I was struck by reading last night that the South Korean navy wants to equip its Lynx helicopters with a missile protection system (flares and radar warning system) and is prepared to make the necessary modifications immediately, according to a South Korean defense ministry quoted by the Korea Times. The move comes after it received warning from the National Intelligence Service and the Defense Security Command that Somali pirates seem to have acquired Stinger anti-air missiles from Al-Qaida.
The reason it struck me is that I had spent the day at a French defense ministry presentation on helicopters and the question arose of self-protection for France's Panther helicopters involved in the European Union Atalanta anti-piracy mission.
Commander Frédéric Bordier, commanding officer of 36F Squadron at Hyères in south-east France, said that given the pirates did not seem to have anti-air missiles he thought the helicopters could wait for the second stage of the mid-life upgrade. But as Arnaud Demichelis, Navy Helicopters Program Manager at the DGA French procurement agency, said, the upgraded version with a self-protection system will not be available until mid 2012 to mid 2014 when 16 Panthers will be delivered.
In South Korea they are in more of a hurry. The Korea Times reports that modifications to provide the Lynx with a self-protection system could even be made in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, where the South Korean anti-piracy operation is based.
It's not just Stingers btw (which incidentally must reach the end of their shelf life by now), but a generous amount of Iranian and Chinese SA-7/14 copies have found their way to various 'revolutionary groups' over the years, not to mention the NOKORs, who have bucket loads of them.
Till now the military side of the containment strategy has been very mild. I guess that after the first reported usage, each small boat would be sunk on the spot.