A machine gun pops out when the ship gets boarded, sinks the pirate's boat and sails towards the closest naval ship with the captured pirates on board.
I'd have the specially made gun hidden in the mast that would swing out and have a hight vantage point and 360 degree free range of fire. It would be hardened so shooting back at it wouldn't do anything.
A few dozen of these sailing piraty waters at any given time would be a good reason for pirates to get a job doing something else, like seating people at seafood themed restaurants for example.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2011 Half life jackets Half_20life_20jacketsPerfect [8th of 7, Feb 23 2011] Here's the life preserver I'd throw them. http://vocabmadeeas...s/2011/01/anvil.jpg [doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2011] Black Hawk Down 2: The search for Curlys gold. http://en.wikipedia...of_Mogadishu_(1993) [rcarty, Feb 24 2011] automated AA guns kills soldiers 2007 http://www.itweb.co...erospace-technology [not_morrison_rm, Feb 24 2011] Homan Projector http://en.wikipedia...ki/Holman_ProjectorCute little thing ... [8th of 7, Feb 24 2011] Q Ship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-shipLove that "HM Armed Smack" [mouseposture, Feb 25 2011] 1976 Cod war, two NATO countries vessels ramming each other http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V/s_T%C3%BDrI'm sure it gave the Warsaw Pact a laugh or two at the time [not_morrison_rm, Feb 25 2011] Here's a pretty big sailboat http://www.largeyac...hens-sea-angel.htmlNote, no crow's nest. [RayfordSteele, Feb 25 2011] Here's an even bigger one http://www.largeyac..._id=75177&curr_id=7Note, still no crow's nest. [RayfordSteele, Feb 25 2011] Ok, here's a little boat with a crow's nest. http://www.google.c...79&biw=1280&bih=657Not that that has anything to do with anything. [doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2011] And another http://www.google.c...88&biw=1280&bih=657 [doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2011] No crow's nest but a man on top of a mast. http://www.irelandi..._05_01_archive.htmlWould this guy firing an AR-15 or even M-249 go "whipping all around"? Of course not. That's way too much mass up there. [doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2011] Some info about shooting from crows nest http://www.globalse...p/sail-tactics3.htm [rcarty, Feb 25 2011] do they have these outside of vancouver? http://www.baitcar.com/ [bob, Feb 26 2011] Probably one or two pirates go aboard first to see what is up. Then machine gun pops up. Remote operator sees pirates staring back from their boat and does not fire, or does. Pirates aboard ship come up behind gun and clip wires leading to remote control apparatus. Pirates then dismantle remote control apparatus for ship engine. They tie their old boat up to ship and sail away in sweet new ship that has a machine gun. They dance a merry Somali jig in front of camera for remote control operator.-- bungston, Feb 23 2011 //Remote operator sees pirates staring back from their boat and does not fire//
And he doesn't fire why?
//Pirates aboard ship come up behind gun and clip wires leading to remote control apparatus.//
Pretty hard to clip the wires on a machine gun while it's blowing your head off. How do you climb up a mast that has a machine gun at the top blazing away at you? And there is no "behind" to a gun that pivots 360 degrees.
Not getting the whole "Operator won't fire the machine gun so this won't work" thing. I guess you could say that about any idea. A blender: "What if they don't push the blend button?" A windshield wiper: "What if they don't flip the on switch?"-- doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2011 I think it should just have a really gluey deck, and be equipped for long-term drifting.
[+]-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 23 2011 [+] but I don't see why you'd wait to be boarded... just sink the pirate ship; if you're feeling "humane" then drop some life-vests into the water.-- FlyingToaster, Feb 23 2011 // life-vests //
Appropriate technology.
<link>-- 8th of 7, Feb 23 2011 Actually I put the "wait to be boarded thing" in to make it seem kinder and gentler.
To be honest, if I'm on the trigger I'm shooting the minute they make their intentions clear.
