Pirate weaponary
Last Friday the Portuguese frigate Corte Real (not be be confused with the ex-USS McCoy Reynolds, which had the same name when it was in Portuguese service) was called to the aid of an oil tanker being attacked by Somali pirates. After foiling the attack, which probably took no more than one burst of their Oerlikon 20mm auto-cannon, they launched a helicopter which followed the small boats back to the mother ship, a fishing boat. The mother ship was boarded and 19 pirates were captured.
These photos from NATO show the weapons captured (click to expand).
Chinese Type 56-2 (AK-47 clone), bunch of other AKs and a Chinese Type 69 RPG
Bored looking guy babysitting rifles
Raise your hands in the air like you just don’t care!
Just the kind of weapons you would expect the pirates to be carrying. Rust prevention does not appear to be a major concern. I would hate to see what condition the bores are in!
Soon after the capture the pirates were released on shore. Under international law pirates can be prosecuted in any country. Unfortunately a “live fire” training opportunity is one thing, but few countries or politician want the expense of pirate filled prisions.
When you can’t afford a locker for the “weapons locker,” I suppose a milk crate will do.
Nick, LOL
I was hoping that they’d have put a round thru the boat and sunk it, with all hands (tsk, too bad, we got there too late to save anyone).
But, since you said that they put the “crew” on shore, I’m hoping that at the least they towed the boat back out into deep waters and sunk it, with all armaments.
Plus, summarily executing pirates is legal… Better yet you just don’t publicize it, they just disappear, that way you don’t risk backlash by the media, and Somalia will get the message when their male population drops like a stone.
It’s amazing those things even fire… actually, I wonder if they do.
Which evil American gun show do you suppose they got all those Chinese assault weapons at?
Next thing we will be hearing is that 90% of all the pirates guns traced back to American gun shops.
French navy also arrested 11 pirates last week. Pirates thought the french war boat was a tanker while approaching it from the back and were in for a big surprise when the boat started to turn around.
On another note I just seen the french hostage that was killed during an assault a couple weeks ago was fatally wounded by a french soldier.
This story is racist! I demand it be pulled down immediately! Where are all the White Christian pirates?!
I was a little mislead when I clicked on this one. I was expecting maybe to see an old blunderbuss or maybe a cutlass, still a good article.
All pirate weaponry comes from America, don’t you guys know that? lol
Pirates and looters…same fate…shoot on site.
why bother wasting a bullet once you’ve captured them
just toss them overboard in the open ocean. it’s not like they’ll be able to swim to shore
Do us a favor and save your bullets for the enemy.