Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull
This is insane.  I can't imagine what was going through the Venezuelan captain's head trying to do this.<p>It's one thing if the shooting is already started to defend yourself.  But even if this stunt had worked, you'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 <i>small</i> navy.<p>Unless you are an icebreaker, you just don't intentionally hit <i>anything</i> (tugboats <i>nudge</i> after gently making contact, they do not <i>ram</i>).<p>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 <i>usually</i> gets people's attention.<p>Ramming?  WTF?