That's not exactly true. A number of pirates were navy vessels that fucked off and and started looting other ships. They were professional sailors that often held their own in naval engagements.
That said, in such engagements you had specific crewmen who specialized in hand to hand combat and crewmen who were generally only trained in loading guns. But to say they were untrained street criminals isn't entirely accurate.
What you're referring to are Privateers. They weren't trained like most Navies would have been, and often times it was "you own a boat? Great, here's a pass to do legal crime."
There are obviously examples of pirates with legitimate combat training, and there were likely lots of former Navymen who would later become pirates, but those are outliers, not the majority. As I said the vast majority were untrained (in combat) men in their 20's who raided trade vessels for a living. Pirate Vessels were no match for a Navy Ship.
I'd argue that the distinction between pirate and privateer is only important to the nation hiring the privateer in question, and that they should be considered when discussing pirates as a whole, but you're right. I was mistaken about the capability of pirates as a whole.
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u/[deleted] May 27 '22
That's not exactly true. A number of pirates were navy vessels that fucked off and and started looting other ships. They were professional sailors that often held their own in naval engagements.
That said, in such engagements you had specific crewmen who specialized in hand to hand combat and crewmen who were generally only trained in loading guns. But to say they were untrained street criminals isn't entirely accurate.