Feral Jundi

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Maritime Security: Germany Authorizes Their Ships To Use Private Armed Security

This is good news for German private security companies and German shipping. With the blessing of their government, now they have a means of securing PSC’s to legally protect their country’s ships. The German shipping market is big as well, so this should lead to an increase of contracts for PSC’s in this market.

I also like the quote about the monopoly of the use of force. All I can say is Max Weber is rolling in his grave right now! lol

The government had until now always rejected such a solution, unwilling to give up the state’s monopoly on the use of legitimate force.

But seriously, this was the right move. If the state cannot provide that protection because of other commitments or a lack of government funding, then of course allowing private industry to contract with PSC’s is the next best thing.  The shipping companies can also choose the best company that meets their needs.

The other interesting quote was the study that was done on how many shipping companies had already contracted armed security:

Shipping firms have started taking matters into their own hands, with a study published last week by the consultancy firm PwC showing 27 German ships already carry armed security men on board, with a further six employing unarmed security operatives. Just 17 percent of the 100 firms questioned said they thought the ‘Atalanta’ mission added to safety in the pirate regions.
The Association of German Ship Owners (VDR) confirmed the move towards employing armed guards, but said it was only a second-best solution.

If just 27 ships out of this survey group of 100 have armed security, and that only 17 % thought the Atalanta task force mission of protection was successful, then do the math?  Not to mention an increase of attacks on German boats. The German PSC market should see pretty drastic growth now that the government is blessing this, and those companies positioned to be first movers on this market will do well. Did I mention that German ship owners control 3,500 ships, the world’s third largest fleet? Interesting stuff. –Matt

Ships turn to private security to fight pirates
July 21, 2011
German ships braving the waters off Somalia will now be able to officially employ private security firms to fight off attacks by pirates, after the government admitted it could not provide the protection itself.
State secretary in the economics ministry responsible for maritime affairs, Hans-Joachim Otto, said on Thursday that he could not answer the repeated calls from shipping companies for soldiers or armed police officers to accompany their boats.
“We don’t want desperadoes, so we are looking into a certification,” said Otto. He said security firms offering protection would have to meet certain standards. The government had until now always rejected such a solution, unwilling to give up the state’s monopoly on the use of legitimate force.
He said the number of pirate attacks on German ships had risen from 100 to 163 during the first half of 2011. The number of successful hijackings had dropped though, from 27 in the first half of 2010 to 21 in the first six months of this year.

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Thursday, February 24, 2011

Fish And Game: Jager Pro Thermal Hog Control

     “I quickly found that hunting in the daytime, the traditional way, I wasn’t very effective… I saw how effective thermal technology was in combat, and from what I see, farmers and ranchers are at war with feral hogs in the United States. So, it just made common sense to me,” said Rod.

     Wow, this is cool. What do you get when you combine a combat veteran, thermal night vision equipment, military grade weapons, and cutting edge hunting methods for guided pig hunts?  You get one hell of a hog eradication service, and that is what this country needs right now.

    Enter Jager Pro Thermal Hog Control out of Columbus, Georgia.  This company is not only brutally efficient in eradicating these things, but they are also in the business of taking folks out on guided night hunts to turn a profit.  Just imagine if Jager Pro became a franchise and these guys were able to take this concept to the next level? (they do day hunts as well)

     Feral hogs are a huge problem and I have talked about this in the past.  Even here in Idaho there are sightings of feral pigs in the south and this state’s game officials are concerned about their possible growth here. In Texas and the rest of the south, they are really bad and it is an all out war to eradicate these things. The amount of damage to crops and land they do is costing millions and the reproduction rates of pig are worse than rabbits. It is often referred to as the ‘Pig Bomb’.

     The other thing that jumped out at me was the concept of the ‘Judas Pig’.  Basically this is a strategy derived from a method of eradicating goats in Hawaii back in the eighties. The way it works is they strap a locator beacon on a pig and let them loose in an area. Because these animals are social, they tend to look for their fellow pigs or goats and graze or mate with them. If hunters want to find their prey, they just follow the Judas Pig (usually a young female pig or gilt) and then kill her new found buddies.  It is a method that is being employed all over the world with excellent success.

