I looked into this "small arms fire" you mentioned. You're right that it wasn't out of nowhere, but the actual story seems to be somewhat more nuanced than your

I looked into this "small arms fire" you mentioned. You're right that it wasn't out of nowhere, but the actual story seems to be somewhat more nuanced than your very carefully worded depiction suggests: > All 290 on-board including 16 crew perished. At the time of the incident, Vincennes was inside Iranian territorial waters and engaged in small arms combat with several Iranian surface craft Did you miss that bit? I mean in that context, with the guy stumbling into Iranian waters and shooting at some of their boats it makes more sense that he'd be worried about an attack. But that just makes the situation even stupider and more avoidable in my opinion.