Different Strokes

[ajay_ijn]

Some strange moments in Cold war where in US Navy and Soviet Navy either accidentally or deliberately came very close to each other.

This may be the Cold war Style of greeting each other

Source
www.acig.org

This encounter occurred either in 1983 or in 1986, when a Victor III-class Soviet attack submarine became entangled in a 10cm thick steel cable for towing sonar of the USN frigate USS McCloy. The incident occurred some 470nm east of Charleston, South Carolina, when the US frigate was securing the route of a carrier battle group that was underway for exercises near Cuba. The submarine was subsequently towed away to Cuba.
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/encounter_1983.jpg
(Photo: USN, via Tom Cooper)

In September 1976 the USN and NATO held large exercises north of Schottland, during which the F-14As from USS John F. Kennedy were for the first time active in this part of the Europe. The Soviets were curious about the brand-new Tomcats and their capabilities, and have tracked the movements of the US carrier that after the exercise also approached Murmansk - despite apalling weather, that made carrier-borne operations extremely risky. Here an F-14A of the VF-14 can be seen escorting a Tu-16PP. (Tom Cooper collection)
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/bh07.jpg


Lightning meets Bear: NATO pilots were advised to fly close to Soviet bombers and patrol aircraft they encountered, and make detailed pictures in order for these to be tracked and any new equipment recognized in time. Flying as close as only few meters, many NATO pilots took great risks to take good pictures, and sometimes the Soviets would make their efforts problematic due to sudden maneuvering. As it seems, sometimes in the late 1960s a Soviet crew of an Tu-95 even caused an RAF Lightning to fly into the sea during a night-time interception.
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/bh05.jpg

Whenever some USN carrier battle grouip would sail out of Norfolk Naval Station, pairs of Bears would "pay it a visit", trying to come as close as possible. Tomcat crews would then try to escort Soviet bombers away before they could come closer. Few such encounters were slightly "hotter" than the usual ones, with Soviet crews pushing as hard as possible towards USN Carriers, like in this case when a Tu-95RC approached the USS Nimitz while escorted by an VF-84 "Jolly Rogers" F-14A.
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/bh18.jpg

In November 1981 the antiquated Soviet Whiskey-class submarine (Hull No. 137) run aground near the Swedish naval base in Karlskrona, in the Baltic Sea. An affair that was quite embarassing fot the Soviets erupted, then the Swedes initially vowed to keep the intruder until there would be an adequat explanation of how and why the sub's skipper had come to grief only ten yards from shore. Eventually, the Soviets explained that there was a failure in navigation gear, and the Submarine was salvaged by Swedish ships - at a price of $658.000, paid for by the USSR. (Photo: AP)
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/encounter_1982.jpg
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/encounter_1982_02.jpg

On the northern wing of the NATO, the Norway Air Force was also very active in intercepting Soviet bombers and patrol aircraft around the Nord Cap and the Kola Peninsula. In this case a NAF F-16A encountered an AS-4-armed Tu-22M-2: some of the best and most informative pictures of Soviet aircraft were taken by the pilots of Norwegian (but also Swedish) air force.
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/bh20.jpg
A very rare photograph of an encounter between a 323rd Sqn KLu F-16A ("J-232") with the Soviet Tu-95M only some 150km north of the Dutch coast, on 12 May 1987. The pilots of the two F-16As were 1st Lt. Herman van Heuvelen (the photographer), and 1st Lt. Fred van Breenen (flying the F-16A seen on the photo). (via Arthur Hubers)
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/bh21_001.jpg

Reports like a collision between the USN EP-3 and the PLAAF J-8II, from April 2001, are either exhaustively reported or completely ignored, during the Cold War such events were considered almost a "routine" and a "part of the game".

An F-8 from an unknown USN squadron (VF-174?), intercepted this Tu-95M in the late 1960s.
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/bh01.jpg

RAF Lightnings were frequently called to intercept huge Soviet aircraft north of Schottland. In this case the "victim" was a Myasitchev M-4 bomber.
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/bh04.jpg




In the early 1970s the Soviets had a detachment of Tu-16RRs stationed in Egypt. These recce planes had full Egyptian markings applied. One can be seen here after being intercepted by an VF-84 Jolly Rogers F-4.
In that image, we can even see a US Aircraft Carrier.
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/bh06.jpg


Sometimes during the Vietnam War, this V-DA Tu-95 thundered almost directly over the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63): two F-4s intercepted the Bear and escorted it away.
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/v-vs_tu-16pp_over_cv-63_kitty_hawk.jpg

