My father in law was assigned to the Scorpion for about two weeks, no one looked at his height when signing his orders as a corpsman. Big Poppa was 6 foot 7 inches tall...
😂. My 6'4" brother joined the Navy. I said, "Great! You're tall, go for carriers." He said, "I'm going subs." I said that was "less great. At least go boomer." He said nope, " I want fast attack." I just shook my head. When he came home after his first deployment to the med... boy howdy it took him a while to stand up straight. He had this crazed, almost caged like look in his eyes. 😉
I was 8 living in base housing in Norfolk. There were a couple of families affected. They stayed about 3 months after she was declared a loss then they moved away. Very sad. You didn’t mention that they have to dive on the wreck to monitor the radiation levels from the reactor indefinitely.
They don't dive on it, they lower sensors. Any radioactive fuel that leaks will stay on the bottom because it's heavier and tungsten than anything else, including lead
Came here to say the same thing. Bruce Rule gives a very good analysis of the SOSUS data. He states this is why we lost Scorpion, as a matter of fact and is quite definitive with his analysis.
Rule is a Briitsh engineer deeply interested in supporting the concept of nuclear deterence and the general view of John Kerry and Obama who were later deeply interested in denying the Russians shot down MH370 on the day in March 2014 Putin and the Russian parliament rubber stamped the invasion of Crimea, Rule claims the loss of the Scorpion is related to the reasons for the loss of the ARATR1700 which is hardly credible
I remember my Dad coming home and being extremely upset after the Thresher sank. He was on the USS Ethan Allen (SSBN-608) under Captain Paul L. Lacy, Jr., commanding Blue Crew. I think this was a turning point in my Dad's life.
@@warrenbrenner4972 I remember Dad and I building one. It sat on the top of the kitchen cabinets in between build times. But I was all of 6 or 7 so I just remember watching. LOL!
I remember the Ethan Allen, I was stationed in Holy Loch Scotland back 1979-81 and several of the SSBN's would come alongside the Holland to replenish and swap crews.
Former OT3 here. Great content. Sosus Lofar, TASS & Stass are all part of our job. Mid 70’s timeframe. We had printed displays of both US SSN’s events. I’ve had a look at one in our library. Very erie when viewed in hindsight. Thank you for sharing this. I had no idea that early stass had to be offloaded before porting, and then reloaded before going on patrol. Fascinating, thanks Sir.
I was on the Scamp, same class, in the Scorpion. We used to sit on the Mk 48 while waiting to eat. I was a nuke ELT. Those boats originally had a 3 bladed prop which made is very fast but very noisy those were replaced with 5 bladed props, slower but less noisy. I don;t recall having that many problems on the Scamp nut this was years later and maybe they learned a lesson or two. The only nonrate on board was the cooks helper. He probably operated the trash tube. As for the Soviet theory. I mention this in an earlier video, a Chief in Vllejo nuke school was spreading the Soviet story. Probably a seatale. But as for the Sosus data, well we all know that the Navy lies and conceals data when it suits them. There was supposedly more photos, kept classified, that show hull damage from an explosion. The released report was also said to be heavily redacted.
I once worked with a guy who was on the Scamp. Smartest engineer I've ever worked with. Really fun guy. I used to bug him with submarine questions and he refused to tell me. One time I said "Ed, it was 30 years ago, I'm not gonna tell anyone!" and he said "how do I know your not an agent?" It was the highest complement he ever gave me. 😂
@@AmericanWanderers Yes, at that point in the cold war, I can envision a situation where both governments would agree to cover up an "incident". We know it's happened many times from 1946 through 1991. I would like to see a through examination of the wreck, especially the hull. No conspiracy intended. I would just like to see more proof.
@@hrdley911 Well since it made that nook about cold war subs, an in the San Diego paper, I guess I can talk about it. The second boat I was on, the Pintado, ran head on into a Russian boat right outside Petropavlosk. Both sides covered it up until it showed up in the San Diego paper. Passive sonar does not work that well head on and the recording of the comments inside the sonar room were something to hear. The report in the paper supposedly torpedoed our very ambitious Caption's hope for a star or two,
A couple of thoughts: The lead-acid battery (Guppy-1 Mod c) evolves hydrogen during normal discharge as well as during a charging evolution. That H2 is removed from the atmosphere via the CO/H2 burner, which converts CO into CO2 and converts H2 into H2O via a catalyst. The H2O (water) drains into the AMR (Aux. Machinery Room) bilge and is eventually pumped overboard. The CO2 is captured in the CO2 Scrubber and pumped overboard. Also, though the loss of the Scorpion occurred nearly 8 years after Thresher, SUBSAFE had not been fully implemented in the fleet and boats like the Scorpion, built before Thresher were not built to the SUBSAFE standard and had yet to be retrofitted in a major yard-period.
My dad was stationed on Ascension Island in 67-69, while in the Air Force supporting NSA operations there. He said acoustics systems run by those guys and the navy guys, picked up the sub break up which is why the USN had a known rough area to conduct their search.
Ultimately the loss can be credited to a period of extremely high operational tempos on both sides of the cold war, leading both sides to loose boats to deferred maintenance and operator error.
@@pjhaebeshows you how unimportant spelling really is to communicating.. it changed nothing about getting the point or gist of the comment did it . And the only one that looks like a loser here is you. Why people who are not even qualified to correct spelling and grammar in UA-cam comment sections still do so is wild. Talk about having nothing to do. And you’re not qualified at all are you. You pointed out a typo and felt good ? I know you’re aren’t qualified because if you were you wouldn’t waste your time doing it for free for UA-cam comments. You don’t know the intricacies of the English language at all do you?? Like i said literally found a typo lmao how embarrassing.
Learned about this and Thresher in subschool back in the 80s. Thanks for your take. I agree it's most likely the TDU and a nub may have been part of the loss. I assume they had a ball valve at the bottom of the TDU as well as a latch at the top. We had a vent valve in the "lid" of the TDU. Opened it a bit while flooding the TDU. When it spits water you know it's almost completely full. Open the ball valve, the cans fall into the sea. Providing the boat is not going too fast, jamming a can in the ball valve. Also the interlock may have failed leaving the ball valve open when lid us open. Bad news. On the hydrogen/ battery explosion, I assume they had a hydrogen diffuser on that boat? Ours was starboard topside behind the sail if I remember correctly. Plus a Guage showing percentage of hydrogen present in the battery compartment. Either way, to me, it points to inexperience. Never open the TDU before checking that vent valve. Plus the cook or whatever should have been on the phones with someone on the bridge. Some context here, I was a space tech, 0421 on SSBN 634 for 6 years, Taught Space Maintenance for 4 years.
