Would work, we have a crapload of escort carriers in mothballs still, retrofit a few, strap some harriers or attack helicopters on them, and go to town.
The problem is, a warship is visable. its too easy to spot, pirates go to ground when it is nearby
There was a very effective british invention for dealing with Pirates. It was called the "Q" ship. You take a standard cargo hauler design, and you retrofit it so instead of hauling cargo, it is fully armored and heavily armed. False containers on deck hide a few harriers or F-35 STOl variants ready to go, large guns in hidden ports on the side, hell, you could even strap a battleship turret to the middle. Then you play fat and dumb merchanter. Drive it into ports, "buy" lucrative cargoes, let slip next ports of call, etc. Suffer "engine trouble" off the coast of Somalia (loudly, on all radio frequincies calling for help.
Then you wait.
The pirates show up, they fire a rocket at you. Your ship, armored with kevlar reinforced battle steel panels on the inside, shrugs it off and then you open fire on them with your hidden 5 pound destroyer cannons. They get vaporized, rinse repeat. Every so often change the paint scheme and layout, maybe add false superstructure elements to keep them guessing.
When the british ran them, they were highly effective. No reason they wouldn't work now. and you could combine them with a few warships to herd the pirate presence in the direction you want them to prey on.
Edited, Apr 16th 2009 9:44pm by Kaolian