Pirates and Privateers and Mercs

1) Merc shipping on military duties

Mercs willing to accept "hot" assignments would 
 want assurances of fleet-sponsored repairs 
and high premiums on the operation. Use of 
mercs for these roles, while not unheard of, 
would be rare. The main use of mercs would be 
to free up national fleet elements from 
mundane tasks which mercs would do without 
asking for the kitchen sink. Recce, intel 
gathering, shipping security, system patrol - 
mercs could do these things. 

2) Privateers and Pirates

Privateers would require a Letter of Marque 
and are (IIRC) operating as an extension of the 
government that hired them. Ergo slaughtering 
crews etc. is probably out. They neither want 
nor need to do this, unlike pirates. In fact, 
they'd be anxious to prove to a civilian captain 
that they are in fact Privateers, and when the 
battle is joined, they would (I think) fly the 
appropriate flag (or maintain the appropriate 
electronic signature?). 

The trick, of course, would be knowing if it is a 
pirate (who'll probably kill everyone to eliminate 
witnesses) or a privateer (who probably won't). 
I assume national gov'ts would pursue pirates 
who masqueraded as privateers quite intensely. 
This is of course a good way to besmirch an 
enemy power (disguise yourself as one of their 
privateers, then act in a vile evil manner).

As for ships captains not being anxious to 
surrender.... I'm in a thrust 2 merchantman with 
maybe one or two beam 1s. My escorts are 
either non-existent or dead. I'm facing a thrust 
4-8 raider with some B-2s, needle beams, and 
perhaps a squadron of fighters... my options 
are surrender, try to run and be crippled, or if 
my luck is bad try to run and die. Hmmm.... 
which do I take? 

Raiders would need less firepower and more 
speed to run away from (or catch up to) 
merchies and their escorts. They'd want mass 
advantage. 

As for escorting ships: You can't compare 
exactly to today's world. Think more of the 
1800s or earlier. Today, the world is a "small" 
area (like a big bay). Fleets from main powers 
can cover or surveil most of it. Not so in space. 
The gulf is too vast, the tech not there. 
Humanity is far more far flung. 

Yes, you _can_ send a warship anywhere a 
merchie can go. But you might not. You've got 
a limit of warship numbers. Sure, 1 in 10 
convoys is escorted (probably the really 
important ones). But 9 in 10 are not. If I 
double my escort commitment, I double my 
odds of messing up pirates and privateers. But 
I rob somewhere else - system defense? main 
force? If I start building a pile of escorts to 
defend shipping, then I eat up yard capacity 
and money. Paying for privateers is a great 
investment - a small number can cause (in weak 
defense situations) a disproportionate loss of 
shipping tonage, or (in strong defence) can 
draw off a whole pile of enemy fleet elements 
out of proportion to their number (defending 
like this is waaay more expensive than 
attacking) and it might choke off the flow of 
goods, which further hurts my enemies. 

It's a case of balance. If you have enough 
money to do everything, sure you escort every 
convoy. If you don't,  you escort some 
randomly, some important ones intentionally, 
and you evolve convoy doctrine so the 
merchies can do their best to survive (and 
probably arm some of them slightly). Oh, and 
you probably do have to build a few more 
escorts, balanced by your other budget issues, 
or rob them from some other militarily useful 
place. The extent to which  you do this 
determines the extent to which privateers are 
effective and how much it costs you. And no 
one said privateering was entirely safe. It is 
safer in the early stages of any conflict.... ;) 

Tomb. 
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Thomas Barclay
Instructor, CST 6304 (TCP/IP programming for the Internet)
kaladorn@fox.nstn.ca 
http://fox.nstn.ca/~kaladorn/CST6304
http://stargrunt.ca/tb/CST6304
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