Despite a rise in modern piracy, it was up until the early 2010s very unusual for modern merchant ships to be armed, save for maybe a number of small arms and the use of the ship's fire hoses to repel boarders. One notable exception to this were the ships of Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited, which are used to transport spent nuclear fuel and reprocessed uranium on behalf of British Nuclear Fuels Limited. Transporting enough fissile material between them to produce 50–60 nuclear weapons, these ships, beginning with the "Pacific Pintail" and "Pacific Teal", became armed in 1999 to avoid the cost of a Royal Navy escort. Travelling together in convoy during these ships' intermittent voyages, they have an onboard escort of armed police from the UKAEAC and its successors and are equipped with two or three autocannons. Another exception were various ships of the Soviet Union's Merchant Marine (MORFLOT) during the Cold War (MORFLOT often operated as an adjunct to Soviet foreign and military policy, both overtly and otherwise).