I'm been watching in bewilderment as the saga of piracy along the East African coast has progressed through weeks to months in length. The thing that I can't figure is why the word "convoy" has never entered the discourse. The convoy system that worked so well against submarine attacks could easily be applied to thwarting the Somali pirates.
An international force could be stationed at sea in several rendezvous points where vessels intending to use African-coast shipping lanes could find escorts. With GPS technology this should be a very easy procedure. It's strange how the experts on warfare forget the lessons of the past. In the first world war the generals forgot everything that had ever been learned in the thousands of years of refinement of the art of siege warfare and had to relearn it the hard way. The skills of the armourer were lost too; troops being sent into battle with only fabric uniforms for protection, many without even the most basic helmets. Thus the lessons of two World wars in the field of naval defence seem also to have been lost.
A combined force of surface and submarine vessels could probably break the economic back of the piracy industry off the East African coast within six months. Now how do I persuade Hillary Clinton to read this?
2 comments:
Hey, Retarius, she's heeeeeeeeeeeeeere. :-)) I'm doing my own thing now, under Ana the Imp!
Welcome back to blogdom!
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