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Al-Quaeda navy If this is true who sold them those ships.

I have absolutely zero trust in this source given it's paranoia-driven tabloid nature.

Hm.. If they had an actual military force, they wouldn't be terrorists would they? They'd be a legitimate military without an associate nation.

Not like they've really bought shit.

Since when do some freighters, which if they exist are likely near scows bought from scrap yards, constitute a navy? Answer: they dont. They do however present very nice targets for sinking or raiding if discovered. Course this is a article on a completely unreliable source which is in turn using an online newsletter as its source. But doing what is described would be well within there capabilities.

If this is true who sold them those ships.

The article credits a Greek agency as being behind it, in which case al-Qaida would be lucky if they even floated. The reality is that there is no way in hell the worlds shipping can be kept track of. You can register a ship with Liberia and fly that nations flag for about a hundred bucks, and they have offices in cities like New York and London, to spare you the need to actually travel to the country. Same story for Somalia, Panama and a few other flags of connivance, which account for many thousands of vessels. Though many significant sized ships in the Indian Ocean especially are unregistered. The reality is that there is no way in hell the worlds shipping can be kept track of.

Overall the worlds merchant fleets totaled well over 800 million deadweight tons, with an annual growth rate of over two percent. Meanwhile about thirty million deadweight tons get broken up each year. Something like 70% of that is done at India's Alang ship breaking yard, which has the sophisticated method of running the vessels aground before unleashing 40,000 workers armed with hammers and cutting touches to tear them to pieces. Record keeping is not exactly top notch and you could probably steal a tanker without anyone noticing. I doubt the terrorist would bother with that, but I'm just illustrating the ease with which merchant ships fall through the cracks.

It would actually be fantastic if Al-Quaeda had a navy, because then they'd be much easier targets.

Darth Wong wrote:It would actually be fantastic if Al-Quaeda had a navy, because then they'd be much easier targets.

Nah, it wouldnt only be more firing practice, really. It's Al Qaeda afterall, they don't just use ships, there would always be little bases and shit. The ships would just be terrorist wanking.

If they have a "Navy" now, likely it will be used as a propaganda tool for recruiting dumbass, uneducated, militant asswipes.
"Osama want's YOU! see our Mighty Navy! With it, we will CRUSH the infidel(sp?) americans! Block their ports! Cripple their economy!"
that's how I see it. People believe the tripe Art Bell and Whitley Strieber spew in their book "The coming Global Superstorm" and arguably the morons that believe that shit are more highly educated than third-world brainwashees who watch nothing but Al-Jazeera.
(I know i'm making Gross generalizations. They are for dramatic effect )

Suddenly I have visions of a fleet of privateer-yachts cruising the Cape of Good Hope and flying the Liberian flag.

HemlockGrey wrote:Suddenly I have visions of a fleet of privateer-yachts cruising the Cape of Good Hope and flying the Liberian flag.

I give them ten minutes against Chile's navy.

Just a thought; can imagine a suicide freighter in some port going off?

EmperorMing wrote:Just a thought; can imagine a suicide freighter in some port going off?

The Coast Guard an USN are way ahead of you. I'm not particularly concerned.

EmperorMing wrote:Just a thought; can imagine a suicide freighter in some port going off?

Actually, all they need to do is plant a small explosive charge
on a LNG tanker, and basically have it set to remote control...
wait for it to enter Baltimore, or some other port, and then BOOM,
it goes off..

a few tens of KILOtons of LNG going up at once isn't pretty

I think the biggest danger from Al-Qaeda getting ahold of several freighters would be using them as motorboat tenders for piracy operations against merchant shipping in areas like the East African Coast or Indonesia to raise money for more serious attacks.

Didn't the USS Cole get hit by a bomb-laden boat?

Sea Skimmer wrote:Something like 70% of that is done at India's Alang ship breaking yard, which has the sophisticated method of running the vessels aground before unleashing 40,000 workers armed with hammers and cutting touches to tear them to pieces.

Thats awesome.

Dalton wrote:Didn't the USS Cole get hit by a bomb-laden boat?

Yes

Howedar wrote:Thats awesome.

I see the great leader left out the part about the incredible fatality/maim
rate there. Congress passed a bill saying that former US warships cannot
be scapped in shitholes like that.

No, don't get me wrong, its horrible. But there's a certain level of awesomeness to it. Kinda like having eight zillion people dig a giant fucking ditch through Panama, even though thousands of people died.

I hope that didn't sound as callous as it looks.

