I was just watching the news, CNN; about the Somali pirates who have taken an American capt. hostage.... WTF is wrong with the east coast of Africa. i mean, why hasn't their been more support to stop these hijackings. I would suggest that the US Navy Put the USS Kitty Hawk(ret.) back into active service and put her and her fighters 12 miles and 1 km off the coast off Somali. Put a peace of US territory off the coast and this shit would stop. I mean, F-14's - F/A-18's and provide a net of coverage. It's obvious to me that a coalition of frigates and cruiser's can't do much compared to the coverage and superiority of a Carrier with some beautiful planes on it. Since kitty is retired. Send the enterprise, who i think is in back-up status, not sure. looking...... Oh Wait... Enterprise is currently in an extended dry dock shipyard restricted availability (EDSRA) period. http://www.enterprise.navy.mil/ Oh, And the DOD wonder why they need more than 10 carriers??? Here, u go! Oh yea, i found this.. http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shiplocations.phtml
It's on the east coast of Africa. Carrier operations are very expensive and we don't have the money to do it. I wouldn't be surprised to see private military firms actually start arming merchant ships where it can be done reasonably (as in not a super tanker where even lighting a cigarette on deck could cause the whole thing to blow). Probably would see such a company also deploy small escort vessels. Regardless, without some means of defending the ship reasonably, no one should try to sail through there.
Sry, i meant east coast not west. One thing that scares me more than anything else. Terrorist hijacking a LNG(Liquid Natural Gas Tanker) and blowing it up! A Fire-Ball Bigger than has been seen since 1991 when the last Nuclear detonation took place. Currently, the US Fifth Fleet is Assigned to Mid-East Operations and as far south as kenya.
The US wants the companies with a stake in these hijacked ships to pay higher toll. They refuse, so the US refuses to use their naval ships in the area to stop the hijackings. Don't tell me that trillions spent into military R&D over the years hasn't produced sonar or satellite capable of tracking down small pleasure boats. In Somalia, people are lining up to be pirates. They've even erected a University where one must enroll to get their degree in Pirating. Hijacking freight ships account for 80% of the country's Gross Domestic Product.
well, SOSUS has proved effective in the Atlantic, but there is the certain problems of installation in that area. as for satelites, they have limits in capability and monitoring of a given area. problem is, that region's satelite time is almost certainly focused on the countries that we have troops in