<story><title>Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull</title><url>https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32853/this-venezuelan-patrol-ship-sunk-itself-after-ramming-a-cruise-liner-with-an-reinforced-hull</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ansible</author><text>This is insane.  I can&amp;#x27;t imagine what was going through the Venezuelan captain&amp;#x27;s head trying to do this.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s one thing if the shooting is already started to defend yourself.  But even if this stunt had worked, you&amp;#x27;re looking at many months of downtime while your ship is being repaired in drydock. Millions of dollars, and bigtime loss of capability for a &lt;i&gt;small&lt;/i&gt; navy.&lt;p&gt;Unless you are an icebreaker, you just don&amp;#x27;t intentionally hit &lt;i&gt;anything&lt;/i&gt; (tugboats &lt;i&gt;nudge&lt;/i&gt; after gently making contact, they do not &lt;i&gt;ram&lt;/i&gt;).&lt;p&gt;If this cruise liner was not following instructions (seems more like an act of piracy than legit, but that is another discussion), then you fire a shot or two off the bow of the offending ship.  That &lt;i&gt;usually&lt;/i&gt; gets people&amp;#x27;s attention.&lt;p&gt;Ramming?  WTF?</text></comment>
<story><title>Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull</title><url>https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32853/this-venezuelan-patrol-ship-sunk-itself-after-ramming-a-cruise-liner-with-an-reinforced-hull</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>hirundo</author><text>The Venezuelan ship had a 76mm gun, maybe one like this:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;OTO_Melara_76_mm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;OTO_Melara_76_mm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why would you ram when you could shoot up the other ship with 85 to 120 fourteen pound shells per minute, with no risk to your own ship?&lt;p&gt;Maybe they didn&amp;#x27;t actually have the ammo. Or maybe they decided to play chicken with the cruise ship and lost.</text></comment>