     Does this sound familiar guys and gals?  Pseudo-operations is what this is, and this is a very simplistic example of how effective it can be when applied to hog hunting.  The trick for warfare is finding that pseudo operator (s) that will lead you to the enemy–either willingly or unwillingly. Which is an interesting question?  I wonder if any Judas Pigs figured out that they were causing so much death and purposely avoided contact with other pigs? hmmm.

     I was thinking what would be really cool for this deal was to combine the Judas Pig concept with a geo-locating mobile app for smart phones.  That way hunters could participate in following the various Judas Pigs that have been released into the wild, all by pulling out a smart phone and seeing what lights up on their GPS enabled map. Jager Pro could offer this app to customers on a subscription basis, or use some other method of monetizing the thing.  Each Jager Pro pin on the map could have different types of information, like if it was a female or male, or how many pigs have been eradicated by using this pig.  It would be one way of making it easier for hunters to do their thing out there, and quicken the eradication process.

     Also, in Texas I am told that you can sell wild pig meat.  But the animal has to be alive when you sell it. They want to test the pig for diseases and whatnot before slaughtering it and selling the meat.  But still, that would be one way of making a little coin off of this deal. Very innovative, and Rod Pinkston of Jager Pro definitely gets a thumbs up from FJ. –Matt

Link to Jager Pro website here.

Facebook for Jager Pro here.

The War On Wild Hogs Using Military Tactics

Using thermal-imaging technology to put the crosshairs on feral hogs.

By Drew Hall

June 2008

 It’s 0100 hours and pitch-black dark as my team and I await our target’s arrival. We’d been briefed just hours before of the mass amount of damage our targets have caused. These beasts have destroyed other’s means of life, they’ve taken hard-earned crops away from farmers and they’ve had little to no regret about any of it. At least, not until tonight. For most of them, tonight will be the end. And for those who survive the assault, they won’t be returning to this area any more.

We lay in silence — waiting. Our team leader whispers the targets should be arriving any minute, their nightly routine rarely changes much. Little did they know, their own routine would be the death of them. They spend the heat of the day hiding in the swamps and thick woods, then they leave the safety of the swamps to devastate the land around them.

Suddenly, we spot a group of targets at more than a half-mile away. Our thermal-imagery optics allow us to view the presence of heat at extreme distances. We decide to start the stalk instead of waiting them out. We need to complete the mission quickly; we don’t have time to wait. After an hour-long stalk in a tactical formation, we are within 50 yards of our targets which have no idea anything is amiss. We spread out in kneeling and prone positions and take aim. The first shot rings out as muzzle fire exits our leader’s rifle. A barrage of rifle fire follows as all but a few of the targets fall to the ground. Some manage to escape, but the chain of command has been broken, and they won’t return.

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Monday, February 14, 2011

Military News: A German Foreign Legion?

     Now this is interesting.  Germany has scrapped the whole conscription thing in favor of an all volunteer force. Now what they do to get recruits will be anyone’s guess?  France does the whole Foreign Legion thing, and here in the US we have about 29,000 non-US citizens serving in our military. Not to mention all the non-US citizens serving as contractors and subcontractors overseas.  There are many ways to build an army and keep it manned based on the requirements of the time. –Matt

Germany mulls foreign recruits for army

Only EU nationals to the Bundeswehr

Germany mulls foreign recruits for army

13/02/2011

Germany could recruit foreigners into its army as part of a plan to ensure it has enough manpower now that conscription has effectively been scrapped, a defence ministry official said at the weekend.

“We have to broaden the regulations to allow residents in Germany to be recruited into the armed services, if they are suitable, even if they are not German nationals,” said a draft defence ministry plan, cited by Focus weekly.

A ministry official confirmed to AFP that this was one of the measures under consideration to “increase the attractiveness of army service.”

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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Maritime Security: German Shipowners Turn To Private Security For Protection Against Pirates

      “Every economic sector bears the primary responsibility for the safety of its employees.” For Berlin, a proposal like Stolberg’s poses legal problems, partly because most German ships are registered in low-cost nations. But if the ship owners are now forced to hire private mercenaries, the shipowners’ association countered, it would be a “failure of the state and a return to the Middle Ages.”

