If ever there was a reminder of how being very cool, holding ones nerve and putting into practice very effective training can avoid creating a wider incident, this is it.
I bet underpants on that boat were under threat of being called out as a natural disaster zone after that!
Top performance from the crew of HMS Iron Duke I think.
A tip of the manky hat to Grand Logistics and The Daily Beast
I agree with your sentiments but it does show how long winded it is for the PWO to give verbal orders!
I’m sure they were following their ROE perfectly. But their ROE is broken; that boat should have been sunk
It’s often forgotton that in most of the world the maritime rules are unknown, not taught, or purely absent – the loud horn means keep your distance and/or stop, but those fishermen (?) probably wondered what the ruckuss was all about or thought the Duke called them over instead.
Same thing is English at sea; as in aviation, it’s the international maritime standard, but many countries don’t know that (or even care).
Which is why you see, say, Dutch marines shouting “PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPNS!” at Somali fishermen who – having had zero to none education – return mere blank stares.
Accidents at sea are perhaps rare – “almost accidents” are not.
Yes one shouldn’t mirror image ones knowledge onto those people on the boat.
There was ample time to react if the boat had ignored the warning shots.
This is probably a common occurrence out there, boats getting that close.
However, that being said and done, if it was the honest belief of that gunner that the boat might be used as a missile then he would have been completely justified in shooting the crap out of it and killing everyone.
You really don’t accomplish much if you just brass up innocent folk going about their daily lives, heck, they might have just been curious about the warship and thought the horn being sounded was fun.
We are a humane country with a humane and civilised armed forces that can be trusted to make decisions using the ROE and not go smashing stuff up at any excuse.
@Rupert Fiennes;
oh really? Which war was it in?
Or do you suggest that warships all over the world are entitled to sink small boats at will even without trying to move away themselves?
The ship was obviously not moving at high speed, nor was there any state of war involved.
I think you advocated murder and piracy with your reply.
Humans don’t lose their right to live just because they’re foreign civilians moving close to soldiers, you know?
I think they showed cool, calm, professional and entirely commendable restraint where others might have let loose
Which is exactly why I posted it
i bet cherie blair wished they had sunk the boat as well she could’ve got a 7th or 8th mansion out of that plus at least 40 of the boats occupants “immediate”family residency in the UK.
note; i’m mocking the system not the people
If I remember, a few years ago the Iranians put the wind up the US Navy by buzzing their ships with small boats. They were throwing crates into the sea to force the ships to take evasive action. This incident is not without precedent.
As I said over at GL it is a shame that more of the Great British public don’t get to see such footage. Might help dispel in some quarters the myth that the navy life is a safe one.
Hmm, an unarmed speed boat crewed by some simple folk and a few warning shots doesn’t really compare to what is going on in Afghanistan.
Do all the fisherman have rather smart small fast boats like that?
I have to wonder whether they could have been probing, seeing how close you can get and what reaction you get. Any sign of weakness and you could get the real thing next time….
Just watched this again, did the fella on button his chinstrap half way through, bad lad
Buttons, chinstraps, you know what will be next, submarine hatches
!!!!
Nobody is advocating letting small craft get close but in this scenario the response should be measured. Which, it was. Although why did they feel the need to specify to the “left” of the boat?!
@ Phil
Tell me are the Taliban simple people?
Why left? To push the boat out away from the ship. Weapons aren’t fired willy nilly at the discretion of the rating on the trigger.
A lot of them are extremely simple yes.
I asked a reasonable question! Could have just fired to it’s front.
Surely the rating can be trusted to fire his warning shots properly. It just seemed meddlesome.
@ Phil re firing to the front
Good God no, somebody could have got hurt!
That is the ways weapons are handled.
That is the ways weapons are handled
What way? Being told where to aim?
Yes. At what target, how many rounds, when to commence firing etc. etc. and if a specific number rounds hasn’t been ordered firing is stopped with the command “Check! Check! Check!”
You are not a disciple of St Barbara are you?
How did you think it was done?
