When I wa on a carrier in the 70’s Russian bear bombers
Flew over our ship, Russian destroyers would come within a 1/4 mile
Can’t really do anything in international waters
In my day they would fly over, but with an F 14 so close off their wingtip there must have been some serious pucker factor on their part.
When our destroyer was hooked up to an oiler or ammo ship during an underway replenishment in the Tonkin Gulf, half the time a Russian flagged “fishing trawler” would steam straight at us and play chicken until we were forced to break off the unrep. Their craft appeared to be about a hundred or so feet long with fifty or more RF antennae sticking out above the pilot house. We would be steaming around 12 knots and the trawler would approach faster than that...maybe 20 knots.