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OldSarge -> RE: USS Scorpion 1968 (5/25/2018 7:24:54 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: elxaime
How likely is it that the USN torpedoes of the era would loop around to hit the sub that launched them? I thought this was a WW1/WW2 type thing, Hollywood movies aside. Is that sort of thing still possible in 2018?
The torpedoes at the time had a safety switch that would activate on a hard turn to prevent that from happening. Of course, the switch could fail.
An excellent book "Blind Man's Bluff" contains a chapter "Death of a Submarine" that details the events surrounding the loss of the USS Scorpion and her crew. It also covers the search for the Scorpion. The Scorpion's torpedo room is still intact and did not implode with the rest of the sub, suggesting the compartment was already flooded when the sub hit crush depth. The Mk37 torpedo had batteries that were known for overheating and producing cook-offs and a theory posited by Dr. John Craven (and discussed in the book) is that the torpedo exploded in the tube.
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