How did I think it was done. Target indication type of fire required. Not fire three rounds to left etc
Must be a navy thing.
Well it is a good well proven system.
yep, agree with you there x, seems to work doesnt it
@S O: how many innocent fishermen decide to ignore horn warnings and then steer directly on a collision course with a warship on the high seas? This is purely preparation for battle: see how close you can get before fired upon and condition your opponent to see such behaviour as “normal”. When the time comes to do it for real, a rating will have a few seconds only to make a decision. Such “restraint” will end up with a Royal Navy “Cole”. Better to be very clear, fire warning shots from far further away. Both sides are clear as to the rules and the chances of hasty accidents go down. Those who regard such ROE as “piracy” will be rightly be ignored, as they are unlikely to include either the Iranians or the RN.
@ TD
With all respect to our new friend Phil I was struggling to know what he was asking about because it is just “the way” it is done. I thought I had missed some subtly.
@ Rupert
I’m all for the robust response as they say but once you go over a certain threshold it becomes unproductive.
The people on that ship are not so stupid as to not realise that a real enemy might seek to condition their behaviour before engaging – they even teach infantrymen this.
I am also sure that if they perceived a direct threat then the vessel would have been engaged.
You are second guessing the judgement of a crew that has probably been operating in that environment for some time and has become attuned to the nuances of the local comings and goings and judged the reactions accordingly.
You are also mirror imaging a very western mindset on those people. Their subjective sense of danger and peril are very different from ours sat in our comfy homes with water coming out when we turn a tap.
Brassing up locals is going to be counter-productive in the long term. I would trust the judgement of this crew over someone commenting on a video. So I would say cool your jets, none of them are as reckless as you seem to think they are. They are professionals and can be trusted to act in their own best interests and in the best interests of the mission.
And to TD and X – I asked because in the Army you’d just get told to fire some warning shots, and it would be left to you to fire those warning shots. It just seemed very precise orders.
Rupert Fiennes,
A friend of mine used to work on the River Thames in a RHIB. On one occasion he was warned away from a warship that he had strayed too close to, under threat of the ship’s CIWS.
The point there is that if a professional boatman can inadvertently get too close to a warship then a bunch of much less worldly fisherman might well make a mistake or misunderstand intentions. Hell, I can easily see something similar happen in UK coastal waters – picture a warship passing and a speedboat full or beered-up tourists deciding to go have a closer look?
Got to say that to me it looks like a deliberate probe to see how close they can get before warning shots are fired.
Think about this happening at some other time:-
A similar type of speedboat is approaching a UK warship, only this one has an explosive smoke grenade system fitted to it like the ones fitted to tanks to hide them on the battlefield.
Onboard the boat are 3 or 4 people, 2 of whom are armed with RPG’s and are hidden from view.
The boat behaves in the same manner as the other probes but before it gets to the point where warning shots are fired, the people on the boat trigger the smoke grenade system and then the 2 guys with the RPG’s pop up and blind fire them through the smoke at the warship.
Most here will probably say, will if they tried that then the rating on the Gun would open fire right away.
Is he allowed to just open fire?
Doesn’t he have to wait to be ordered to open fire?
Does he open fire off his own bat when the smoke grenades go off?
Or does he have to wait until the RPG’s are fired first?
If he fires when the smoke grenades go off then:-
1. How does he hit the boat that is now shrouded in smoke before they fire the RPG’s or do anything else?
2. What happens if the whole thing is a setup and unknown to the RN crew, there are women and kids who have been placed on the boat in order to get shot up and cause an absolute shitstorm at the UN?
If he has to wait to be ordered then the guys in the boat have a time window in which to carry out their attack. Even if the PWO only has to shout “Open fire!”, then it’s too slow, how many RPG’s could be fired in 2 seconds?
How about 3 or 4 boats instead? I saw the Vid taken from the American ships, the Iranians sometimes use many small speedboats when they do these probes. You could have 3 of the 4 fitted with smoke grenade systems and on the fourth could be Martyr’s, willing and ready to die as long as it’s useful to their Gov.
