Please note date of article. Check out Innovative Sea Solutions website HERE







Anti-piracy ship defense may have changed forever. Imagine that you are a pirate sneaking up on a merchant ship. You approach from astern, or from directly ahead where you think the blind spot will be. Your unwashed friends are armed with rusting AK47s and an RPG7. As you approach you hear an unfamiliar roar of spraying water – it is not regular ship’s hoses, that sound you know. This is different. Suddenly, 80ft above your head and off to the side, far away from the ship itself, a machine opens up with pinpoint accuracy! You have attacked a sea monster, armed with tentacles and on the end of each tentacle is a machine gun.



Armed guards are probably still the best defense against pirate attacks on the high seas but failing that, the next best thing is probably the MEDUSA Shipboard Defense System from Innovative Sea Solutions. It is something entirely new and outside-the-box, combining a hydrojet pack with a remote weapons mount(!).





MEDUSA-MV

Medusa-MV (Merchant Vessels) protects civilian ships from pirate attack. The established defenses include shipboard hoses and anti-grappling hook shields, but the Medusa system takes anti-piracy to a new level. Essentially it mounts to fitting a remote weapons station to a hydro-jet pack like you see at the beach. And then attaching that to the hydrants on the ship. The result is a mobile and elevated weapons station with 360 degree coverage.







Current shipboard antipiracy defenses include:



a) Hoses used as water cannon. Either crewed or, increasingly, semi-automated. Can flood small skiffs as they approach close to their target.



b) Throwing objects. Typically bottles and Molotov Cocktails. Of limited use against an AK.



c) Anti-boarding hoardings. Plastic fenders designed to prevent grappling hooks catching on the ship’s railings.



d) Razor wire along the railings. Self-explanatory.



e) Armed guards. Often former Special Forces, these can be very effective if adequately quipped.



f) Route planning, communication, deception and secrecy. Vital regardless of the above measures.



g) MEDUSA-MV shipboard defense system.





JetLev hydro-jet pack



The –MV version comes with a 70ft (20m) hose and can carry up to 200lb (90kg) of equipment including twin 7.76mm machine guns. It has a standard video camera and infrared sensor and can be constantly recording. It can also carry some unspecified ‘non-lethal’ options. Innovative Sea Solutions advertise that “MEDUSA-MV has a strong deterrence effect”.





MEDUSA-NAVY

Innovative Sea Solutions also build a naval version of the MEDUSA designed for warships, from Patrol Boats upwards. The system features improved survivability, connectivity and firepower. Six ‘Snake Head’ remote weapons stations can be controlled together. Armament can include 0.50Cal Machine Guns and SPIKE missiles.