Oh, another comment. Friend in the Space instructors office was on the Bonefish during a battery well explosion. He said everyone knew to get topside even before the 1MC. Said his shoes were melting while standing topside.
Ex Submarine sailor here, 1970 to 1976. We pray for their souls and sacrifice. Subsafe keep us safe and appreciate our Navy’s approach to new construction.
Thank you for a balanced, informative video on the USS Scorpion - no tinfoil hat stuff, just a solid presentation. Thank you for your service and thank you for your efforts in all of your videos.
I was on a Norwegian sub, where we (I) once experienced huge leakage from our garbage / sewage shoot. If I had not reacted as quick as I did I would not be typing this today. Managed to secure the inner hatch before the shoot was full of water, as everyone know, you cannot compress water, and as soon as it would have been full, I would not have been able to put the hatch down and lock it. Even with the air went open, it would not have been enough to evacuate the pressure from the incoming water as it was way to small.
I was a new Torpedoman on a 637 class boat doing PMS on a Mk-37 when I was told to stop as it could lead to hot run…It was one of the first lessons I learned onboard…
I have always believed a mark 37 torpedo is what downed this boat. I believe that the crew was trying to eject a hot running torpedo. The boat was turning 180° as standard protocol. The torpedo blew up before the turn was completed.
@@gregorylyon1004 Thats what my LPO thought as he caught me doing the PMS in the Mk-37…He about snatched the battery tester outa my hand…We had a long talk and training session on what to do in case of a hot run…
My dad was a spook on the 592 SNOOK. ECM shack full of equipment still secret. Needless to say my bedtime stories were a little different than most kids.
I remember reading that the early theory about the Scorpion turning around was based on incorrect distance calculations from SOSUS. They showed her heading straight back to the US at a steady pace, then something happened, and then it started going exactly 180 degrees from its previous course, eventually imploding. Apparently those early calculations forgot to compensate for how the speed of sound changes with pressure. When re-calculated properly, the ship continued straight towards the US the whole time. The event occurred, and then the Scorpion slowly sank to crush depth (still going straight), and then imploded. This suggests that whatever the event was, it disabled a significant portion of the ship's control team. A few years ago as part of its routine visits to the wreck, the Navy recovered pieces of the ship's battery that indicated a violent explosion in the battery well. While that isn't enough evidence to determine failed TDU vs hydrogen buildup theory, it certainly is enough to disprove the hot-run torpedo theory and the torpedo tube fire theory. Although those are (now) clearly not the actual cause of the Scorpion's loss, they were real problems back then and the Navy did take action to mitigate those risks.
yeah, nope. Pressure makes some difference, but speed of sound is not all that important in target motion analysis (TMA). It matters for your ability to detect sound, it will not really impact bearings and bearing accuracy.
I was 7 years old when she was lost. I was in school in Norfolk. My grandfather worked at the shipyard. When this happened, many of my classmates had family on the Scorpion...the shock and sorrow was palpable among the students, but I was too young to really understand what had happened...
I really appreciate your sub-talk. It is a secretive world which intrigues me a lot, but hard to get basic insight into. Access to this world has improved somewhat, like your videoes and also some words of the this guy named Craven or something like that. He obviously was well seasoned in this kind of warfare too. So thank you for informing us. Let's hope that you don't reveal anything classified by accident. :)
1 Full Power Hour = Reactor is run at 100% for an hour. So 4 hours at 25% is 1 EFPH (Effective Full Power Hour) When I was in I think they were logging Rx Pwr every 15 minutes, but I suspect it's digitally logged now.
There is actually a good reason to manually record log readings. It helps to ensure that the crew is actually monitoring critical system parameters to ensure safe operation and detect any adverse trends such as increasing bearing temperatures, etc.
One thing you can say for certain about the maximum range quoted for any sonar system: It is most assuredly *not* the maximum range it can be effectively used at. Whether it's lying high or low depends on the system and who's quoting, but any unclassified number is going to be lying through its teeth.
The TDU, and torpedo tubes and signal ejectors, have mechanical interlocks so you can't have the breach door and muzzle door/hull and backup valves open at the same time.
I worked with Bill Shanahan, the designer of the WLR-9 at Norden Systems in Melville, NY a long, long time ago. He was a colorful character but definitely not a madman...
The mention of the Mk14 reminded me of a video from Drach on the Mk14, which was a disaster for the USN early in WW2. It wasn't retired until the early 1980's.
I haven’t personally done the deep dive on this, but what Blind Man’s Bluff laid out with the bad torpedo batteries causing a warhead to cook off seemed like a good explanation. There seemed to be a lot of supporting evidence about the batteries catching on fire and the controversy surrounding them.
? My Pops served on the USS Sea Poacher with SubRon 12 Key West, could you possibly cover Balao Class life and operation someday? Thanks for all you do!
I was stationed at FTC Newport, Rhode Island at the time of this incident. There were all kinds of rumors at the time. At that time I was a Seaman Apprentice.
Very good video. The theories of Soviet envolvment run wild. There were books written of these. "Scorpion Down" speaks of the whole sinking incident being recorded by SOSUS, which included a Soviet torpedo sound signature. "All Hands Down" speaks of a Soviet Ka-25 helicopter possibly being involved. This is entertaining reading, albeit dubious.
There was also a novel called "To Kill The Potemkin" which has a fictionalized account of a similar sub that sunk in 1968. There is also the fiction book "Torpedo!" which was pretty good.
Blind mans bluff is a good read that first showed some insight on what went on behind the scenes with the loss of the Scorpion. But "The Silent War" by John Pina Craven is a must read which supplements Blind Mans Bluff.
And the messed up part is its the fault of the tdu operator most of the time. Without getting into specifics there is a key step in the procedure before you put cans in that must be done but often it gets forgotten.
In chapter five of Blind Man's Bluff, the Mark 37 torpedo was to blame for the sinking. After discovering the flawed batteries installed in them. The Navy had them removed from service, but not before Scorpion left for patrol with the flawed 37 torpedoes. John Pina Craven explains in detail how this was discovered and kept secret. So we now know for certain what sunk the Scorpion.
