NAIROBI (AFP) – Somali pirates attempted to storm the French navy's 18,000 tonne flagship in the Indian Ocean after mistaking it for a cargo vessel, the French military said on Wednesday.
The crew of La Somme, a 160-metre (525-foot) command vessel and fuel tanker, easily saw off the brazen night-time assault by lightly armed fighters on two lightweight skiffs and captured five pirates, a spokesman said.
All jokes about the French aside, this had to have been one of the more side-splitting of pirate attacks. You know that there was a moment for those pirates when they realized the sheer enormity of their mistake; when it dawned on them that this was not, in fact, a cargo ship but a warship. And immediately following that moment would be a Wile E. Coyote-esque scramble for the railing, most likely accompanied by soiled britches...
"Looks like you boarded the wrong got-damned cruise ship" indeed.
That is all.
Tip 'o' the keyboard to my buddy sci-fi who sent this wonderful story to me in e-mail with the quip: "I guess the pirates didn't realize Jacques Chirac wasn't the French head of state anymore...." ZING!
5 comments:
In reference to the Wiley E. Coyote comment, maybe the Somalis should have checked the Acme catalog for frog repellent before heading out. -grin-
Superior firepower wins out, even in the hands of the French.
Minor correction: It wasn't a warship. It was an "armed naval auxiliary:" a naval supply ship, specifically a tanker, that carries a few small-arms and light automatic weapons for emergency defense.
So the mistake is understandable. But still pretty damned funny.
And it was French, to boot...
Doesn't that just prove the point that one should arm oneself at sea? It's not like they had to use major artillery to foil the attackers, but some small arms. *facepalm*
I'm with Wolfwalker.
Hey, it LOOKED like a big, rich, Western cargo vessel to a pirate form a Third World hellhole liek Somalia. Plus, it had a FRENCH flag, for God's sake.
Of course they expected an easy walkover, maybe even a fat ransom.
Of course, had they succeeded (even with a civilian French-flagged and French-crewed freighter), they would have found out that there's "French politicians and public opinion" and then there's the French Foreign Legion -- and the French pols and people don't mind AT ALL sending La Legion Etranger out to go bust wog heads for the defence of French profits. That's kinda what all those Serbs and Croatians in kepis (these days) are for, right?
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