According to today’s edition of The South African Star,
| Pirate smiled as he fired bazooka at cruise liner | |
| Mahe, Seychelles – A World War 2 veteran wielding a camera found himself facing a smiling attacker armed with a grenade launcher. Another holidaymaker escaped injury because she was taking a bath, and not in the ship’s stateroom where an explosive landed. | |
| Passengers of the Seabourn Spirit yesterday described moments of panic and luck after docking in the Seychelles after pirates in speedboats chased their luxury cruise liner at sea. | |
| […] | |
| Yesterday, a day after the attack off the coast of Somalia, a maritime watchdog report warned of an increased risk of violent hijackings off Somalia, where the number shot up from one last year to 19 between January and September this year. | |
| The British-based International Maritime Bureau said the number of pirate attacks worldwide in the first nine months of the year fell to 205 – their lowest level in six years. This was an 18% drop from the 251 cases in the same period last year. | |
| According to Charles Forsdick, a Durban passenger on the Seabourn Spirit, some holidaymakers were lucky to escape with their lives in the weekend attack. | |
| […] | |
| “It was a very frightening experience,” Charles Supple, of Fiddletown, California, recalled. | |
| The retired physician and World War 2 veteran said he started to take a photograph of a pirate craft, and “the man with the bazooka aimed it right at me and I saw a big flash”. | |
| “Needless to say, I dropped the camera and dived. The grenade struck two decks above and about four rooms further forward,” Supple said. | |
| “I could tell that the guy firing the bazooka was smiling.” | |
| […] | |
| The gunmen never got close enough to board the cruise ship, but one member of the 161-person crew was injured by shrapnel, according to the Seabourn Cruise Line. |
Readers should be aware that what witnesses were calling a “bazooka” was most likely an RPG launcher.
But the most interesting part of the article is this:
| Captain Sven Erik Pederson fired a sonic weapon at the pirates. The acoustic weapon, developed by the US Navy, projects a blast of air strong enough to knock a man off his feet. The blast kept the attackers at bay long enough for the liner to reach full speed and change course. |
Wouldn’t you like to have one of those?
I invite the experts on military weapons among our readers to comment with more details about these “sonic weapons.”
This is the only device I know of that fits the description (except it does not fire a “blast of air” as such.)
Long Range Sonic Device
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
Here it is
Here is a better description with some pics.
Papa Ray
Boy, you guys are great with the links!
Did you notice that the wiki article had already included the Somali pirate story?
Notice:
Baron, I want one for Christmas.
~D
It uses Directed Energy according to some material I just found searching one of the OFF* mail lists I’m on. Guy says he was present at some LAPD tests where they were listening to a Sinatra record, in detail, at some impossible distance. If they walked out the path all they could hear was freeway again. “Sounds” like one of those flat radar arrays on the missile cruisers. He says that they only qual as non lethal at specific energy levels.
Kewl! Now make one that is man portable with a range of about two miles+. I have just the sound. Imagine Achmed and his buddies standing around thinking they are out of range. Suddenly Achmeds head explodes like the scanners movie. Achmed has been killed by Allah’s Fart of Death. The word Allah superimposed on a large blattering flatulence.
Think of the outrage of the islamofascists and the Left and their attempts to even get anyone to listen to them. Think of the news anchors trying to say, “This just in…”
When I was a teen we used to do Cuts; like “Yo mama” for white boys. Very quick outrageous insults. Ben and I were in a youth hostel in Denmark when two Algerian kids started in on the Imperialist US meme of the time. Rather than engage on their level we went to Cuttin’. It was completely outside their cultural framework not only were we not taking them seriously we we insulting them so fast they couldn’t even reply. The European kids were aghast and the Algerians dissolved; first one then the other began to cry tears of outrage. Finally the hostel father threw us out and we had to spend the night in the train station.
I learned a lesson in warfare that night. Fight completely outside your opponents frame of reference. That’s why I advocate the smoke grenade that smells like smoked ham and the Bacon Bomb. And, the dog shit land mine. It says to your opponent; Oh yeah, we’re gonna kill ya’. “But, we’re gonna play with you a while too. Like a cat with a mouse.” It really doesn’t matter if they are pork or dog adverse. I think everybody would be dog shit splatter adverse; and it is a non lethal weapon. I know guys, one leg nearly blown off, keep fighting. How about if they just got doused with a vomit grenade? Can you keep your stomach under control when one of your kids does a Campbell Chunky Soup thing down your front? You will be a least, distracted and at best heaving your cookies. What would be running through your mind? The American infidels puked on me. I can’t believe this.
This is just an extension of one of the oldest psy-ops actions in the world; Showing Your Ass to the Enemy. Here! Kiss this; mo’fo.
EVERYONE OF THESE has been seriously proposed at one time or another. No commander in his right mind will approve, ever. War has to be a serious business. They even make the troops turn off speakers blaring rock and rap at the opposition. So, don’t look for any Company C for Clown too soon.
OFF=Old Fat Farts
These guys are down the street from me. Woody Norris is the CEO and he is a genius. I don’t know if it was developed as a weapon or a commercial product but I know that there are variations for both. Imagine walking next to a coke machine and hearing the jingle as you walk by but nowhere else. A few years ago, they were testing this on unsuspecting shoppers at a local strip mall. It’s neat stuff. Kind of like a beam forming antenna in audio.
The captain was also quoted in today’s National Post as saying he heard a distress call as the Seabourn Spirit left the scene at full speed. The distress call seemingly came from another ship being attacked. The captain ignored the call because he was certain it was from the pirate’s mother ship located not far away and it was a ruse.
I always thought it strange the pirates (or terrorists) could operate so far away from shore in small craft – I only heard yesterday the Spirit was 160 km. (100 miles) off shore. Now I know why. There was a report of a rusted old ship out there – likely using radar to locate the passing ships. Anyone got a submarine in the area for a bit of target practice?
With regard to the mother ship and finding prey: It is also possible that if the ship had just cleared the Bab al Mandeb (between Somalia and Yemen) or was about to go through, then they would have had to schedule the transit, as the strait is quite narrow.
It is not difficult to imagine that someone in the traffic control office has a cell phone and funny friends.
Holy Loudspeaker, Batman!
Maybe out of solidarity (with a bit of Schadenfreude mixed in) we could offer several dozen of these babies to the French for crowd control?