I agree with John Craven’s assessment as well. The fact that the torpedo room didn’t collapse like the rest of the compartments is proof enough that it was already flooded when the boat reached crush depth. Craven, among others, were convinced that the torpedo loading and escape hatches were blown off by a fire induced low order detonation of a torpedo warhead. The 1969 court of inquiry also cited an incident in 1960 on the USS Sargo SSN-583 when she was pier side in Pearl Harbor where a fire in the aft torpedo room caused a low order detonation of 2 mark 37 torpedo warheads.
On WW2 boats they had little bug zapper like things to burn off small amounts of hydrogen before they became large amounts of hydrogen to be used when charging torpedoes.
When I was in grade school my best friend had a pome on the wall of his house. Silent scorpion All he ever said was it was a memorial for his uncle who was lost in a submarine. It wasn't until many years later I heard about the loss of the scorpion. His uncle's last name was Burke
What do you think of the planned new expedition down to her with high def cameras & lights to get a better view of the wreck site & survey it. And based on your level of knowledge [which is much greater than mine is] do you think that the log book could ever be recovered?
I have a question about the technical brief that you gave at the beginning. You said that these early towed arrays had to be mounted and removed by a tug and they couldn't be retracted by the sub in the field. What was procedure if the sub had to go evasive? Was the towed array cut, or could it handle top speed maneuvers?
Towed arrays do restrict the maneuverability of the submarine somewhat when deployed. Modern subs can retract the towed array while underway. One thing not mentioned is that subs also have a floating wire antenna that allows them to receive ULF messages while submerged. Funny story about the floating wire. On one boat I was on (which shall remain nameless) we were using the floating wire for the first time. There were specific precautions that had to be taken when going to periscope depth to avoid cutting the cable with the screw. The Captain would ask the OOD about those precautions prior to granting permission to go to periscope depth. One day during a battle stations drill the Captain took the conn. He took the boat to periscope depth and promptly cut the wire. After that we no longer got asked about the precautions.
Fellow Bubblehead here (SKC(SS), USN, Ret).... where did you get the info on the TDU? I never heard that before. During my career, the prevailing rumor was the Hot Run theory, and the BS about a Russian boat doing it was just that- BS. Good show, though- BZ! For what it's worth, I was on a 594 (the Haddock) and a 637 (the Pintado) in the late 70's- mid 80's and both boats had CO Standing Orders that the Chop had to be present for TDU Ops to ensure they were done correctly, so what you're saying may have something to do with that... hmmmmmm.....
Whats fascinating is this hull went to 1530 feet before it collapsed. The technology than shows what is probably possible now. Of course so much is classified for so long
"Subsafe" Failed. IMO because "The Brass" didn't follow regulations and deployed Scorpion anyway. As always, thank you for another excellent & educated description of this disaster. Best Regards.
Great video, Aaron...👍 Despite the depth the sub is at, I wonder if it would be possible to get a very small ROV inside the hull to examine it from the inside? Or did the hull completely implode?
It's wrecked. The engineering and aft spaces "telescoped" into the amidships sections. That violent action ejected the propeller shaft out the back and sheared off the sail. Maybe something could get into the torpedo room through the open escape trunk. I feel like his earlier video from some years ago went into all this and that he skipped a lot on this remake.
Hey, I hope everything‘s going good. You sound a little sad in this video a God bless what you do and I just want you to know I look forward to watching yours and H I Sutons videos. I love your work.
Four subs went down in 1968. The Scorpion, a Russian Golf class SSB, a French SS, and an Israeli (formerly British) SS. The only information released to the public about this incident came from USN censors. The Navy will tell us what to think about this incident. One of my college profs was in the USN sub service from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s. He said that there was a rumor amongst USN submarine officers that the Russians sank the Scorpion. I don't know what his source for this information was and I don't know if the rumor was used as a motivational tool in the service. Two books on this incident, "Blind Man's Bluff" and "Scorpion Down". The latter is based closer to conspiracy, but he sources how he comes to his theory.
The mishap possibilities still sound like the greatest likelihood of occurrence, however comma pause… If I learned anything from my decade and a half of my own service, my dad’s decade as a nuke launch officer (LGM-25C), his dad’s 28yrs (all as a counter intelligence officer), plus the last 6-8yrs of watching alleged conspiracy theories turn into conspiracy facts, I’ve learned that I trust the government to tell me the truth even less than I did before.
When submarines are lost and there are no survivors, nor any indication as to what caused the loss of the vessel, it becomes a mystery! Even more so when the vessels sink below their crush depths and implode! Surely the submarine equivalent of a Ship/Aircraft Flight/Voyage Data Recorder could be fitted to submarines (securely encoded of course). Then, if a loss occured, a Deep Submergence Vehicle or a Remotely Operated Vehicle could be used to recover the Recorder. To have detailed data on the submarine prior to and throughout its emergency would be invaluable to Investigation Teams and to bereaved families.
Wasn't a dog-leg turn standard procedure for a submarine to maintain situational awareness? My understanding is submarines would routinely make a 180 to check their wake or blindspots in the sensors.
It's called clearing the baffles, Hunt for Red October got the Russian version called a crazy Ivan. A 180 works but isn't usually a good tactical decision.
A reference alluded to by others is the book, Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon, The Untold Story of the Scorpion by Edward Offley.
My grandfather was working on this type of submarine. He always told me how it was sometimes really boring on this submarine and him and his colleagues were cutting electrical wires for fun on it to see which wires will give them a tiny electrical shock. Maybe that's why this submarine sank??
I read the book by John Pena Craven that discussed finding it. He was pretty invested in the battery hot run because of the membrane in the battery. I did wonder if that was happening why they didn't have more incidents?
2 things: My first patrol on SSBN 623 I was a messcook for a couple of weeks and I loaded the TDU myself after maybe 5 minutes of explanation from the cook. I was 19 years old and definitely not SS qualified. 😲 The thing that I think of now and then is that after my last patrol, I was going to be xfered to the Scorpion if I extended. I decided to get out and get married instead and another guy from my IC gang went to the Scorpion instead of me. Months later, the boat was lost.