Three of the boats trigger the smoke thingy’s when they are close and then start firing flares or fireworks in the general direction of the ship/ships. The fourth boat just fires flares/fireworks. The people on the warship might open up, they start shooting at the only boat they can definatly see, it’s full of civilians though who were only shooting off fireworks as a salute/welcome to the warship. Or as part of some sort of celebration….
Lot’s of dead civilians and lots of shocking footage from high quality, gyro-stabilised camera’s of women and kids getting shot to bits, in close up.
Imagine the propaganda value, half the world screaming that the evil imperialists have slaughtered a peaceful family who where just on a speedboat trip in the gulf that they won in a compitition and were celebrating someone’s birthday, when they were brutally shot up by the evil Royal Navy.
I am in violent agreement with Rupert Fiennes.
Our people are being conditioned by these speedboats, as are the commanders on the ships, the admirals at the HQ’s and the idiots in the UK Gov./MoD who set Policy.
Take another look at the vid, look how close they got. You don’t have much time to decide if a sudden action is a threat or not at that kind of distance. You won’t get much time to make a decision, not much time at all.
The ROE is dead wrong, it’s just asking for trouble. These speedboat probes should be kept much further away.
As I said, perhaps next time the warning shots will take place further away, maybe thereafter closer. You never set a pattern, that is taught in training. I am saying that people are second guessing the decision process without knowing the context or history or situation. They are all professionals with a good knowledge of the ROEs and a good training in enemy tactics and procedures. Perhaps they are trying to condition the ship, but it would be a grossly negligent Captain that allowed that to happen. Its the oldest trick in the book.
Is he allowed to just open fire?
—most emphatically yes! Indeed, it is encouraged!
Doesn’t he have to wait to be ordered to open fire?
—Most emphatically no he does NOT have to wait to be ordered! Doesn’t matter the service or rank of the individual.
Does he open fire off his own bat when the smoke grenades go off?
—If he is not a mong he will and he CAN.
Or does he have to wait until the RPG’s are fired first?
—Most emphatically not. Not EVER.
Further to what Phil said. There is a reason why they are firing live rounds!!!
re smoke
I suppose this is a case for using RWS with FLIR.
Just fire through the smoke! It would be a very steady man indeed who could fire an RPG accurately under a storm of machine gun fire on the high seas!
You just brass it all up and look tasty while you do it.
If they have civilian hostages that is very unfortunate, the lad on the gun could and if he had an ounce of common sense, WOULD fire. Shit storm in the UN? Not if the ship engaged to defend itself, with or without the presence of civilians.
I can imagine this issue has been mulled over and over, its very complex when you think about it
Yes, i agree it’s difficult.
The risks if you get it wrong could be horrendus either way.
@Phil
Not trying to be funny or anything, ok?
But, is the boat still where it was or going in the same direction it was, just before the smoke grenades were triggered?
All they would really have to do would be to make a sharp right hand one-eighty and then they are moving in a different direction and the guys with the RPG’s can pop up and fire from the left side of the boat.
All they would have to do is aim at an angle cause their target is so big at such close range. Maybe think of the way subs used to fire across the path of a ship in WWII. RPG’s are a lot faster than torpedoes though, i bet they would get off at least 2 volleys. A Type 23 is about 133 metres long, at close range it’s more like a big steel wall, i think they would have a good chance at hitting it.
The manned guns do not have Thermal or IR, do they?
I have read that the DS30M Mark 2 does have that sort of stuff and is controlled from the Ops room however i have also read that you can get infra-red blocking smoke.
Link:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marder_(IFV)
If you look at the bottom of the section on armament.
Infra-Red smoke grenade link:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_screen#Infrared_smokes
I really think the ROE is bad and needs to be changed.
Michael (Civ.),
How do you know that the RoE is bad? Have you read it?
It’s funny reading all these “what if” scenarios as they become more and more unlikely and further and further from what we could see on the video.
You do not know the ROE that the ship was operating under so how do you know it should be changed?
