When did Pirates lose there edge?

[Elta]

Okay I know there are still some pirates around (esspecially in africa) but when did pirates lose there ability even when heavly financed to take down a war ship of a major power?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

when the US totally pwned the barbary states


EDIT: and just to nitpick, the title of this ought to be " When did Pirates lose Their Edge?"

 

[History_Buff]

Since the industrial powers decided they were going to build large scale ocean fleets, and not give them to pirates. I'm pretty sure if England or the US started handing out ships with Letters of Marque again, there would be some dangerous pirates out there.

 

[ChrTh]

There were pirates in the American civil war, they were called 'confederate raiders'.

Totally-making-it-up-off-the-top-of-my-head-but-makes-so-much-sense-it's-probably-true reason: the invention/use of the telegraph. Money could be 'wired'. Communication could go ahead of the stolen cargo so there would be no market for it. Etc.

 

[mrtn]

Okay I know there are still some pirates around (esspecially in africa) but when did pirates lose there ability even when heavly financed to take down a war ship of a major power?

When did they ever take down a war ship of a major power? According to the recent pirate thread, they hardly ever did that.

 

[YNCS]

The Barbary Pirates captured the frigate USS Philadelphia (36 guns) in 1803 when she ran aground on a reef off of Tripoli Harbor. Several months later, an American party under Lieutenant Stephen Decatur burned Philadelphia. There's a rather famous painting of Decatur's exploit:

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

When did they ever take down a war ship of a major power? According to the recent pirate thread, they hardly ever did that.

American Privateers captured a number of British man-o-wars and the like: they werent much much more than fishing boats with cannons on them (most of the time thatts precicely what they were)

 

[sydhe]

When they lost Barry Bonds to the Giants.

 

[Elta]

When did they ever take down a war ship of a major power? According to the recent pirate thread, they hardly ever did that.

A bar walks into a dyslexic

 

[Speedo]

Increases in firepower & armor, I'd say. Once the navies of the world moved beyond simple smoothbore cannon and started building ironclads and beyond, they could turn the pirates into a greasy spot on the ocean with little threat to themselves. Just went up from there.

Just like you won't find a shipyard today willing to build an AEGIS cruiser for a pirate (even if they could afford), I don't think there were many people 130-140 years ago willing to build ironclads for pirates.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

that would be SO COOL! I want my own Ticonderoga now -but- who will be my crew?! (insert intobang here)

 

[mrtn]

A bar walks into a dyslexic

What's your point?

 

[Plotinus]

[Cheezy] If you're nitpicking, what the hell does "pwned" mean...?

It's not the case that there are "still some" pirates around. There are lots of pirates around and they're a big problem. This is especially the case in Asia, particularly around Malaysia and Indonesia. Unfortunately they're not quite as romantic as the jolly seafarers of eighteenth-century legend.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Once pirates began to lose the support of the nations, ie. when they lost their "privateer" status, they could no longer field the latest in technology and were easily swept aside by more advanced ships.

In the Mediterranean, the Corsairs were defeated by the US in a series of wars, which put an end to piracy in "the west".

In Asia and Africa, the pirates don't have any real opposition from modern navies and so can do as they like.

 

[Plotinus]

In the Straits of Malacca, which is one of the prime areas for pirates, they're up against the navy of Singapore, which is ultra-modern and extremely formidable. But pirates will operate wherever there's a chance of making a profit, and despite the high dangers of this area, there are also great rewards, since it's one of the busiest cargo shipping areas in the world.

It's like drugs in Singapore. If you're found smuggling more than a certain quantity of drugs through the country, they deem you a drug dealer and hang you. But people still do it, because the fact that it's so dangerous means the prices are high.

 

[joycem10]

When they lost Barry Bonds to the Giants.

Damn, stole my joke. I was going for 1993.

 

[Darth_Pugwash]

As Plotinus says pirates are still a problem in many areas of the world, especially in Indonesia, and the Straits of Malacca are particularly bad.

In the west European powers used pirates as a supplement/replacement for their navies, pretty much from the 1500s up until about the mid 1700s, and by the 1800s the threat from pirates/privateers was lessening, finally becoming a non-issue with the elimination of the Barbary pirates in the 1830s.

One of the reasons for this I would have thought is ships getting more advanced and expensive, as a result nations were less keen on handing them out and there would be almost no chance of aquiring one privately.

Even at their height it would be fairly rare for a pirate ship to take out a major warship, though.

 

[Darth_Pugwash]

A 'heavily financed' pirate operation decked out with cruisers, battleships, aircraft carriers and what have you would have no problem taking down a major war ship or two, in answer to your original question.

(as history_buff already said)

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Pirates in local waters here use high-speed small boats, to rapidly move in on cargo ships and the like and capture them - utilising heavily on the element of speed and surprise. Captured sailors are ransomed off (if not killed). The cargo is sold off. The ship itself is sometimes repainted, reregistered, and sold off (if not sunk, to destroy all trails). The pirates then melt back into the general poor, fishermen population along the Indonesian coastal regions.

I believe there're large sophisticated networks involving triads and the like involved in the whole process.

Why would they want to capture a warship? How would they get rid of them? There's simply no profit in it for them.

In any case, currently the arrangement is for the three local navies to handle the local pirate problems. It isn't that widespread; otherwise the US, Japan and China would want to muscle in (which Malaysia and Indonesia object to, as a violation of their sovereignity) on the patrol work. I think the Japanese and Americans had offered, but their offer was rebuffed.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Fascinating.

Pirates in local waters here use high-speed small boats, to rapidly move in on cargo ships and the like and capture them - utilising heavily on the element of speed and surprise. Captured sailors are ransomed off (if not killed). The cargo is sold off. The ship itself is sometimes repainted, reregistered, and sold off (if not sunk, to destroy all trails).

Some questions:
How common are those pirate assaults? Do they capture really BIG cargo ships? Isnt the theft of the ship inmediately detected by the authorities?