[NonValueAdded]

"Dr Ballard’s visual examination of the [Scorpion] wreck site showed that the most likely cause of its destruction was being hit by a rogue torpedo that it had fired itself."

Acquired by its own torpedo but how did that torpedo also arm itself?

[null and void]

...and how can he be so sure it was the Scorpion’s own torpedo?

[Portcall24]

If you read a book called Blind Mans Bluff they describe how a tiny piece of membrane in the batteries broke down and created a hot running torpedo. A great read by the way. I had always heard a valve was incorrectly installed in the Thresher.

[sig226]

It wasn’t a hot running torpedo, it was on fire. They theorized that the battery was one of a defective lot (records were lost) and the fire caused by the defective membrane was hot enough to set off a low order detonation.

The chapter on the search for the Scorpion was worth the price of the book by itself, but the whole book is excellent.