Golden Mori---"Maersk II?"

Found an interesting link regarding what could become a pirate standoff similar to that of the Maersk Alabama. This time, the ship is Japanese with a mostly Phillipino crew, so our press probably won't touch it much. Unfortunately, this story is already several days old...

The U.S. Navy said Thursday that it intended to remove pirates from a hijacked Japanese tanker monitored by American warships off the coast of Somalia. A crew member's sister said negotiations were under way for the release of the ship.

The Navy came to the aid of the chemical tanker this week, at one point opening fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to it.

***

Negotiations have started for the release of the Japanese tanker, anchored in Somali waters with 23 crew members from the Philippines, South Korea and Myanmar, said Josefina Villanueva, whose brother Laureano is a Filipino supervisor aboard the Golden Nori.

"The pirates are still on board with the crewmen. They can't leave," she said, relaying information families had received from the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs.

She said there had been no ransom demand from the pirates. "The talks are just starting. I think the pirates will later on demand something," she said.

Another interesting tidbit from the same story: The USN rendered assistance to a DPRK ship attacked by pirates. First time I heard it. I suppose it's possible that I'm lagging behind on current events, but it seems these are pretty important events that aren't getting much coverage.

It also helped a North Korean ship whose crew overpowered pirates in a clash that left several crew members wounded and one hijacker dead. The hijackers were being held aboard the ship until they can be handed over for prosecution at a port. After the clash, Navy personnel boarded the North Korean boat to treat the wounded.

H/T: Subsim

An Ounce of Prevention... (updated)

An important victory for the French was reported today. Maybe there is something to a pro-active approach after all.

Somali pirates vowed to hunt down American ships and kill their sailors and French forces detained 11 other brigands in a high-seas raid as tensions ratcheted up Wednesday off Africa's volatile eastern coast.

* * *

The French forces launched an early morning attack on a pirate "mother ship" after spotting the boat Tuesday with a surveillance helicopter and observing the pirates overnight.

A "mother ship" is usually a seized foreign vessel that pirates use to transport speedboats far out to sea and resupply them as they plot their attacks. The ship was intercepted 550 miles (900 kilometers) east of the Kenyan city of Mombasa.

The French Defense Ministry said the raid thwarted the sea bandits' planned attack on the Liberian cargo ship Safmarine Asia. The detained pirates were being held on the Nivose, a French frigate among the international fleet trying to protect shipping in the Gulf of Aden.

It's encouraging to see that naval forces were apparently able to tell pirate from fisherman before an attack ever took place. And that they did it with only air assets is even better, because it means a larger area can be searched.




UPDATE:
CNN is now reporting the same story, but according to them, the pirates had already attacked:

The Navy tracked the pirates overnight after they attacked a ship called the Safmarine Asia. The French launched a helicopter from the frigate Nivose to head off the attack Tuesday night, then seized the suspected pirates Wednesday morning, the statement said.

So which is it? Did they "head off an attack" that had taken place, or did they "prevent a planned attack?" There is a huge policy difference between the two.

Details, Details...

The Navy has released 3 more pictures from the Maersk standoff since the release of the Scan Eagle pictures. One of them in particular tells a bit of a story.
Note the grouping of 3 bulletholes on the starboard window. (You can see the whole image here)

It's possible that those were outgoing rounds, but otherwise it would seem that the SEALs did not take out all 3 pirates with single-shots.

Never Waste a Good Crisis

Now that the USN has successfully rescued Captain Phillips and eliminated or captured all four pirates, we should be using the increased public awareness of the piracy problem to improve our anti-piracy policy. A few remarks:

Implications of Somali Piracy
1. Piracy in and of itself represents a threat to the economic interests of the United States. In addition to shipping companies paying out ransoms, insurance rates are going through the roof, and in some cases shipments are being re-routed, making the voyages longer and more expensive. Quite simply, piracy is an intolerable drain on commerce.