Here's the life preserver I'd throw 'em. <link>-- doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2011 How do you identify them as pirates. I think they would just become more sophisticated and pretend to be well-wishing fellow sailors who hail your vessel to see if you're ok, then come aboard to check, all the way up to the point where they receive a warning from the mast gun operator. Then they leave and continue their routine until they come across a real target.-- marklar, Feb 24 2011 ...and there was me thinking this was going to be an inflatable full-size container ship.. when the pirates try to board it just deflates..
you could recoup the expense by the selling the video rights to whatever Candid Camera is called these days.
on a more pc note, then maybe stop foreign fishing vessels hoovering up their fish and they wouldn't have a plausible sounding excuse for doing it?-- not_morrison_rm, Feb 24 2011 The Portugese and other Europeans have been overfishing cod etc. from the Grand Banks for decades and Newfies arnt taking hostages.-- rcarty, Feb 24 2011 //(pirates) pretend to be well-wishing fellow sailors who hail your vessel to see if you're ok, then come aboard to check//
Ok, assuming they'd be stupid enough to think anybody would buy that, ("Hey honey! Those nice men in the inflatable boat with AK-47s want to know if we're ok and come aboard to check.") You announce through a loudspeaker that "We're ok, stay off our boat."
If they come on anyway, and you still think they're just concerned citizens, you probably wouldn't get the job of operating this thing like the guy from the previous anno who wouldn't pull the trigger for some reason.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 24 2011 I'm thinking a machine gun at the top of a mast would do some serious damage to the mast for the recoil. Never mind the issues with trying to maintain a working weapon that's mostly stowed away, in a sea- salty environment.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 24 2011 If a human can hold a machine gun and fire it without being damaged, a mast made out of most any material wouldn't have a problem.
If you you wanted to ramp it up and use a 50 cal which would probably be overkill, just use the same material you use to make any other machine gun mount for that particular weapon.
Besides, a standard mast is build to take the full weight of the wind blowing a boat that might be several tons in weight, the recoil from even a large maching gun probably wouldn't do more than shake it a bit.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 24 2011 Dude, in my most recent position as armored fighting vehicle engineer I've designed mounts for 50-cals. It's the impulse control that would be the problem here, not to mention the issue of waves, and the 30-foot lever arm.
Masts are quiet strong, but the tip top doesn't have to deal with the whole of the wind force. They're typically aluminum or carbon fibre to avoid weight problems, which will also be an issue with having an 80 lb gun and 100 lbs of ammo at the top of your sailboat. It might make a good keel, though. Humans have more compliance and aluminum isn't good under essentially hammer blows.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 24 2011 So you're saying it's impossible to mount a machine gun, no matter how small the caliber, on the top of a 15' tall 8 to 10" wide post no matter what material it's made of and no matter how the boat has been configured to accomodate this?
I don't know what a 30' lever arm is so I'd leave that out. This is a fake sail mast made specifically to hold a customized machine gun. It's for shooting, not sailing.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 24 2011 Nevertheless, it's still on top of a 30 foot mast, which happens to be shaking several feet as the waves rock the boat. How are you going to aim it?
200 lbs. up on top of that doesn't sound like a good idea.
If you're not going to sail the boat, then that's perhaps another thing, because this boat would not perform hardly at all, if it could stay righted.
15' is way short for a mast. My dad's 16 foot Hobie Cat has a 26'.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 24 2011 //happens to be shaking several feet as the waves rock the boat. How are you going to aim it?//
Since you're an armored vehicle engineer, I don't need to tell you about actively stabilized gun platforms but I doubt that would be necessary. If the rate of fire caused any problematic deviation, which I seriously doubt, you could adjust the rate of fire as needed.
And you're not threading a needle here, you're probably shooting at an 8 foot long inflatable boat 10 or 20 yards away.
//200 lbs. up on top of that doesn't sound like a good idea.//
Boy, the gun you're proposing that would sink this idea just keeps getting bigger and bigger. An M-249 with a full case of ammo is 50 pounds, but yes, you might not want to put a howitzer up there.
//If you're not going to sail the boat, then that's perhaps another thing, because this boat would not perform hardly at all, if it could stay righted. //
The 50 pound machine gun, 30 or so pounds of aiming cameras and motors would be offset by additional weight in the keel. And obviously it would have an engine and propellor.
