Hi Barry, yes you have a good point, back in the late 1970's I was based at Great Harbour on the Clyde and the RMAS Rollicker spent a lot of time on AGI duties. This was going out and relieving RFA's etc. which were shadowing Russian spy trawlers, I remember spending 14 days in the Irish Sea when the wind moderated to a NE force 8 for a few days otherwise it was force 10 to 12, the RFA would not sail from Faslane as it said it was too dangerous to sail, but Com Clyde ordered her to sea, we was only supposed to be there for 5 days. As you say Nimrods regularly overflew the areas patrolling for East Block vessels and the RN kept one or two frigates on 24 hours notice to sail and shadow foreign warships in areas of interest to us. My brother nearly missed Christmas because they thought a large Russian warship was going to sail close to the Faeroes, but she diverted at the last moment and my brother returned to Devonport very late Christmas eve. But then the RN although quite small still had a small fleet, today it should be termed more of a flotilla.