Have things changed

[Mikebits]

Three dead pirates and one in custody will send a very strong message.

Apparently not a strong enough message. Latest attack since last incident.

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[duffy]

Suppose you put a marksman's rifle on a gyro-stable platform, used some kind of short-range version of weather radar to compensate for downrange winds, employed computerized facial image recognition for targeting, a laser for rangefinding... could you make a shot like this? Could you predict the motion of the bobbing boat for the .3 second or so in advance you would need to compensate for bullet flight time?

 

[Mikebits]

Even at a mere 25 yds. using trained sharpshooters, I find it difficult to believe that they could effectively put lethal rounds in the correct targets, during the night, using night-vision scopes, through a small window, in a bobbing lifeboat! I think it's more a propaganda tactic for PR purposes. It wouldn't surprise me if SEALS were in the water next to the boat using percussion grenades or similar disorienting tactics. Their actual method of attack is likely classified and what the public has been told could be quite different than what actually occurred. The Maersk captain may be under a gag order regarding the specifics of the rescue. Then there's always the minute chance that the event unfolded exactly as published. What's important here is the fact that the American hostage was rescued, and the perpetrators are dead (except for the surrenderer) sending a clear message to others of what awaits them if they choose to behave in that fashion.

Maybe the waters were calm. I have been to Kenya via Navy ship and the waters are fairly calm in that region.

When I was in the Navy, for training we would target practice on Garbage off the fantail. We could hit the targets, so I don't think it is so impossible. Large vessel do not seem to bob in the water very quickly especially in smooth waters. I think it is possible, but you might be right.

 

[mneary]

With night vision technology, they can use an IR laser to aim the marksman's rifle. Light up the target with the laser, which is invisible to the pirate, and squeeze.

News reports say the lifeboat was at xxx 25 yards. With almost a full moon, the sharpshooters had to get in place without being seen or heard by the pirates.

 

[kchriste]

The world navies have been escorting ships off the Somali coast for quite a while now. 3 Pirates down, 3000 to go!

 

[Mikebits]

What really sucks is that many of these merchant ships are trying to deliver humanitarian aid to the grief stricken and starving of that region. The pirates currently hold 20 ships and some 200 hostages from other nations.

4 ships have been captured since the shooter incident according to news reports.
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I think this thing could escalate.

 

[Sceadwian]

If four more ships were captured it did escalate =)

 

[HiTech]

With night vision technology, they can use an IR laser to aim the marksman's rifle. Light up the target with the laser, which is invisible to the pirate, and squeeze.

News reports say the lifeboat was at xxx 25 yards. With almost a full moon, the sharpshooters had to get in place without being seen or heard by the pirates.

Somewhere it was reported that the lifeboat was bobbing up and down. Below, is a pic of what the boat was similar to. Even if the water was a calm sheet of glass, tell me how they could properly identify the individuals aboard it. Why would the SEALs use the cover of darkness for difficult sniping when they can simply swim undetected right up to the craft? The pirates played their hand very poorly. They allowed themselves to take 1 captive, boarded a confined, safety vessel, armed only with silly AK-47s, and are being towed out to sea by a Navy war ship with eager SEALs on board!!! Even if the Maersk's captain had been killed by them, you know that lifeboat was getting sunk on the spot. The pirates had little bargaining power.

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[Sceadwian]

Hitech, it was done at night, they obviously were using thermal scopes, those boats are very nearly transparent to IR.

 

[tcmtech]

At 25 yards I could drop you with a 22 rifle while the both of us were running!
Give me a good scope and night or thermal vision and a slow rolling sea and my brothers deer rifle I could still drop you from 100 yards!

You may not be dead but you wont want to play with me any more!

 

[mneary]

TCM, I was just wondering the same thing, at 25 yards, did they even need scopes? With a full moon, did they actually need night vision?

 

[HiTech]

C'mon you guys make it sound so easy! It's not the distance nor moonlight. It's a moving target, inside an enclosed craft. Nightvision optics doesn't show ethnicity of a person. Perhaps the optics are quality enough to observe if the pirates had dreadlocks, tribal beads, or gold capped teeth?

tmc tech: if you can drop me using your brother's dear riffle (whatever that is ) then I'd buy you a beer. Meantime, I'm no sharpshooter by military standards, but I can guarantee you that my Browning 7mm Magnum rags its own holes and very often I can cover them all with a 25¢ quarter at a 100 yd. target!

 

[gabeNC]

riffle[/U] (whatever that is )

It's what you use on your ex.

 

[Sceadwian]

HiTech is was four pirates and one prisoner, if the sniper couldn't tell who was who after 10 seconds with a night vision scope HE should be shot.

 

[HiTech]

After looking at some nightvision images, I guess I underestimated the technology at hand. I'm used to seeing results from 2nd gen. image intensifiers. The picture below indicates that with ease, a sniper could effectively pick out the target:

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Heck, even aliens can't cloak themselves from our nightvision technology... it even sees through their clothing!!! The sniper only has to determine if he's targeting a male or a female alien!!
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[Sceadwian]

I didn't mention anything about light intensification, I said THERMAL =) You can see through some walls with that. That green screen crap is so last decade. Troops on the field have 'night vision' snipers I'm sure have access to scopes that put them to shame.

 

[HiTech]

But the green nightvision allows for detailed viewing of even faces, Thermal is more of an imprint. If you Google nightvision you'll find many images that show clearly identifiable items/people. You can easily pick out specific people according to their faces. Unless thermal optics have advanced greatly, the image that tyou posted isn't much help for depicting a specific human target... then again maybe Somolian pirates are cold blooded criminals, making it easy to isolate them in the eyepiece!

 

[Sceadwian]

Detailed viewing of human faces, BEHIND objects? Like the tent of the life raft? Sure in open air optical enhancement works great, and yes thermal optics have advanced a LOT. You can buy off the shelf units that can do 320x200 for industrial use. Better models are 640x480. I'm sure the military has access (if not patent rights) on the latest and greatest.

As far as prisoner/captor goes if you have an IQ over 75 you can figure that out yourself just by the positions of the people over a period of time. They don't act the same. That being said, depending on how things actually went down thermal optics may not have been used, but they are very practical an available.