Ship Boarding Squad Design

[liveware (OP)]

Fair point. I have heard of pirates in modern times using small boats to board commercial ships for nefarious pirate reasons. So it's not a completely obsolete practice even today, though I certainly would not want to attempt anything like that myself.

[Ulzgoroth]

Fair point. I have heard of pirates in modern times using small boats to board commercial ships for nefarious pirate reasons. So it's not a completely obsolete practice even today, though I certainly would not want to attempt anything like that myself.

You probably could board a slow and unarmed ship that was trying to resist. Though I think the pirate would threaten fire on the ship with small arms and maybe an RPG to make them stop messing about. The boarded ships generally don't have any arms whatsoever, not even small arms.

Trying that kind of thing on a ship with even the smallest of naval weapons would get you converted into finely-divided fish food faster than you could say "Hostis humani generis".

[Barkhorn]

In the movie, Captain Phillips, and in the real event it's based on, Somali pirate skiffs actually couldn't keep up with the cargo ship on their first attempt.  They had to take the motor from one skiff and add it to another for their second attempt, which was successful.  So they clearly can successfully board high speed targets.

[liveware (OP)]

I have also heard reports of naval vessels turning pirates into paste... Naval weapons are not toys.

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

If the specifics of the below captured U-505 are realistic, then capturing a WWII era submarine need not be a bloody affair.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-505

In this case, I would argue that ship capture should be based primarily on crew morale rather than (infantry) combat capability. However an outnumbered and outgunned crew should arguably surrender (or scuttle).

Edit: Not to derail this topic too much as Aurora is not exactly a WWII simulacrum.

By the 20th century, boarding any warship was something that almost never would happen until after the ship had surrendered. Or been abandoned, in that somewhat unusual case.

Realistically it's hard to imagine that getting any less true in space, but Aurora is hardly bound by 'realistically'.

Boarding a modern warship by force generally requires poking enough holes in it that your boarding party requires scuba gear.  Boarding a spaceship the same way requires space suits but the ship itself should remain easily accessible.

I have also heard reports of naval vessels turning pirates into paste... Naval weapons are not toys.

The US Navy has been known to respond with 155mm when their boats get harassed, as the Somalis could tell you, and the Russians tend to get...unpleasant.  Any pirate capable of threatening either of those would require the backing of a major government, and actually trying could easily start a war.