by frog
The last time the world went pirate crazy, it was Johnny Depp and Keira Knightley who caught our attention. Now it’s the Somalis. But piracy is a much wider problem around the globe, as this Live Piracy Map shows.
I struggle to believe that there have been no reported instances of piracy in or near our little part of the planet this year. One has to ask if we would be able to cope with an outbreak of piracy in the Pacific, should one occur.
I also wonder if the rate of piracy is really up or not, or whether it is just the size and location of the booty that has sparked the recent media interest.
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Frog, lookie me, I even went and had a look at your defence policy before I posted here. How would we operate with these pirates if they existed in our part of the world if you intend to phase out the ANZAC frigates. Of course the policy goes on to say they would be replaced with more appropiate equioment? Can you tell me what? I thought a nice frigate with all of its capabilities would be a good deterant to any would be pirates. Ahoy me mates.
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How heavily armed are these pirates? Send an Orion their way and drop em some cylindrical booty
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Sapient Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
> How heavily armed are these pirates? Send an Orion their way and drop em some cylindrical booty
sorry, it’s more complicated than that. If you blow a hole in the world’s biggest oil tanker, you cause the world’s biggest oil slick.
If the solution is military, it will have to involve special forces.
Then again, it may not involve that at all. I suspect there are some pretty complex and fragile alliances in the area, so it may be as simple as the Somali Islamist rebels who are loyal to saudi Arabia cutting off supplies to the pirate camp.
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I’m also intrigued that the ‘live piracy map’ doesn’t show pirates on the Amazon. Peter Blake was killed by Amazonian pirates, and I understand that he was one of many victims over the years.
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Kahikatea,
, but your right, if it was an oil tanker one would use special ops, or snakes.
Sorry, i dont vote Labour, National, or ACT; Im more likley to vote Greens or Progresives, you see, i prefer a preventitive approach, you know; blow em up before they take the oil tanker
Anyway, if you can learn anything from that map it is that pirates prefer tropical waters, esspecially tropical waters near areas of political unrest. Not exactly the typical image of New Zealand.
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Prehaps the lack of amazonian pirate attacks is an indication of how little amazon is left
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Give them Ford, GM and Chrysler. Three for the price of none!
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SweetDisorder
One of the reasons the Frigates are unloved is that when they are going to be really needed they are going to be another 10-15 years older… which is to say, not really as fit for combat as they need to be.
The example used in the internal discussions on Defence policy was something more like the updated Visby Corvette. Stealth technology, higher top speed. smaller but nasty.
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/visby/visby1.html
respectfully
BJ
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The Visby, yummy, i love the products of swedish military engeneering
.
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“when they are going to be really needed they are going to be another 10-15 years older…”
What Fer?
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Which begs the question, what is going to happen in 10-15 years?
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The Greens would need lots of red carpet for all the climate refugees, or are the Visby’s to get them here faster?
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Maybe to protect our fisheries?
Just one case.
BJ
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BJ: Would love to see all percieved scenario’s – don’t know how many frigates we got (too long o/s) but they are fast and can be adapted for more modern weapons systems quite easily.
Australia would help if only to discourage a precedent.
Then we are still in an alliance (unbroken) with the US and I don’t see them turning predator this far south – more likely to send aid also.
In fact our new Government may well reverse NZ’s policy over US ships.
We’ve had our own reactor in Wellington since the 60′s – all this nuke free stuff is hogwash.
The Yanks like to sell us on the threat from Asia – but it will only be so if they aid and abet it – think they will?
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Sorry Mark52 – we don’t have an alliance with the US. ANZUS died hard in the 80′s. The Commando approach suggested by kahikatea runs the risk of having a black hawk down event causing major embaressment for which party was in power at the time. You might get a red dawn out of it as result though, but its probably best to leave special ops discussions to the Zohans who really now there stuff. And i’m already running the risk of being terminated by frog for even having a discussion that mentions universal soldiers since that is generally not the way of the green party. I won’t be a hero and get into the conversationany further like a drunken master playing with toy soldiers.
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Oh BJ – ROFL
Only ‘cos I lurked on the defense policy forum so much .. you are truly at your driest and drollest when dealing with this level of dim discussion.