     The Ernst Komrowski shipping company will now have its 20 ships protected by armed guards. When the German Interior Ministry told the Hamburg-based company that it could not deploy armed men on a container ship registered in Germany, the company registered the ship under a flag of convenience. Now the laws of Liberia apply on board.

     A ‘return to the middle ages’? lol We are talking about armed security guards on boats, and not hiring the German Landsknecht to take out the Swiss Guard.

     But where we are at right now, the state’s current methods of stopping this piracy scourge is not working.  Or better yet, the main states involved with implementing strategy have failed to eliminate the threat of piracy and have failed to protect ships.  That is unacceptable to me, as it was unacceptable to Pompey or Woodes Rogers.

     What is cool about this article is that it highlights what the German shipping industry has had to resort to in order to insure the safety of their crews.  They gave their government and other countries a chance to take care of the problem and this is the end result–turning to private industry.

     The quote up top also mentioned an interesting tactic that German shipowners are having to use in order to get armed security on their boats.  If their government won’t allow armed security, then register the vessels under a flag of convenience that will allow that kind of security. Liberia was mentioned and I am sure there are others out there that would work too.

     The article also mentioned a few maritime security companies involved with protecting all of these German owned ships (German ship owners control 3,500 ships, the world’s third-largest commercial fleet). Those companies are Hart Security and Templar Titan. I would expect more German security companies to come forward for providing protective services to meet the demands of these ship owners. So it was odd that they did not find any for this article.

     Finally, the article mentioned something that I forecasted here on the blog.  That the pirates would eventually use the tactic of boarding ships with blow torches so they can breach the ‘safety rooms’. The pirates are also entering the realm of torturing their captives, probably to put pressure on hostage negotiations and get that fat ransom.  All I know is that private armed guards on a boat is about your best option for protecting a vessel these days. It is a shame that it has taken this long, and with this many expensive and deadly lessons, for shipowners to come to this obvious conclusion. –Matt

Escalation off Somalia: German Shipowners Turn to Mercenaries to Protect against Pirates

02/01/2011

By Clemens Höges, Holger Stark and Andreas Ulrich

An attempt to rescue the pirated German freighter Beluga Nomination off the coast of Somalia ended in tragedy, with at least one crew member dead. Now shipowners are demanding that the German military protect their ships. Some have already resorted to hiring armed guards.

When he received the distress call on the afternoon of Saturday, Jan. 22, the officer on duty at the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) office in Dubai could hear immediately that someone was firing live ammunition. The ship, apparently in serious trouble, identified itself as the Beluga Nomination, a German freighter. When the pirates attacked, the Beluga Nomination was located in the middle of the Indian Ocean, more than 700 kilometers (435 miles) north of the Seychelles.

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Sunday, November 14, 2010

History: The Gunner And The U-Boat, By Hugh Perkins

     To the victor the spoils. There was an immediate cash gratuity to be shared among Inverlyon’s reservist crew members. All hands were also eligible for Admiralty bounty money, but that would not be forthcoming until April 1923*. Gunner Jehan was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, a well-deserved accolade for a surprisingly successful action in which a lot of nerve, nine rounds of 3-pounder and a few dozen rounds of small arms ammunition sank a U-boat. The Admiralty also singled out the actions and steadiness of the gun’s crew and Skipper Philip’s attempt to rescue the German submariner.

     This is a great little story about a Q-ship versus a U-boat during World War One. It would take a lot of nerve for the captain of a scamp (see below) to take on a submarine. Especially the type that had sunk so many British and Allied vessels during that war.

    The concept of the Q-ship was developed during this war and it was referenced here on the blog as a possible strategy to use against today’s pirates. Imagine a bunch of modern day yachts, cruising around the gulf with some Barrett’s and RPG’s just looking for trouble? lol

    I also wanted to highlight how this Q-ship crew was used for warfare. They were all brought into the Royal Navy auxiliary as volunteers, and they were paid with ‘immediate cash gratuity’ and with Admiralty (Navy command) bounties for every German U-boat crew member killed. (£5 per crewman on a submarine) Hmmm, paying bounties for killing the enemy–now that doesn’t get much attention for that war.