I read Blind Man's Bluff and they talk about it. There's evidence a couple hatches in the torpedo room look to be blown outward. The theory in the book is that a defective battery design in a certain model of torpedo could catch fire. If a battery were to catch fire and set off a torpedo, it would be unpredictable in it's exact power, but it'd definitely be less than an normal detonation. It could be enough to blow up and flood the torpedo room without blowing up the rest of the sub. In the book a quality control guy wrote a recall warning about battery fires that could lead to lose of a sub, just days before it was lost. Be he alleges that a higher up swept the torpedo recall under the rug, since they were many months behind schedule and the recall would make people lose confidence in the Navy.
29:39 One of the other theories I read is that the submarine was being deliberately run to death as part of a program to see how long an attack submarine could last without major drydock repairs. I think it was probably "Running Critical" by Patrick Tyler, a 1986 book on the issues with building the Los Angeles class of submarines.
I heard they were also ordered to limit their diving depth on transit back home. Not sure what it was but was far lower then normal due to the condition of the sub.
It was problem with German accustic torpedo by the end of WWII, that it sometimes guided itself on submarine that launched it after losing guidance. Solution was simply stop sub at launch and hope escorts wont find you. Its like throwing bumerang into night. Torpedo could find any target at any time, so it had to be nerve wrecking.
If Scorpion is in the Atlantic, what sub is in the IO (that you had mentioned in a previous video about civilian subs inspecting wrecks earlier this year)?
Best I can recall, Nukes were trained it was a battery compartment explosion which makes sense because that was a parameter we could learn from. We were always being harped about Scorpion and Thresher as the impetus for Sub-Safe Standards. Have you done a Sub Brief on Sub-Safe? Would be allowed to? ✌🏻
4 boats were lost in '68, Scorpion, a Russian boat, a French boat and an Israeli boat, two assassinations, Tet in Vietnam, it was a really bad year, I was glad one cousin, on the Skipjack, got out and came home okay, but my other cousin was a diver in salvage and he should be okay... but '68 was a terrible and scary year...
There's 100 men on board. Imagine how much trash a family of five generates on a daily basis and multiply it by 20, then realize that a nuclear sub remains submerged for months at a time, that's a lot of trash to stow in an already cramped container.
5:15 -- RE: Tugboat and Diver attach the Towed Array; OMG, I never would have guessed that the towed array didn't start out as a piece of equipment that was somehow contained and deployed by the submarine itself. And yeah, I caught on quick that it also means once connected it stayed deployed until the mission was over or an emergency situation demanded cutting it loose. Question! Could the OG towed array be detached while at sea by physically cutting it with explosive bolts and a detonator switch? Or would the sub need to deploy a diver to do that, too?
With so many hull issues, maybe she just imploded, even if she wasn't at crush depth... All it would take, was one bad leak from one of those 'penetrations,' and 'boom!
it is interesting how things happen across the border everything I have read in RCN Oberon documents from the time make very little reference to an/wlr-9, in fact, specifically avoids it, an/wlr 1-8 & 10-11 are broadly mentioned, interesting.
Weren't the periscope and mast(s) in the raised position as shown on the wreck photos? Wouldn't this suggest they were at PD? If so, and a message could be flashed out very quickly, why no message? Also, I believe the wreck analysis indicated the batteries were damaged in a way consistent with their explosion. So, it does sound like a battery issue, but why no SOS message?
My father in law was assigned to the Scorpion for about two weeks, no one looked at his height when signing his orders as a corpsman. Big Poppa was 6 foot 7 inches tall...
Yeah, they are designed for a 5' 10" figure
I was 6' 1" when I worked on subs. Lotta nicks in my scalp! 😅
I'm 72 and 6' now, maybe that would work?!😅
😂. My 6'4" brother joined the Navy. I said, "Great! You're tall, go for carriers." He said, "I'm going subs." I said that was "less great. At least go boomer." He said nope, " I want fast attack." I just shook my head.
When he came home after his first deployment to the med... boy howdy it took him a while to stand up straight. He had this crazed, almost caged like look in his eyes. 😉
Excellent background info!
Blah blah blah
I bet he likes it when you call him Big Poppa... then proceeds to throw his hands in air, wavin em around as if he just does not care...
I was 8 living in base housing in Norfolk. There were a couple of families affected. They stayed about 3 months after she was declared a loss then they moved away. Very sad. You didn’t mention that they have to dive on the wreck to monitor the radiation levels from the reactor indefinitely.
Radiation decays. It’s just a very long time (but then no-one is going to be spending much time there anyway).
@@allangibson8494 I think they check it once a year. Send an ROV down and take a water sample.
They don't dive on it, they lower sensors. Any radioactive fuel that leaks will stay on the bottom because it's heavier and tungsten than anything else, including lead
@@johnryan8533 I realize that. It was figurative. With increased ocean temperatures we may see some different thermal dynamics from the deep sea.
I strongly recommend Bruce Rule's book "Why the USS Scorpion (SSN589) was lost". It is a reanalysis of the SOSUS data. Very technical but very good.
Came here to say the same thing. Bruce Rule gives a very good analysis of the SOSUS data. He states this is why we lost Scorpion, as a matter of fact and is quite definitive with his analysis.
Rule is a Briitsh engineer deeply interested in supporting the concept of nuclear deterence and the general view of John Kerry and Obama who were later deeply interested in denying the Russians shot down MH370 on the day in March 2014 Putin and the Russian parliament rubber stamped the invasion of Crimea, Rule claims the loss of the Scorpion is related to the reasons for the loss of the ARATR1700 which is hardly credible
I remember my Dad coming home and being extremely upset after the Thresher sank. He was on the USS Ethan Allen (SSBN-608) under Captain Paul L. Lacy, Jr., commanding Blue Crew. I think this was a turning point in my Dad's life.
WOW! I could never be a Submariner. Thank you for sharing your Dad's experience. Dolphins are earned.
@@Curtislow2 I remember seeing a plastic model kit of the Ethan Allen at the hobby store about 1965.
@@warrenbrenner4972 I remember Dad and I building one. It sat on the top of the kitchen cabinets in between build times. But I was all of 6 or 7 so I just remember watching. LOL!
I remember the Ethan Allen, I was stationed in Holy Loch Scotland back 1979-81 and several of the SSBN's would come alongside the Holland to replenish and swap crews.