Here’s my crystal ball vision, for the rest of you:
NZ will become self-sufficient in energy technology, have food enough and water enough, not to mention our 200-mile fisheries zone, and there will be denizens of the former first-world, now debt-ridden and energy-poor, nations, desperately trying to break in to our beaches and climb aboard our liferaft.
So BJ posits a small, nasty fleet of craft to repel all boarders, around our coastline – seeing our RNZN turn into a souped-up version of the Californian Coast Guard, possibly with deadlier toys. (although I don’t really know how well-equipped the Cal Coast Guards are!)
Me, I’ll probably head for the hills and leave the city folk to ward off intruders.
I grew up on a horse, with a house cow and a veggie garden, I could do that again. I’ve even had offers of a nice, deep green valley to go to live in …
I’m not terrifically high maintenance (no smart comments from those who know me in person, please!!), so I could live without lattés, lipstick or the city library – although the last one would be hard to give up – but I know how to make my own fun, as well as my own clothes.
Perhaps the rest of you don’t think we need to have a personal arsenal of survival skills – well, when we meet up on the other side, I’ll check it out with you.
Right now, this whole discussion is speculative, so no point getting too snotty about the variables in the details. But I know who I’d put the money on, if betting on policy outcomes was allowed.
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Please not be sorry – ANZUS gone. More important links remain.
Remember when our Police Swat Team descended on the Picton Ferry in a Training run? I think that points to planned response – as a sailor I would say that local Pirates who were’nt in an ocean going ship would have their work cut out just staying afloat in NZ waters.
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The Frigates aren’t designed to do the jobs we reckon we will have to do. They’re designed for long duration ocean patrols. They go to the Persian Gulf. They are highly visible and vulnerable in ways that newer ships are not… they can’t be converted for stealth.
All our policy is aimed at local missions… as you may have noticed.
I am a former Naval Officer with a good understanding of Marine Engineering and the problems of maintaining a combat capable ship. I want our Naval Personnel on the newest, nastiest ship we can find when the trouble comes, not now when there is no trouble on the horizon.
The 10-15 years is basically an estimate of when the first need could arise to do something to protect NZ itself. That’s based on the current world situation and the lack of active sea conflicts. How long before something bad starts to happen? It could be LONGER but it is a matter of making an educated guess. Can you imagine something happening sooner? Likelihood of this? So it is with the 10-15 years marker. Doesn’t say we’ll need them then, just that that is about the earliest we can imagine needing them. YMMV…. but the timing also allows us to try to sell the Frigates BEFORE they are past their Use-By date, so we get a better price and a better start at getting our replacements. Not the same deal as with the Skyhawks.
respectfully
BJ
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Ah but their ability to carry ‘Copters for defense/offence makes them useful in many local situations.
However, there are already signs that competition for food supply might make for trouble much sooner than 10 years
regards
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Did you look at the specs for the Visby?
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Let us not forget people that an increase in piracy is a good thing; more pirates = less global warming, since the decrease in pirates must have caused global warming, or at least says those crazies.
Being serious for a second, I do think that it is a concern. We can of course blame all this hullabaloo on the great Democrat President Clinton, and his wimpy foreign policy which consisted of withdraw as soon as your troops get hit. Had he stayed the course in Somalia, I don’t think we would be facing this at the present (and bin Laden would not have thought of the Americans as wimps, so we would have the benefits of no 9/11, and thus no War on Terror).
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Why not turn NZ into a pirate safe haven where pirates can come ashore and off load their booty.
We can replace the Queen with a newly elected Pirate King/Queen.
We can convert all our factory’s over to producing pirate stuff and sail the seas looting and robbing our way to fame and fortune.
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Dear Chippie: I’ll check it out -just ‘cos you love it so much. Cheers m
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Oh Dear IE has a problem and has to close – easy boys; I’m not looking to buy a Visby for me – it’s for BJ…I loike it a lot – but just looking at the power plant (and I didn’t get to the specs) if we cannot afford to fly Skyhawks, what price (fuel) to run a fleet of these little beauties?
Great anti-piracy platform – am convinced helicopters are our best option, for a number of reasons.
My primary idea of also keeping our Friggits, is that they are bought and paid for….the more options, the better. (my ancestors must have chromosomatically locked in a certain conservatism, that says ‘buy, and never sell’). Capitalistic no?
