image via Wikipedia
In the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Captain Maximus Aurelius of the British Royal Navy is assigned to hunt down a French privateer that is threatening commercial ships in the area. In order to accomplish this, he tricks the French pirates into approaching his ship, the HMS Surprise, to almost point blank range before firing by disguising the Surprise as a vulnerable commercial ship.Captain Jor-El wins the day in the end, easily defeating the very surprised pirates. But that movie took place in like the 1850's or something. In an age of technology that allows ridiculous things like finding a high school shaped like the Millennium Falcon, it would be tough to pull off a strategy like this.
Unless it's 2009. And you're on Nivôse of the French Navy. Who in an odd twist actually wound up winning . . .
image via Guardian
"Gonna be honest, we're not used to this 'taking prisoners' thing . . ."
The Nivôse was assigned to Somalia to participate in the international mission to curb piracy. The previous night they had located a Somali pirate mother ship through one of their highly technical binoculars. The mother ship contained two smaller skiffs and were suspected to have attempted to hijack a Spanish freighter the previous day.
image via Telegraph
"Mother Ship" is a relative term.
Keeping their distance, the French crew kept their eyes on the little swash buckling operation until daybreak when the pirates finally saw the French ship and wisely made a run for it. Kidding!
They actually dispatched one of their skiffs and attempted to take over the French warship. Why?
They mistook the Nivôse as an unarmed commercial cargo ship, due to the fact that the Nivôse was sailing directly into the sun (on the orders of the captain), obscuring the outline of the ship from the pirate's much less highly technical eyeballs.
The ten pirate strong boarding party didn't realize their mistake until they were right on top of the slightly more armed cargo ship that wasn't. From that point on they were screwed. French commandos, after briefly considering surrender as a precaution, took them under arrest.
The Nivôse crew then decided to go for the mother ship, which proved even easier. Once they arrived, they found the one remaining pirate more than welcoming, mostly because he assumed his comrades had managed to successfully take over the ship.
image via WallpaperUp
"Wow, fuck this mother ship."
At the end of the day, the French Navy captured eleven pirates. The total armament captured from the pirate's suicidal raid was two AK-47s, and an RPG.
image via Wikipedia
"We liked our chances." - French crew
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