2. Although it is my opinion that the Somali piracy is organized crime, not terrorism, the success of the pirates thus far highlights weaknesses of the sort that terrorists can exploit. We should anticipate that terrorists will hijack vessels in the future, but with much more sinister intentions than holding the ship and crew for ransom. Possible terrorist missions could include threatening execution of hostages in exchange for political demands being met, causing a massive oil spill, sinking a ship in a narrow channel to block it, exploding a liquefied natural gas carrier, or attempting to collide with other vessels. It should therefore be a high priority to develop effective anti-hijacking tactics, as well as deploying technologies appropriate to this mission.

3. The limitations of the USN in dealing with piracy was demonstrated by this situation and others. Pirates are well-aware that they can succeed provided they are able to stay in possession of the captured ship and crew, allowing them to get to land.

4. The lethal violence used by the French Navy and USN may have second-order effects. On one hand, it may deter pirates into finding another line of work (this would surely happen if enough pirates met their demise that they could could count on being killed or captured). On the other hand, the pirates have already vowed revenge against US and French mariners. The gauntlet has been thrown, and over the short term, we should be prepared for an escalation of violence against US and French targets.

Developing Anti-Piracy Policies
1. Current ROE: CTF-151 will come to the aid of ships in distress and attempt to capture pirates caught in the act. This represents an evolution from previous ROE where pursuit was not authorized. Captured pirates are usually handed over to Somali authorities in Puntland, or to Kenya.

2. I agree with other commenters that the protection of US-flagged ships should be a priority for the US Navy. I am all in favor of our warships continuing to act to protect international trade in general, but, when a US-flagged ship is transiting this area, US assets should be allocated to them first, and to other traffic second. The vow of the pirates to take revenge upon US mariners should underscore this imperitive.

3. Merchant ships are generally unamred. This is not due to any international law prohibiting the carrying of arms, but rather because of legal difficulties that would arise in various destination ports. The use of small/mounted arms has been successful in preventing successful boardings, as the attempted attacks against the USNS John Lenthal and a German supply ship. The pirates use small, open skiffs to approach their targets, often having to chase them and overtake them slowly. They are relatively easy targets and will usually turn and run if fired upon. The lack of defensive arms on merchant ships is one of the principal factors enabling piracy, and is likely the lowest-cost solution (not considering legal difficulties or increases in insurance rates---i.e. legal BS).

In my opinion, arming merchant crews is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, foreign laws will likely make that impossible, and little can be done about that. It is a shame, because the purpose of law is to protect the lives and rights of people, and to facilitate efficient business. In the case of piracy, these laws are making people vulnerable while making business more difficult. These laws ought to be changed, but there is no way to "reach into" the domestic sphere of foreign states to change these laws.

Perhaps, alternatives could be considered. For example, private security firms could embark teams on merchants at one side of the transit, and disembark them on the other side. Cost, of course, would be a major factor, because this would require substantial logistical support. Another option may be to embark a small craft on which the weapons could be disembarked when the merchant makes a port call. The downside of this would be that some crew would not be available for loading/unloading operations while they "babysit" the weapons.

4. The current "area patrol" defensive tactics are clearly inadequate to deal with piracy. More effective tactics are needed. However, it must also be observed that the area is simply too large and too populated to completely lock down with any defensive tactics. Our goal should not be to stop every instance of piracy, but to deter it. Deterence will be acheived by killing and capturing enough pirates that the risk is not something that can be ignored. Therefore, our defensive tactics should be oriented towards apprehending as many pirates as possible.

5. Rather than responding to distress calls as the primary means of attempting to prevent hijackings/capture pirates, I propose a more pro-active approach. Merchant traffic should be corralled into designated corridors, chosen for their distance from heavily-fished areas. This should not be terribly difficult, because they already more or less use known shipping lanes. Those lanes might just need to be moved a little. CTF-151 and other anti-piracy vessels will then actively scout those sea lanes. Using ISR assets such as P-3 Orions, UAVs, and shipborne helicopters, vessels in those lanes should be identified. Those craft will then be subject to search, prior to the merchants arriving. If any craft is found with weapons, or especially ladders and grappling hooks, the occupants would be arrested. The motherships and skiffs should be seized, and, after checking to make sure any motherships aren't themselved captured craft, burned.

