Orders and controls in Operation Ocean Shield

The first rule

Keep a warship in each area of the Gulf of Aden (Bab el-Mandeb and the western, central and eastern Gulf of Aden), with its helicopter on alert. Pirates go where you aren't. Spare ships can sit off a pirate town, escort group transits or hunt.

Warships

Select a ship on the map or in the Task force list, then choose an order:

• Patrol: cruise a sea area near the lanes. The ship's helicopter and radar look for pirates, and it checks out contacts close by. Being near is what stops attacks.
• Escort groups: once the transit corridor is adopted, the ship takes each group transit of one speed band across the corridor, then the next one back, with its helicopter on alert. Ships under 18 knots cross in groups at 10 to 18 knots. The helicopter covers the whole band in the corridor, and ships in the escort's own group are rarely attacked.
• Hunt: sweep an area for motherships and skiffs, flying the helicopter hard and going after anything seen within about 170 nautical miles.
• Off the coast: sit off one of the five pirate towns. Fewer action groups put to sea from it, and those that do are met at the beach.
• Intercept: send the ship after a contact.
• Fuel in port: ships spend two days alongside for fuel and stores.

To send a ship to a sea area, select it, choose Patrol or Hunt, and click the area on the map.

Helicopters

Each helicopter is on Routine or Alert 15. On Alert 15 a crew sits ready to launch in 15 minutes and reaches attacks about 60 nautical miles away, but it flies fewer patrol hours. On Routine it flies patrols all day and reaches attacks about 25 nautical miles away. The ring around a ship on the map shows its reach.

Patrol aircraft

Select a patrol aircraft and pick its area. It searches the whole area each morning. Contacts (diamonds) are suspected pirates: live ones are bright, and old sightings fade. Send a ship to intercept them.

The side panel

• Task force: your warships and patrol aircraft, and the navies contributing ships.
• Desk: decisions waiting for you, hijacked ships, the policies in force, and the deployment so far against the real numbers.
• Shipping: how many ships follow Best Management Practices or carry armed guards, how many go round the Cape instead, and the group transits.
• Pirates: what intelligence knows about the group at each town. Their money and numbers are estimates.

Decisions

Policy decisions of the period arrive on the Desk: the transit corridor, Best Management Practices, prosecutions in Kenya and the Seychelles, SHADE, armed guards and strikes on the shoreline. Each one shows the day it must be decided by, and a new one stops the clock. Decide later puts it aside for now.

Time and keys

• Space pauses and restarts.
• Escape clears the selection.
• The speeds are 1× (a day in 24 seconds), 4×, 16× and 48×.
• Attacks your helicopters can reach, crews in the citadel and new decisions stop the clock. The bell button turns that off.