USS Scorpion

[KiPKayfanatic]

Well it did sink in the bermuda triangle

[woodycoat]

What happened to the audio? Seems interesting but without sound kinda pointless.

[HostileSausage]

wtf.... so the back part moved inside crushing to death all those in between?

What a horrible way to go....

[Amasaman]

@HostileSausage At that point all were dead. It is my understanding that due to the rapid failure of the hull, nobody would have known what happened, due to the pressure and the heat it would have created.

[IsengardMordor]

@HostileSausage i think they were crushed and died instantly without even feeling pain (at least i hope so)

[Mjharrell1984]

I work at the ship yard in Norfolk, VA. They let us listen to the Uss Thresher breaking up under water from sonar of a escort ship. I hate the sound, its very sickening.

[faronthefiddler]

@Mjharrell1984 We Build torpedo tubes. The navy had us listen to the implosion of the boat. Two sickening sounds. We make sure it is done right.

[IsengardMordor]

@Mjharrell1984 İf it is not confidental (the sound) can you give me a link to the sound where i can listen and download it?

[Hoagie0018]

My Dad was lost on Scorpion and actually the evidence that is available points to an explosion associated with her main battery not Soviet involvement. The book Silent Steel by Stephen Johnson is the only book about Scorpion that presents any facts about Scorpion's final months!

[rmachayes]

As I understand it, the Scorpion lies in 3,000 meters of water......she is also in several large pieces plus much smaller debris. This indicates that had she been ripped by a soviet torpedo, more than likely the crew would have been rendered unable to shut in watertight doors, meaning free flood and no implosion. Implosion is evident here. The hotrun torpedo makes sense in that the crew would have had time to shut all doors. At crush depth it imploded making pieces of the boat. RIP shimates!

[Hendo56]

I never said what I thought happened to it. I simply mentioned what the book had said, which by the way was written by a nuclear sub seaman who was part of the US's clandestine ops against the Soviets. I wasn't on the Scorpion when the accident happened. And neither were you, so I'd watch who you call "loonie", since it still hasn't been proven exactly what sank the boat.

[1961sd]

Jasonhowell73, I didn't write the book I just read it.

[titanic5577]

what happened to the uss scorpion

[SvenTviking]

Apparantly they had done a vastly shortened safety check on the sub to save time and get her back to sea. After the Thresher disaster, safety refits went up to 32 months in dry dock. Scorpion had just had a safety refit of 4 months. With this, there is a whole gamut of shit that could have failed.

[sobuliak]

@SvenTviking one sailor had such issues with the safety of the boat he had himself transfred off.he survived of course and went on to tell the story of how crew members and not qualfied tradesman did most of the refit working around the clock-the nickname of the scorpion by the crew was the USS scrap iron.

[StevenG1953]

@sobuliak I'm sorry to say, I do not know what navy you served in, But in the US NAVY that I served in you can not have your self transfered off because you don't like something. You do not go bopping into the Skipper"s ward room and say" Sir I don't like it here so I want to be sent to a place I do like! " There were 2 crewmen that left the Scorpion at Rota, Spain on May 17,1968 EM1 Joe Underwood had a spot on his lung. It was found in an xray " could be TB "

[Kepothethief]

@StevenG1953 In the submarine service (US Navy), You can give up your qualification too serve on board a sub any time you want. And be transfered off the same day.

[StevenG1953]

@Kepothethief We are talking US Navy 1968  . Not today. Check the records.

[Kepothethief]

@StevenG1953 In the US Navy you can give up your qualification to serve on a sub at anytime, and be transfered off in a matter of days or sometimes within hours.

[StevenG1953]

@sobuliak He was sent back to the states for treatment. The 2 nd was Sonarman 1c Bill Elrod He was given compassonate Hardship leave to go back to Norfolk to be with his wife Julanne . She had given birth on to their son Gordon Elrod on May 16, 1968. Gordon died at birth. Elrod was on duty on the Orion at Norfolk when Scorpion went missing. He said " It was the worst of times and it was the worst of times." I never heard her called the Scrapiorn either.

[IsengardMordor]

@StevenG1953 Well at least they were lucky enough to not be on that sub during its sinking.

[Hendo56]

The new book "Red November" also asserts that she was sunk by an Echo II class Soviet Sub.

[grahamkeithtodd]

@Hendo56 sadly for you and the other consiricy lot out there,it was proven to be wishful thinking on a loonies part...what really happend was one of the torpeados went hot and exploded ripping a big hole on the hull... it flooded and went below it's crush depth and was flatend like a pancake!

