A cute fluffy Easter bunny or maybe a giant Hello Kitty? No way something that adorable to 3yo girls could be dangerous.
I once, as a junior officer (the juniorest of officers, actually) called away a *“suspicious floating object” alert on a pink plastic bag (filled and bulging with something—probably trash, but how can you know for certain?) drifting toward the ship while we were anchored out in a foreign port where we were directed to maintain a heightened state of alertness for possible terrorism and force protection concerns.
I was roundly mocked, with specific emphasis on the pinkness of the bag.
Your hypothesis is sound.
*ETA: And I want to be very clear: there is a specific pre planner response we are supposed to follow for suspicious floating objects or debris.
Large Rubber Ducks should be viewed suspiciously. They’ve been normalized.
Switch the CIWS to manual mode, aim carefully through the TV sight, and let ‘er rip! 
The only thing better than a bag o’ trash is a bag o’ shredded-by-20mm trash.
This was back in the days before CIWS was modified to have an anti-surface mode. Wouldn’t have worked.
I’m confused, I thought Phalanx CIWS always had that option. Did they code away from surface shots as too prone to mistakes?
I recall when ours was installed and testing it shot off part of the guard rail around the gun and it did sink a rowboat put out there for that purpose. I believe it was installed in 1984 on the Ranger.
Was there actually a manual mode? I was only an EMElectrician and not FTFire Control Technicians. But I thought it was meant to run on automatic only.
How could it shoot a rowboat without a manual mode? Not knowing the full history of the CIWS, I honestly have know idea what the capabilities of the system were in the mid-80s with the mark 1 mod 0 variants.
I do know it eventually had a manual mode, and it eventually had a mod to allow it for use against small surface contacts, but that was an addition roughly contemporary to my own time and not an upgrade that had been implemented in my ship at the time.
But what I am absolutely certain of is that a CIWS could not possibly track and engage any kind of surface contact without a manual mode. It just doesn’t work like that. The automatic mode is specifically meant to engage high speed air contacts closing in on the ship. A surface contact wouldn’t trigger that kind of automatic engagement logic.
Maybe in your case it was in an unusual (manual) configuration because they were testing it, and not something that you would see in an operational unit?
Obviously something was a bit off because it should be impossible for a CIWS to shoot off any part of the ship it’s installed on (but I do know of at least one example, before my time, where the CIWS actually continued tracking and firing on a test target as the target passed the ship’s bridge, at which point the CIWS continued following along the track and fired into the ship, killing… I think it was the XO and the Navigator?).
Anyway, clearly something wasn’t quite correct/normal if the CIWS was able to shoot off a part of the ship, and it definitely wasn’t in automatic if the target was a row boat, at least not in any kind of automatic configuration it would have been in once in an operational (non-testing) configuration.
I was slightly kidding about cranking up the CIWS.
Yes, it’s great for stopping high speed boats, and especially a few of them since the dwell time per target even for a total kill can be real short. But it’d be definite overkill against a floating bag o’ trash / improvised floating mine.
Even if your ship was equipped with a surface mode CIWS I’d bet the response protocol for stationary UFOs starts with the sniper rifles or manned .50 cal mounts first.
Well the rail I heard described as it acquired it as a target and proceeded to shoot it off the ship. But this was still indeed still during testing. I’m pretty sure the Ranger was the first carrier to get CIWS. It was pretty amazing tech at the time.
I was also told that a Phalanx on another ship wiped out a flock of geese when it acquired the flock as a target.
I really don’t know enough about the weapon systems to explain the boat part so maybe it was a manual or semi-manual mode?
In general, we ran a lot of drills where the Marines would scramble and get 50cal (maybe 30cal) Machine guns set up to defend the ship from small craft. Especially small wooden or rubber boats like Achilles.
Those 50cals were really noisy if you were remotely near them.
Yes, I figured you were. In any event, an M14 (which we still had aboard ships in numbers at the time, as we only started to get the Army’s leftover M16s as it shifted to the M4 in Iraq and Afghanistan) with a scope would probably be the first thing if one were to shoot it. But one could also put a boat in the water and attempt to inspect it or draw it away by grappling it.
The basic (original) style is the Block 0, equipped with first-generation, solid-state electronics and with marginal capability against surface targets…The Block 1B PSuM (Phalanx Surface Mode, 1999) adds a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensor to make the weapon effective against surface targets.
And you wonder why the US has such a “problem” with Canada geese?
Probably because there are so few Navy ships patrolling the US / Canada border. If there were USN ships there, they’d have long since disposed of the migratory flocks.
Silly story time:
When I was in USAF stationed in Phoenix AZ I was dating a US Navy officer. She was a recruiter there then, but had previously been in intel. This was long before women were (much) allowed on ships. And the Soviet Union was still in full swing.
Anyhow, whenever I’d introduce her to friends, and especially USAF friends, somebody would inevitably comment along the lines of “Har, har, har! What’s the Navy doing here in hot sandy Phoenix?” Her well-practiced comeback: “Seen any Commie submarines around here recently, have you? Nope? I’m doin’ a hell of a job aren’t I?”
I wonder what ever happened to her? She didn’t seem to be USN career material (as I wasn’t USAF career material) and we were the same age and rank then with a few more years to go before we could separate from the service. Good luck however your life went and wherever you are now.