Do you agree with the description below, regarding armed merchant ships?

"The captain of the merchant ships is usually armed."

You have anything that backs that up? Not really true judging by most of what I've read.

I'd agree with the COA of putting Armed guards on merchant ships, but that does have a cost in insurance rates (related to the possibility of misfires/negligent discharges and the fact that once you arm merchant ships, the pirates are going to kill more people in their attacks by upping their firepower and utilizing their RPGs a lot more). It also makes a HUGE difference in international law in terms of how they are treated.

Armed guards would have to have crew-served weapons (eg heavy machine guns) at the very least to be any good in this situation, and four would be the idea number for mounted weapons (you could get away with two or three if you had they were firing off the bipod and kept mobile). At that point, you aren't a peaceful merchant ship anymore.

Right now, it isn't worth the spike in insurance rates that it would cost to make that worthwhile. If, as rumored, crews start refusing to sail through the Horn of Africa region, or if the insurers' go through and extend the piracy zone all the way to the east coast of India, that may change.

It is not "illegal" but armed merchant ships have no real legal status. An armed merchant ship would be seen as a warship of the country it's registered in. With all the consequences linked to that. That's why nearly all civil navies don't allow fixed guns on merchants. This however is only valid for ships that are equipped with fixed installations. Guns for example. Armed crews do not count as "armed merchant ships" but I'd have my doubts that this would work out well.

My husband is a merchant mariner and sails on a variety of deep sea ships, mostly cargo ships and oil tankers. Arming a ship is expensive, and depending on the ship's ownership, homeport/country and scheduled ports of call, a logistical nightmare. Captains aren't usually armed (though they might be on smaller ships from certain countries), though many ships have a collection of small arms which need to be kept under lock and key).

MANY countries, including the US, ban any and all ships that have arms from their commercial ports. A fact of the profession is that it is not uncommon for a ship to have ownership in one country, licensed officers (Mates and Engineers) from another country, and a slew of unlicensed people from several countries. Crews are added on all the time, and as their rotations end, more crewmates board the ship - keeping track of who has training with which weapons is ridiculous.

And EVERY SINGLE SHIP (caps for emphasis) out there is insured - the ship and cargo, that is. It's a requirement. So if a mega-million dollar ship with several million dollars of goods is hijacked, the ship's owners simply file an insurance claim. This Is A Fact. On more than one ship, my husband's crewmates have been told that while the ship does train for any such hijacking, if a ship is taken, well, tough.

My husband's ship tends to be proactive in that when it enters the pirate zone, it takes on extra personnel ('paid snipers'), but it's to protect the ship, not the crew. I think that the recent upswing in harming/killing hijacked people strikes a nerve, and for the pirates, is a quicker way to 'negotiate' a ransom rather than have a hulking ship sit landside.

I think Somalians are a big problem, its in our best interest to kill them off, especially if they're stealing oil and other important resources from us or our allies. I think at the very least we should be arming merchant ships, if not actively hunting them down and eliminating them. In open waters, with authority from a well developed country to defend themselves so the coast guard doesn't have to, I don't see much red tape for them to cut through.

i have no problem with a crew that is capably manned being able to protect themselves,