[CIWS1]

The Torpedo room was not collapsed because it was already open to the sea before the sub reached crush depth. What ever happend in the torpedo room was just short of a total detonation of a torpedo warheads.

[CIWS1]

The theory was that a defective battery had caused a fire that cooked off a warhead. There was no evidence of an external torpedo detonation and that is in the report that was made including the second released form back in the 90's. Personally i agree with the fire theory and an attempted cover up by NAVORD.

[RayCis1]

The tail end could only have been pushed in, if, at that moment, that whole section was still dry; not flooded, if it were, with equal pressures in- and outside, it wouldn't have been pushed in...

[politicalninja2044]

there have actually been 6 USS Scorpions in the history of the US Navy. None of them currently float, 4 being sunk or lost at see and 2 being scrapped.

[SuperLightning123]

it broke in the back wow thats in possible to survive r.i.p men

[dracorider]

It's pretty hard to survive any kind of submarine disaster if it's already underwater and out to sea if you think about it. You'd implode from the pressure if something else didn't kill you. If the sub wasn't deep enough to crush you or cause internal bleeding you would probably be knocked out and drown, drown trying to make it up, freeze to death, or simply not found or rescued.

[gdt928]

The most plausible explanation of the Scorpion loss is the explosion of a battery in one of the Mk 37 torpedos the boat was armed with. The fact that she was running 180 degrees from her correct course (which indiactes a "hot running" torp), coupled with the lack of crush damage in the forward torpedo room, along with other, lesser known or published information, makes this the most logical explanation. I believe the same thing happened on Kursk.

[kdraper2007]

Scorpion was sunk by a soviet torpedo. in photo's of the wreckage released a couple of years ago you can see the impact point where the sail & hull meet. scorpion was sunk in response to the sinking of a golf class submarine in the pacific several months before.

[fatkat357]

There is no proof, nor any coherent explanation establishing that either submarine was lost due to attack. That's just a conspiracy theory.

[kdraper2007]

no proof other then the sosus tape of the entire incident that's used in the sosus training program. What about the pictures of the boat taken by robert ballard in 1986 that show the damage to the aft sail/ hull join area. the U.S.S. Compass Island being sent back to port after only a couple of days, why send your best asset home unless it's job was done? this was a coverup to avoid a war. torpedo batteries, you know torpedo batteries have blown up before, without sinking the boat they were on.

[fatkat357]

Which tape we talking about? A guaranteed, never altered recording all sounds of a single evnt, or composite used for ASW training? Did Ballard ever say it was a torp attack? U say it was a torpedo, while others say the hull shows signs of implosion - meaning the ship was not flooded at the fatal momet, as it would have been if hit by torp. How does USN explain sending Compass home? The same explosion may have different consequences depending on the unique circumstances of each explosion.

[kdraper2007]

@fatkat357 Ballard hasn't said anything about it, the entire epedition was top secret. Ballard besides being a oceanograper was also a naval intelligence agent. the Titanic epedition was the cover for the scorpion wreck survay. knowing exactly where scorpion was, zeroing in on the wreck using the transponders that U.N.S.S. Compass Island had placed 18 years earlier left ballard plenty of time to run north & search for the titanic.

[AznAviationDreamr]

wow, i wonder how deep the sub went deep into the ocean

[kdraper2007]

Scorpion is slightly deeper then 10,000 feet down on a volcanic culdera. bow pointing toward norfolk. 99 men were aboard, 2 regular crew were dropped off at Rota, Spain for emergency reasons. 1 Sosus expert was also dropped off at Rota.

[Silouge654]

WRONG,80 PEOPLE DIED NOT 99

[dbelmon1]

no Silouge... it sunk with 99. I know performing a google search before posting your idiotic contradiction would have been difficult, but in the future give it a try anyway.

[gamer1st]

blimey would the tail end really push in like that,everyone would have been crushed an killed without drowning.events like these are just so sad.thresher is the other one i was reading about.

[kdraper2007]

that's what an implosion looks like. the pressure killed the whole crew in less then a second.

[raz177]

the Soviets said they sank it for revenge of USS Nautilus sinking K-129, but Nautilus was on the other side of the world. K-129 was gonna fire a nuclear missile at pearl harbour, but the missile malfunctioned and sank K-129.

[fatkat357]

Actually, the Soviets never admitted any such thing - "Red Storm Rogue" suggested this based on conspiracy theories; the RSR theory had the Soviets paradoxically blaming us when they "knew" that it was their own fault. The specific USN sub was USS Swordfish.

[kdraper2007]

the soviet government didn't know about the plot, it was a hardliner plot beginning to end.

