In their official report of 29 January 1970, the SCORPION Structural Analysis Group (SAG), which included the Navy's leading experts in submarine design, submarine structures, and the effect of underwater explosions, advised the Navy Court of Inquiry (COI) that the US nuclear submarine SCORPION was lost on 22 May 1968 becase of the violent explosion of the main storage battery.

The COI disregarded that assessment and concluded SCORPION was lost because of the "explosion of (a) large charge weight externalto the submarine's pressure hull." That erroneous conclusion which, by default, has...