    The really funny part about this story was the fact that after this little sailboat sank the U-boat, the submarine actually got hung up in the fishing net they had been pulling behind them. Talk about a big fish? lol

     Boy, if any movie folks out there are looking for a cool story, this would make for a great short film. It truly is a modern day version of David and Goliath and high seas bounty hunting. –Matt

 

This is what a ‘smack’ would have looked like during that time.

The Gunner and the U-Boat

September 2008

By Hugh Perkins

A lone gunner on a small trawler dueled a German U-boat to the finish in a David and Goliath-type contest

The story of the U-boat war against Allied merchant shipping during The Great War is one of enormous tragedy, incredible human suffering, sacrifice and bravery, Destruction of lives and ships on such a massive scale and by such an unusual means had never before happened in the history of the seafaring world. Once the potential inherent in the U-boats had been tested, the German Admiral staff did its utmost to isolate Great Britain from outside support, first with a U-boat blockade of the British Isles and later, through the wholesale destruction of her sea-borne trade on the high seas far from war-torn Europe. The German objective was to bring Britannia to her knees through starvation thus putting an end to the war on German terms. They came alarmingly close to succeeding.

During 1915, when the U-boat force began its first concerted campaign and shipping losses started to rise, the Royal Navy found itself completely unprepared to deal with the submersible marauders. Both the Admiralty and the mercantile community cast about for solutions to the problem.

Convoy, a defensive tactic that had been employed with success in sailing ship days, was not favored by either group. The Admiralty did not have the escort ships and the steamship captains did not want to give up their independence. Other means of protecting the merchant fleet were sought.

The first countermeasure to be tried was the containment of the U-boats using mine fields, nets and patrols. This was continued throughout the course of the war and ultimately mines destroyed more U-boats than any other single means. Another idea, and that best liked by the mercantile community, was to arm merchant ships so that by a combination of speed, maneuvering and gunfire they could fight it out with their adversaries.

This worked fairly well for the large, fast, modern ships when the U-boat cooperated by surfacing first, and many a steamer was actually saved by these tactics. Mounting a gun on a merchantman, however, had its drawbacks for it gave the U-boat captain the excuse he needed to sink the ship without warning. For the multitude of slow steamers, older ships and sailing vessels there was no real safety and they paid heavily. The best that could be done was to provide them with wireless sets so that ships in distress could at least call for help within the limited range of the early instruments.

Another solution was the creation of the now-famous Q-ships, an assortment of converted merchant vessels and small warships built to resemble merchant ships, manned by Naval crews and armed with concealed guns, depth charges and even torpedo tubes. These ships plied the trade routes like any other innocent merchantmen, sometimes under neutral colors, in the hopes of being challenged by German submarines, much like bait in a mobile trap. When a U-boat’s periscope was sighted, or one surfaced nearby and ordered them to heave-to, a “panic party” dressed as merchant seamen would tumble into the lifeboats and abandon ship while the gun crews stayed under cover at their hidden guns. Once the U-boat came within easy range, the white ensign was run up, the shields were dropped and the guns opened fire to destroy the submarine before it could dive out of danger.

At least, that was the idea. Sometimes it worked very well, sometimes not. Occasionally the Uboat would torpedo the Q-ship without ever revealing herself. On a number of occasions, better armed German submarines stood-off and shelled the Q-ship either forcing her to open fire prematurely to save herself or reducing the “trapship” to a sinking condition before she could bring her guns into action. There were some very lively actions between decoy ships and submarines with casualties aplenty on both sides.

Q-ships came in all shapes and sizes but one of the earliest, and most humble, must have been the converted fishing vessel known as His Majesty’s Armed Smack Inverlyon. She was based at Lowestoft on the Suffolk coast. Like dozens of her ilk, Inverlyon was a bluff-bowed, flushdecked, two-masted, fore-and-aft rigged, little vessel sporting a stubby bowsprit. She had no engine and relied entirely on a suit of patched, broom, canvas sails and the skill of her crew for mobility. For armament, Inverlyon was fitted with a single 3pounder (47mm) quick-firer, a popgun by anybody’s standards but about all that could be carried in such a small vessel.

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