This approach poses two problems: logistical and legal. Legally, a navy cannot board a ship without consent, unless that ship flies the flag of its navy or is inside the territorial waters of that navy. So, a UN Security Council resolution will be necessary to carry out this strategy. Although, frankly, I think we'd be better off carrying out the boardings anyways. The consequences for illegally boarding some fishing boats is far less than the cost of allowing hijackings to continue.

Second, there is the logistical problem of getting out the boarding teams to the site. It will not be possible to saturate the sea lanes such that all potential pirate craft can be searched. But this is no reason not to do it. CTF-151 ships should patrol in the designated lanes, casting dragnet as they go, sprinting from craft to craft and sending out RHIBs to inspect them. Additionally, helicopter carriers like the Boxer can be used to transport small boats and crews greater distances than can be done with a frigate or destroyer. US ships should prioritize sanitizing the area ahead of US-flagged merchants.

Going forward, the DoD should take note of the kinds of platforms that are useful for sanitizing these sea lanes. As remarked earlier, we may need to develop these operations for counterterrorism at some point, as well as maritime security operations, or perhaps even protecting an amphibious operation from irregular or hybrid warfare. The more boarding teams and helicopters, and the better protected our people are, the better. And all the antiship missiles in the world aren't as useful as a well-trained sniper team.

6. A legal framework for trying pirates needs to be developed. Is this something the ICC could handle? The best option would be an international tribunal of some sort. Alternatively, I don't see any reason why Congress couldn't amend our own antipiracy statute to confer universal jurisdiction to the Federal courts as against pirates (edit: it would appear that the statute as written already does confer universal jurisdiction). I'd also be in favor of nonjudicial punishment at sea of pirates, but somehow I doubt that would happen in this day an age.

What not to do
While an ultimate solution to piracy must be on land, now is not the time to carpet-bomb Eyl or anything else we're hearing from the hawks along those lines. One thing to consider is that the pirates currently hold more than 200 hostages. There would also be a lot of collateral damage, which is bad enough on its own, but in addition, laying waste to pirate strongholds would have the 3rd-order effect of strengthening the fundamentalist terrorist insurgents to the south, possibly allowing them to sieze control of Somalia. A more responsible approach would involve an all-out nation building strategy, which no one has the resources or the stomach to follow through on.

I think our best bet is to reduce piracy through deterrence, and that the pirates will then turn to other ways to eke out a living, such as fishing and trade. If that transition is gradual, then soft-power techniques might be useful in slowly civilizing the area.

Questions About Controlling the Scene of a Hostage Situation at Sea

This post raises questions about the tactics employed in a counter-piracy hostage situation, such as the one ongoing right now. Before I get into the substance, I feel it necessary to express some reservations about going here. I think that uninvolved commenters like myself need to show deference to the people who are involved, both because we don't know the facts and because we don't know what it takes to run a command. That being said, I think the situation as it has unfolded over the last 24 hours warrants some pointed questions being raised.

My understanding is that in a hostage situation, the first order of business of the police is to isolate the hostage takers, and take tactical control of the environment surrounding the area controlled by the hostage takers. For example, police will evacuate all civilians to a safe distance, prevent any non-LEO personnel from entering the area, prevent the hostage-takers from leaving the area, occupy the area, observe with all means any activity within the area under control by the hostage-takers, and be prepared to react.

I don't know what steps the USN did to maintain tactical control over the area surrounding the Maersk lifeboat, but I think when this is over the Navy owes us all an explanation. What we do know is that Captain Phillips was able to temporarily escape his captors, get off the boat, and get into the water. Captain Phillips was taken back into pirate custody after a pirate swam after him, and after shots were fired by the pirates. This outcome suggests, to me, that the Navy did not have tactical control of the surrounding area.

