The moral of the story may be  to identify the ship before you attack it.

U.S. Navy captures 5 Somali pirates, siezes pirate mother ship off Kenya, Somali coasts

The dumbest Somali pirates on the high seas tried to attack a U.S. Navy warship Thursday with predictable results – one sunk pirate boat, five captured pirates.

Navy officials said the incident in the Indian Ocean between the Seychelles islands and the Kenyan coast marks the first time the pirates have taken on a fighting ship operating with U.S. Naval Forces Africa.

Three pirates on a small skiff, possibly mistaking the 445-foot guided-missile frigate Nicholas for an unarmed freighter in the dark, attacked it firing small arms shortly after midnight, the Navy said.

The Nicholas crew “returned fire with a .50-caliber deck-mounted crew service weapon,” disabling the skiff and taking the three pirates into custody, the Navy said in a report from the region.

Cmdr. Mark Hesselring, skipper of the Nicholas, then ordered the skiff sunk and had the frigate chase down the nearby pirate “mother ship.”

Two more pirates surrendered and the mother ship was “confiscated,” the Navy added. The five suspected Somali pirates are being kept aboard the Nicholas until Justice Department officials determine whether to bring them to the U.S. or hand them over to Kenyan authorities.