Shadow of a USN P-3C can also be seen over this Victor-class SSN, seen in the Mediterranean Sea, in the mid-1980s
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/usn_orion_overflies_victor_i_sub_in_the_straits_of_malacca.jpg

Lockheed S-3A Viking from USS Ranger tracking a Victor-class SSN in the Sea of Japan, in 1984
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/usn_s-3a_over_victor_ssn_in_1984.jpg
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/victor_iii_class_sub_surfaced_off_north_carolina_-_nov__83.jpg

USN Lockheed P-3C Orion overflying a Soviet Kynda-class missile cruiser, somewhere in the Pacific of the early 1980s.
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/usn_orion_overflies_kynda_class_light_cruiser.jpg

USN P-3C over a Soviet Udaloy-class destroyer, in the late 1980s.
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/usn_orion_overflies_udaloy_class_destroyer.jpg

.This photograph was probably taken in 1986 off Vietnam. At the time a large carrier battle group of the USN passing by the Vietnamese coast was visited by a large number of Soviet aircraft temporarily deployed to Cam Ranh Bay AB. These two Tu-16RM-2s were intercepted by VF-1 "Wolfpack" F-14A.
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/bh14.jpg

In the 1980s the USAF had the 57th FIS "Black Knights" stationed at Keflafik, Island, from where these flew control flights in what the Russians called "#1 Patrolling Zone" NE of Island. In 1984 two "Black Knight" Phantoms intercepted a Soviet Tu-95 and came very close...
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/bh17.jpg



This is Really Funny

During the ICEX 2003 naval exercises near the North Pole, the USN submarine USS Connecticut (SSN-22) poked its sail and rudder through the ice. When an officer looked around via the periscope, he noted that his sub was being stalked by a "hostile" polar bear: the photos bellow show the "attack". The bear chewed on the sub's rudder for few minutes - causing minor damage: the experience showed that the USS Connecticut was not designed as a polar bear snack.
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/bear_sub3.jpg
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/bear_sub1.jpg

 

[aaaditya]

cool man,maybe that periscope needed some tomato sauce.

by the way were there ever any incident of a soviet ,us or nato submarine defecting to a hostile country as shown in the hunt for red october.

 

[Jtimes2]

cool man,maybe that periscope needed some tomato sauce.

by the way were there ever any incident of a soviet ,us or nato submarine defecting to a hostile country as shown in the hunt for red october.

Never a submarine, at least in the postwar era. The only thing I can think of even remotely along those lines was a mutiny aboard a Soviet sub in the 1980s (I think it was an Echo II or Charlie I, if memory serves me correctly). But the mutineers wanted to return to homeport, not defect.

There have been surface ships that have defected; an East German torpedo boat fled to West Germany in the 1960s, there was a Ethiopian PGM class patrol boat that defected to Somalia in the 1980s, and two Albanian Huchuan class hydrofoils that defected to Italy in the 1990s. There have also been ships fleeing defunct regimes; for example the whole remnant of the South Vietnamese navy fled to Subic Bay after the fall of Saigon. Some were absorbed into the Phillippine navy and a few are still in service today.

 

[machina]

I remember a (long time) retired RAN fixed wing pilot saying that they used to spend a bit of time finding and tracking Soviet subs as practice.

 

[bd popeye]

I served in the USN from '71-'91..so I was involved in the Cold War. These are some experiences I had while serving on CVA-67 in '72 & '73 as posted in another forum;

Once in 1972 when on board CVA-67 in Barcelona Spain there was a Soviet DD(I think) tied up to the quay wall. You could see the sailors on board. we were in Barcelona for 5 days and that ship was still there when we left. I made two Medterrinan deployments on CVA-67 and never once saw a Soviet ship at sea or Soviet sailors on liberty even though we saw ships in port in Naples, Genoa and other ports.. I'm sure a sub was following us...Never saw it. we did see Russian trawlers though. Once in the North Sea we saw a Hormone helo. I do not know where it came from. And of course the Soviet overflights by "Bears".

One added thing. While in transit to the Philippines in March '75 on board the USS Hancock CVA-19 we were overflown by "Russian Bears". No alert fighter were launched! Why? Or fighters had been off loaded in Hawaii because the CVA-19 was being transformed tempoarily into an LPH to evacuate Americans in Cambodia and Vietnam. Our deck was "fouled" with CH-53's, CH-46's and A-4's. An attempt was made to launch a couple of A-4's but it was futile...