[toasty228]

All you need is a dude with a small boat, an rpg and some kind of short range radio really.

[Aerroon]

Is an RPG enough? I feel like the crew of the oil tanker would want to defend themselves from armed pirates even if it might damage the ship some. And modern ships can be quite sturdy.

In 2020 a Venezuelan patrol boat (1500 tons) tried to stop an Arctic cruise ship (6000 tons). The patrol boat rammed the bow of the cruise ship and sank. The cruise ship received superficial damage to the bow.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52151951

[toasty228]

> Is an RPG enough?

Call their insurer and ask, I'm not in the business but I would imagine they're very risk averse

[Aerroon]

Risk averse enough to lose the crew and possibly the ship?

[OutOfHere]

Many but not all tankers these days do have defensive equipment, e.g. jet sprays, but these probably can't stop too many boats, or if the tanker doesn't have such protection.

[ceejayoz]

If I have a hose and the other guy has an RPG I’m probably not starting shit.

[AnimalMuppet]

If you have a hose that you can fire from a fairly protected position and the guy with the RPG is completely exposed because he's trying to climb up the side of a tanker, yeah, I might.

See, the hijackers can't actually sail the ship. So they can't kill the crew, or at least can't kill very many of them.

[gpm]

> See, the hijackers can't actually sail the ship. So they can't kill the crew, or at least can't kill very many of them.

Sailing the ship safely takes some skill.

Sailing the ship at all takes about 5 minutes of watching youtube worth of learning.

And they can certainly sink the ship as a warning to the next ship. Indeed attacks in the area have a history of sinking ships: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthi_attacks_on_commercial_v...

[bayarearefugee]

> If you have a hose that you can fire from a fairly protected position and the guy with the RPG is completely exposed because he's trying to climb up the side of a tanker, yeah, I might.

In this scenario you are standing on a ship that is full of highly flammable oil.

There are more outcomes than just the hijackers gain control of the ship or they leave you alone.

If gaining control is no longer an option they could decide "fuck it" and just fire into the side of your hull.

[nradov]

Fire is always a risk, but crude oil is not "highly flammable". Some refined products and LNG are more problematic.

[dotancohen]

That might cause the oil to leak out. It's unlikely to start a fire unless the tank is fairly empty.

[ceejayoz]

> the guy with the RPG is completely exposed

No, he isn’t. He’s sitting in the speedboat with the guys with rifles protecting the guy on the ladder.

> See, the hijackers can't actually sail the ship.

You think Somalia has zero people with experience working on a cargo ship?

[tokai]

>See, the hijackers can't actually sail the ship

Its pretty dumb to assume that.

Somali commercial sailors and merchant mariners do exist. Information and simulator software is available also in Somalia.

[toasty228]

> guy with the RPG is completely exposed because he's trying to climb up the side of a tanker

Uh? Stay 100m away and send a "park your tanker over there or we fire at you" message.

[nradov]

Pretty soon the RPGs will be replaced by FPV drones. Put an explosive drone into the bridge of a merchant ship and it's going to be a mess. I predict that there will be a growing market for drone defenses on merchant ships such as radio jammers and nets over vital spaces.

[gpm]

Radio jammers only work until they figure out the fibre-controlled drones the Ukrainians and Russian's have been making.

Affordable drone defense is something of an unsolved problem right now.

[nradov]

Fiber optic guided drones don't work reliably at sea. The wires drag and break in the water.