Imagine, for a moment, the situation is on land. A hostage is being held inside a school, surrounded by a SWAT team. The hostage runs outside. But, no SWAT member is there to take the hostage into custody. Worse yet, as the hostage is running towards the police in the distance, one of the hostage-takers appears behind the escaping hostage and begins firing his weapon. And the police do nothing.

Unless there is something about this situation that I don't understand--and I recognize that there may well be--I find this outcome to be appalling. And our government owes us an explanation.

Specifically, I want to know:
(1) What was done to contain the pirates to the lifeboat?
(2) What methods of observation were used to observe the situation on the lifeboat? Was the boat constantly illuminated at night? Were personnel stationed close enough to the boat to observe the situation well?
(3) What plan did the Navy have in case the hostage escaped the boat? What would have been there response time?
(4) What plan did the Navy have in case they observed a weapon being discharged? What would have been their response time?
(5) What prevented the immediate elimination of all pirates on the lifeboat once the hostage was no longer on it?

and also, although it is not implicated yet, but soon may be:
(6) What was done to prevent non-Coalition platforms/personnel from entering the area isolating the lifeboat?

Because I am an uninvolved civilian, I will pose these as questions and will not speculate about the answers nor second-guess the commanders.... at least not until all the facts are known. But I think when this is all over, we are owed these answers.

Update 11 Apr 09:
We have a new fact and a rationale courtesy of the AP:

Sailors on the USS Bainbridge, which has rescue helicopters and lifeboats, were able to see Phillips but at several hundred yards away were too far to help him. The U.S. destroyer is keeping its distance, in part to stay out of the pirates' range of fire.

I am not comfortable with this. If the question is, "why wasn't the Bainbridge close enough to rescue Phillips and suppress/deter/eliminate his pursuers?" then the answer "we didn't want the Bainbridge to get shot at" is impotent. They are 4 guys with rifles; they do not get to push a US Warship (nor its helicopters [if it had any], nor its armed boarding parties) around.

This does raise some interesting questions about littoral warfare, though. Assume for a moment that returning fire is not an option; that the apparent "rule set" here is that the pirates are allowed to take pot shots at USN platforms and personnel but the USN cannot respond for fear of triggering the execution of Capt. Phillips. In the analogous SWAT situation, the police would not retreat to a distance greater than the effective range of a Kalashnikov, they would get behind cover. At sea, the only cover is the ship itself. Thus, this incident may be teaching us that a true littoral combatant needs to have armored gun positions and/or guns fired without exposed crew, and should probably also not have large, expensive, sensitive sensors or other things on deck that "don't react well to bullets." Just like insurgency at land, we are seeing the irregular warfare at sea requires armor, not speed.

Possible Escalation of the Pirate Situation

Some disturbing news:

The pirate, speaking to Reuters from Haradheere port, also said other pirates were taking a hijacked German ship, with foreign crew on board, toward the scene in the Indian Ocean where the lifeboat is floating, watched by U.S. warships.

"Knowing that the Americans will not destroy this German ship and its foreign crew, they (the approaching pirates) hope they can meet their friends on the lifeboat," said the pirate, who has given reliable information in the past but asked for his name not to be used.

{snip}

The 20,000-tonne German container vessel, Hansa Stavanger, was hijacked a week ago, about 400 miles off south Somalia, between Kenya and the Seychelles. It is thought to have 24 crew, of whom five are German.

This is a rather clever approach. Pirates know they have the advantage when they have people on a captured ship. They didn't have the luxury of that situation here, and it looked like the USN had a very strong hand to play, with the lifeboat out of fuel (or running out of fuel, depending on the report). The pirates, hundreds of miles out to sea, are in every bit as much need of rescue now as Captain Phillips. A fishing boat or skiff would never make it past the Bainbridge and USN air assets, but how do you stop a 20,000 ton ship, short of sinking it?

