"In 1968, A US Nuclear Submarine Went On a Russia ..." Topic

…Super Secret Spy Mission (And It Never Came Back)


"In May 1968, a U.S. nuclear-powered attack submarine was sent on a secret mission to spy on the Soviet navy. Seven days later, with the families of the crew waiting dockside for the USS Scorpion to return from a three-month patrol, the U.S. Navy realized that the submarine was missing. Scorpion had been the victim of a mysterious accident, the nature of which is debated to this day.

The USS Scorpion was a Skipjack-class nuclear attack submarine. It was one of the first American submarines with a teardrop-shaped hull, as opposed to the blockier hull of World War II submarines and their descendants. It was laid down in August 1958 and commissioned into service in July 1960.

The Skipjacks were smaller than nuclear submarines today, with a displacement of 3,075 tons and measuring just 252-feet long by 31-feet wide. They had a crew of ninety-nine, including twelve officers and eighty-seven enlisted men. The class was the first to use the Westinghouse S5W nuclear reactor, which gave the submarine a top speed of fifteen knots surfaced and thirty-three knots submerged…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I have the book Scorpion Down. Have yet to finish it. Saw the author on book tv when it came out.

Sounds interesting…

Amicalement
Armand

What the story does not mention is that the Scorpion had not yet been refitted with SubSafe components (SubSafe was the result of the analysis on the Thresher accident).

One of my shipmates had served on Skipjack-class boats, and noted that they were *very* high-performance, even in the 1990s. They could turn and would actually bank quite significantly, such that he said the crew would walk on a bulkhead during turns.

My personal theory (which I think is shared with my shipmate) on the Scorpion is that she suffered a Jam Dive casualty while traveling fast and relatively shallow, which is not a good place to be for a submarine. A "Jam Dive" is where the stern planes somehow get stuck at full dive. The usual reason for this would be for the hydraulic seals to blow out.

The big Ohio-class subs that I served on had all of 8 seconds for the ship control party to execute the emergency actions. The Skipjack-class had even less time to respond, probably less than 5 seconds (I never "drove" one, I don't know the timeline).

This is such a dangerous event that we NEVER actually drilled it at sea, we ALWAYS practiced Jam Dive responses in the simulator. We also always went below test depth during these simulator events, and one time with a junior officer slow on the draw we went below crush depth (again, in the simulator).

The final steps for a Jam Dive is to perform an Emergency Main Ballast Tank (EMBT) blow of the forward group to arrest the increasing angle, and then you jockey ahead and astern propulsion to get and keep the boat relatively flat while you rise to the surface and wait for a tug to come get you. You need a tug because any ahead propulsive force will try to push the ship's bow back down.

One of the major changes from the SubSafe program was a complete redesign of the EMBT blow valves, such that they could not freeze shut due to the air flow rapidly expanding. One of the reasons for the loss of the Thresher was because her EMBT valves froze shut.

So now you have a Jam Dive where you NEED to blow the forward group, and the valves that are supposed to save your ass have frozen shut. The Scorpion would have done an outside loop underwater, at about 33 knots. This outside loop would have put the ship far past her crush depth.

Very Interesting and informative!

Agree!

Amicalement
Armand