I'm looking for info on the old Soviet Spy Trawlers. I'm looking for pics, sketches, spec sheets, video, and anything on what came of them.
Thanks!

We used to hassle them in the great Australian Bight when Woomera was launching rockets, Unfortunately we used to do it with EW so we never actually got to see them. There were names for them all, but it's all too long ago to remember any details.

The crew other than the EW section used to hate this job as it was usually rough and very boring for the rest of the ship's crew.

Dang. Been itching to build a scratch-build model of one.

While on detachment in Malta in late 1970, during a major NATO exercise in the Med, one of my buddies who was a wop (wireless operator) came into the billet out of breath saying the Royal Navy had rammed a Soviet ship.

Sure enough, next day the ramming was all over the news.

I found the following information.

Ark Royal participated in many exercises as part of the British fleet and NATO squadrons, but saw no combat duty. She was not involved in the Suez Crisis of 1956, about a year after her commissioning, because she was doing post-refit trials. In 1963, she carried out trials for a new type of Vertical/Short Take Off and Landing (V/STOL) aircraft, the Hawker P.1127, which developed into the Hawker Siddeley Harrier.

She was involved in a notorious incident on 9 November 1970 when she collided with a Soviet Kotlin class destroyer while it was shadowing Ark Royal (a common practice during the Cold War), which was in the Mediterranean to participate in a NATO exercise. Ark Royal was damaged only slightly, while the Soviet destroyer sustained minor damage and 2 missing crew. Ark Royal's commanding officer, Captain Ray Lygo, was cleared of blame at the subsequent court-martial.