The Tom Clancy in me wants a SEAL team to come up underneath the ship and sabotage the shafts, stopping it dead in the water, but I have no knowledge whether we have the capability to sabotage a ship while it is underway.

Physically blocking a ship that size is not an option. Could naval gunfire disable the engines? Probably, but flooding or even fire would likely result as well. Can the crew perform damage control? Would the pirates execute a hostage if the ship was fired upon?

And that's what bothers me the most here--the implication that this may be an escalation by the pirates. Previously, hostages were simply detained for ransom. There was never any demand other than money, and there was no threat of execution if that demand for money wasn't met. The hostages would simply continue to be detained. If it is the case that the pirates have a new demand--to be allowed to rescue their comrades adrift at sea--and if this demand is not met, hostages will be executed, then the pirates will have crossed a very, very important line that so far they've stayed away from. They will have crossed from organized crime into terrorism.

I hope they understand the implications of crossing that line and fear its consequences.

Then again, with the current administration no longer describing our situation vis-a-vis terrorists as a "war," I'm not really sure what those consequences are anymore.

M/V John McClane?

This morning, I awoke to learn that a US-flagged cargo ship with a US crew was hijacked.

Now, we're being informed that the crew took back control of the ship. At least one pirate is in custody.

That's.... amazing. Thought that shit only happened in Die Hard movies.


Photo: A rigid hull inflatable boat leaves USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) on its way to FGS Hessen (F 221) during the Neptune Warrior training course. Neptune Warrior is a course designed to increase interoperability in NATO coalition forces. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Coleman Thompson

New Star part II

China Summons Russian Ambassador

BEIJING - China summoned Russia's ambassador Friday to express shock over the sinking of a Chinese cargo ship by a Russian warship and urge a thorough investigation, the foreign ministry said.

Eight of the 16 crew members on board were killed when shots from a Russian naval vessel sank the Chinese-owned cargo ship the New Star off Russia's east coast on Sunday.

Russia has blamed the cargo ship's captain for the incident.

"The Chinese side expresses shock and deep concern over this incident," china's Vice Foreign Minister Li Hui told Russia's Ambassador to China, according to a foreign ministry statement.

"The Chinese side... strongly urges the Russian side to... quickly and thoroughly investigate this incident.

"We call on the Russian side to begin with a humanitarian spirit... and continue to make all efforts to find the missing personnel."

Russian diplomatic spokesman Andrey Nesterenko expressed regret over the incident, but said the Chinese ship had failed to heed warning shots.

"We regret the tragic consequences of this incident," he told the Ria-Novosti news agency.

"But at the same time, we put all the responsibility on the captain of the New Star, who acted in a totally irresponsible manner.

"We took exhaustive measures to stop the boat: the border guards fired warning shots, but the New Star continued on its way without reacting to the orders," he added.

Russian prosecutors said 10 Chinese and six Indonesian sailors were on board the vessel, Interfax reported.

Russian news reports said eight people had been killed in the incident, although these figures have yet to be confirmed by authorities.

The Sierra Leone-flagged, Chinese-owned vessel New Star had earlier fled the Russian port of Nakhodka where it had been impounded for alleged smuggling, media reports said.

In a video posted online that purportedly captured the incident, a man, apparently a Russian naval officer, is heard repeatedly urging the New Star to halt.

The Russian navy fired over 500 rounds to try to force the cargo ship back to port, China's state-controlled Global Times newspaper said.

Russian news agencies said the eight surviving crew members were rescued and taken to hospital.

Chinese Cargo Ship New Star Sinks off Vladivostok

Early reports are often wrong, so take the following with a grain of salt. But to paraphrase this article, the Russians detained a vessel suspected of smuggling, it left port without permission, and was prosecuted by a cruiser. Tried to limp back to port, but didn't make it. And neither did all the crew.

Bravo Zulu!

H/T: USNI Blog

Well, at least somebody stopped it...

