Since we are talking guns...two more sea stories maybe funny maybe not.
Scene: 2 Oct 1991, heavy seas off the Shumagin Islands, Gulf of Alaska. M/V Hyundai No. 12 (a 600 ft grain ship with a 28 ft draft) decides to avoid the storm by cutting between two islands that have none (read zero) sounding data and a big stamp on the chart saying "The shorelines depicted on this chart are approximate. No formal surveys or sounding have been made. Navigate with extreme caution." So they run hard aground. My ship gets the call to go help. 12 hours of steaming later we get there, anchor and I get sent over as the Boarding Team Leader to survey the scene. As we approach we see all these little black dots on the ocean. At first I thought they were a variety of seaweed that I had never seen before. As we get closer, they are rats. Big, seaport, greasy rats. Swimming to shore. So I call it in. Ten to fifteen minutes later I get a call back. "Sweetbrier-1 this is Sweetbrier, use all means necessary to deny the rats access to the islands." I think everyone on the RHIB looked at the radio, stunned and confused.
"Sweetbrier, Sweetbrier-1, Please say again your last." I said trying not to laugh.
"Use all means necessary to deny the rats access to the islands." Comes my CO's voice.
"Roger your last Sweetbrier. Do we have permission to go weapons free?"
"Goddamnit! I said all means necessary!" Screamed old Wild Bill W.
"You heard the man. Lock and load." I said as my team started taking aim. And thus began the Rat Patrol.
3 days. 52 sorties. 672 rats. 1200 feet of oil boom. One salvaged freighter. Almost the most fun I had in service.