Boat fences ?

The Washington post has just regaled us with the "boat fence" story. After the USS Cole incident the NICS, And whatever other beaurocracy, decided to build a defense mechanism for parked naval vessels.

The defense consists of Giant inflatable tubes that can be deployed around the vessel, in a sort of daisy chain, at whatever distance is deemed appropriate. The distance, presumably, being far enough away from the ship to minimize damage from terrorists' explosions. The 80 foot long, sausage like, inflatables are connected end to end by chains creating a rubber fence.

I reckon that might deter a really dumb terrorist like the shoe bomber guy. Do you think that would keep the clever ones for doing their thing? 28 million dollars worth of Avons? This seems to me another bad idea that parallels the Coast Guard boat lengthening fiasco. Osama must be laughing his *** off.

 

$28 million probably wont pay for a paint job on a cruiser , and distance from the explosion does wonders for the ability to resist damage.

Its not money , just currency , created with a key stroke , so cost never is a concern.

FF

 

Boat fences

Don't want to put ideas into their heads..but there's plenty of surplus torpedoes available on the black market. If they can rig up rocket launching tubes - portable compressed air tubes won't be that hard...

 

If they really want to blow something up and they have a IQ higher than 120 they will be able to blow it up.

Like the new securety scan in Europe, if I really wanted to kill I could fill my *** with explosives(bringing tubes with hand lotion is no no)

There is wood hard enough to be used as knifes and there would not be to big problem to kill people with broken glass eather and none off them would triger the metal detector.

I put a lot off thought into this since I really cant see anny reasons for us to be threated as criminals every time we are going somewhere.

Berglia seams to have solved the problem about geting around those fences.

 

They will have to start knocking our bloody teeth out before a flight. Could literally bite someones throat out.

As for the Inflatable fence, somebody's gettin a kickback. Same old....

Tim

 

Subject in the Washington Post was actually about the procurement proceedure not about the efficacy of the sausages. It seems that this was another of those no bid contracts that was awarded not to Haliburton, but to a small company. The original company contracted to another company who bought the inflatables from a firm in England. There is said to be some sonar gear to detect underwater people with scuba scooters.

This is a noble experiment, but surely a flawed one. I'll wager that a few of the people on this forum could come up with a dozen ways to defeat the sausage defense sonar and all.

I'd entertain the idea of using kayaks to breach the fence. The top of the inflatables are some 6 or 8 feet above their waterline. Small boats outside the perimeter would be shielded from view of the ship. A simple rigging knife or machete would make short work of the inflatables integrity if the villians were determined to use a power boat, perhaps a jet drive one. Kayaks might be able to slip between the ends of the inflated tubes. A kayak could carry enough C4 to make a mess of the screws or rudder. I hope the fence idea works for the navy. Perhaps it is better than nothing or perhaps it is worse. Meanwhile let us hope that they have thought of all the possibilities. It may be that we are taunting the bad guys into taking a run at defeating the fence system. Hmmm..... I wonder how long it takes to deploy these things.

I reckon I'd better abandon this subject to avoid the risk of interrogation by homeland security.

 

Boat fences

My Uncle Osama unfortunately cannot answer in person - he has to keep a low profile at the moment (he's working in the Pentagon) but has asked me to express his thanks for all the above useful advice....

Oh yes. And Messabout - a couple of chaps dressed like 'Witnesses' will be calling on you later today....

 

I suppose the sausage-boom thingy might help to contain any fuel oil that spills out of the ship after the attack. But in the two minutes since I found this thread I've already seen a half-dozen ways that it could be easily defeated and the warship heavily damaged by no more than two guys and a 16' bowrider. No military project should be THAT easy to defeat.... something is fishy here.

 

Boat fences

Of course...the answer is obvious..This is the Philadelphia Experiment-Part II. The enemy launches attack...Ships disappear...

 

After the Cole incident the attacking canoe would have to withstand a few min of 50 Cal fire .

The use of force , for ship defense, is now legal in most ports.



FF

 

Whilst no defence mechanism is 100% safe, I think the sausages provide a reasonably cost effective barrier which makes attacks at least an order of magnitude more difficult. Even without the barriers there has not, to the best of my knowledge, been any other successful attacks - its not as easy as all that. And the sausages make it harder still - sure you could shoot them until they burst, or swim under them, but you would have been slowed down and spotted giving the defense team a chance to react. So its not impenetrable, but it DOES help. However, awarding the contract without going to competitive tender shows how green the US DoD is in attempting to minimise costs.
US defence contracting is going to be a hot topic over the next 10-15 years.The US DoD is going to have to learn a lot, quickly, about project management if massive overspends (against already massive budgets) are to be avoided on future defence projects. Now that cost-plus contracting is out of favour and there is greater accountability of costs, there will probably be some very embarrassing overspends for a while and Joe Public will appreciate how careless the DoD is with money.

 

Just the fact that it creates a visual demarkation is some help

Cross that line, we perforate you with half inch diameter holes. The fence would pretty much make it impossible to inadvertantly cross the line, so there would not be any misunderstandings.

 

Lets just hope they are locked & loaded, manned, and ready to rock & roll!

PC idieology has no place on a warship.

Tim