It turns out that not only did we not scuttle the Iranian arms shipment (yes, I know that's a pipe dream), but we let it go, lacking legal authority to detain it.

Fortunately, the Cypriots were not lacking as well:

JERUSALEM, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Cypriot authorities have detained an Iranian ship en route to Syria with a cargo of weapons, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported on Friday.

Quoting a European Union diplomatic source, it said Cyprus had acted after Israel and the United States requested that the Cypriot-flagged vessel be stopped.

Authorities contacted the ship and demanded that it dock in Limassol for inspection. Customs officials had unloaded part of the cargo and a large amount of weaponry, including artillery rounds and rockets, the paper said.

Cypriot authorities declined comment.

Israel believes the weapons were destined for the Lebanese Islamist guerrilla group Hezbollah or for Islamist Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, Haaretz quoted Israeli sources as saying.

On Wednesday, U.S. military officials said personnel from the U.S. Navy vessel San Antonio last week boarded the Cypriot-flagged "Monchegorsk", a cargo vessel travelling from Iran to Syria, and found a weapons shipment but for legal reasons did not confiscate the cargo.

The officials declined to say what kind of weapons were found or how many. They also would not be specific about where or when the incident occurred.

It was unclear whether this was the same ship which Haaretz reported had been apprehended by the Cypriot authorities.

Officials in Washington said the search was conducted as part of the U.S. Navy's normal maritime security role in regional waters that stretch from the Arabian Sea to the Mediterranean.

The U.S. officials said the arms could not be shown to violate U.N. weapons sanctions against Iran and the vessel was allowed to continue on to Syria.

The incident came to light amid media reports that the U.S. navy has been ordered to intercept suspected Iranian shipments to rearm Hamas following Israel's 22-day Gaza offensive against the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. (Additional reporting by Michele Kambas in Nicosia, writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)

Speaking of Intermeddlers...

I really wish we would scuttle ships caught red handed like this. When there are no consequences, we come out looking like fools, even when we do pull off a minor tactical victory like this.

U.S. Navy stopped Iran ship carrying weapons and headed to Gaza

TEL AVIV — U.S. defense sources said the U.S. Navy tracked and intercepted an Iranian ship in the Red Sea that was headed for the Gaza Strip.

The sources said U.S. marines found ammunition, including artillery shells, concealed in crates aboard the cargo ship.

"There was a huge amount of crates on board and we called for help," a defense source said.

The U.S. television network CBS News reported that the ship was intercepted by the U.S. Navy near Egypt's Suez Canal. CBS said the U.S. Navy vessel requested that Egyptian authorities direct the Iranian ship to port for a thorough search.

...and another one

Looks like the increased Op Tempo is just a bit too much for the Ruskies. Although to be fair, fatalities are fairly common on US CSG deployments, just not from fires.

One dead in fire aboard aircraft carrier ”Admiral Kuznetsov”

One sailor died in a fire yesterday aboard Northern Fleet’s aircraft carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov”, which currently is on a tour of duty in the Mediterranean.

During take-off and landing drills on the evening of January 6 a fire broke out on the aircraft carrier. One conscript sailor died while trying to extinguish the fire, a military source told Russian news agency Interfax.

According to the source, the fire caused only minor damages to the ship, and the tour will continue as planned.

Interfax has not yet received any official confirmation on the information.

Watch video from “Admiral Kuznetsov’s” unofficial visit to Turkey here

A quick recap of recent Russian naval accidents:
Fire on the Marshal Shaposhnikov (PAC Fleet), two dead (18 Sept 2008)
Accidental Discharge of fire suppression system on the Nerpa (PAC Fleet), 20+ dead (9 NOV 2008)
Fire on Neukrotimy, (BAL Fleet) 1 dead (8 DEC 2008)

The only fleet not having fatal mishaps recently is the Black Sea Fleet. That might be coincidental, or perhaps indicative of better readiness since that fleet had to fight a war recently.

