Quote Originally Posted by GC13 View Post
The fact of the matter is that the increased cost in procuring a bunch of small ships and operating them for a couple years is going to be less than the reduced costs of transporting goods you're going to get.
Are you sure about that? Do you have anything to back that up?

And piracy will never go away; until Somalia's situation improves, as soon as you remove whatever patrols "stopped" the threat it will come right back in a year or so.
Piracy never has gone away - which leads me to ask: What has changed where new, smaller ships are suddenly so badly needed to fight piracy? When in history has such a strategy ever done much to impact piracy?

Still, you'd be able to reduce operating expenses by cutting patrols, so long as they didn't go away entirely, gifting excess ships to local coast guards who need the firepower.
The problem is that patrolling (especially if that is all you're doing) doesn't do much against piracy for the same reasons that police patrolling doesn't stop crime. The ocean is simply too big to maintain the required presence, no matter how big your ships are. In the long history of piracy, patrolling has never worked.

The Navy could end about 90% piracy in Somalia in a few days if ordered to do so. That would be a cheaper route than spending a couple of years buying new ships, training crews, etc. if cost is your primary concern. It would also be more effective. So the real question you might want to ask is why hasn't the Navy been given that order?

I mean, I'm talking about ships in the $25M and under category, not the $400M and over category. It's a lot of money to any reasonable person, but the military wastes this much in its sleep every night.
Procurement is not the most significant cost in the long run.

On the small ships though, yeah you definitely wouldn't want the same guys seaside for too long at once. I hear the smaller ones can be pretty rough, but I don't know how bad it would be on a fifty meter vessel. They'd need tenders in the area, sure, but you wouldn't be doing your heavy lifting with destroyers...
All of Ken's comments against small ships are valid, but one he doesn't mention is the ability to support helicopters. A bigger ship with a couple of helos is a lot more effective than a bunch of smaller vessels.