations. 1438UTC 01JAN11

York - 03°30N 054°44E course 270 speed 6.5kts as of 1140UTC 04JAN11 is assessed as being used by pirates for piracy operations. (red line on map indicates projected course)

Hannibal II - 10°29N 053°05E 1211UTC 03JAN11 is assessed as being used by pirates for piracy operations.

Shiuh Fu No.1 - 13°05S 056°33E 1045UTC 30DEC10 possibly heading back to the anchorage off Somalia. No current update

Now, if you were a "NATO/EU/CTF 151/Other Anti-Pirate" force admiral, where would you place a few ships to counter the pirates?

UPDATE: (includes the bolded questions above)

From the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence Piracy Analysis and Warning Weekly (Horn of Africa) report for week of 16 Dec 29 Dec 2010:



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3 comments:

  1. Chuck Hill1:11 PM

    Seems there are enough naval vessels in the area to put a tail on every mothership.

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  2. leesea1:01 AM

    first the Navy said "oh the Indian Ocean is too big to find those little boats". Now what will the excuse be: oh our satellites can't track every big ship we know is a mother ship.

    this is not about a lack of assets (although it has always been about ill-deployed assets and restrictive ROE) but more a lack of will to be dynamic and take on the pirates, their strongholds, and funding sources directly IMHO

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  3. Anonymous3:18 AM

    Don't worry. Some vigilante with a surplus U-Boat will sort it out.

    ReplyDelete