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The problem with frigates is that they are primarily part of a carrier group set piece. Since we don’t have any aircraft carriers, their true strengths as warships are wasted, unless we run around escorting other peoples carriers.
I’m with BJ – give us swift, relatively invisible on and offshore patrol boats, like the Green party policy calls for, and flick the frigates.
The irony is that our frigates are barely armed and couldn’t defend themselves properly if we wanted to. We simply haven’t got the money to put all the cool weaponry required onboard.
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Muppets the lot of you – strategic defence policy and decision making is clearly not an area you have one iota of skill or sense in.
First error – Thinking type of ship matters – it doesn’t. A ship is just a weapons platform – the weapon matters, the platform is largely irrelevant.
Second error and as big as the first – If pirates have the ability to operate inside NZ waters then we have bigger problems which would mean coastal patrol vessels would not be able to stop them.
And this thinking coming from the party hows last involvement in defence was to move in parliamnet to reduce defence expenditure onto conservation. Joined up thinking – not!
You clearly have spent to much time watching rambo and believing that have the keys to Castle wolfinstein means you can operate doom.
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Its not the weaponary that a ship needs Frog, its defensive systems where you need to spend the money,
One missile will easily sink your nice expensive Frigate.
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oh BTW isn’t the point of a Frigate as part of a Carrier group to be a sitting duck and get hit by any incoming missiles so as to protect the expensive and precious carrier.
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Exactly Turnip28 – my point(s) exactly. Sell the buggers and buy something that will be useful in patrolling our maritime waters, not someone elses!
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BJ,
Not to poke holes in your plan, checked out the visby’s and they seem ideal for a small nation/navy such as ours but how much would they cost to maintain as opposed to the frigates we already have? (old frigates – less complex parts – cheaper parts etc).
WWHS & Turnip,
I expect sytems that could be used to defend and attack from the frigates are a bit out of our price range.
Agree with Mark – some or our best military assets currently are our highly skilled troops so we should be investing in attack/transport heli’s to get the troops to where they can be effective
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yeah pat1 lets go all Rambo so that when its all quiet on the western front we can take out the bridge over the river kwai.
or more realistically invest in body bags because with the way you lot are going the special ops boys will be killed by air assets that can see without been seen and kill at the click of a mouse.
Special ops only works when you have surprise otherwise its a world of point and click and we have no skills in that. Special ops also cannot hold and maintain territory – from all your moaning about IRAQ and afghanistan have none of you learnt anything. Your armchair critics that make US neoconservatives look like rocket scientists.
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WWHS,
I’ll start with the obvious – You don’t fly a transport helicopter into the middle of a fire fight. A simple RTS computer game could teach you that.
The next most obvious thing you need to think about is the sort of action we expect to be engaged in. We will not be fighting against countries with highly developed air force etc. Most of our duties are peace keeping and if there is the occasional horde of bad people holed up in a small building then small fast tactical groups would be good for that.
If you need the proof of this, look to history – New Zealand’s most notable work in WW2 was in the Long Range Desert Group – small parties that raided and destroyed Axis Airbases etc.
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Not true pat1, fly tanya into the enemies base using a transport helicopter and have her take out the power plants, there by shutting down the tesla coils and making the base vunerable for attack.
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Go Rambo Baby? Well hardly – I actually think using the Picton Ferry for excersize was most inappropriate. But then NZ’ers recently declared that Whole Government inappropriate.
OK so, we can’t afford the new Cherokee chopper? Apache’s will be just fine…and in any serious military context, our Allies (yes we do have ‘em) already have aircraft carriers and jet fighters aplenty.
NZ is one of the most fortuitously located countries in the world in military terms…yet one concern with the Visby is what a rocket propelled grenade might do to it (a favourite weapon of Pirates). Frigates are impervious to this kind of menace.
Anyway, to return to the Map, I see not a Pirate within 10,000 clicks – more on the problems we DO have good Frog.
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Okay, this is really toys for boys time but …
The South African navy over the last couple of years acquired German build corvettes, the costs of frigates was seen as to high – not that the cost of the corvettes has not caused controversy. The shape of these may seem familiar, I think the Aussies have frigates (which are bigger) from the same supplier. Check out the helicopter carrying capabilities.
http://navy.org.za/pages/valour
http://www.victorlogistics.co.za/navy_corvette.htm
Back to the Somali pirates – the South African government is considering sending these corvettes as part of an international taskteam to combat the pirates
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=87&art_id=vn20081121054641793C287146
These ships are also used to combat Chilian Seabass/patagonian toothfish poachers in the South Atlantic.
http://www.panda.org.za/print.php?id=262
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=ct2001041320402025C600372
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turnip you old-schooler you
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OK… you awful lot are completely out of control now..