[kdraper2007]

no they blamed it on the U.S.S. Swordfish, which limped into harbor in Japan several days later with bent up periscopes. had swordfish collided with the K-129 it would have made more sense to go into pearl Harbor as it was only 300 miles away.

[bezeaujerome]

i betcha the shock wave from the nukes disabled the submarines

[kdraper2007]

what are you talking about? shock wave from nukes? no nuclear weapons were detonated. if a nuclear warhead had exploded there wouldn't be enough left to phtograph. the reator is designed so it can't explode. & if a nuke had detonated, the SOSUS network would have went crazy.

[hugoboss000039]

wow those pore people what a way to go huh

after deploying a few nuclear torpedoes that obviously had something to do with it

[kdraper2007]

well, at least it was quick, they didn't suffer. cold comfort.

[lpuig73]

There's no telling what price might have been

considered a fair price by LBJ, in order to avoid what he might have perceived as the start of WWIII.

[petethehibby]

Both subs were destroyed,they discovered an entrance to the hollow earth.

[1961sd]

Another book out now " All hands down" in which a retired Soviet Admiral admits they did sink her.

[sparrowlt]

That book is a rumor-filled thriller.. not any actuall account..

Scorpion was sank by accident.. same as was the Kursk same as Thresher

[1961sd]

"All hands down " is speculation with supposed authentic quotes from people in the know. Your assumption that this was an accident is merely an assumption on your part. We may very well never know the whole truth, or perhaps we already do know and just don't realize it.

[kdraper2007]

Judging by the pictures of the wreckage, I'd rule out torpedo room explosion as the torpedo room is obviously still there, & it imploded below crush depth so you know it was intact. Batteries on nuke subs aren't as big as the batteries in diesel subs, so I'd rule out the batteries exploding, several incidences of batteries exploding, but never causing the boat to sink quickly. plus the whole Atlantic is wired for sound, if a whale farts, the Navy knows about it.

[fatkat357]

Did he actually explicitly state that Russian forces sank the sub, or did he use eupehemistic language (something like "don;t ask me, it's been classified by our own government") which cuts in neither direction.

[jasonhowell73]

@1961sd i was in the us navy for 18 years and i served on submarines the whole time i was in...the scorpion was lost not to soviet action, but it had a hot run of a torpedo and it blew up before they could shut it down, flodding the foward section of the boat and sending it to the bottom. You have to remember that in 1968 the soviets were a generation behind us in quieting technology. The scorpion would have known if any subs were in the area. And i simply do not believe the conspiracy theory

[IsengardMordor]

@1961sd We will never be certain unless more documents about the USS Scorpion is de-classified

[rw5791]

the soviets had the us navy's crypto codes courtesy of an american spy,john anthony walker.Walker wasn't caught until 1984 and is still in the federal penn.He should have been thrown in a shark tank.

[Cope1216]

There is a book out titled Scorpion Down by Ed Offley. With the idea that the Soviets sunk her.

[Staatssicherheit]

True. Im watching documentary about it right now. Its not true neither Thresher or Scorpion were sunk by soviets. But anyway I feel bad for submariners that sunk when fullfilling their duty. For both sailors of Thresher, Scorpion and Komsomolets and Kursk.

[Cope1216]

I am curious to your idea of this not being true. I was not even born when this occured so I am not aware of all the details over the years, but from reading Scorpion Down and can see how a coverup might be possible.

[Staatssicherheit]

Come on. Why do they wright books like that? For poeple to read, and tell other people to read. In other words, they sell lies, and get rich. So do the people who sell those visit hell books and other, wannabe real spy books. If u read enough, Abraham Lincoln was from egypt and lenin was a jew..

Lies, crap. That makes people go.. Uaaah :O. Theres no evidence of scorpion gettin taken by the soviets. WHY SHOULD IT BE??? Its hatred that makes people believe it. A book aint evidence, its fantasy

[Cope1216]

I dont think its hatred that mankes people belive. I cant hate the russians if I have never met one.  This is the only material I have read on this subject. What was the name of the documentary you were watching on the Scorpion? I would like to cheack it out.

[kdraper2007]

I believe the Russians sank Scorpion, I don't hate the Russians, but I believe the families of those who were killed deserve to know what really happened to their loved ones. how can we learn from these types of incidents if it is covered up.

[nerblebun]

kd,

I learned this from several different people in the submarine community.The Scorpion "pinged" a Russian sub to the surface somewhere in the Med.Afterwards the Russian navy was pissed and torpedoed the Scorpion somewhere around the Azores.I was working in the Azores when the salvage ship"Alcoa" brought the wreckage to the surface. Many X-submarinars agree that the Scorpion was sunk by a Russian sub but of course our government won't admitt it. So sir... I believe your absolutely correct !

