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@paul made a post a few years ago I won't forget about us putting on a show for the Russians.
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It was a show of force more than anything.
This was in the early 1980s in the western Pacific north of Japan IIRC. I was stationed aboard the USS Midway and one of my jobs was to record on the primitive video equipment of the era the approach of any foreign ships or aircraft. Midway was, despite her age, a very fast ship.
This particular day a Russian Krivak came out to visit us. The intel group was interested in the Russian frigate as it was fairly new back then. I was up and out earlier filming close-ups of ship stem-to-stern as it came along side of us about half a mile off our beam. We had aircraft in the air and went to turn into the wind to create a favorable deck for landing aircraft. The Russians moved to block us from making the turn. We slowed down, they slowed down. We sped up, they sped up blocking us from turning into the wind. We were flying our "get the fuck out of our way we're in flight operations" day shapes but the Russian captain didn't care.
There's always a destroyer, sometimes a frigate, following a carrier. It works "plane guard" duty able to rescue a crashed aircraft much easier than the several times larger carrier. It also has the weapon systems to protect the carrier armed with surface-to-surface missiles and canon. There's also a rescue helicopter that sits off the starboard side to rescue pilots as well.
Using a move from American basketball the American destroyer was used in a pick-n-roll maneuver where our destroyer blocked the Russia frigate allowing Midway the opportunity to point down wind, gather speed, and then swing back into the wind to recover the our aircraft. Two F-4 Phantoms were launched in the same cycle. Our plane guard returned back aft following Midway's wake and flight-ops were secured and our captain, Charles W. McGrail, opened the flightdeck up and invited the crew to come topside and take a look at the Russians. Our helo was now flying in front of the Russian destroyer ... and then turned to face the Russians, flying backwards, and then let the Russians close the distance until our helo was flying backwards above their bow with the helo pilots about even with the Russian ship's pilot house so they could look eye-to-eye with the Russians.
While this was going on those two F-4 Phantoms were up some 10K feet above the clouds. I was listening in on the CIC to bridge sound powered circuit so I knew what was coming next.
Those two Phantoms started a decent from on up high. Our captain passed the word on the 1 and 6MC PA systems to prepare for a sonic boom. The helicopter started backing away keeping the Russians focused on it just as those pair of Phantoms broke the sound barrier with a tremendous BOOM just above the Russian ship. It must have scared the shit out of the Russian crew who likely had no warning. Our crew was laughing their asses off.
In intel I saw lots of photos of the Russian aircraft pilots under escort of our fighters. They would hold up signs saying HI and one even had a can of Coke he was showing with a thumbs up.