In the time of normal global peace it is up to the ship owner to put the smack down on piracy...
No, No, NO!
In the time of global peace, the only real combat mission of the navy is doing exactly that -- combating piracy. Not saying that the owners of ships shouldn't be arming themselves against these predators (because they should), but the PRIMARY responsibility of combating pirates is now and always has been the navies of the world.
True, it is kinda ridiculous to have $5 billion ships protecting individual commercial ships. The answer to that is -- make more, less expensive escort ships (a WWII example would be the Destroyer Escorts i.e. Frigates) and start traveling in convoys which reduces the escorting costs. It's sad that we don't have any of those old DE's in mothballs right now, since they would do the anti-piracy mission we currently face just dandy. Just slap a surface search radar on them.
The US (and most of EU) is already patroling this area with naval ships. However, you probably don't realize that this coastline is almost the size of the whole US eastern seaboard. It is a huge area.
Yes, I know. Similar problems vexed navies in the past. That the US, the various EU countries, Japan, etc. are patrolling isn't good enough. That they are already operating in the area isn't good enough. They need to be operating with the mindset of actually defeating the pirates. That means that instead of just sailing around showing the flag (which is what they're doing right now), they need to be:
> using their intel assets to determine where the pirates' bases are,
> then using that info attack them in their bases,
> and in the mean time gathering up the singleton ships into convoys so that they can be effectively protected by means of the limited escort assets in the area.
Until this happens, we're just urinating in the breeze.
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I was just thinking about what a proposed new anti-piracy escort vessel should be and what it should have.
It should be a small frigate or large corvette sized vessel. Small enough to be made cheaply and in large numbers, and yet large enough to be ocean going with enough capacity to keep on station for weeks on end and/or provide screening for ocean going convoys.
It should have enough speed to keep up with convoys and enough to match or overtake Pirate motherships. 25 knots flank speed ought to be enough.
It should have a sophisticated surface search radar. It's difficult to fight 'em if you can't find 'em.
It should have at least some anti-aircraft/anti-SSM capability and some sort of air search radar for survivability and convoy defense. Say, a CIWS and a brace of Sea Sparrows.
It needs 1 rapid fire cannon in the 3" to 5" range. (Pirate mothership)
It needs 2 batteries of 20mm or 40mm autocannon. (Pirate assault craft)
It needs a sprinkling of .30 or .50 MGs. (Point defense)
It needs a small complement of SSMs of its own. Say, 4 Harpoons or Exocets. (in case the pirates want to up the ante) In the older days this role would have been filled by the torpedoes on the DEs.
It would be nice if it had Helo capability.
I don't really think that having a significant ASW capability would help in the mission and would up the ante too much. Pirates won't be using subs.