Former OT3 here. Great content. Sosus Lofar, TASS & Stass are all part of our job. Mid 70’s timeframe.
We had printed displays of both US SSN’s events. I’ve had a look at one in our library. Very erie when viewed in hindsight. Thank you for sharing this. I had no idea that early stass had to be offloaded before porting, and then reloaded before going on patrol. Fascinating, thanks Sir.
I was on the Scamp, same class, in the Scorpion. We used to sit on the Mk 48 while waiting to eat. I was a nuke ELT. Those boats originally had a 3 bladed prop which made is very fast but very noisy those were replaced with 5 bladed props, slower but less noisy.
I don;t recall having that many problems on the Scamp nut this was years later and maybe they learned a lesson or two.
The only nonrate on board was the cooks helper. He probably operated the trash tube.
As for the Soviet theory. I mention this in an earlier video, a Chief in Vllejo nuke school was spreading the Soviet story. Probably a seatale. But as for the Sosus data, well we all know that the Navy lies and conceals data when it suits them. There was supposedly more photos, kept classified, that show hull damage from an explosion. The released report was also said to be heavily redacted.
I once worked with a guy who was on the Scamp. Smartest engineer I've ever worked with. Really fun guy. I used to bug him with submarine questions and he refused to tell me.
One time I said
"Ed, it was 30 years ago, I'm not gonna tell anyone!" and he said "how do I know your not an agent?"
It was the highest complement he ever gave me. 😂
@@MrNb131 Yeah when you get out they don't tell you that you can tell all even after the boat has been converted to razor blades. Which the Scamp was.
@@AmericanWanderers Yes, at that point in the cold war, I can envision a situation where both governments would agree to cover up an "incident". We know it's happened many times from 1946 through 1991. I would like to see a through examination of the wreck, especially the hull. No conspiracy intended. I would just like to see more proof.
@@hrdley911 Well since it made that nook about cold war subs, an in the San Diego paper, I guess I can talk about it. The second boat I was on, the Pintado, ran head on into a Russian boat right outside Petropavlosk. Both sides covered it up until it showed up in the San Diego paper. Passive sonar does not work that well head on and the recording of the comments inside the sonar room were something to hear.
The report in the paper supposedly torpedoed our very ambitious Caption's hope for a star or two,
@@AmericanWanderers@AmericanWanderers Thanks for the info and your service! 🇺🇸
A couple of thoughts: The lead-acid battery (Guppy-1 Mod c) evolves hydrogen during normal discharge as well as during a charging evolution. That H2 is removed from the atmosphere via the CO/H2 burner, which converts CO into CO2 and converts H2 into H2O via a catalyst. The H2O (water) drains into the AMR (Aux. Machinery Room) bilge and is eventually pumped overboard. The CO2 is captured in the CO2 Scrubber and pumped overboard.
Also, though the loss of the Scorpion occurred nearly 8 years after Thresher, SUBSAFE had not been fully implemented in the fleet and boats like the Scorpion, built before Thresher were not built to the SUBSAFE standard and had yet to be retrofitted in a major yard-period.
My dad was stationed on Ascension Island in 67-69, while in the Air Force supporting NSA operations there. He said acoustics systems run by those guys and the navy guys, picked up the sub break up which is why the USN had a known rough area to conduct their search.
Read Blind Man's Bluff.
@@dmikulec Another good one is "The Silent War", by John Piña Craven. you might have to special-order it, but it's worth it
Ultimately the loss can be credited to a period of extremely high operational tempos on both sides of the cold war, leading both sides to loose boats to deferred maintenance and operator error.
Thank you for pointing out the root problem.
Semper Op Tempo did not stop after the 1991 change, friendo.
“Lose”. wtf made this the most commonly misspelled word in the last year???
@@pjhaebeshows you how unimportant spelling really is to communicating.. it changed nothing about getting the point or gist of the comment did it . And the only one that looks like a loser here is you. Why people who are not even qualified to correct spelling and grammar in UA-cam comment sections still do so is wild. Talk about having nothing to do. And you’re not qualified at all are you. You pointed out a typo and felt good ? I know you’re aren’t qualified because if you were you wouldn’t waste your time doing it for free for UA-cam comments. You don’t know the intricacies of the English language at all do you?? Like i said literally found a typo lmao how embarrassing.
@@pjhaebe auto correct is slowly dooming our ability to write correctly.
Learned about this and Thresher in subschool back in the 80s.
Thanks for your take.
I agree it's most likely the TDU and a nub may have been part of the loss.
I assume they had a ball valve at the bottom of the TDU as well as a latch at the top.
We had a vent valve in the "lid" of the TDU. Opened it a bit while flooding the TDU. When it spits water you know it's almost completely full. Open the ball valve, the cans fall into the sea. Providing the boat is not going too fast, jamming a can in the ball valve.
Also the interlock may have failed leaving the ball valve open when lid us open. Bad news.
On the hydrogen/ battery explosion, I assume they had a hydrogen diffuser on that boat? Ours was starboard topside behind the sail if I remember correctly. Plus a Guage showing percentage of hydrogen present in the battery compartment. Either way, to me, it points to inexperience. Never open the TDU before checking that vent valve. Plus the cook or whatever should have been on the phones with someone on the bridge.
Some context here, I was a space tech, 0421 on SSBN 634 for 6 years,
Taught Space Maintenance for 4 years.
Oh, another comment.
Friend in the Space instructors office was on the Bonefish during a battery well explosion.
He said everyone knew to get topside even before the 1MC.
Said his shoes were melting while standing topside.
Ex Submarine sailor here, 1970 to 1976. We pray for their souls and sacrifice. Subsafe keep us safe and appreciate our Navy’s approach to new construction.
Thank you for a balanced, informative video on the USS Scorpion - no tinfoil hat stuff, just a solid presentation. Thank you for your service and thank you for your efforts in all of your videos.
great hearing about early beam-forming tech its amazing what was done without modern microelectronics
Analogous to phased array synthetic aperture radar I suppose.
I was on a Norwegian sub, where we (I) once experienced huge leakage from our garbage / sewage shoot. If I had not reacted as quick as I did I would not be typing this today. Managed to secure the inner hatch before the shoot was full of water, as everyone know, you cannot compress water, and as soon as it would have been full, I would not have been able to put the hatch down and lock it. Even with the air went open, it would not have been enough to evacuate the pressure from the incoming water as it was way to small.