MKSheppard wrote:

EmperorMing wrote:Just a thought; can imagine a suicide freighter in some port going off?

Actually, all they need to do is plant a small explosive charge
on a LNG tanker, and basically have it set to remote control...
wait for it to enter Baltimore, or some other port, and then BOOM,
it goes off..

a few tens of KILOtons of LNG going up at once isn't pretty

Exactly what I was thinking. Not a pretty sight or thought.

MKSheppard wrote: Actually, all they need to do is plant a small explosive charge
on a LNG tanker, and basically have it set to remote control...
wait for it to enter Baltimore, or some other port, and then BOOM,
it goes off..

The hulls are rather thick, and the super cooled gas does not ignite as easily as you might think. You'd need something more on the lines of a torpedo or Mk83 to set one off, and even then your unlikely to get any sort of atomic level blast. However the US coast guard is well aware of the risk, which is why it almost completely shuts down waterways when major LGN tankers arrive and gives them a major escort. I'd actually be more concerned with something like an ammoniac gas carrier; a major tank breach could kill everyone downwind for fifteen miles. Though not many of those come into US ports, and they also get escorts as I recall.

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:I think the biggest danger from Al-Qaeda getting ahold of several freighters would be using them as motorboat tenders for piracy operations against merchant shipping in areas like the East African Coast or Indonesia to raise money for more serious attacks.

Most pirates operate off of small islands or even within harbors from shore. operating them for a major freighter would attract too much attention. And anyway piracy isn't too profitable, especially if you've got to keep a freighter fueled as a base.

Howedar wrote:

MKSheppard wrote:

Howedar wrote:Thats awesome.

I see the great leader left out the part about the incredible fatality/maim
rate there. Congress passed a bill saying that former US warships cannot
be scapped in shitholes like that.

No, don't get me wrong, its horrible. But there's a certain level of awesomeness to it. Kinda like having eight zillion people dig a giant fucking ditch through Panama, even though thousands of people died.

I hope that didn't sound as callous as it looks.

And thanks to that bill the USN now generally loses money with every ship that's broken up, which is one reason why so many are being sunk as targets. But indeed Alang does lose a minimal of one person a week killed outright and many more suffer and die later from cancers and lung conditions thanks to all the chemicals on old ships.

As for the awesomeness, it really is. The shear scale is incredible, especially considering that almost nothing bigger then a 5-ton truck or welding touch is used, outside of the tugs that shove the ships ashore at high tide. I remember one bit off footage which showed a worker slowly finish a cut on deck, suddenly the side walls away ad it cuts to a wide shot from shore, showing a section of the hull that must have been at least 100x200 feet fall away onto the beach and surf.

I also looked up a better indication of just how much this place breaks up, last year they handled 2.5 million tons of steel.

The Dead Weight Tonnage figures I had earlier are a measurement of how much a ship can carry in cargo, fuels, water, stores and crew and while used heavily for merchant ship descriptions can be deceptive about the vessels size. Not as bad as Gross Registered Tonnage though, which is actually a measurement of a ships volume, with about 100 square meters being equal to one ton. The result is merchant liners can have incredibly high GRT's while often carrying little, while a freighters carrying lots of dense stuff often have GRT's much lower then there Dead Weight Tonnage.

Still both are better then things like Standard or Normal displacement for many tasks, since they don't change based on the ships loading status.

Sea Skimmer wrote: As for the awesomeness, it really is. The shear scale is incredible, especially considering that almost nothing bigger then a 5-ton truck or welding touch is used, outside of the tugs that shove the ships ashore at high tide. I remember one bit off footage which showed a worker slowly finish a cut on deck, suddenly the side walls away ad it cuts to a wide shot from shore, showing a section of the hull that must have been at least 100x200 feet fall away onto the beach and surf.

Yea I read a Baltimore Sun article on that once and I've seen footage of it
on TV once or twice. Still though, Harpoons are more awesome

MKSheppard wrote:
Yea I read a Baltimore Sun article on that once and I've seen footage of it
on TV once or twice. Still though, Harpoons are more awesome

But Harpoons generally don't break ships into pieces, just burn them out. A swarm of migrant Indians however does both.

Darth Wong wrote:It would actually be fantastic if Al-Quaeda had a navy, because then they'd be much easier targets.

Yeah, it would be a chance for the Coast Guard to get some payback when one of their High Endurance Cutters comes across the Al-Quaeda vessel.

Can anyone imagine Osama dressed as a pirate, complete with parrot?