Persistent Piracy

Could Naval piracy remain a major problem through the modern era (I know there is mordern pirate nowaday, but I was more thinking if it had kept up in era like the 19th century)
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
If the Council of Vienna had not decided to end it, and, particularly if privateering had not become against international law. The problem is, it became a legitmately recognized casus belli and one of the major justifications for colonialism. It was the major reason IIRC for the French taking Algeria in the 1840s and also for the British moving into the Arabian Peninsula.

Much like terrorism is becoming now.
 
Doubtful, as steamships were evolving which the pirates did not have the
possibilty to maintain so their sailingships would have been hunted down
by steamfrigates from various navies.
 
Doubtful, as steamships were evolving which the pirates did not have the
possibilty to maintain so their sailingships would have been hunted down
by steamfrigates from various navies.
A sailing vessel requires just as much maintenance as a steam one. The pirates could well have got steamships, and it would actually have made them more effective at hunting sail-powered merchant vessels. Piracy would become more of an inshore activity, though, with small armed steamships hidden up rivers or in natural harbours during the day, and coming out at night.
 
A sailing vessel requires just as much maintenance as a steam one. The pirates could well have got steamships, and it would actually have made them more effective at hunting sail-powered merchant vessels. Piracy would become more of an inshore activity, though, with small armed steamships hidden up rivers or in natural harbours during the day, and coming out at night.
Granted but to maintain a steamship you will need a machineshop and trained workers and of course coal, I am not certain if wood would be sufficient to power the steamengine.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Granted but to maintain a steamship you will need a machineshop and trained workers and of course coal, I am not certain if wood would be sufficient to power the steamengine.

No more than on any other "tramp" type vessel. An engineer and helpers, some machinery in or around the engine room. You can take coal from your victims, or buy it wherever you sell your plunder.
 
Wow, machinist pirates sounds really cool and steampunky.

Well let's hope that in the world were that took place that evolve to the point they have airship pirate (cue crimson skies nostalgia)

Who now maybe disgrunted Dock Worker or navymen would hijack steamship and attack shipment as a way to protest :D
 
Napoleon XIV
No more than on any other "tramp" type vessel. An engineer and helpers, some machinery in or around the engine room. You can take coal from your victims, or buy it wherever you sell your plunder.
In short term it might work, but not in a long term. To repair something on wooden sailship you need only wood (easy to find everywhere) and a good carpenter. With steamship sooner or later you'll need a more complicated repairs and spare parts, and that requires bigger base, which can be easily found and destroyed (once most of naval powers agreed to fight the piracy).
Also, while it was relatively easy for a pirate to get a wooden ship (most of merchant ships of that time were armed) with steamship it is not so easy. Building a steamship is quite expensive and not every steamship is good for piracy. But let's assume you've got a steam freighter or tramp. There is another problem.
While pirate wooden ships could often outmanouver wooden warships or simply run away from them, civilian steamships usually couldn't match the speed of a steam warship. And in direct confrontation pirate ship usually couldn't match a warship. Besides, fighting a warship was bad business - a lot of risk, not much to gain.
 
It seams to me like piracy goes up and down troughout history. Pirates gets smacked down when they are a big enough menace so we need to have less pirates during the golden ages or less powerful sea powers.
 
Actually the Straits of Mallaca and the East African coast around Mogadishu still have lots of trouble with pirates.
 
Piracy and privateering demand big oceans and small navies. If the New World were settled by lots of powers instead of a united Iberian peninsula, France, and England, then you could have a dozen or more equal powers in the Americas. Keep France separate from Savoy and Flanders, maybe even a successful Cathar resistance? Add in a multinational Iberian peninsula with Aragon separate from Castile, or even still a Granada and a Galicia and a Basque federation?
1. Newfoundland, PEI
2. St. Lawrence.
3. Hudson to Maine.
4. Susquehana, Chesapeake, Potomac river systems.
5. Seaboard south to Okefenokee.
6. Florida.
7. Mobile, Pensacola, almost to New Orleans.
8. Indian nations all up the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio.
9. New Orleans to Atchafalaya
10. Red River.
11. Houston and upriver, all the way down to Brownsville.
12. Rio Grande.
13. Cuba.
14. Hispaniola.
15. Jamaica.
16. Puerto Rico.
17. Trinidad and the islands.
18. etc, etc, etc.
Every large island and every river system with good transportation winds up as a separate language or country. Nobody has the clout to form them into an empire. Lots of inland areas have Indians still resident. Slower settlement because trading wins out over slave colonies and religious nuts. This gives the Indians time to recover from epidemics and import alcohol resistant genes.
Yeah, could be done.
 
No more than on any other "tramp" type vessel. An engineer and helpers, some machinery in or around the engine room. You can take coal from your victims, or buy it wherever you sell your plunder.

When a part on a sailing ship breaks down you can put in to an island where your ship's carpenter can knock up a new one.

If something major on a steamship breaks down you need the services of a fully equipped machine shop.
 
A fully equipped machine shop is okay for fixing engines. It is about 20 feet across and can be purchased with a small fraction of one looted cargo.
A dockyard is more difficult.
 
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