Got to respectfully disagree with you Ray, I don't see any insurmountable problem with putting a light machine gun on top of a tall pole. Let me put it this way, if somebody climbed into the crow's nest of a sailboat with a machine gun, would you tell them not to fire it because they'll flip the boat over?-- doctorremulac3, Feb 24 2011 Most sailboats don't have crow's nests these days. For the ones that do, 50 lbs isn't going to matter.
It's not the flipping the boat over, it's the whipping of all that weight on top of a long pole while the boat bobs around, and consequently having to beef up everything to deal with it.
Yes, I'm aware of gun-stabilization systems, even some of the classified bits.
Have you been sailing on the ocean before?-- RayfordSteele, Feb 24 2011 Ok, would you tell somebody climbing into a crow's nest not to fire a machine gun because of the "whipping of all that weight on top of a long pole"?
And what's the problem with beefing up everything as necessary? So far you've decided this has to be a tiny, stock sailboat with a 200 pound 50 caliber machine gun on it's completely unmodified mast. At some point if you say the boat and mast is made out of butter with an M-1 tank strapped to the top with velcro, ok, yea it won't work.
Have I ever been sailing on the ocean? Yes, I know the ocean moves, I've addressed that. But I hear you, you don't believe this would work, I don't agree.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 24 2011 I think the gun maintenance issue is the most relevant towards the idea's shortcomings. Also, the fact that you want the cameras manned (who's gonna sit around and watch that shit all day?). Also, the fact that you think one gun will take care of an entire group of marauding pirates. Also, the fact that you think they won't enslave people and use them for decoys. Also, the fact that you don't consider any legal ramifications of autonomous weaponry. Also, the fact that you didn't use a sticky deck and fake children running around.-- daseva, Feb 24 2011 Presumably the objective is to "dissuade" the pirates from attempting to board.
Great success was achieved at a very low cost in equipment during WWII by the Holman Projector <link>
With almost no deck thrust, no muzzle flash, requiring little maintainance, and capable of using a wide range of ammunition, the Holman was very useful in short range engagements.
<link>
Firing illuminants as any unknown vessel approaches the ship is likely to have a higly deterrent effect. A suitable RADAR or LIDAR would not be too difficult to engineer, and illuminants fired on the approach bearing, wile non-lethal, are going to be a little disconcerting.
A few rounds of 7.62mm tracer from an L1A1 to follow it up are going to give anyone in an inflatable boat cause to consider.-- 8th of 7, Feb 24 2011 //autonomous weaponry// See automated AA gun link.
//fake children running around.// Damn, do they have to be fake?
You can get one problem with having a recoilless weapon, save a bit of wear and tear on the mast, still gonna be a bit heavy though. Although if you made it propane powered (big tank somewhere below decks) and ran it caseless, you can toss out lots of bits like the extractors. There was one German experimental gun from 1944/45 which didn't use a conventional breech lock, it had a piston in a chamber, the gun was fired, the gas went into the chamber and balanced the push of the gas against the bolt, so it stayed closed, save some weight and a lot of parts. Never, ever say it used anywhere else...which seemed a pity.-- not_morrison_rm, Feb 24 2011 I may have mentioned this elsewhere, but a single nuclear warhead would sort Somalia out in no time. Compassion is all very well and good but enough is, surely, enough.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 24 2011 "Kindnes costs nothing, but cruelty is more fun ..."-- 8th of 7, Feb 24 2011 //I think the gun maintenance issue is the most relevant towards the idea's shortcomings.//
The gun would be hidden in a weather tight container and pop out when needed.
//Also, the fact that you want the cameras manned (who's gonna sit around and watch that shit all day?).//
Nobody would need to. Radar and other sensors would detect an approach and set off alarms, at which time the system could be manned.
//Also, the fact that you think one gun will take care of an entire group of marauding pirates.//
Yes, I think a machine gun would take care of an entire group of marauding pirates. That's the kind of job the machine gun was invented for.
//Also, the fact that you think they won't enslave people and use them for decoys.//
This is getting into the kind of argument like "What if they had an aircraft carrier and ten nuclear subs?"
//Also, the fact that you don't consider any legal ramifications of autonomous weaponry.//
It's not autonomous, it's remotely manned. But this thing would work equally well on lawyers.
