Shipbucket

Actually, I can't think of a battle rifle that doesn't outrange an RPG. Even a brand new fresh from the factory RPG round only has a range of about 200 meters. And most of the RPG rounds in 3rd world countries are very old and unreliable. Not to mention the fact that a big cargo ship makes a nice stable firing platform and a small pirate boat pitching around on the high seas definitely does not.

Erm, both the Carl Gustav and the RPG-7 has significantly longer ranges than that when shooting against something the size of a merchanter.

_________________
“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

Yeah, but an RPG isn't going to stop a merchant ship.

And going back to the whole pirate boats not being a stable platform thing, you'd be lucky to hit a merchant ship at even 200 meters in a speeding small boat. And that's if you have decent RPG rounds, which as I said, is rare in 3rd world countries. In my own personal experience with RPG rounds, 1 out of 3 don't fire at all, and half the ones that do don't go where you're aiming them at when they do fire.

But like trav said, that's firing from a pitching fishing boat.

The maximum range of a weapon system is based on the skill of the person wielding that weapon. So I'd imagine the max effective ranges of RPGs, RPKs and AKs would shrink considerably in a typical Somali pirate's hands, especially given the conditions they're firing at.

A much cheaper and more effective way to deal with pirates. The international naval patrol isn't always out there 24/7.

Why not ? Some captains will stop if they see pirates with RPG, they must protect crew and one lucky shoot from that, maybe old but still good, weapon can kill people on bridge. If you take not merchant but tanker there is a lot more reasons to NOT get shoot by a rocket. Ships are not build anymore to withstand an attack of any kind of weapon, them captains will not risk in mamy cases and just stop engines, call help and wait for rescue.

_________________

Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!