An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in long distance and high value trade. In more modern times, auxiliary cruisers were used offensively as merchant raiders to disrupt trade chiefly during both World War I and World War II, particularly by Germany.
A ship is scuttled when its crew deliberately sinks it, typically by opening holes in its hull.
The lorcha is a type of sailing vessel having a junk rig with a Cantonese or other Chinese-style batten sails on a Portuguese or other European-style hull. The hull structure made the lorcha faster and able to carry more cargo than the normal junk. The advantage of the junk rig was in its ease of handling and resulting reduced crewing requirement, together with its relatively low cost of construction. Owing to its simplicity, it was also easier to repair. Lorchas were made locally of camphor or teak and generally were of 30 to 150 tons burthen.
The Battle of Liaoluo Bay took place in 1633 off the coast of Fujian, China; involving the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Chinese Ming dynasty's navies. The battle was fought at the crescent-shaped Liaoluo Bay that forms the southern coast of the island of Kinmen. A Dutch fleet under Admiral Hans Putmans was attempting to control shipping in the Taiwan Strait, while the southern Fujian sea traffic and trade was protected by a fleet under Brigadier General Zheng Zhilong. This was the largest naval encounter between Chinese and European forces before the Opium Wars two hundred years later.
The Battle of Ty-ho Bay was a significant naval engagement in 1855 involving the United Kingdom and United States against Chinese pirates. The action off Tai O, Hong Kong was to rescue captured merchant vessels, held by a fleet of armed war-junks. British and American forces defeated the pirates in one of the last major battles between Chinese pirate fleets and western navies. It was also one of the first joint operations undertaken by British and American forces.
The Battle of Tonkin River was a major naval battle fought in northern Vietnam between the pirates of Shap Ng-tsai and the British Royal Navy with aid from the Qing Chinese navy and the Tonkinese. The 1849 expedition led to the destruction of Shap Ng-tsai's fleet and the loss of over 2,000 men. The battle occurred over a three-day period at the mouth of the Tonkin River, near present-day Hai Phong.
The Battle of Tysami was a military engagement involving a warship from the British China Squadron and the Chinese pirates of Chui A-poo. It was fought in September 1849 off Tysami, Harlaim Bay, China, and ended with a Royal Navy victory. It was also the precursor engagement to the larger Battle of Pinghoi Creek where Chui A-poo's fleet was destroyed.
The West Indies Squadron, or the West Indies Station, was a United States Navy squadron that operated in the West Indies in the early nineteenth century. It was formed due to the need to suppress piracy in the Caribbean Sea, the Antilles and the Gulf of Mexico region of the Atlantic Ocean. This unit later engaged in the Second Seminole War until being combined with the Home Squadron in 1842. From 1822 to 1826 the squadron was based out of Saint Thomas Island until the Pensacola Naval Yard was constructed.
The New Orleans Squadron or the New Orleans Station was a United States Navy squadron raised out of the growing threat the United Kingdom posed to Louisiana during the War of 1812. The first squadron consisted of over a dozen vessels and was mostly defeated during the war. Afterward, new ships were stationed at New Orleans which engaged in counter-piracy operations for over twenty years. The New Orleans Squadron was eventually merged with the Home Squadron.
The Battle of Nam Quan was fought in 1853 as part of a British anti-piracy operation in China. A Royal Navy sloop-of-war encountered eight pirate ships near Nam Quan and defeated them in a decisive action with help from armed Chinese civilians on land.
Aegean Sea anti-piracy operations began in 1825 when the United States government dispatched a squadron of ships to suppress Greek piracy in the Aegean Sea. The Greek civil wars of 1824–1825 and the decline of the Hellenic Navy made the Aegean quickly become a haven for pirates who sometimes doubled as privateers.
The Battle of Doro Passage was a naval engagement during the United States Navy's operation against Greek pirates in the Aegean Sea. On October 16, 1827 a British merchant ship was attacked by pirates in Doro Passage off the islands of Andros and Negroponte but was retaken by American sailors.
The Battle of Castlehaven was a naval battle that took place on 6 December 1601 in the bay off Castlehaven on the south coast of Ireland during the Nine Years' War between a Spanish naval convoy of six ships and an English fleet, commanded by Admiral Richard Leveson and consisting of four warships. The Spanish convoy was protected by fortified positions on shore, a castle, and 600 Spanish and Irish footmen. Five out of six Spanish ships, commanded by General Pedro de Zubiaur were either sunk, captured, or run aground in the battle, while the English fleet lost no ships.
