[Milsurplus] OT: Somali Pirates

[J. Forster]

Forwarded,
-John

==================

Your "Real" story is not exactly the way I heard it, and probably
has a few political twists thrown in to stir the pot.  Rather than
me trying to correct it, I'll just tell you what I heard from
contacts at NSWC Norfolk and SOCOM Tampa.

First, I'll orient you.  In Africa from Djibouti at the southern
end of the Red Sea eastward through the Gulf of Aden to Cape
Guardafui at the easternmost tip of Africa (known as the Horn of Africa),
before you stand out into the Indian Ocean, is a roughly 600 nm transit.
This transit is comparable in distance to that from the mouth of the
Mississippi at New Orleans to the tip of Florida at Key West.
However, the east-African 600 nm is infested with Somali pirates.

Ships turning southward at the Horn of Africa transit the Sea
Lane of Commerce along the east coast of Somalia because a strong
current flows southward there.  It's about 1,500 nm to Mombassa,
which is just south of the equator in Kenya.  This transit is comparable in
distance to the transit from Portland, ME, down the east coast of the
US to Miami, FL.  In other words, the stretch of ocean being patrolled
by our naval forces off the coast of Somalia is comparable to that in
the Gulf of Mexico from the mouth of the Mississippi River east to
Miami and then up the eastern seaboard to Maine.

Second, you should know that the distance from our Naval Operating Base in
Norfolk, VA, east across the Atlantic to North Africa, thence
across the Med to Suez in Egypt, thence southward down the Red Sea to
Djibouti at the Gulf of Aden, thence eastward to round Cape Guardafui
at the easternmost tip of Africa, and thence southerly some 300 miles
down the east cost of Somali out into the high seas of the Indian
Ocean to the position of MV ALABAMA is a little more than 7,000 nm.
Local time at this position is nine hours ahead of EST.  A C-17
transport averaging a little better than 400 kts (SOG) takes nearly
18 hours to make this trip.

Late Thursday night, a team of Navy SEALs from NSWC (Naval
Surface Warfare Center) Norfolk parachuted from such a C-17 into the black
water of the Indian Ocean, close to our 40,000 ton amphibious assault
ship USS BOXER (LHD 4), the flagship of our Expeditionary Strike
Group in the Area Of Responsibility.  They not only parachuted in with all
of their "equipment"; they also had their own rigid-hull inflatable
boats (RHIBs) with them.  They entered BOXER's landing dock, debarked,
and staged for the rescue -- all on Thursday night.

The SEAL team's quick response -- departing ready-alert within
less than 4 hours from Norfolk -- surprised POTUS's staff.  President
Obama was miffed that the SEALs arrived on-scene before "his" people
did.  Reportedly, he had asked his staff, "Will 'my' FBI people get
there before the Navy does?"  BHO wanted the FBI to negotiate the
release of Captain Phillips peacefully.  He did not trust the
military, whom he regarded as "Bush" people.  The FBI warned him
that its people were not trained and equipped to operate at sea,
whereas the Navy SEALs were; but the POTUS insisted.  Anyway, it took
the FBI almost 12 hours to assemble a team and get it packed to go.

The FBI's passenger jet took nearly 14 hours at 500+ knots to get
to Djibouti.  BOXER'S helos transported the FBI team from there to
the ship.  When POTUS's FBI team arrived, the Navy SEALs were already
there, staged, and ready to act.  Before the FBI team arrived, early
Friday morning, the Navy's On-Scene Commander (OSC) requested
permission to rescue Captain Phillips by taking out the pirates, but
his request was denied.

The FBI snipers had never practiced shooting from one rolling,
pitching, yawing, surging, swaying, heaving platform, at a target on
an independently moving platform floating on the high sea.  However,
generations of Navy snipers have practiced this.  Admiral Nelson
trained Marines to shoot muskets from a ship's rigging.  Ironically,
he himself was killed at sea, in HMS VICTORY, at the Battle of
Trafalgar, by a rifleman who shot him from the rigging of a French
ship.

When I was training at USNA in 1955, a Small Arms Training Unit
was based at our Little Creek amphib base.  Now, Navy SEALs -- in
particular SEAL Team Six (The "DevGru") based at NSWC (Naval Surface
Warfare Center) at Little Creek -- do that training; and they hone
their skills daily.  Shooting small arms from a ship is a special
art. When you are "in the bubble" and "in tune" with the harmonic
motions, you are able to put three .308 slugs inside the head of a
quarter at 100 meters, day or night, even behind a camouflage net.
Our monocular scopes can "see" heat and draw a bead on it.  SEALs are
absolutely expert at this, and have video clips to prove it.

Now to the rescue of Captain Phillips --

Early Wednesday morning, 4/8/2009, MV ALABAMA was in the IO
about 300 miles off the (east) coast of Somalia en route to Mombassa.
Pirates threatened her with weapons.  MV ALABAMA's captain made a distress
call by radio, and ordered his Engineer to shut down the ship's main
engines and also the electrical generators -- in ourlingo, to "go dark and
cold."  He told his crew what was happening,and ordered them to go to an
out-of-the-way compartment and lock themselves in -- from the inside.  He
would stay in the pilot house to "negotiate" with the pirates.

The pirates boarded, captured the Captain, and ordered him to
start the engines.  He said he would order his Engineer to do so, and he
called down to Engine Control on the internal communication system,
but got no answer.  The lead pirate ordered two of his four men to
go down and find him and get the engines started.

