ships -- it just that smaller ships have limited utility. They have little seakeeping ability, they're physically hard on the crews, their payload is limited, thus they have no stamina and require support from larger ships. They have to transported to theaters by other ships due to their short sea legs. There are far more minuses than pluses.

If you but a slew of them to 'fight pirate' now, what do you do with them after the pirate menace disappears or gets down to an acceptable level? Storing ships and recalling them to active service later is an expensive way to do business, that's why we don't do that much nowadays.

There are other problems with your plan. You're going to have to kill a lot of Somalis. Who's going to take the flak for that? You're going to haul some to Court -- where? Who's going to pay for that?