First point: The Visby was taken AS AN EXAMPLE.
Second Point: Policy and Politics include NOT making detailed choices for the military professionals. NOT second-guessing the military professionals. NOT pretending to know precisely what will happen in 20 years time. NOT pretending to know who will threaten what with how much. They are tied to giving those military professionals a mission statement. and letting them work out the details.
Third point: If you read properly there IS a helo option for the Visby.
Fourth point: Although SOME in the party want to get rid of the Frigates because of the expense OTHERS regard them as simply being the wrong ship for the restated missions and do not expect to save a dime. Remembering that the policy is the product of a committee, one can gain an appreciation of the way this finally worked.
Fifth point: Our kids will be the ones who will face whatever trouble comes over the horizon and they will face it with whatever the heck we’ve organized for them as weapons. That is especially true of the Navy which has the longest acquisition and training lead time of the services. I have had encounters with some in the party who are bona-fide pacifists. They didn’t write the policy.
++++++++++++++++++
WWHS… IF we would have larger problems if we had to concern ourselves with “pirates” operating locally then perhaps THAT is not a realisic consideration for the mission brief given to the Defence Department. It certainly would have been laughed out of the policy considerations. Pirate fishermen perhaps… not the sort of thing we see off Somalia… and with good reason.
We did not specify either ships OR weapons. THAT ISN’T OUR JOB and if you read the policy you’d probably have a clue that we actually know that.
When I chose the Visby as an example it was because the ship type DOES matter. Speed, Stealth and Range are not something you can add to the ship later. When were YOU in the Navy?
The policy doesn’t have us exporting our forces to places where the folks who have that sort of air asset are interested in fighting with us.
Consider that there are only a couple such countries on the planet.
and
They aren’t regarded as hostile or expected to become hostile
and
Their assets are such that fighting with them would be pointless.
The policy does not make fighting them part of the mission statement.
So why in the heck are YOU bringing them up as a reason to rubbish our policy?
I think that the problem here is that you have NOT read it, and thus don’t recognize that the definition of Green Party policy by third party opinions p!ssed us off enough that we decided to set it down so that the mis-statements and wild-eyed accusations could be finally put to rest.
respectfully
BJ
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I would rather see us using the v-22 osprey with ships than using helicopters, but thats a pipe dream
.
I wonder if the Visby is V-22 capable? lol
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Completely
Out
Of
Control
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Bjchip – if you have been following my postings closely you would have noticed a long string of movie references strung together – mostly as a wind up to the one or two people who were taking this a little to seriously and also callously. You appear to have a reasonable understanding of the constraints of defence acquisitions (as you say long lead in time etc). But others were heading down a jingoist path that was more akin to dad’s army and showing the natives a bit of steel, especially with their view in special ops. These views can be very dangerous when discussing defence policy especially within a political party which could have some influence over defence activity. Too easily this can result in operational fiasco’s. Defence is a long long game – never consider todays friends to be tomorrows friends, all you have is mutually concurrent interests.
Future tech is deadly – but Bjchip your still dangerous so maybe you can be my wingman
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Out of control is good, was this ever going to be a sincere discusion of defence policy when it started with a proposistion of blowing pirates out of the water with torpedos droped by orions?
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Well… I know for a fact that none of the others had anything to do with the policy… and I’m certainly not sure of the membership status of most of the folks on this board
…and Sapient, this all started with a question from SweetDisorder at the VERY top of the thread, about what was considered to replace the frigates… which I answered without referring to the pirates at all IIRC.
Your responses were appropriate but your target selection got to me…. I don’t think most of the nonsense was coming from members of the Green party and none was in the policy… or from anyone on the policy committee… which was probably what caused me to jump salty when you attributed the out-of-control stuff to Greens.
Pax…. I’ve come to trust your reasoning ability at least. Even if I don’t agree with everything, it is usually listened to rather than simply heard.