Inside a ship with no lights is the definition of dark.  The people
who work and live there have the advantage.  They jumped the two
pirates in a dark passageway.  Both pirates lost their weapons, but one
managed to scramble away.  The other, they tied up; they put tape over his
mouth and held a knife at his throat.

Other members of the crew opened the drain cocks on the pirates'
boat, and cast it adrift.  It foundered and sunk.  The scrambling
pirate made it back to the pilot house and reported to his boss.  The
pirates forced the Captain to launch a rescue boat (not a life boat).  As
he was lowering this boat, the crew appeared with the other pirate and
negotiated a prisoner exchange.  But the crew let its prisoner go too
soon, and the pirates kept the captain.  But the captain purposefully had
lowered the rescue boat such that its lines would foul.

The pirates jumped into a lifeboat but, as they released it, the
captain jumped into the water.  They fired at him, made him stop, and
pulled him out of the water.

Now, as night fell in the vastness of the Indian Ocean, we had a
classic "Mexican" standoff:  A life-boat adrift with no propulsion
except oars and paddles; and, a huge (by comparison) Motor Vessel
Container Ship adrift with a crew that was not going to leave its
captain behind.  The pirates were under the lifeboat's shelter-
covering, holding the captain as their hostage.  The crew hunkered
down in their ship waiting for the Navy to arrive.

USS BAINBRIDGE (DDG 96) responded to ALABAMA's distress call.  At
max. sustainable speed, she arrived on-scene the next day -- that is,
in the dark of early Thursday morning.  BAINBRIDGE arrived quietly
and slowly, a darkened ship with no lights.  In a recorded interview, the
Chief Engineer of MV ALABAMA described BAINBRIDGE's arrival.  He said
it was "a **** to see the Navy slide in there like a greyhound!";
that, as she slipped in closer and he saw the "Stars and Stripes"
flying from her masthead, he choked up; and that it was the "proudest
moment of my life."

Earlier in the day, one of the U.S. Navy's Maritime Patrol
Aircraft,
   a fixed wing P3C, flew over to recon the scene.  It dropped a buoy
with a radio so that a Navy interpreter could talk with the pirates.
However, when BAINBRIDGE arrived, the pirates thought that the
radio was a homing beacon, so they threw it overboard.  They wanted a
satellite telephone so they could call home for help.  Apparently, they
didn't know that we could monitor their 'phone call.

MV ALABAMA gave them a satellite phone.  They called someone in
Eyl, Somalia, who said he'd come out right away, with other hostages, in
two pirated ships.  Right -- and the tooth fairy will let you have sex
with her.  So ESG watched Eyl for any ships standing out.

SEAL Team Six had briefed the OSC (Commander Castellano, CO
BAINBRIDGE) on how they could rescue the captain from the life boat
with "Combat Swimmers"; but that plan had been denied by POTUS because it
involved killing the pirates.  When the FBI negotiators arrived on-
scene, they talked the pirates into sending their wounded man over for
treatment. This was Saturday morning.  Saturday afternoon, the SEALs sent
their RHIB with food and water, but mainly to recon the lifeboat.  The
pirates shot at the RHIB.  The SEALs, having been fired upon, asked again
for permission to take out the pirates; but again their request was
denied.

The FBI negotiators told the pirates that bad weather was approaching. 
Storm clouds could, in fact, be seen on the horizon. At dusk, BAINBRIDGE
offered to tow the lifeboat to shore.  The pirates agreed to accept a tow.
 BAINBRIDGE towed them in its wake at 30 meters
-- exactly 30 meters, exactly the distance at which the SEALs
practice shooting skills.

The lifeboat, riding comfortably bow-down on BAINBRIDGE's wake-
wave ("rooster tail"), moved very regularly, sinusoidally, with a 17-
second period.  At half-period (8.5 s) intervals, it was stationary.
The thermal-IR monocular scopes on the SEALs' .308 Mark 11 Mod 0 H&K
sniper rifles imaged their targets very clearly.  The pirates in the
were sitting ducks.  The only complication was that the plexiglass
window in the lifeboat's cover would have to be taken out first so
that it would not deflect the .308 bullets.  So, one of the four
snipers would take out the window with a wad-cutter bullet a fraction of
second before the three other snipers took their kill-shots.  There would
be no change in sight-picture when the window blew out.

BHO's "whiz kids" knew as well as the Navy hierarchy, including
CO BAINBRIDGE and CO SEAL Team Six, that the law -- in Article 19 of
Appendix L in the "Convention of the High Seas" -- states that the
CO of a US Ship on the high seas is obligated to respond to a
distress signal from any flagged ship (US or otherwise), and to protect
the life and property thereof, when _he_ deems it to be in IMMINENT
DANGER.

So "imminent danger" was Captain Castellano's call and he was duty-bound
to act; he did not need and he did not ask for permission.

At first light (from the east) on Easter Sunday morning, the
pirates saw that they were being towed further out to sea (instead of
westward toward land).  They were upset :-) and the wounded pirate
demanded to be returned to the lifeboat, but there would be no more
negotiations.  The four snipers "in the bubble" "unlocked."

When the pirate holding Captain Philips raised his gun to
Philips'head, IMMINENT DANGER was observed.  This observation was noted in
the Log, and CO BAINBRIDGE ordered "WEAPONS RELEASED."

I can hear the echo in my earpiece now.  "On my count, 3, 2, 1,
POP (out goes the window) and BANG! (three simultaneous head-shots).
Game over.  Navy 3, Pirates 0.