RE: stinking subs

Billy Brown (bbrown@transcient.com)
Tue, 16 Nov 1999 10:31:39 -0600

Jay Dugger wrote:
> Having spent six years in the US Navy's surface fleet I can and do
> assure you the US Navy considers air conditioning _very_ important. Its
> first value is cooling high-powered electronics. Compartments containing
> radar sets and communications equipment are generally colder than any
> other place aboard except refrigerators. Air conditioning's second value
> is crew comfort. If you lived with fifty other people in a space little
> larger than a two bedroom apartment, the only way to combat odor is air
> conditioning. Finally, an all-metal ship absorbs a good deal of heat.
> Without air conditioning, the structure becomes dangerously warm and
> people inside it for extended periods risk heat exhuastion.

Of course the electronics have real A/C (overheating computers don't work very well, after all), and naturally the rest of the ship has to have a good enough forced circulation/heat management system to keep the crew alive and functional. My point was simply that *comfort* is not a priority (except maybe in the flag bridge...). The goal is to keep the temperature between (roughly) 55F and 90F, not to maintain a 70F office-building environment.

Billy Brown, MCSE+I
bbrown@transcient.com