The Scorpion Submarine was a pleasant surprise on a recent pilgrimage to see the Queen Mary. I honestly had no idea that they had a submarine there, let alone Soviet cold war era boat.

The tour had its ups and downs. This is not an extremely well thought-out exhibit ripe with lots of pictures and charts and modern explainations but it is definetely worth the trip for naval warfare buffs. The sub is pretty much as you might expect for a "nearly" operational vessel. With the exception of some new steel plate decking in the forward torpedo room and plexiglass barriers to keep you out of cabins, the sub has not been altered in many ways. It's almost like someone took a 60s or 70 era vessel and closed it up for 20 years.

They only let you walk around the main deck. At a few locations you can see down to lower levels but it's hard to tell what else of popular interest might be down there. The tour is self-guiding and there are recordings being played at several key spots in the boat to describe the various activities for each compartment.

At $10 per person this is a bargain that takes less than an hour. We didn't get to see the film so we missed at lot of the background and educational component.