//Also, the fact that you didn't use a sticky deck and fake children running around.//
The decks might get a little messy after you machine gunned a half dozen pirates off of it. Nothing a firehose wouldn't make short work of.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2011 //It's not autonomous, it's remotely manned. But this thing would work equally well on lawyers.//
Just how many cases of marauding lawyers hijacking vessels on the high seas have there been? The public has a right to know!-- not_morrison_rm, Feb 25 2011 Armed decoys were tried against U-boats in WWII <link>, but proved less effective than the convoy system.-- mouseposture, Feb 25 2011 //Here's an even bigger one (yacht) Note, still no crow's nest//
Ray, buddy. Wait a second, are you so desperate to salvage a victory out of your string of failed arguments that you're now saying that the debate is somehow whether or not modern yachts have crow's nests? Ok, forget the crow's nest that I was using to help visualize, I should have said "Climb up to the top of the mast, hang on with one hand and shoot the machine gun with the other because crow's nests aren't standard issue equipment on sailboats any more." Ok?
But for whatever it's worth, here's a little tiny ten foot boat, much smaller than what I'm proposing with a crow's nest like structure on the top. If somebody fired the machine gun from there would it flip the boat over (link) or make it "whip around"? No, because if the boat is balanced enough to hold a couple of hundred pounds up there the addition of a little recoil from a small machine gun wouldn't be able to cause the structure to "whip around" any more than it would cause a man standing on the ground to "whip around". Any recoil could be easily absorbed by a simple shock absorbing system.
And if you say there are no crows in a boat's crow's nest and post links proving such I'll ignore you. I mean, I like a good debate but this is getting a little off track here.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2011 I doubt Somalia has to be nuked, but a return to the days of volunteerism to fight in Africa like during the Boer War would probably solve the issue as well as perpetuate tribalist racist hatred of a kind only known in Africa for years to come.
I'd volunteer, but just to continue the old Irish tradition of fighting random wars no matter how foolish the allegiance.-- rcarty, Feb 25 2011 doc, I had a much longer post I was going to post to describe all of the holes in this thing, but I decided to simply let it die, because you're not picking up on the issues anyways. So no, I'm not relying on the crow's nest alone.
I'll say this: it's not primarily the gun recoil that I'm concerned about, it's the weight in combination with the height and the waves. Everything on a mast is designed for optimum weight savings, because the impulse forces in the stay wires are tremendous under wave rocking loads.
Gun-stabilization systems are designed to cancel terrain movement, some up and down and some pitch. I'm not certain how they would be able to compensate for violent fore-aft or side-to-side motion.
You can build this thing, just don't expect to sail it.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 25 2011 No, you've pointed out that YOU can't build this thing and sail it. And I'm sure you're right.
I'll leave it at that.
Actually, I'll take that back. I'm sure with a little work you, RayfordSteele COULD make this work.
I'll leave it at that instead. It's nicer.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2011 //but this is getting a little off track here.// When did that ever stop anyone on here?
Anyway It's the crows I feel sorry for, like where are they going to get ear-protectors in their size?-- not_morrison_rm, Feb 25 2011 // this thing would work equally well on lawyers //
Immediate gigantic bun.-- 8th of 7, Feb 25 2011 We have bait cars in vancouver canada. complete with a gps tracker, video surveillance, and remote immobilizer, when they are stolen the car locks up and the engine dies, so the police may apprehend them.-- bob, Feb 26 2011 Love those things. We had a tv show in the U.S. where they stuck cameras in the cars and filmed the whole process, from the thieves stealing the car to the cops dragging them out and arresting them. Great show but a little predictable. "Hey, I bet these guys get arrested too!"
I'd make it interesting and have the show's m.c. come out and say to the perps: "Ok, you're looking at 2 to 5 for grand theft auto. We're going to offer you what we call the lightning round. If you can outrun our cops, you'll get off scott free, but if they catch you, that's an additional 2 years for resisting arrest." Then play that music from Jeopardy while the perps mull it over and the cops in the background stand there smacking their billy clubs into the palm of their hands. "What'll it be guys? Scott free or an extra 2 years?"
Now that's good tv.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 26 2011 Presumably, the cops just beat the shit outta them either way.-- daseva, Feb 26 2011 Either way works for me.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 26 2011 random, halfbakery