Cold war SOP. They use to make almost daily overflights when I was in Tonkin aboard the America. Jeez, I’ve got more pics of Badgers and Bears than I have of our birds. Of course, there were always a flight of F-4s covering the camera ports and two trailing behind at missle range watching the bombbay doors. they always made direct straight-in approach and we always knew well ahead of time they were coming, long enough to go below and retrieve your camera.
I remember quite a few nights after hitting the rack hearing "Now launch the alert CAT". A minute later you heard the thud {down at waterline} then rolled over for some sleep. Another Bear mets a waiting Tomcat. The buzzing was just a part of it. The trawlers 12 miles aft were annoying as well. We got buzzed but like you say our guys had a ready hot one ready to go up their exhaust if need be and Ivan knew it too.
As long as the challengers are intercepted before their arrival that means our Navy is doing it's job. If not then the Operations Officer got a lot of xplainun to do to the resident ComCARGROUP. An undetected sub is a much larger threat.