Great video. Thank you. 1968 was a rough year for submariners
K129
I was a new Torpedoman on a 637 class boat doing PMS on a Mk-37 when I was told to stop as it could lead to hot run…It was one of the first lessons I learned onboard…
I have always believed a mark 37 torpedo is what downed this boat. I believe that the crew was trying to eject a hot running torpedo. The boat was turning 180° as standard protocol. The torpedo blew up before the turn was completed.
@@gregorylyon1004 Thats what my LPO thought as he caught me doing the PMS in the Mk-37…He about snatched the battery tester outa my hand…We had a long talk and training session on what to do in case of a hot run…
My dad was a spook on the 592 SNOOK. ECM shack full of equipment still secret. Needless to say my bedtime stories were a little different than most kids.
I remember reading that the early theory about the Scorpion turning around was based on incorrect distance calculations from SOSUS. They showed her heading straight back to the US at a steady pace, then something happened, and then it started going exactly 180 degrees from its previous course, eventually imploding. Apparently those early calculations forgot to compensate for how the speed of sound changes with pressure. When re-calculated properly, the ship continued straight towards the US the whole time. The event occurred, and then the Scorpion slowly sank to crush depth (still going straight), and then imploded. This suggests that whatever the event was, it disabled a significant portion of the ship's control team.
A few years ago as part of its routine visits to the wreck, the Navy recovered pieces of the ship's battery that indicated a violent explosion in the battery well. While that isn't enough evidence to determine failed TDU vs hydrogen buildup theory, it certainly is enough to disprove the hot-run torpedo theory and the torpedo tube fire theory. Although those are (now) clearly not the actual cause of the Scorpion's loss, they were real problems back then and the Navy did take action to mitigate those risks.
yeah, nope. Pressure makes some difference, but speed of sound is not all that important in target motion analysis (TMA). It matters for your ability to detect sound, it will not really impact bearings and bearing accuracy.
I was 7 years old when she was lost. I was in school in Norfolk. My grandfather worked at the shipyard. When this happened, many of my classmates had family on the Scorpion...the shock and sorrow was palpable among the students, but I was too young to really understand what had happened...
May their souls rest in peace
I really appreciate your sub-talk. It is a secretive world which intrigues me a lot, but hard to get basic insight into. Access to this world has improved somewhat, like your videoes and also some words of the this guy named Craven or something like that. He obviously was well seasoned in this kind of warfare too. So thank you for informing us. Let's hope that you don't reveal anything classified by accident. :)
@PeterDavid7KQ201 - Craven applied probabilistic estimates into the search strategy. Now standard approach in search for missing vessels, planes etc.
1 Full Power Hour = Reactor is run at 100% for an hour. So 4 hours at 25% is 1 EFPH (Effective Full Power Hour) When I was in I think they were logging Rx Pwr every 15 minutes, but I suspect it's digitally logged now.
Ha, you think the Navy would pay for fancy digital log-taking equipment when they've already got perfectly good sailors with pens and paper?
There is actually a good reason to manually record log readings. It helps to ensure that the crew is actually monitoring critical system parameters to ensure safe operation and detect any adverse trends such as increasing bearing temperatures, etc.
Made a few patrols on an SSBN in the 70s. This presentation brought back a lot of memories...
Mr. Briefs on submarines, I thank thee for the video!❤
One thing you can say for certain about the maximum range quoted for any sonar system: It is most assuredly *not* the maximum range it can be effectively used at. Whether it's lying high or low depends on the system and who's quoting, but any unclassified number is going to be lying through its teeth.
Man first Thresher and then scorpion those were rough times for submariners back then!
Always loved the sub briefs. Keep them coming
Good comprehensive coverage Aaron
The TDU, and torpedo tubes and signal ejectors, have mechanical interlocks so you can't have the breach door and muzzle door/hull and backup valves open at the same time.
I worked with Bill Shanahan, the designer of the WLR-9 at Norden Systems in Melville, NY a long, long time ago. He was a colorful character but definitely not a madman...
The mention of the Mk14 reminded me of a video from Drach on the Mk14, which was a disaster for the USN early in WW2. It wasn't retired until the early 1980's.
Fellow Drachinifel enjoyer
I haven’t personally done the deep dive on this, but what Blind Man’s Bluff laid out with the bad torpedo batteries causing a warhead to cook off seemed like a good explanation. There seemed to be a lot of supporting evidence about the batteries catching on fire and the controversy surrounding them.
Having just listen to the book a week ago, I came to the comments to look for anyone talking about those batteries.
The rapid course change points to a hot run. Daddy was a Commander and Admiral Rickover's liaison overseeing the search.
The Hot Run theory was floated by John Craven, his math was proven incorrect. There is no evidence of the ship conducting a 180 degree turn.
A hot run. Exactly what happened. The Scorpion blew herself up
? My Pops served on the USS Sea Poacher with SubRon 12 Key West, could you possibly cover Balao Class life and operation someday?
Thanks for all you do!
I was stationed at FTC Newport, Rhode Island at the time of this incident. There were all kinds of rumors at the time. At that time I was a Seaman Apprentice.
The USS Scorpion is one of my "favorite" Cold War mysteries.
She Scorpion loss is no mystery. A mark 37 torpedo downed that boat
Very good video.
The theories of Soviet envolvment run wild. There were books written of these. "Scorpion Down" speaks of the whole sinking incident being recorded by SOSUS, which included a Soviet torpedo sound signature. "All Hands Down" speaks of a Soviet Ka-25 helicopter possibly being involved. This is entertaining reading, albeit dubious.
There was also a novel called "To Kill The Potemkin" which has a fictionalized account of a similar sub that sunk in 1968. There is also the fiction book "Torpedo!" which was pretty good.
Blind mans bluff is a good read that first showed some insight on what went on behind the scenes with the loss of the Scorpion. But "The Silent War" by John Pina Craven is a must read which supplements Blind Mans Bluff.
on the sornar display slide , the BQR-21 is the one on the left, with the 3 dcrt displays and the one on the right is the BQR-7
Even in early 70s TDUs were a problem on boomers. The valve shop was referred to as the TDU shop on my tender. USS SIMON LAKE HT2
And the messed up part is its the fault of the tdu operator most of the time. Without getting into specifics there is a key step in the procedure before you put cans in that must be done but often it gets forgotten.
