@OmSigDAVID,
Im amazed at how the actual piracy event transpired. We had , originally,been given a highly modified abridged version that focused on the heroism of the captain and the action of the SEALS.
Actually, The crew of the ship had NEVER turned over any control of the ship to the pirates and the captain was a pawn of a frantic plot hatched by the pirates to salvage some kind of booty from the event(apparently) The captain was not even a real decision maker . It appears that the chief engineer and several of the uncaptured memebers of the crew had wrested all control of the ship from a "safe room" which left the pirates with very little hey could do. SO they took the captain and tried to make a run to shore. The Navy intercepted using the BAinbridge as a barrier and kept the life boat from reaching port (although they did make it to 25 miles off shore).
The events that then occured were totally in the hands of the NAvy and they seemigly had an entire procedure that the follow, including using a helicopter downdraft to prevent the boat from steering. The rules of engagement were then ramped up because they had the pirates in view. SO with approval of Washington, the Seals took out the three pirates.
It wasnt as much an unfolding event as the news had informed us. It was a set procedure involving
information gathering and analysis
Attempts at negotiations
Response to negotiation scenarios
Deadly force.
The USS BAinbridge was ordered to overtake and control the situation on Thurs PM after the event ws ongoing for almost 2 days. It was just out of the Gulf of Aden and needed to steam about 20 hours to the container ship
The thing that controlled all the action wasnt anything that Washington did or did not do, it was mostly due to the sea distances that they were dealing with, the assets available for interdiction , and a 30 knot speed of the BAinbridge.
What the show on Discovery presented , was the role that the crew played in maintaining control of the ship and NEVER turning it over to any pirate. The entire issue was to rescue the captain since they couldnt control the ship at all (it was being controlled by a duplicate ops center in the safe room. The crew had a prearranged set of signals that kept the ship out of pirate hands. The point is, had the crew not taken command, and merely submitted to the pirate orders to assemble in the bridge, they could have steamed to Somalia and beaten the BAinbridge to shore. Then it would have been an entire crew AND a ship being held for ransom and wed look especially powerless.