[zackdoc]

I served in Westpac '72 on a nuke fast attack & the word was, from sub school to the fleet that she was in fact sunk by the Russians. It was deemed inappropriate to retaliate. In the end, we won anyway! RIP USSR

[DERZWERGE11]

dont know sir,they stll have several nukes and borders.I think the cold war has no ends,but the human one

[BlackKnight1586]

@zackdoc :

You are correct. It was sunk by a russian Sub, and covered up by both governments.

[Zobor111]

I am curious about the big missing area on the subs sail. Looks like something hit it there. It is bent forward and down a little too. What could have done that?

[kdraper2007]

the sail damage can not be explained by anything else except an external blast. in the origanal photos reveiwed by naval court of inquirory into scorpion's sinking, the area of the sail with the blast damage was not included.

[BlackKnight1586]

@kdraper2007

You are right, it was not included because they already knew what happened. It was hit by a Soviet torpedo.

[Zobor111]

What sank her?

[86Timewarp]

one of the torpidos inside of the sub explodes you can learn more about this in the National Geographic special Titanic

[themightyneely]

Or was it a battery fire? The Navy can't make up their minds and the first official report I read was severely flawed. I can neither confirm nor deny any information on this matter.

[86Timewarp]

I thought these subs ran on Nuclier Reactors

[deceptionskater14]

They do Run on Nuclear Reactors they have batteries though for back up incase the reactor fails

[fatkat357]

I think the battery he refers to is the battery for the torpedo. In "Blind Man's Bluff", there was an incident reported of the battery of a torpedo spontaneously catching fire - this specific incident didn't occur in Scorpion but could have since they used the same kind of torpedo.

[86Timewarp]

so the torpedos have internal batteries?

[fatkat357]

They have to have some way to power themselves - although I wouldn't say that batteries were the only way.

[kdraper2007]

you have to power the sonar, & actuators some how. post war torpedos are like air/air missiles, they have guidence systems. most are wire guided, they have a monofiliment wire that plugs into a socket in the torpedo tube. this allows the fire control on the sub to steer the weapon, when the torp wire breaks, or is cut, the onboard sonar guides the weapon to the target.

[kdraper2007]

yes, but that battery was being shook much worse then then it could possibly be on board a submarine.

[gobears1987]

except Scorpion had instances where she literally corkscrewed through the waters as she suffered from control issues. Such an instance would shake the battery past tolerances leading to the battery fire that likely caused a fatal low order detonation.

[kdraper2007]

if scorpion had such control problems it would be considered too unsafe for operations. you have to understand her crush depth was less then a thousand feet, her speed coupled with such a shallow crush depth means there was little margin for error. so if the sub was in such bad shape she would not have sailed. I believe the corkscrew reports were disinformation.

[gobears1987]

She should've been deemed unsafe for operations. Her crush depth wasn't less than a thousand feet. her test depth was (at 900 feet). There is always a margin between test depth and actual crush depth. Even then, Scorpion was allowed to operate an an unsafe condition under the conditions that her depth be limited to 300 feet or roughly 1/3 of test depth. The corkscrew incident is well documented and one crew member transferred prior to her final deployment citing safety concerns.

[BlackKnight1586]

@gobears1987

It would not have made any difference. When you are hit by a torpedo there is very little you can do.

[kdraper2007]

@86Timewarp If the Torpedo in the torpedo room exploded, causing the sinking. then why has the torpedo room crushed? if it was open to the sea then the pressure inside the torpedo room & outside in the ocean would be equal. but you can see that the torpedo room area has imploded.

[86Timewarp]

@kdraper2007 I see what your getting at, but maybe the possiblity of the torpedo room doors being open, may have send the blast through out the sub. now i'm no marine or submarine expert but maybe rhe torpedo's explostion wasn't great enough to pearce the torpedo room itself.

[CIWS1]

@kdraper2007 even the animation in this video doesn't support the idea that the torpedo room was crushed. It flooded and avoided collapse.

[themightyneely]

Where did this come from?  I sailed on her sister ship USS Shark.

[86Timewarp]

National Geographic Dr. Robert Ballard use working with the govenment in order for the government to fund Robert's expidition he had to find the USS Threshure and the USS Scorpion

[themightyneely]

I was standing in the Ward Room of my boat in port watching CNN in 1988 when I saw this for the first time. He mentioned it in an interview on the Discovery Channel four years ago. I've known this for years.

[fatkat357]

I saw this on a Discovery Chnnl Doc in '98 that came out the same time as "Blind Man's Bluff" was published.

[theoldgalah]

wow accurate sim.Sad end what a way to go.....;o(