USS Scorpion
 

Hey have any of you read the book Scorpion Down? I just finished it and there is some pretty scary stuff in it. The basic conclusion is that the Russians had sunk the Scorpion! The author brings some really hard to argue facts out. I bet a lot of you have heard of the Walker spy ring back in the 80's? Well chew on this, he admitted that he had begun giving the Russians info as early as '67 so if that was the case his primary job while in the navy was running the radio shacks on subs. He had access to all the crypto codes they had at the time! Then in January 1968 what happened? The USS Pueblo was captured.....with....all three pieces of crypto equipment that the navy used at the time either intact or some what intact. The US navy was not to worried about it because even if the crypto gear had been captured all they would have to do is change the code and then no one could read our mail.......but......if Walker was handing info over as early as 1968 the Russian's could read every bit of mail that was being sent out to the fleet for as long as they were using any of the three sets of crypto gear that were in circulation, until Walker got caught. If this were the case, they would be able to have the info for patrol areas, fleet movements ect. In the 70's I have read a lot about the Russians changing tactics for deployment of there subs. I bet a lot of there tactics came from this HUGE fall out. Can you even imagen the damage that was caused? We might have had better technology with our subs at the time, but if they knew where ships and fleets were going to be before they got there......OMG.........

Ive read the book 'Blind man's Bluff' Where the Scorpion is mention but not this 'Scorpion down' which i will try to find, sounds a good read.

It is long believed the Russians sunk the Scorpion. We will never know for sure. A sad but interesting story for this boat.

"Scorpion Down" strikes a huge nerve with submarine veterans.

Perhaps Mr. Offley would like to come to this forum and explain how the Russians sank the Scorpion without incurring any visible sign of a torpedo impact upon her hull, or why the Russians would have told us they'd sunk her within days of doing so, or why the Russian submarine he theorizes did the deed was a slow, noisy cruise-missile carrier, and why he completely ignored all of the boat's mechanical troubles on her last deployment and the actual condition of the wreck, or how the boat wasn't completely flooded after being torpedoed, preventing it from imploding, or why he believes that a drum-paper recording constitutes a "smoking gun," or...

Well, you get the picture. Even if he could answer these questions, I'd never get the week of my life back I wasted reading this humilitating kick in the crotch of a book.

:yeah:

On top of this, this theoretical book is disrespectful to those who lost their lives that day IMHO.

Hey Subnuts, I have looked all over for pictures of the Scorpion. There are barely any at all. Do you have pictures of the hull we could take a look at?

I found these from the 1986 trip:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/s...s/ssn589-n.htm


and these of the 1968 trip:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/s...s/ssn589-k.htm

I don't see a lot of sub, with only 6 pictures from 68, and 5 from 86? There is over 200 feet of submarine, and we can all agree something happened to it. Looking at the pictures from 68 I see the damage to the sail appears to have been removed, how ever in 1986 it doesn't even look like the same sail. Look at the images of the message bouy, 1968 vs 1986? Who opened the door since the 60's? Maybe we are looking at negatives but if you compare the way the sail was sitting in the 60's to the picture from the 80's they don't really match. As a matter of fact it 'looks' like some one was jacking with the wreck, or we are not looking at the same sub. Just from discussion of what happens to the WWII boats the hull gets enormous pressure placed on it at depth. So, how did the door bouy door open? I believe the tactical advantage that a US sub would have in a one on one combat would be partially negated if the Russians knew they were coming and from which general direction. But there was more then just one ship in the area. They were supposedly sent to shadow a convoy. SO we don't know for sure that it was a one on one deal.

So with that being said, remember the battle of Midway?

Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway

"American codebreakers were able to determine the date and location of the attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to set up an ambush of its own. Four Japanese aircraft carriers and a heavy cruiser were sunk in exchange for one American aircraft carrier and a destroyer. The heavy losses, particularly the four fleet carriers and their aircrews, permanently weakened the Imperial Japanese Navy.[11]"

Think about what the US was able to pull off with just a little bit of code. Think about the damage that could have been done with Walker giving the codes to the Russians, and them having the crypto gear. If anything Walker may be the one to blame for the whole thing. Bastard should have been hung for what he did, and what he may have possibly caused.

The boat not being completely flooded? Got an answer for that too......how about the Tang from WWII? Hit by its own torpedo? Sunk in 180 feet of water off of Formosa. People survived from that, they were able to close down the water tight doors. From all I have read a sub at battle stations closes all water tight compartments. Some compartments may have flooded but others retained there integrity until they dropped below crush depth.

