This could be an accident like the SAN FRANCISCO had colliding with "an uncharted seamount" at 500', while doing 30 kts, that destroyed the entire forward half of the boat, killed a few of the crew - 30 kts to dead stop instantaneously. The rest were all lucky to survive and get the submarine on the surface while combatting major flooding and a scrammed rx. They repaired it by cutting the fwd end off of another submarine and welding it onto SF. More likely would be collision with another submarine, or surface vessel.

Or, combat operations caused it. If the latter, we will never hear the whole story. Also, SSN 22 and sister ship 21 are mostly just spare parts bins for 23 anyways.

This could be an accident like the SAN FRANCISCO had colliding with "an uncharted seamount" at 500', while doing 30 kts, that destroyed the entire forward half of the boat, killed a few of the crew - 30 kts to dead stop instantaneously. The rest were all lucky to survive and get the submarine on the surface while combatting major flooding and a scrammed rx. They repaired it by cutting the fwd end off of another submarine and welding it onto SF.

Or, combat operations caused it. If the latter, we will never hear the whole story. Also, SSN 22 and sister ship 21 are mostly just spare parts bins for 23 anyways.