# A Cold War Story



## DA SWO (Aug 30, 2015)

From the folks at War is Boring:

This U.S. Navy Warship Shot Down MiGs and Pranked the Soviets

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On the night of July 19, 1972, Biddle’s duty watch officers monitored an American combat air patrol escorting two damaged A-6 Intruders on their way back from a mission.

Suddenly, five incoming MiGs popped up on the ship’s radar.

The crew wasn’t immediately alarmed. North Vietnamese fighters had taken runs at American warships before, and they almost always turned back before heading out to sea.

This time was different.

With the MiGs just minutes away and inbound at 500 knots, Biddle’s crew scrambled to their battle stations. Fire-control systems locked onto the approaching aircraft while the ship readied her Terrier missiles.

The Biddle increased speed to 25 knots and began evasive maneuvers. The warship fired her missiles, which lit up the deck with a blazing glow as they streaked toward their targets. The radar confirmed one MiG destroyed. Two others turned tail and ran.

But the two remaining MiGs — aligned one behind the other — kept coming. The warship pounded away at the incoming jets with her three- and five-inch guns while the missile systems locked on and fired. One MiG crashed, and the other bolted for home..........................

.............During a Mediterranean cruise vaguely dated to the 1970s, the Biddle received orders for a “special assignment” — to shadow a Soviet naval task force — in the Black Sea.

The Biddle quietly steamed into the Black Sea where she stalked and found the Soviet ships strung out in a long line, according to an account from the USS Biddle Association.

A support ship refueled the Soviet vessels from a long stern-mounted hose. Biddle’s skipper guessed that the Soviet crews were too preoccupied with navigation and refueling to notice one more vessel in their midst.

He ordered his ship to steer into the refueling line. When his ship’s turn came, the American captain had a Russian-speaking crewman talk to the refueling ship. “How much do you need?” came the query. “Just a token amount,” replied the sailor.

“What ship are you?” the Soviet crewman asked on final approach. The American sailor replied in perfect Russian, “United States battle cruiser Biddle.”

“The radio went silent — then all hell broke loose,” former senior chief petty officer and hull technician Richard Outland wrote. “Gongs, whistles, lights all seemed to go off at once on board the Russkie ships, as they scattered in every direction away from us.”


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