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That navy boat is equipped with some serious threat detection and avoidance, literally billions of dollars worth.

The cargo ship was probably lit up on their detectors, well, like a big effin ship on the water.

There was no "didn't see it coming"

Thinking on this for a while, the possibility that the crew thought they could shoot across the bow with nary a scratch is the most probable explanation, simply misjudged the closing speed, almost made it.

I worked on Jewel of the Seas an RCCL ship for about 10 months, 10 years ago. Of course I always wanted to go on engine room & bridge tours. In the wake of 9/11/2001, those are not casual events, the crew takes the whole concept of bridge/engine room tours VERY seriously.

Now, that particular ship & its sisterships was (for its time) rather unique in that ship power was derived from 2 qty DC-9 turbine engines driving “azipods” which look like an old style desktop fan, upside down. Yes, jet engines. Intake air came down a freaking huge pipe 13 stories tall and exhaust, same. Now that kind of ship isn’t in the business of performing whiz-bang maneuvers but when it was time for that ship to start up and take off, it did, with gusto. Immense power. Those destroyers have the power to bury the bow underwater if they are thrown into hard reverse.

That ship could sail into a channel between 2 rock jetties and turn around in place with 30 feet of clearance fore and aft, and I saw it do that 20 times into Bermuda. One guy actually stood on the bow and another on the stern with laser scanners which looked a lot like bar-code scanners and I would imagine the “turn around inside your own length” was a subroutine that could be invoked in the ships nav computers. But it was still hard to believe it was going on, even watching it over & over.

Ten years ago.

I find it hard to believe that such a destroyer does not have an “emergency collision avoidance” button of some sort.

You mention a kind of what might be called a “cowboy” attitude, I can’t really say and obviously cannot know. Tend to doubt it, but there you go. I can tell you, stuff happens on the water with those ships about 4 times as fast as you think while the situation is developing.

" That navy boat is equipped with some serious threat detection and avoidance, literally billions of dollars worth.
The cargo ship was probably lit up on their detectors, well, like a big effin ship on the water.

There was no "didn't see it coming"

Probly the backup cam was on the fritz.