Report: Russia's Venezuela Visit Filled With Mishaps

Not the dangerous kind, the funny kind.

Tal Cual, a Venezuelan daily newspaper, described the exercises as a “clash of civilizations” due to the strange and even hilarious events that occurred. To start with, the Cuban officers brought along by the Venezuelan navy as interpreters were not allowed by the Russians, who could not understand why the Venezuelan navy had to rely on Cuban personnel. When Venezuelan strongman Chavez tried to visit the ship “Admiral Chabanenko,” his bodyguards were not allowed to go aboard. A fistfight broke between the Russian sailors and the bodyguards -- one Russian sailor suffering a broken nose.

The Venezuelan participation in the exercises was finally reduced to two frigates, F21 and F24, and the transport ship T81, since the other units were not seaworthy. The access of Chavez to the flagship Russian “Peter the Great” was not allowed. In retaliation, Chavez refused to receive Russian President Medvedev at his arrival, sending his colorless vice president Ramon Carrizales instead. Medvedev was reportedly not amused, but his visit had objectives to fulfill that were more important than his irritation at Chavez’s faulty protocol.

Source.

Linked: British Purge Commanders Over Iran-Hostage Drama

THE British navy has completed a discreet clean-out of the senior figures involved in the debacle over the arrest by Iranian Revolutionary Guards of 15 British sailors and marines.

Those involved in the Royal Navy's humiliation at the hands of Tehran have been pushed out of their high-profile jobs as part of an attempt to sweep away any reminder of the debacle...

The victims include two vice-admirals, the captain of the ship on which the boat crews served and a senior official in the failed public relations operation that followed their return to Britain.

Full article

Not Again

MOSCOW, December 8 (RIA Novosti) - One naval officer died in a fire on Russia's Baltic Fleet frigate the Neukrotimy (Indomitable) on Monday, a senior Navy official said.

"The body of an officer was discovered during a thorough search of the ship," Captain 1st Rank Igor Dygalo, an aide to the Russian Navy commander, said.

Earlier reports said no one had been hurt in the fire that broke out early on Monday on the frigate anchored at Baltiisk, the Baltic Fleet's main base.

A regional emergencies official said the fire was put out at 14:00 Moscow time (11:00 a.m. GMT).

He said five firefighting teams, including a special firefighting boat, had been involved in extinguishing the fire.

The Baltic Fleet press service said only insignificant damage had been caused to the vessel, while the cause of the fire had yet to be established by a special investigations commission.

Dygalo said the frigate, at the end of its operational life span, was due to be taken out of service, adding there had been no weapons on board the ship when the fire started.

The Krivak-2 Project-1135 Neukrotimy, built in 1978, was damaged in 2005, when a practice mine exploded during rehearsals for Russia's Navy Day, causing a 3-meter hole in the ship's hull and flooding the ship's engine room.

This is senseless. These guys really need to work on their safety procedures.

Rest in peace.

Source.

Peek-A-Boo

The JMSDF sees you!

No info yet on how close they came to the G-Dub. Hans are noisy fiddle luckers, though, so hopefuly not that close.

I can't help but wonder if this story was intended to coincide with the SCOTUS news, as it doesn't say when the subs were detected.

Victory!

SCOTUS is full of awesome and win today:

U.S. Supreme Court Lifts Restrictions on Navy Sonar (Update3)

By Greg Stohr

Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court lifted restrictions on the Navy's use of sonar during training exercises off the Southern California coast, ruling that national security needs trumped environmental concerns.

A divided high court rejected arguments by environmentalists that the judge-ordered restrictions were warranted to protect whales and other marine mammals.

The environmental interests ``are plainly outweighed by the Navy's need to conduct realistic training exercises to ensure that it is able to neutralize the threat posed by enemy submarines,'' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.

Well, not that divided... two dissents and two concurrences for a 6.5 to 2.5 majority. Not bad.