The West Indies Anti-Piracy Operations were a series of military operations and engagements undertaken by the United States Navy against pirates in and around the Antilles. Between 1814 and 1825, the American West Indies Squadron hunted pirates on both sea and land, primarily around Cuba and Puerto Rico. After the capture of Roberto Cofresi in 1825, acts of piracy became rare, and the operation was considered a success, although limited occurrences went on until slightly after the start of the 20th century.
The Sulu and Celebes Seas, a semi-enclosed sea area and porous region that covers an area of space around 1 million square kilometres, have been subject to illegal maritime activities since the pre-colonial era and continue to pose a maritime security threat to bordering nations up to this day. While piracy has long been identified as an ubiquitous challenge, being historically interwoven with the region, recent incidents also include other types of maritime crimes such as kidnapping and the trafficking of humans, arms and drugs. Attacks mostly classify as 'armed robbery against ships' according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as they occur in maritime zones that lie under the sovereignty of a coastal state. Incidents in the Sulu and Celebes Seas specifically involve the abduction of crew members. Since March 2016, the Information Sharing Centre (ISC) of the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) reports a total of 86 abductions, leading to the issue of a warning for ships transpassing the area.
Operation Ocean Shield was NATO's contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa (OEF-HOA), an anti-piracy initiative in the Indian Ocean, Guardafui Channel, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea. It follows the earlier Operation Allied Protector. Naval operations began on 17 August 2009 after being approved by the North Atlantic Council, the program was terminated on 15 December 2016 by NATO. Operation Ocean Shield focused on protecting the ships of Operation Allied Provider, which transported relief supplies as part of the World Food Programme's mission in the region. The initiative also helped strengthen the navies and coast guards of regional states to assist in countering pirate attacks. Notably, the Italian Military Support Base in Djibouti contributed to anti-piracy efforts as part of NATO's Operation Ocean Shield, utilizing naval vessels such as the ITS Mimbelli and ITS San Marco in the Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean, and off the coast of Somalia. Additionally, China, Japan and South Korea sent warships to participate in these activities.
The Battle off Mukah was a naval engagement fought in May 1862 between boats of the Sarawak and pirates. After the kidnapping of Sarawakian citizens some time before, two small gunboats encountered the pirates off Mukah on the northern coast of Borneo. In an unusual action, the Rajah Muda, Captain John Brooke, then the heir apparent to be White Rajah of Sarawak, led his force in the defeat of six pirate ships and the rescue of captured civilians.
The Irene incident of 1927 was a British anti-piracy operation in China during the first half of the 20th century. In an attempt to surprise the pirates of Bias Bay, about sixty miles from British Hong Kong, Royal Navy submarines attacked the steamship SS Irene, of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, which had been taken over by the pirates on the night of 19 October. The British were successful in thwarting the hijacking though they sank the ship.
USS Ferret was a two masted schooner, the third U.S. Navy vessel to bear this name, and was purchased 20 December 1822 at Baltimore, Maryland and commissioned early in 1823, with Lieutenant R. Henley in command. It was the first U.S. naval ship commanded by the famous naval hero David Farragut. Ferret served transporting U.S. sailors, marines and supplies to the pirate infested waters of the Caribbean and was used to search out and attack pirate ships and pirate strongholds for a little more than two years when her career was cut short when the vessel capsized in a gale force storm off the coast of Cuba.
The Battle of the Tiger's Mouth was a series of engagements between a Portuguese flotilla stationed in Macau, and the Red Flag Fleet of the Chinese pirate Ching Shih, led by her second-in-command, Cheung Po Tsai - known to the Portuguese as Cam Pau Sai or Quan Apon Chay. Between September 1809 and January 1810, the Red Flag Fleet suffered several defeats at the hands of the Portuguese fleet led by José Pinto Alcoforado e Sousa, within the Humen Strait - known to the Portuguese as the Boca do Tigre - until finally surrendering formally in February 1810. After her fleet surrendered, Ching Shih surrendered herself to the Qing government in exchange for a general pardon, putting an end to her career of piracy.
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