Greens have two problems. The first is the self-inflicted wounds. Which would be bad enough… but the other is the media mythology that has grown up around our seemingly perfect aim.
Don’t believe everything you hear about us… or at least not about ALL of us
respectfully
BJ
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Mark52
The problem with the Skyhawks wasn’t that they cost too much but that they had no realistic mission. Consider the combat radius, the combat radius of aircraft of any supposed opponent and the absurdity of imagining we could take on an opponent who possessed an Aircraft Carrier… particularly when the Naval Forces that contain aircraft carriers of any sort are USA, France, Britain and Russia. The Combat Wing could do air to surface raids against an opponent who brought surface combatants here… but realistically that’s hard to justify.
New Zealand HAS to get the most bang possible for its buck, which is why we have to work towards having the most capable, up-to-date and appropriate-to-mission ships available when the time comes. POLICY.
I liked Johan’s suggestion that we look at the South African acquisitions, as they reflect the problem of seakeeping in the southern ocean. The smaller Corvettes are at a disadvantage there. Is it important enough to want a larger vessel in place of 2 or 3 smaller ones? NOT POLICY.
Sapient – your imaginary V22 was funny but… why didn’t you go for the Harrier? DEFINITELY NOT POLICY!!!!
respectfully
BJ
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BJ,
Im not quite sure what you mean about be attributing the crazy stuff to the green party? do you mean my statement that id bemore liklet to vote for the greens or progressives? my point was that it is better to prevent a problem than to use a bottom-of-the-cliff approach, the insinuation being that only the greens and progressives really adopt such an approach in their various policies.
Imaginary V22? why imaginary, because its too big?
Lol, i mentioned the V22 because it has the advantages of VTOL whilst being designed for cargo and troop carrying and deployment where as the harrier isint usefull for cargo or troops unless you want to have them working like they were in new orlins, not exactly the best in a combat environment.
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Yeah and this is laugh no:44. I suppose the Forest and Bird Site hasn’t got a bite yet…”bang for our buck” I love this John Waynery….agree – we wasted millions on jets which had nowhere to go….love to meet that salesman…..well there are also ideas around long-range flying drones for surveillance – the radar screens we have aren’t the worst things I’ve seen.
Then of course I thought of choppers dropping sonar buoys – anything that’s not meant to be there will show up.
For a Country without SA’s wealth, low cost/high surveillance would be my preferred policy
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Nope… the crazy stuff was about taking on pirates in Africa and Special Ops forces and all the rest that WWHS was referring to when he disparaged the party on the grounds of the silliness. There WAS silliness, it wasn’t (mostly) party members participating in it… (I think).
A Visby isn’t useful for cargo OR troops… it is a SMALL Corvette. It has a total crew of 43 and no place to carry 24 combat troops… or a V22. I imagine it MIGHT carry a Harrier, but not protect it from the sea.
It is NOT my job or party policy to come up with a force mix or a specific recommendation to Defence. They make recommendations to US based on what our Foreign Policy and Defence Policy tell them their mission is, and money will always be a constraint.
I wasn’t aiming at anyone in particular. We guys can get excited over neat toys and nonsense scenarios. Especially the neat toys. That’s OK. and I like ‘em too… but it isn’t policy.
respectfully
BJ
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Mark
Sonobuoys are expensive! Getting a target grade solution out of them is a real PITA too, the convergence zones play hell with your localization of a target. Trust me, I KNOW these things. My first job when I got out of the Navy was with the Norden ASW group.
The point is that the mission statement is a policy issue and the professionals take it from there to get an appropriate force mix within the constraints of the budget negotiations.
I would no more tell them how to do their job than I would tell my surgeon how to operate. We tell them what the job IS, and we negotiate what we can spend on the equipment we can get them and we let THEM make the choices. Civilian control of the military has to be limited to identifying the mission.
respectfully
BJ
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BJ,
oh, right,must of skipped over that.
What about hospital ships for humanitarian efforts around the pacific and for civil defence purposes in the event of natural disasters in New Zealand?
As the most qualified person on this forum to make such a judgement; what do you think about New Zealand going th eway of sweden in terms of military technology? Or would there be more effective way that better suits NZ in getting more engeneers working in NZ and boosting the economy outside of geo-engeneering?
