HMCS Winnipeg: Dealing with a "Los Angeles street gang"

From Peter Worthington at NewMajority.com:

Canada Goes Pirate Hunting

When the Canadian frigate, HMCS Winnipeg, intercepted Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden last April, some were puzzled that instead of blasting the pirate boat out of the water, the Winnipeg’s helicopter displayed a “stop” sign to dissuade the hijacking.

“The stop sign was mounted beside a machine gun, and the pirates got the message – stop or else,” recalls the skipper of the Winnipeg at the time, Commander Craig Baines, now ashore and due to take a French course before assuming staff duties in Ottawa.

Cdr. Baines feels the term “pirate” is a bit misleading. “They’re more like a Los Angeles street gang,” he says. “Young, hopped up on khat, armed and dangerous, but not thugs – kids mostly, in a high-risk business.”

He was asked if sinking their boats and stringing them up wouldn’t be a more persuasive deterrent than stop signs?

“If we were to catch pirates in the process of attacking or boarding a ship, we’d take such action as necessary,” says Cdr. Baines. “Remember, we are the good guys. We follow rules. Rather than pirates in the popular sense, these people are criminals.”

Each country with ships in NATO’s anti-pirate mission to keep the sea lanes open around Somalia, has its own rules about piracy. The French have been aggressive, and on occasion hostages have been killed [see 2) here]...

When the 134 meter-long, 5,000 ton Canadian warship comes along side a 25 to 40-foot pirate boat, powered by 40 to 60 horsepower engines, the pirates try to dump their weapons and incriminating evidence overboard.

“Instantly they are no longer combatants,” quips Cdr. Baines. “They are seven guys just sitting in a boat, sometimes fishing and all proclaiming innocence.”

Even though it can be frustrating to capture pirates and then have to release them, there is satisfaction in the mission. Cdr. Baines, whose 22 years in the navy have been spent mostly at sea on nine different ships, figures the Winnipeg stopped six pirate attacks on his watch, and other NATO ships thwarted 15 piracies.

Still, one gets the feeling that keeping the sea lanes open in the Gulf of Aden with limited NATO ships, is a losing cause. Catching pirates doesn’t deter the ones financing the piracy...

Just as Canada’s army is a good fit with U.S. and NATO forces, so our navy integrates well with the U.S. and allied navies. As Cdr. Baines puts it: “We’re a small navy, but we’re world class, and we integrate well.”..

Canadian morale in pirate waters is high. During six months chasing pirates, there were no complaints among the Winnipeg’s crew of 250 – even though none of the pirates they encountered wore eye patches, had peg legs, or wore the skull and crossbones...

Update: Meanwhile, back at the drawing board:

Canadian military at work on pirate detector
Research arm of the Department of National Defence conducting trials designed to increase early detection of the tiny, high-speed boats
...
Pirates, who frequently attack under the cover of darkness, typically launch assaults against commercial ships using small boats or skiffs with low profiles that elude the sweep of a radar signal.

“These things are made out of fibreglass and wood. How does a radar detect a small fibreglass boat out on the water?” said Lieutenant Alan Garner with the military's Canadian Expeditionary Force Command.

But gear such as night-vision technology and infrared sensors can spot the wake – the track of waves – generated by a boat in the water.

For instance, the white-water wake of a fast boat stands out more prominently than a slower craft when viewed through night-vision gear.

The holy grail of detection, however, is to figure out a rapid method of separating the high-horsepower “wake signature” of a pirate crew from the less turbulent path of a Somali fisherman's boat.

Defence Research and Development Canada, which conducted trials in May using three small boats, is trying to develop algorithms and codes that will help the military to quickly spot and categorize craft by their wake signatures.

It's a technology that can be useful to guard against a variety of attacks today, including terrorism, where small foes try to outwit larger opponents...