NASA wrote:Young and Duke then inspected Casper's SIM Bay to see if they could determine why some of the experiment were not functioning as planned. Ken Mattingly carried out a similar examination of Orion, noticing that the outer thermal blankets on the rear of the Lunar Module were badly damaged, and hanging off the spacecraft. These had been torn loose at engine ignition on the surface the Moon, but the thermal blankets underneath appeared to be intact.
http://history.nasa.gov/ap16fj/a16summary.htm
I tried to find what they referred to when talking about the thermal blankets ... but could not find any reference.
Let's see what you can find about this side of the Ascent Stage and what kind of equipment was allegedly installed there ...
This diagram shows the ascent stage in an opposite direction as the one portrayed in the Apollo 16 wet cardboard model
The image above shows what they call the AFT equipment bay, composed of "electronic equipment"
displayed from a front perspective here at the Smithsonian.
I tried finding what the AFT equipment bay function was but could find few references ...
The ascent stage of the Apollo LEM is the control center and manned portion of the space vehicle. The vehicle's three main sections are the crew compartment, midsection, and aft equipment bay and tank section. The crew compartment and midsection make up the cabin. The ascent-stage structure consists of several subassemblies: the front face, cabin skin, midsection, and aft equipment bay.
Chronicles of Grumman's 1960s Lunar Excursion Module development
http://www.edn.com/article/521063-Chron ... opment.php
Grumman and Rockedyne were in charge of constructing the Lunar Module.
Compare with this front view of the Apollo 16 cardboard shag.
BTW I was not able to find this image in any other place on the internet.
The difference between the two representations of the ascent module showing the aft whatever is astounding
Found further that the Aft Equipment Bay ....
The Aft Equipment Bay, housing electronic components, was located on the rear of the spacecraft. The bay was unpressurized and included a water-glycol cooling system to prevent equipment from overheating. Two oxygen tanks and two helium tanks were located in the bay.[/b]
http://historicspacecraft.com/Lunar_Module.html
And also
The aft compartment is located around the periphery of the command module at its widest part, just forward of (above) the aft heat shield. The compartment is divided into 24 bays by the 24 frames of the structure. In these bays are 10 reaction control engines; the fuel, oxidizer, and helium tanks for the CM reaction control subsystem; water tanks; the crushable ribs of the impact attenuation system; and a number of instruments. The CM-SM umbilical-the point where wiring an plumbing runs from one module to the other-also is in the aft compartment. The panels of the heat shield around the aft compartment are removable for maintenance of the equipment before flight.
http://www.apollosaturn.com/asnr/module.htm
So it seemed to be a very sensitive area in their Apollo dream scheme
Just imagine if as NASA say it was damaged during the lift off from the moon. The oxygen tanks wood be gone, making impossible their earth round trip completion but the helium tank explosion would have sent our heroes to kingdom come.
(close-up taken from Hollycrap's rare pic) 