Peril On the Sea

Developing:


RIA Reports a major tragedy at sea:

Over 20 killed in Russian submarine accident

MOSCOW, November 9 (RIA Novosti) - More than 20 people were killed in an accident at a nuclear submarine of the Russian Pacific Fleet, an aide to the Russian Navy commander said Sunday.

"More than 20 people were killed during sea trials as a result of accidental launch of the fire-extinguishing system at a nuclear submarine of the Pacific Fleet on November 8," Capt. 1st Rank Igor Dygalo said. "Shipyard workers and servicemen are among the victims."

He said the Navy commander-in-chief had ordered to stop the trials and the submarine was heading to a temporary base.

Dygalo said 208 people, including 81 servicemen were onboard the submarine.

First Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Kolmakov and Navy commander-in-chief, Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky are heading for the site of the accident, Dygalo added. He did not specify the type and name of the submarine.

A source at the Russian Pacific Fleet told RIA Novosti that the accident had not damaged the submarine's reactor.

The most serious accident regarding Russian submarines occurred on August 12, 2000, when the nuclear submarine Kursk sank following an onboard torpedo explosion, killing all 118 crewmembers.

The story does not identify the sub, but the Nerpa seems like the likely candidate, as it is known to have been undergoing sea trials at the time.

Update: They are calling freon gas the cause of death.

Killing Speedboats

The USS Boxer just got an upgrade for its old-school SeaSparrows, integrating an EO/IR camera into the fire-control system. The camera allows the crew to ID small craft out to 11nm, and the FCR was able to illuminate a 7-foot RRIB well enough to get 3/3 direct hits at 4nm. Essentially, this means we're using a SAM as an ATGM. That's not at all unreasonable, especially considering the apparent difficulty the Russians had dealing with a swarm of Georgian gunboats on the Black Sea. I would hope the EO/IR camera system would be equally capable of integration with VLS ESSMs as well.

It does bring up an interesting question though. We're loading up ships of all sizes now with .50cals, manually aimed 25mm chain guns, EO/IR directed remote gun mount chain guns, and we've even given the Phalanx an upgrade for use against small craft. It seems we've got those bases covered, especially now that we're using guided missiles at short ranges (which, after the Black Sea skirmish, I think is preferable to gun mounts).

Why then is the entire LCS ASUW module designed to blow up speedboats? We don't need a module specifically designed for this task; it's part of the expected capability of all our ships. In my mind, an ASUW package should give it the capabilty to take on other warships, something that, again, I think should be part of the expected capability of our ships, independent of any mission module. If we're going to have SeaSparrows (and maybe ESSMs) to blow up speedboats, then it seems even more senseless for the LCS's primary ASUW package to be the NLOS/Netfires missile system. The only added capabilty the NLOS/NetFires has over a speedboat-killing SeaSparrow is over-the-horizon capability. That isn't all that significant, because ROE is going to require a ship to fire warning shots, sound the horn, etc. to warn the craft off before they kill it. So the over-the-horizon engagements would only be against craft you can tell are hostile by looking at them from the UAV's IR camera. Things like gunboats, FACs, and corvettes. News flash: we already have an over-the-horizon weapon for these guys. It's called the Harpoon. It's already receiving an upgrade to enhance its littoral targeting capability--include with that an IR capability (like it's cousin, the SLAMM-ER) to keep it ahead of the stealth-ship game and you're golden.

I just don't get it. With ESSM and Harpoon, you can protect yourself from the littoral ASCM threat, deal with FACs and warships OTH, and still deal with the small craft swarming threat. What sense does it make to sacrifice meaningful AAW and ASUW capability just so you can blow up a speedboat a bit futher out than you otherwise could--a capability unlikely to ever be utilized?

It seems to be the NLOS/NetFires system would be better utilized in a Strike mission module, to attack small targets ashore. (You know, like counterfire on the C-802 battery that just fired a salvo at you. Assuming, of course, you have the air defense capabilty to survive that salvo.)