Quote Originally Posted by Shaka_Khan View Post
I didn't say that we should equip the ships (whether that's good or not (and whether you were talking to me or not)). I'm just saying the effects of piracy.
I wasn't aiming it only at you but consider that putting a bunch of armed men who get paid a lot per hour on every ship (even those that won't actually get attacked as you do not know which ones will be) won't be cheap either. Then if a ship gets attacked those armed men will fire a lot of ammunition, the more effective, the more expensive, look up the costs of some modern guided missiles for example. Now putting men with guided missiles on a merchant ship sounds silly so maybe they'll just use guns but then the pirates will get anygry and shoot asome RPGs at the ship. If it sinks it will get really expensive, you have to search for it, clean up the oil or whatever etc. etc. If we consider that modern tankers actually have a douple hull I suspect they could survive quite a few hits from RPGs but even then the outer hull will have some holes in it and there will possibly be more internal damage etc and all that has to be repaired, which costs a lot of money especially if you cannot use the ship for as long as the repairs take etc. etc. So you really gotta wonder what is cheaper in the end.