In chapter five of Blind Man's Bluff, the Mark 37 torpedo was to blame for the sinking. After discovering the flawed batteries installed in them. The Navy had them removed from service, but not before Scorpion left for patrol with the flawed 37 torpedoes. John Pina Craven explains in detail how this was discovered and kept secret. So we now know for certain what sunk the Scorpion.
I agree with John Craven’s assessment as well. The fact that the torpedo room didn’t collapse like the rest of the compartments is proof enough that it was already flooded when the boat reached crush depth. Craven, among others, were convinced that the torpedo loading and escape hatches were blown off by a fire induced low order detonation of a torpedo warhead. The 1969 court of inquiry also cited an incident in 1960 on the USS Sargo SSN-583 when she was pier side in Pearl Harbor where a fire in the aft torpedo room caused a low order detonation of 2 mark 37 torpedo warheads.
Ten inch pipe a hundred feet down, that's a lot of water.
A thousand gallons a second.
One of my fav sub briefs so far I found this extremely interesting, good job sir!
On WW2 boats they had little bug zapper like things to burn off small amounts of hydrogen before they became large amounts of hydrogen to be used when charging torpedoes.
Nuke boats have CO-H2 burners which continuously removed those two gases.
i can feel the fbi agent breathing down your neck in this one....
@@hellbringer09 hide
When I was in grade school my best friend had a pome on the wall of his house.
Silent scorpion
All he ever said was it was a memorial for his uncle who was lost in a submarine.
It wasn't until many years later I heard about the loss of the scorpion.
His uncle's last name was Burke
When the Scorpion left her last overhaul, she was not Sub-Safe certified.
The Naulitus was the only sub safe submarine back then because it was Rickovers baby
What do you think of the planned new expedition down to her with high def cameras & lights to get a better view of the wreck site & survey it. And based on your level of knowledge [which is much greater than mine is] do you think that the log book could ever be recovered?
Great video, thank you!
Thanks for the content.
I have a question about the technical brief that you gave at the beginning. You said that these early towed arrays had to be mounted and removed by a tug and they couldn't be retracted by the sub in the field.
What was procedure if the sub had to go evasive? Was the towed array cut, or could it handle top speed maneuvers?
Towed arrays do restrict the maneuverability of the submarine somewhat when deployed. Modern subs can retract the towed array while underway. One thing not mentioned is that subs also have a floating wire antenna that allows them to receive ULF messages while submerged. Funny story about the floating wire. On one boat I was on (which shall remain nameless) we were using the floating wire for the first time. There were specific precautions that had to be taken when going to periscope depth to avoid cutting the cable with the screw. The Captain would ask the OOD about those precautions prior to granting permission to go to periscope depth. One day during a battle stations drill the Captain took the conn. He took the boat to periscope depth and promptly cut the wire. After that we no longer got asked about the precautions.
very good video and your right we don't know. but we do know is it had a lot problems with it
Fellow Bubblehead here (SKC(SS), USN, Ret).... where did you get the info on the TDU? I never heard that before. During my career, the prevailing rumor was the Hot Run theory, and the BS about a Russian boat doing it was just that- BS. Good show, though- BZ!
For what it's worth, I was on a 594 (the Haddock) and a 637 (the Pintado) in the late 70's- mid 80's and both boats had CO Standing Orders that the Chop had to be present for TDU Ops to ensure they were done correctly, so what you're saying may have something to do with that... hmmmmmm.....
The "beeps" radar, that's great, I love the technical-onomatopoeia terms/acronyms.
Whats fascinating is this hull went to 1530 feet before it collapsed. The technology than shows what is probably possible now. Of course so much is classified for so long
Big condolences to the families of Scorpion 589 and Thresher 593. My dad was a plank owner on Snook 592 (John E. Stuart, QM1 at the time).
"Subsafe" Failed. IMO because "The Brass" didn't follow regulations and deployed Scorpion anyway. As always, thank you for another excellent & educated description of this disaster.
Best Regards.
Great video, Aaron...👍
Despite the depth the sub is at, I wonder if it would be possible to get a very small ROV inside the hull to examine it from the inside? Or did the hull completely implode?
It's wrecked. The engineering and aft spaces "telescoped" into the amidships sections. That violent action ejected the propeller shaft out the back and sheared off the sail. Maybe something could get into the torpedo room through the open escape trunk. I feel like his earlier video from some years ago went into all this and that he skipped a lot on this remake.
It probably already has happened. We just will never know about it.
Hey, I hope everything‘s going good. You sound a little sad in this video a God bless what you do and I just want you to know I look forward to watching yours and H I Sutons videos. I love your work.
Four subs went down in 1968. The Scorpion, a Russian Golf class SSB, a French SS, and an Israeli (formerly British) SS.
The only information released to the public about this incident came from USN censors. The Navy will tell us what to think about this incident.
One of my college profs was in the USN sub service from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s. He said that there was a rumor amongst USN submarine officers that the Russians sank the Scorpion. I don't know what his source for this information was and I don't know if the rumor was used as a motivational tool in the service.
Two books on this incident, "Blind Man's Bluff" and "Scorpion Down". The latter is based closer to conspiracy, but he sources how he comes to his theory.
The mishap possibilities still sound like the greatest likelihood of occurrence, however comma pause…
If I learned anything from my decade and a half of my own service, my dad’s decade as a nuke launch officer (LGM-25C), his dad’s 28yrs (all as a counter intelligence officer), plus the last 6-8yrs of watching alleged conspiracy theories turn into conspiracy facts, I’ve learned that I trust the government to tell me the truth even less than I did before.
When submarines are lost and there are no survivors, nor any indication as to what caused the loss of the vessel, it becomes a mystery!
Even more so when the vessels sink below their crush depths and implode!
Surely the submarine equivalent of a Ship/Aircraft Flight/Voyage Data Recorder could be fitted to submarines (securely encoded of course).
Then, if a loss occured, a Deep Submergence Vehicle or a Remotely Operated Vehicle could be used to recover the Recorder.
To have detailed data on the submarine prior to and throughout its emergency would be invaluable to Investigation Teams and to bereaved families.
Great job!
I believe Thresher was lost in 1963.
