It would have to fend me off to...because I would come her booty! ARRGGH!

*for....still she can fire my acoustic cannon any time..arrgh

Yeah, but how effective is that weapon going to be against Iraqis and Somalians who don't speak English? Good work, geniuses!

"Not only were the crew complimented by private security personnel"

I'd say the pirates were more concerned by the hundreds of bullets whizzing by their heads than that goofy sonic cannon, but oh well. Every little bit helps.

In any more recent update of this story, it turns out that the LRAD was -not- effective against the pirates, according to the Navy. The pirates were probably laughing until the bullets came flying. Just another expensive boondoggle.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/11/18/high-tech-letdown-somali-pirates-repelled-by-bullets-not-sound/

I've got to get one of these for home!

They should outfit these ships with the MetalStorm cannon. A million rounds a minute being shot at you would be enough to convince you to acquire a different occupation. Like crochet.

And the LRAD would be more effective if it were modified to pump out a Sarah Palin speech. If I were a pirate and was having that sort of thing leveled at me... I'd give up piracy too.

Secondly, didn't they use one of these on Whale Wars? I didn't see the episode, but did see the ads. Did it not work then? It looked like they were in serious pain.

Forget a "acoustic cannon" use a real cannon the pirates would get the point alot faster, and if the cannon doesn't work get a few grenade launchers. I'll bet if you did this to a few groups of pirates the number of ship's being hijacked would go down really quick.
http://www.ShopStunGuns.com

I'm all for shooting those f**kers out of the water but the reason we don't shoot first is because of the hostages in Somalia. We're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

the police in Vancouver just got some of these for protester control during the Olympics ,the promised not to use the weapon part on people (just like the taser) just as a public address system.

I'm with the pirates. If I were living in complete anarchy and poverty and boats loaded with money and fat Westerners came sailing by, I'd load my kalashnikov and go get myself my own wealth. Western "free" market press calls Somalis pirates, but that's all a matter of scale and perspective.

I think the civilian version of the LRAD operates at a much lower power level, and it's obvious from Whale Wars and this incident that the system is a joke.

Still, I'd love to see what would happen if you held a parabolic reflector in the path of an LRAD beam...

Systema... you're a douche. I'm sure you'd be just as sympathetic if it were you or a love one staring down the business end of a pirate's weapon. You're only one step from somehow justifying all crime committed by the poor against the comparatively 'rich.'

@klaw the master of sound, you obviously dont know anything about this. it doesnt shoot words out. it shoots sound waves, that are interpreted by the brain as a high pitch sound about to blow your eardrums open. it is pretty much an alarm system directed at one area.

Well this is a good solution for cruise ships, since opening fire on another vessel would probably turn away alot of customers. But i can't help but feel a more effective solution would be for the military to provide cargo ships like this one with an escort as well (defen them then send in marines with sound proof helmets (and with radios built in so the can communicate with each other) to round up the pirates.) But maybe that is considered to violent a solution for some. Also to address Klaw's concern, you are clearly not a master of sound as the cannon does not yell at them and try to shame them into submission using English, it hits them with a very loud high pitch noise that can rupture the ear drums, similar to the shell shock given off from a few tank rounds. Really i think these should just be mounted on to Boston police vehicals for dismissing the riots that occur when teams kicking ass in big games.

Gabe, that's exactly what I'm saying. I don't want to be on the end of any gun. But neither do those "pirates". Being confronted with immediate death by a gun or a slow death by famine or civil war awakens the same primal survival instinct. They shoot at us to survive, we shoot back. The thing is we started the whole mess, and we can solve it, or at least make things a little better. How do you think it feels if you're starving and you see people sailing by that apparently have so much money they can spend it on sailing around the world for no good reason.

madgenious & BoredGuyAtWork,

Okay, I get now that it uses sound and not English, but I thought what I did because the woman in the photo is clearly holding one of those things to talk into so I thought that's her job. Honest mistake.

Systema... your insistence that this is about survival rather than any other type of crime shows your ignorance of the subject. I suggest you look into who exactly these pirates are before defending them. The real people that starve in these nations are the ones under the boot-heel of pirates and warlords. We've tried to help by sending billions of dollars worth of food and economic support, but the powers that be (the warlords) will always take it from those that really need it.

The conditions in these nations aren't so simple that you can throw money at it nd fix the whole thing. But piracy CAN be fixed. This sonic weapon is the most 'humane' way I've seen.

Just figured I point out that the article is about the integration of sonic cannons on ships, not so much the moral dilemma of piracy . But by all means carry on. Also I can see how you would make the mistake of it being a retardedly loud megaphone, but i think the chick in the picture is just demonstrating the cannon to the camera man, but the picture is kind fuzzy so i can't really tell. Although if it was a loud megaphone the language wouldn't really matter with the amount of decibels these things put out.

Would be great for playing video games, actually suffer damage if you get kill in MW2

so what happens if you only have the sonic cannon, and the pirates shoot a grenade or something at it? what do you do then? looks like it's on a pole, how hard would it be to take out a pole? or just shoot your ship and blow it up? what if they have ear coverings just like yours? it wouldn't have any effect on them. good thinking. they don't have to see you clearly to shoot you with a rocket, they just have to know kinda which general direction you're in. geez. i feel so safe. didn't they use those on the incredible hulk? didn't work on him either, he deflected it. oh, my, sound waves can be deflected? duh, think echo. what if they just bounce it back at you? riddle me that batman!!

Actually rockets are not that powerful (assuming you are talking about one's from bazookas) granted a ship is a pretty big target, you still have to get the rocket pretty close if you want to sink the boat (which there is no reason for a pirate to do anyway, as they just rob the ships.) I don't think these were intended to replace weapons either. I believe they are just meant to prevent firefights from civilian ships and pirates, since most civilians do not want to carry assault rifles and the like with them on trips or whatever (not that know why they would be there.) As for ear coverings, that's just a risk you have to deal with, i mean they could have bullet proof vest but we still use regular (non-armor) piercing bullets. As for the echoing problem, they would have to be shooting at a fairly large ship to get the echo (sound waves have to bounce off something) and they are probably jetting out of there at full speed anyway (since this is not a real weapon anyway.) If you still don't feel safe, then i would suggest staying away from pirates (which you probably do anyway.) Finally i don't think this would be to good for video games since the crappy players would go deaf pretty quick.

the somalies are only shifting to piracy because they're starving, and they're starving because the the japanese and russian fishing fleets wiped out the fishing in their area while illegally overfishing those areas for generations. Instead of shooting the pirates out of the water somebody ought to be bringing charges in the world court against japan and russia and force them to pay reparations and help form a plan to re populate the wasted fishery

think "ironman". This a non leathal option that can be very persuasive. why do some people feel that it's necessary to kill to get the point across. course if we kill them they don't go back to their families and hey, one less mouth to feed in a starving country. but seriously, I think systema has the right idea

Actually, the best combination use would be
the Acoustic Cannon AND The SHRILL-DA-BEAST
(the screeching shrill noise from Hillary Clinton)