We almost never went anywhere in the Med on the Forrestal without our Soviet (back then) escort.
Once we had a ‘secret’ port call scheduled...ship went full dark, low electronics emissions, the whole nine yards.
Guess who led us into the harbor???
It’s pretty hard to be stealthy when you’re 85,000+ tons of Yankee Doodle awesomeness!
“We almost never went anywhere in the Med on the Forrestal without our Soviet (back then) escort.”
And, while relations are strained the US and Russia are not at war. The Russian fleet has every right to go wherever they want in international waters. If they want to follow a US ship that is their right as long as they keep their distance and don’t cause trouble. They’d be negligent in their duty if they didn’t do this.
As a goodwill gesture, the admiral of the US taskforce should send word through the embassy’s (Or maybe just using an old-fashioned semaphore light) inviting the crews of the Russian ships to a sailors beach party at the next port of call, beer, and BBQ provided by the US Navy.
My interactions with Russian tourist here has taught me that nobody, and I mean nobody can party like a Russian.
We’d go total emcon and no nav lights then ahead flank until they got up to speed. Then we’d go back full until they figured out the closure rate was 45kts, then back to ahead flank. After a few iterations of that they’d normally be DIW belching smoke and we’d turn back on the lights and radars and steam away.