Refitting a WarShip with Additional Heat Sinks - Plausible?

[Giovanni Blasini]

So, while looking into a non-canon refit of an existing WarShips design, and looking to revamp the armament from mainly NACs and missiles (with a modicum of standard-scale lasers) to mainly capital energy weapons with capital missiles, I noticed something odd:  I couldn't find a single example of a WarShip refit that adds to the total number of heat sinks.

Oh, sure, I found refits that went from equal numbers of single heat sinks to double heat sinks.  I found examples that went to a smaller number of double heat sinks.  But I never found an example that went for a greater number of heat sinks, be it singles to singles, singles to doubles or doubles to doubles (the last of which applying to my non-canon design).

I recall heat sinks on large craft being described as more than just heat dissipation, but also representing power distribution.  That's often made me wonder whether it's possible to actually increase the total number of heat sinks on a refit, or if you're basically looking at having to build a new hull from scratch at that point.

So, how about it: can anyone think of an example DropShip or WarShip that's had more heat sinks added during a refit?

[I am Belch II]

Maybe went to double heat sinks instead of single. Adding more heat sinks seems to be a easy way to get more firepower out of a ship, and maybe a easy upgrade too.

[Colt Ward]

Just out of curiousity Gio, have you ever seen Attack Vector:  Tactical?

They spend a bit of time describing the heat sinks for spaceship operations and how the heat can limit a ship's options as they can only radiate so much to space as well as the design/structure of the heat sinks.  It might be something like this . . . the warship is much larger than a mech which means to get effective radiating of the heat into space you would be required to have more penetration of the hull or circulation from inside to the skin.  IMO, think of it something like the discussions that have been posted in the past about ammo feeds & magazines for ballistic weapons.  It will not just be the one piece of equipment you must balance but the power feeds, pumps or fans, coolant flows and radiators which go into your warship heat sinks.

Location is also important . . . I just realized, and I know it sounds weird, but the radiator for my old armored vehicle was positioned to face the upper hull of the vehicle.  While it might have been baffled (never checked) it did present a weakness in the armor and as a important part of keeping the vehicle moving (aka, ALIVE) it was placed on top which prevents a lot of debris or small arms from hitting it.  I do not remember the location of them on the up-armored humvees, mostly because I did not regularly drive them and I have never seen actual tanks in person but . . . the radiator is on the aft deck of most tanks IIRC my 'weaknesses in Soviet armor' instruction (left a 55 gallon fuel drum on them from what I was told) and I think the SP tube artillery also places the radiator facing aft.  Hm, HIMARS had them like a traditional truck even on the up-armored.  The M270 had them in banks behind the cab but before the launcher mount I think . . . again, protected locations.

Just how many protected locations could a warship hull have?  Might also be a reason why they are not cylinders or ellipsoids like Honorverse ships.

[Jellico]

The fins of the 2750 ships have been described as radiators.
Also HS have been described as a representation of the power limitations of the ship rather than anything to do with heat. After all you can't overheat them.

That said, we have made just about every modification to ships before I don't see why not.
On the other hand, as power systems they may represent a hard limit.

Depends on personal opinion and discipline.

[Korzon77]

I think practically this is one of those areas where it could go either way-- for example, the RW Spraunce hull was big enough that they were modifying it throughout its service life while ships with less "give' in their designs proved inpractical to refit.

[Colt Ward]

Which is interesting . . . the SL-era ships seemed to be able to accept such things (hello, Aegis anyone?) while the House ships not so much- with the exception of the modern Capellan cruiser.

Actually, that reminds me . . . the Aegis might be your best answer Gio since it was refit long after its service life started and spending decades in mothballs.

[Liam's Ghost]

Found a precedent.

The Du Shi Wang class battleship was originally equipped with 2100 single heatsinks (as per TRO 3075)

However, the refitted Quicksilver Mongoose found in Era Digest Golden Century is equipped with 2700 double heatsinks.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Which is interesting . . . the SL-era ships seemed to be able to accept such things (hello, Aegis anyone?) while the House ships not so much- with the exception of the modern Capellan cruiser.

Actually, that reminds me . . . the Aegis might be your best answer Gio since it was refit long after its service life started and spending decades in mothballs.

I'd checked: 2046 single heat sinks converted to the same number of double heat sinks.

Found a precedent.

The Du Shi Wang class battleship was originally equipped with 2100 single heatsinks (as per TRO 3075)

However, the refitted Quicksilver Mongoose found in Era Digest Golden Century is equipped with 2700 double heatsinks.

Hadn't even known that one was in there.  Perfect! Thanks!

[Welshman]

In general we have steered away from adding heat sinks in WarShip refits. I would defer to Cray on science, however from a design philosophy this has been one of the things we've tried not to do.

There of course is almost always an exception to every rule.

[evilauthor]

Idea:

Heat sinks in space radiate heat through a ship's hull.

How much surface area a ship has effects how much heat a ship can sink (why some warships have fins) which is a sorta hard limit.

The reason it's "sorta hard" is that you can't increase surface area - and thus increasing heat radiating surfaces - without doing major changes to the ship's internal structure.

However, increasing surface area just makes the ship that much harder to armor, which means ships are only ever designed with the minimum surface area to accommodate however many heat sinks they were initially designed with.

IOW, to increase a Warship's heat sink numbers, you not only have to install more sinks, you have to remodel the ship's structure and armor layout as well which sounds like a huge pain, akin to upgrading a mech from standard to endo-steel armor. Are the gains REALLY going to be worth the time spent in a shipyard?