Just some thoughts I had......

No one opened the hatch at 10,000 feet under water the pressure is extremely great and 40 years of that pressure with the help of corrosion the hatch fell in.

Having spent a decade in the Sub Force I can tell you that the opinion of most senior NCO's was that the Scorpion was in fact sunk by the Soviets. This included a former COMSUBDEVRON 12. :nope:

I don't know, but I think its easier to blame the sinking of the Scorpion on the "baddies" without any kind of proof instead of having to face a second Thresher-like disaster because it would put the blame on the US Navy.
One accident can happen, and subsafe was instituted as measure to prevent further incidents, but what happens when a second accident happens ?
You have to put everything in question again.
I have just finished reading some days ago Silent Steel from Stephen Johnson, and while not giving any kind of firm conclusion on the cause of the Scorpions sinking, the images of certain parts of the wreckage are pretty interesting and point to what could have been an accident.
Maybe loss of depth control and secondary failures is the reason of the incident.

Does Silent Steel give better picutures of the Scorpion? I would really like to see some better pictures. We have better and more pictures of the Titanic which went down almost 100 years ago then we do of the Scorpion. I have only really posted this for discussion guys I really like getting everyones take on things, and I am not trying to offend anyone. I am not usually a person that looks for consiparcy theroies but in this case I really wonder what happened. I am sure there familys do to. I understand that sometimes things need to be kept secret because people in general are smart, but in large herds they are not.

Personally I think the Soviets sank the Scorpion. I read "Scorpion Down" and did a bit of searching on the net for more info. The fact they have never released all the pics of her hull and have censored some of them is interesting. Why would the Soviets tell the US what happened? Simple, the US caused the loss of a Soviet sub in the Pacific, the Soviets got even. They wanted us to know that they could kill one of our subs.
Alot of Americans and former sub crewmen don't want to admit that the Soviets could kill an American sub. Its bad for morale, and its a public relations nightmare.

Of the wreckage (parts of the wreckage) only 6 photos.

Ah conspiracy theories are the best. Right next to the moon landings being a hoax, and 9/11 being an american instigated attack on itself to make the executive branch much more powerfull and unaccountable than it already was. :D

Good to know i'm not alone out there...:oops:

Seriously the Soviets sinking a U.S sub would be the greatest p.r the U.S could get!Look at the bad Ruskies sinking one of our subs...:smug:

This level of gunslinging was never portrayed by both Navys or we wouldnt be here right now,sure there were some small incidents but nothing to this level.

I used to spend alot of time looking for stories and you get kinda tangled into anything you read...you have to keep an open mind and use common sense..the truth is out there somwhere and people prefer unproven stories over proven ones cause they find them less interesting and make worse birthdayparty stories.

The American public would have viewed the Soviets sinking an American sub as an act of war. The public did not know of the deadly game that was being played out on the open seas. Plus you have to remember this happened at the height of Vietnam and the Cold War. Had the two sides not come to a quick agreement to let this hot situation cool off it could have turned real hot real fast.

Gentlemen,

This book is 100% unadulterated bilge written for no other purpose than to sell books. The author has taken half-truths, innuendos, & rumors and combined them with a healthy dose of supposition and guess work. Nothing he presents in the book is proof.

The Soviets may have been paranoid and fanatical, but they were not stupid. To risk an all out nuclear war by deliberately sinking a U.S. warship because of some broad based speculation would be insanity of the first magnitude.

The loss of the Scorpion was nothing but a tragic accident. Let these men rest in peace and allow their families to have the closure they have earned. Stop stirring up this crap.

Stephen Johnson, the author of Silent Steel, wrote this article this article in the months following the publication of Scorpion Down. In it, he does a pretty thorough job explaining why the "Soviet torpedo" theory is implausible, and explains the nature of underwater explosions and implosions.

http://www.terratol.com/sitebuilderc..._The_Myths.pdf

To quote the most pertinent part of the essay:

This picture here is the sail from 86
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/i...00/h97223k.jpg

This is the picture from 68
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/i...00/u136656.jpg

Is the one from 68 like a negative or somthing? It looks like it is the left side.

Could it been caused by an accident? Such as the the russian sub that was sunk when one of its torpedo's blew up in the torpedo tube?