And he doesn’t seem to mind:
The USNS Lewis and Clark was chased for about an hour on Wednesday morning by two pirates skiffs, but neither came closer than about one nautical mile to the U.S. vessel, the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet said in a statement.
The small arms fire fell well short of the U.S. ship which speeded up to evade the skiffs.
So let me get this straight. A US Navy ship is fired upon by a ragtag gang, and instead of sending them to the bottom, they run away? What ROE have they gotten from the White House? Would this have happened during the previous administration? And if so, is this bipartisan stupidity?
If you want to discourage piracy, you have to make the costs higher than the rewards. This was a perfect opportunity to make an example of them. Instead, we seem to be doing just the opposite.
[Update a few minutes later, after a lot of discussion in comments, some of it useful]
If the L&C didn’t carry standoff armament that could take out a skiff at the range of a mile, it seems like they should at least be able to call in a chopper air strike. We should have a policy that one does not fire on US vessels with impunity and without consequence.
Mike Puckett Said:
““I was qualified as a 90MM rifle gunner when I still had hair.
It’s similiar in class to an RPG.”
No it isn’t. A recoilless rifle is not a rocket.:
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Carl_Gustav_recoilless_rifle
“The Carl Gustav (also Carl-Gustaf and M2CG) is the common name for the 84 mm man-portable multi-role recoilless rifle
….
FFV551 is the primary HEAT round and is a rocket-assisted projectile (RAP). Effective range is up to 700 m
,,,,
FFV651 is a newer HEAT round using mid-flight rocket assistance for ranges up to 1,000m”
The Carl Gustav is certainly described that way.
I’m not sure how you define Rocket, the 90MM Recoilless sure wasn’t a conventional gun, it wasn’t developing pressure for acceleration, it was more in line with a GyroJet pistol. The round hopefully exhausted itself prior to departing the launcher, or you were going to eat some fire.
But considering I had 400-1000 M of range depending upon the Ammo, it was in class to a RPG -7. I had a bit more range, and a bit more punch, but, in most scenarios they had a lot more RPGs. A lot.
Mike Puckett States:
“I want to see where in the FM for a UH-60 Blackhawk it is resistant to shaped-charge warheads. ”
http://science.howstuffworks.com/apache-helicopter6.htm
” According to Boeing, every part of the helicopter can survive 12.7-mm rounds, and vital engine and rotor components can withstand 23-mm fire.”
Now if you want to argue the difference in kill potential
between a 23MM Cannon shell and a 4Lb grenade that’s fine, but, at that point you are into KE and dispersion angles, and at the end of the day, the Rangers thought the Blackhawks could withstand the weapons of the Somalis.
They sure didn’t plan to be losing aircraft to ground fire.
“Now if you want to argue the difference in kill potential
between a 23MM Cannon shell and a 4Lb grenade that’s fine”
You mean a 4lb shaped-charge warhead don’t you jack? Grenade is a misnomer. It is a rocket, no matter what they call it. It is a shaped-charge, not a frag.
A single .23mm round will not destroy an IFV. An RPG will.
Tell me which is tougher. A BMP-2 or a Blackhawk? Please show your work.
“http://science.howstuffworks.com/apache-helicopter6.htm
” According to Boeing, every part of the helicopter can survive 12.7-mm rounds, and vital engine and rotor components can withstand 23-mm fire.””
Also please, while you are ati it, explain why you think Assault Helicopter 64 (Apache, the link and figures you reference) and a Utility Helicopter model 60 are the same thing and are similarly armored?
jack,
You also are aware that the M-67 90mm Recoiless Rifle is not a Karl Gustav? Right?
I have a brilliant idea! Lets take an 84mm Karl G round and package it in a throw-away tube ala the LAW!
I bet it would sell like hotcakes!
Everyone else: shhh!
The KGustav is 84MM and the M67 is 90MM, but
they are both classed as Recoilless Rifles.
The nomoneclature for the KG uses the phrase Rocket,
so by the law of commutation if a Recoilless rifle in one caliber fires rockets, then a RR in another Caliber fires rockets. Depends upon the details, i just treated them as Ammo, myself.
Jack, by all means, please continue you to regale us with your superior knowledge of small arms.
Pity you don’t know that the T-AKE class has its 8 internal cargo elevators located along the centerline of the ship.
I think it was later determined that the Somalis had access to a limited number of delay fused RPG rounds. These were nothing technologically new since they were originally employed by the Vietnamese against U.S. choppers. However, the know how to set the fuse and to aim for the helicopter’s more delicate tail rotor was something that was taught to the Somalis by Al Qaeda operatives. Was a little something Al Qaeda learned against the Soviets.