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Sapient
I just realized that a response to WWHS was inadvertently dropped into a section that would make it to you. Apologies. That’s why I could not make sense of your response to something that could not possibly have been sensible to you.
respectfully
BJ
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Sapient…
We went in agreement with project protector..
http://www.navy.mil.nz/visit-the-fleet/project-protector/
The bit about the Frigates is only a tiny part of the policy.
respectfully
BJ
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Sweden has a different set of requirements. No deep ocean.. the Baltic is all relatively shallow sea. Never far from land. They have some similarities as well, but it would be wrong to model our forces on anyone else’s. Our situation is OURS.
I have to go to sleep !
respectfully
BJ
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BJ,
I was refering to swedens state design and sale of military hardware.
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Neat toys…. but lets face it… there are a lot more of those than there are dollars in the treasury. I’ve always liked the SAAB designs, but there’s so MUCH stuff out there… and as much as I know, it is NOT my profession any more.
respectfully
BJ
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Yeah nix the sonobouys, theres evidence they mess with our whales sonar too…satellite surveillance anyone?
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Passive buoys don’t… but they are still expensive.
Satellites:
Getting a good stare at our region would take no small effort… we’re too far from the equator. Anything we put in a polar orbit will be useless more than useful and subject to other people’s fights. Expensive as hell. Can’t be fixed when they break.
Zeppelins and Blimps:
Long duration, relatively high speed and vastly more efficient than any airplane (more like a ship than a plane). Excellent stare, and can execute a hover if need be. Vulnerable to weather. Can be fixed when they break. Cheap. Quiet.
High altitude drones:
Good stare, less vulnerable to weather than the LTA craft. Can be fixed when they break. Cheap.
Being able to look at one spot for a period of time allows detection of changes that can be missed because they are transient. = “stare”
It is possible to change sensors on both the LTA and the drones. LTA can also have sound sensors and can carry a remarkable amount of “stuff”.
respectfully
BJ
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Zeppelin aircraft carrier and assorted fleet of airships with various weaponary and purposes *laughs evily*
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OK While you guys were sleeping I designed a Solar Powered
GPS Radar Bouy,small enough to transport in our Sea King Heli’s. It has a range of 150 miles – and is low tech, low maintenance.
Only need 4 to 6 of em – they fone home. Is moveable(3man).
The prototype in the shed cost nearly $17k; – you’re right BJ; expensive little fellas…..as whales communicate in 3d holographic images, their signals can be passively separated, the electro-magnetic modifier took half an hour but otherwise good.
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There is another way of preventing pirate attacking oil shipments to New Zealand that is truly green – make New Zealand self-sufficient in transport fuels and simply avoid having oil shipments. This would also reduce the number of export shipments we would need to make, therefore fewer ships to protect and keep track of, making it easier to spot suspicious shipping activity.
The first step is increasing our renewable electricity generation so we can save our oil and gas for transport…
Trevor.
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Right on! Well said Trevor – couldn’t agree more.
Food for thought….
“A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring
it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge
will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own
Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. –”
James Madison, letter to W.T. Barry 4 August 1822
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I’m not convinced that satellites don’t have a role in tracking pirates. However it is impossible to put a satellite in an orbit over New Zealand that doesn’t cover much if not most of the globe. Pirates are an international problem so an international solution is appropriate. Satellites in a low earth near polar orbit will scan most places on earth twice a day. (Near polar orbits don’t cover the poles, but that isn’t usually where pirates operate
A network of such satellites can scan each area several times a day.
Most satellites are owned and operated by consortiums, so New Zealand can either join such a consortium or pay them for the data from the satellite.
One problem with satellites is cloud cover. However some satellites carry radar. I don’t know how well that can be used to track the sort of ships pirates are likely to use.
Bear in mind that the data from satellites has other uses than just tracking pirates. Marine Search and Rescue operations come to mind, but there are a whole range of applications. This works both ways – many satellites which are used for other purposes could provide photos of large areas of ocean.
New Zealand would almost certainly need to increase its satellite ground station capability to take advantage of these satellites – no bad thing given the other applications.
Trevor.
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Well Trevor, the Australian/US liason is tighter than ever and they both already deploy independant (ie; without NZ) regional surveillance that would give plenty of warning.
Again; the pirates start in south east asia – nowhere near new zealand (unless you’re talking whale killers).
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