What does Refrigeration have to do with Submarines? [closed]

Solution 1:

In the case of submarines, refrigeration is somewhat tangentially linked. While one of the issues with a submarine is temperature, most of the time the problem is that the sub is too cold - not too hot. The ocean is quite a cold place, on the whole, with the average temperature in the single digits in degrees Celsius.

Similarly, feeding the people on a submarine could be accomplished without refrigeration as well. Even some modern army rations don't require it.

However, gas compression, one of the foundations of modern refrigeration, is important to submarines. Compressed air is used to adjust the buoyancy of the sub by displacing water in the ballast tanks.

Having said all that, it's a bit tough to look at the tech tree for any Civ game and attempt to directly link units to the technology that unlocks them - in many cases, there are clear links, but not always. For instance, what do pikemen have to do with Civil Service? Or why do paratroopers depend on Radar? Not all helicopters depend on Rocketry, either.

It's usually sufficient to say "these military units were roughly coincident in time with the given technology." In the case of refrigeration and submarines, both rose to prominence during World War I, in the mid-to-late 1910's.