All you’ve pointed out here is that a small craft can pose some sort of threat to a larger warship – this hasn’t been news since destroyers and their torpedo’s. The vessel is perfectly aware of possible threats from that small craft and it sounded like the Ops Rooms was on top of things. There are numerous ways of countering these threats.
As for smoke – yeah, you fire into it – like in the good old days. Yeah the craft can move direction but the machine gun is an area weapon and it too can move its barrel. Not every scenario needs money thrown at it to provide an acceptable solution.
I’ll repeat it, you do not know the context of the interaction and you do not know the ROE the ships Captain had decided to act upon. I trust these people to take the correct decisions.
ROe is a very emotional subject amongst those that have to implement it. one thing to remember about ROE is that it NEVER robs the individual of the inherent right of self defence. this does not mean they have to wait to be shot at.
As for anti FIAC procedures, yes they are reguarly discussed and updated at Maritime warfare School Collingwood including ideas and suggestions from ships with recent incidents such as this. Guidance is then published in a Green Paper.
And All Polticians has it! Like I said, we’re not sitting ducks.
I didn’t say i know, i said i think.
I think the ROE is “bad” cause of how close they can get to the ship before warning shots are fired.
RPG’s, older ones, are effective upto about 200 – 500 metres, newer ones have ranges of nearly 800 Metres.
RPG-29, in use since 1985, effective range 500 Metres. Link:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG-29
How far away is the boat in the vid, would you say?
I agree with the other guy, these are probes, testing the limit’s.
Why do you say it’s unlikely, they are clearly in range, if they wanted to they could shoot at the ship with RPG’s.
I don’t think it really matters whether they are likely to do it or not, what matters to me is that they can get very close to the ships before they are being warned off.
That’s why i think the ROE is bad.
All Pats
That’s good to know but i still think they get way to close before being warned off. Close range leaves little time to react, no?
Also Phil, where did i say that money should be thrown at it?
Am a bit puzzled.
Micheal Civ
Not sure where this incident took place, in places like the NAG maintaining an exclusion zone of 500M round the ship is semi impossible. Great research has been done and it has been found that even against a target as big as a Ship accurate RPG ranges are greatly reduced when fired from a moving swerving platform like a fast moving boat.
All Pats
The Daily Beast link says it was in the Gulf, near Bahrain.
This is a dude firing an RPG in Mongolia, see how far it goes:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUTUPo4Jw1U
Do you think it goes far enough?
How long does the boat have to be stable for, one or two seconds maybe?
I really think we let them get too close before firing warning shots.
@ Micheal
Ac a keen golfer I reckon it goes about 350 yds. the practicalities of keeping all small boat traffic outside 500yds is very difficult. If an RPG was seen in the boat it would be engaged very quickly. It is actually easier to achieve offshore than inshore. Given teh “touch wood” fact that we have never had a succesful attack by a small boat on an RN ship i will say for the moment at least we have the balance right.
All Pats
Fair enough but i still think they get way too close for comfort.
Michael (civ) – it does not matter what your opinion is matey, ROE is a political matter, and an even infrequent machine gunning of innocent Bahraini fishermen is politically not acceptable.
A USS Cole type incident as you put it IS politically acceptable within a certain risk profile. There are plenty of binoculars, EO/IR systems watching that boat for a period well before the video starts, having “been there, done that” I can assure you of it. Small boats bob around a lot, I don’t fancy your RPG gunners chances, especially when he is being “dazzled” by a laser
I’m on a merchant vessel off Oman & heard F83 (HMS St Albans) today on VHF 16 warning off a craft approaching her and her task force in an agressive manner. Didn’t hear anything after that, she was some distance from us. Possibly something will surface in a few weeks.
RE “Possibly something will surface in a few weeks.”
- interesting to compare with the Iranian navy announcements ( a presence there to be made permanent)
- for them to be in the Med is of course totally down to the goodwill of Egypt, and is only a matter of playing nerves with the Israelis (I wonder in which sea their SSK’s are right now; to return the favour?)
The Irianian navy are very active along there coastline. Calling up Coalition warships & occasionally getting a response