Wasn't a dog-leg turn standard procedure for a submarine to maintain situational awareness? My understanding is submarines would routinely make a 180 to check their wake or blindspots in the sensors.
It's called clearing the baffles, Hunt for Red October got the Russian version called a crazy Ivan. A 180 works but isn't usually a good tactical decision.
I lost a family member to this sub.
I'm sorry for your families loss. Did the Navy tell your family what they believe happened to the scorpion??
A reference alluded to by others is the book, Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon, The Untold Story of the Scorpion by Edward Offley.
Great brief! Can you go into more detail about how wire guided torpedos on submarines work?
Don't you mean Wire Guided Torpedoes.
Wire guided torpedo has a long wire connected back to the sub so it can be steered to its target.
@@cliveherbert9476 Indeed I did!
@@BruceChamberlin-y4rSimilar to a TOW missle...
My grandfather was working on this type of submarine. He always told me how it was sometimes really boring on this submarine and him and his colleagues were cutting electrical wires for fun on it to see which wires will give them a tiny electrical shock. Maybe that's why this submarine sank??
I read the book by John Pena Craven that discussed finding it. He was pretty invested in the battery hot run because of the membrane in the battery. I did wonder if that was happening why they didn't have more incidents?
Craven was right
I’d like to hear your version of the near loss of USS Chopper.
Would love a lecture on digital beam forming
2 things: My first patrol on SSBN 623 I was a messcook for a couple of weeks and I loaded the TDU myself after maybe 5 minutes of explanation from the cook. I was 19 years old and definitely not SS qualified. 😲 The thing that I think of now and then is that after my last patrol, I was going to be xfered to the Scorpion if I extended. I decided to get out and get married instead and another guy from my IC gang went to the Scorpion instead of me. Months later, the boat was lost.
Wasn't the torpedo room found to be mostly intact, indicating it was flooded befor ithia crush depth
I read Blind Man's Bluff and they talk about it. There's evidence a couple hatches in the torpedo room look to be blown outward. The theory in the book is that a defective battery design in a certain model of torpedo could catch fire. If a battery were to catch fire and set off a torpedo, it would be unpredictable in it's exact power, but it'd definitely be less than an normal detonation. It could be enough to blow up and flood the torpedo room without blowing up the rest of the sub.
In the book a quality control guy wrote a recall warning about battery fires that could lead to lose of a sub, just days before it was lost. Be he alleges that a higher up swept the torpedo recall under the rug, since they were many months behind schedule and the recall would make people lose confidence in the Navy.
29:39 One of the other theories I read is that the submarine was being deliberately run to death as part of a program to see how long an attack submarine could last without major drydock repairs. I think it was probably "Running Critical" by Patrick Tyler, a 1986 book on the issues with building the Los Angeles class of submarines.
What happens to the reactor? Does the outside pressure keep the reactor from leaking?
Are you going to do a vid on the bonefish
Cheers from AU Chief.⚓
sooo, in light of some of the things like the capt asking for leaks and dry dock etc etc, what was the finding, and lessons from that, ?
I heard they were also ordered to limit their diving depth on transit back home. Not sure what it was but was far lower then normal due to the condition of the sub.
Never heard of the TDU scenario, interesting. Had to qualify as a tdu operator while messcooking.
Like the German sub that was lost when the toilet malfunctioned.
Thanks Aaron! ;)
Aaron, did the Navy publish any recommendations based on the accident? Any changes in practice? (at least ones you can talk about)
It was problem with German accustic torpedo by the end of WWII, that it sometimes guided itself on submarine that launched it after losing guidance. Solution was simply stop sub at launch and hope escorts wont find you. Its like throwing bumerang into night. Torpedo could find any target at any time, so it had to be nerve wrecking.
How crazy. I just spent hours reading up on the Russian sub loss of the time and what was reportedly recovered.
Didn't the towed array give you sonar listening behind the baffles as well as long distance to either side?
If Scorpion is in the Atlantic, what sub is in the IO (that you had mentioned in a previous video about civilian subs inspecting wrecks earlier this year)?
Best I can recall, Nukes were trained it was a battery compartment explosion which makes sense because that was a parameter we could learn from. We were always being harped about Scorpion and Thresher as the impetus for Sub-Safe Standards. Have you done a Sub Brief on Sub-Safe? Would be allowed to? ✌🏻
4 boats were lost in '68, Scorpion, a Russian boat, a French boat and an Israeli boat, two assassinations, Tet in Vietnam, it was a really bad year, I was glad one cousin, on the Skipjack, got out and came home okay, but my other cousin was a diver in salvage and he should be okay... but '68 was a terrible and scary year...
Hey, why no update on the Thresher???
Because the Thresher is on the bottom in pieces. It has been since 1963
a sad story
If you have a leaky garbage disposal unit, why wouldn't you discharge trash on the surface? To do it at depth seems unwise.
There's 100 men on board. Imagine how much trash a family of five generates on a daily basis and multiply it by 20, then realize that a nuclear sub remains submerged for months at a time, that's a lot of trash to stow in an already cramped container.
5:15 -- RE: Tugboat and Diver attach the Towed Array; OMG, I never would have guessed that the towed array didn't start out as a piece of equipment that was somehow contained and deployed by the submarine itself. And yeah, I caught on quick that it also means once connected it stayed deployed until the mission was over or an emergency situation demanded cutting it loose.
Question! Could the OG towed array be detached while at sea by physically cutting it with explosive bolts and a detonator switch? Or would the sub need to deploy a diver to do that, too?
With so many hull issues, maybe she just imploded, even if she wasn't at crush depth...
All it would take, was one bad leak from one of those 'penetrations,' and 'boom!
it is interesting how things happen across the border
everything I have read in RCN Oberon documents from the time make very little reference to an/wlr-9, in fact, specifically avoids it, an/wlr 1-8 & 10-11 are broadly mentioned, interesting.
As others pointed out (From Blind Man's Bluff and others) was not a complete cook off, but a partial low order explosion.
'Always on watch'
Weren't the periscope and mast(s) in the raised position as shown on the wreck photos? Wouldn't this suggest they were at PD? If so, and a message could be flashed out very quickly, why no message?
Also, I believe the wreck analysis indicated the batteries were damaged in a way consistent with their explosion.
So, it does sound like a battery issue, but why no SOS message?
I wish you did better on the facts especially the sosus data. This should be your bailiwick.
❤