is to prevent the boardings in the first place. Once a ship is captured and hostages taken, things are too messy to avoid really disastrous finales. Good guys are going to die.

If I was head of a corporation that was going to be sailing my ships around those waters, my ships would have some serious armament on them along with a contingent of ex-military guys to operate them. (Could this be a realistic use for Blackwater?)

Every account I've heard of these pirates seems to indicate they have at the most some RPG's as their heavy weapon, mostly just small arms. Those are effective against an unarmed crew but if word gets out that pirates are being blown out of the water by the guns on an oil tanker before they even get close to the hulls, we'll see a real change in culture.

Art