"Return of the Clandestine Merchant Raider?" Topic

"Since before recorded history, merchant vessels have been adapted for offensive purposes by navies, pirates, and privateers to destroy enemy commerce or to launch attacks ashore. Frequently they employed disguise and deception. The UK employed Ships Taken Up From Trade (STUFT) during the 1982 Falklands War, the Malaysian Navy has converted two container ships into pirate hunters, and the US Navy has leased ships to support special operations, but I think the last time they were used to attack commerce was WWII. By the end 1943, it appeared that technology, primarily in the form of reliable radios, plus robust challenge-and-reply procedures, a comprehensive naval control of shipping organization, and a seemingly impervious blockade of the German coast, had made this type of warfare very dangerous, but new technology may now be working in favor of using converted merchant ships as clandestine warships.

The German Experience

During World Wars I and II, the German Navy achieved considerable success using armed merchant ships as clandestine merchant raiders. At small cost they sank or captured a large number of allied merchant vessels, tied down a number of warships searching for the raiders, and even managed to sink allied warships.

In World War I, three raiders, Wolf, Moewe, and Seeadler (a full rigged sailing ship), sank or captured 78 ships totaling 323,644 tons. In addition to the merchant ships they captured or sank directly, merchant raiders proved effective mine layers. One victim of a mine laid by the raider Moewe was the pre-dreadnought battleship EdwardVII, sunk on 6 January, 1915…"
Full article here
chuckhillscgblog.net

Amicalement
Armand

"Mines are still potentially effective. The large carrying capacity of cargo ships means they could potentially lay large mine fields."

The Wolf sank 13 ships with its limited number of mines and took or sank 14 by other means. Of course, war secrecy meant that they had no idea when they succeeded (usually being hundreds and hundreds of miles away).

I highly recommend The Wolf: How One German Raider Terrorized the Allies in the Most Epic Voyage of WWI. The passengers that were captured produced a really odd situation and some great anecdotes. I hate to give them away …

If you want a great read, track down the WW1 story of the German armed Merchant SMS Cap Trafalgar, which while disguised as the British cruise ship HMS Carmania, fought a sea battle against the British armed merchant vessal HMS Carmania!

That's right, The SMS Cap Trafalgar ended up fighting, the very ship is was disguised as! And as that that both ships were lightly armed merchants and not true warships, they ended up having a sea battle more like one out of the Napoleonic age then WW1.

In a world with wide-ranging radar and satellite coverage the life-span of any merchant raider would be extremely short.

-Will

If pirates can still steal ships on the high seas and disquise them and hide them, sometimes repainting them and using or even selling them, then raiders will still be a possibility.

There's a huge difference between the resources used to track pirates and those used to track warships.