The Blackhawk is capable of withstanding 7.62×39/59 rounds. There may have been some technicals in the area with 12.7 mm heavy machineguns which could have dealt some hurt. But the Little Birds would have probably made short work of those since a big honking gun on a truck tends to stand out. Finally, the effectiveness of a conventional RPG round against a helo would certainly be devastating but the likelihood of hitting a critical flight component like the tail rotor would be remote. The RPG is not a sniper weapon, its accuracy is dictated by its area effect from the explosive and adequate enough to hit buildings and tanks the size of buildings. In most cases it appears the enemy generally relies on volume of fire to saturate the target area or has to get very close to insure a hit. In the case of the 2 blackhawks brought down they were both hit in the tail rotor and most likely from an air bursting round.
“Jack, by all means, please continue you to regale us with your superior knowledge of small arms.
Pity you don’t know that the T-AKE class has its 8 internal cargo elevators located along the centerline of the ship.”
yes, but how many of these are needed to remain mission capable. These elevators go into separate cargo holds,
and are rigged as it appears to be 4 on a side.
So if say the rear 2 port side elevators go down, how
mission capable is the L&C? sure they can continue ops using the Starboard side Vators, but, now they cut
their loading windows in half.
My area of interest was always Logistics and Ops.
How useful is the L&C if they can’t load portside?
“owever, the know how to set the fuse and to aim for the helicopter’s more delicate tail rotor was something that was taught to the Somalis by Al Qaeda operatives. Was a little something Al Qaeda learned against the Soviets.”
Something the CIA taught Al Qaeda.
“The nomoneclature for the KG uses the phrase Rocket,
so by the law of commutation if a Recoilless rifle in one caliber fires rockets, then a RR in another Caliber fires rockets. Depends upon the details, i just treated them as Ammo, myself.”
No, it just shows you don’t understand the difference between a recoiless rifle with a rocket-assisted projectile and a true rocket propelled AT round like the M-66 LAW and the RPG-7. There are rocket assist 40mm gernades (ture grenades) available for the MK-19 automatic grenade launcher.
BTW, my snarky idea above exists, it is called the AT-4. It is essentially a one shot, disposable Karl Gustav.
And a recoiless rifle is not a rocket, no matter how hard you try and argue it is. It gives its projectile velocity the same as any other cannon or gun. It just vents some of it out venturis on the rear to counteract what would otherwise be immense recoil of the round.
My area of interest was always Logistics and Ops.
Earlier it was small arms. In another thread, it was bankruptcy law.
Pity we have to wait for the next fantasy.
“The other day pirates accidentally tried to attack a ship, not realising it was a French navy frigate on anti-piracy patrol until it was too late. ”
So, how hard would it be to equip a couple of Q-ships to cruise in those waters? Seems like all you would need is 3 or 4 .50 cal machine guns and maybe add a couple of trained snipers. Heck, a TOW mount from a Hummer shouldn’t be too hard to adapt.
Leland:
“My area of interest was always Logistics and Ops.
Earlier it was small arms. In another thread, it was bankruptcy law.”
I am a renaissance man, pity, you aren’t.
“So, how hard would it be to equip a couple of Q-ships to cruise in those waters? Seems like all you would need is 3 or 4 .50 cal machine guns and maybe add a couple of trained snipers. Heck, a TOW mount from a Hummer shouldn’t be too hard to adapt.”
Hard, not too hard. the bigger problem is it’s sort of the undercover police problem. The area the pirates are working in is pretty big, the number of ships out there is many and the number of police you can put out there is few.
The big one is Centcom would need to take ownership of the anti-piracy mission, and pretty much all the Seals are kind of over-committed, and while you could use marines, they are also pretty heavily committed.
Most of DoD’s bandwidth has been saturated in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Well, logistically speaking jack, a UH-60 ain’t an AH-64 and a rocket assist projectile ain’t a full bore rocket, it is still artillery.
“The big one is Centcom would need to take ownership of the anti-piracy mission, and pretty much all the Seals are kind of over-committed, and while you could use marines, they are also pretty heavily committed.”
Either are overkill for pirates. The only reason the SEALS were involved with the last incident was because it represented a hostage situation.
Swabbies are fine.
Hell, Blackwater was preparing to be hired on for an anti-piracy campaign in the Western Pacific before 9/11 happened.
“Swabbies are fine.” Probably.
Certainly in WW2, they trained AB Seamen on Machine Gun drills and anti-mine sniping.
At the end of the day, Piracy is an economic activity. Grab ships, get ransom, lather, rinse, repeat.
The pirates are like burglars interested in the easiest prey for the least risk. If the US as a service loaded a few sailors with M-2s and Dragon missiles on every US Flagged cargo ship in the horn of africa, we could easily push the pirates away from US Flagged vessels.
Of course, that would require US Flagged ships.
There are very few that sail under our flag anymore.