Pykrete Ice Berg Ship, Floating Iceberg

Very interesting, I recently came across this little ship design for a WWII carrier design.

Project Habbakuk

"The Habbakuk, as proposed to Winston Churchill by Lord Mountbatten and Geoffrey Pyke, was to be approximately 2,000 feet long (600 m) and have a displacement of an amazing 2,000,000 tons or more, constructed in Canada from 280,000 blocks of ice (later changed to a mixture of ice and wood pulp known as Pykrete after Pyke, who proposed the Habbakuk project — the material was invented by others). The ship's deep draft would have kept it out of most harbours. Inside the vessel, protected by 50-foot-thick walls, a refrigeration plant would maintain the structure against melting. The ship would have extremely limited maneuverability, but was expected to be capable of up to 10 knots (18 km/h) using 26 electric drive motors mounted in separate external nacelles. Its armaments would have included 40 dual-barrelled 4.5" DP (dual-purpose) turrets and numerous light anti-aircraft guns, and it would have housed an airstrip and up to 150 twin-engined bombers or fighters."

Wikipedia Link to IceBerg ship

The material "pykrete" is supposedly close to concrete in strength. A pretty impressive material, too bad it was cancelled when convential means of fighting had turned the tide of the war and other projects had diverted funds from building the ships.

Shattered OUT...

I saw a documentry this was on not that long ago i cant recall the name of it but it was on the history channel i believe.

It did seem very intrigueing as i understand it they were going to have cooling systems running through the ship so it would never melt and a bullet bounced of it and hit someone in the leg when it was being demonstrated whereas the normal ice shattered.

had a brief look after writing this and this is an intresting link on it and fills in the blanks on what i wrote above

floating island

[edit on 15-10-2005 by Teknikal]

I love the way Lord Louis Mountbatten showed off Pykrete to Winston Churchill. He dropped a chunk of it into Churchill's bath water with him in it. To Churchills suprise among other things it didnt melt.

Then like Teknikal mentioned Mountbatten had set out two blocks of material and then pulled out a gun to give the assembled chiefs a little demonstration. The first shot had been at a block of pure ice, which shattered. Nobody was much surprised by this. But the second shot proved very surprising indeed. This time, Mountbatten shot a piece of pykrete, and the bullet ricocheted right off the block and zipped across the trouser leg of Fleet Admiral Ernest King.

Man I liked Mountbatten's style even though it was alittle dangerous he got his points across.

The Ice ships would have been a amazing structure really more like a Floating Island than a ship truley massive. At a time when Steel was in short demand in the UK it seemed like the way to go.But before construction could get started America was pumping out steel aircraft carriers in enough numbers to get the job done so there was really no need.

www.cabinetmagazine.org...

This was mentioned on the History Channel's "Modern Marvels" last night in an episode dealing with Secret Allied Weapons of WWII. The part about some one getting shot comes from a confrence with Admiral King of the US Navy where Lord Mountbatten fires a bullet from his pistol into a block of ice, shattering it. Then he fires a shot into a block of Pykrete the bullet bounces off grazing Admiral King's leg.

Of course it did not melt!

Winnie was one cool dude!

The idea would have been good for the British, who were looking to secure the North Atlantic and the North sea, which stay very cold all year round. Wouldnt make much sense for fleets bound for the south pacific.

Problem with the design is that it is 3/4th submerged because of the ice). So you need DEEP harbors for a decent size. It wouldn't fit in any harbor, so it wouldn't have done anything to help win the war.

[edit on 16-10-2005 by CrazyOrange]

Originally posted by CrazyOrange
Problem with the design is that it is 3/4th submerged because of the ice). So you need DEEP harbors for a decent size. It wouldn't fit in any harbor, so it wouldn't have done anything to help win the war.

[edit on 16-10-2005 by CrazyOrange]

Other way around, Ice is 1/4 submerged in water, only 10 percent is submerged because of the density.

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies

Originally posted by CrazyOrange
Problem with the design is that it is 3/4th submerged because of the ice). So you need DEEP harbors for a decent size. It wouldn't fit in any harbor, so it wouldn't have done anything to help win the war.

[edit on 16-10-2005 by CrazyOrange]

Other way around, Ice is 1/4 submerged in water, only 10 percent is submerged because of the density.

Shattered OUT...

Go get an ice cube and put it in a glass of water. Only about 10 percent will remain above the water level. This remains true for iceburgs.

Really? Hmm, thought it was the other way around. No wonder I failed my density labs.:lolnot really)

Shattered OUT...

10%?... errrr..... not if it's hollow....then it's a canoe.

I still dont know how well it would have faired against naval shells, which are designed to go through the armor and then detonate. And what of torpedoes?

They strike below the water line, and with a target that big and has that much of it submerged, you cannot miss.

I still dont know how well it would have faired against naval shells, which are designed to go through the armor and then detonate. And what of torpedoes?

Would they sink an iceberg which is basicly what this is i'm sure they would do superficial damage to it but sink it with WW2 technology i find unlikely. I'm not sure we could sink it easily today to be honest.



[edit on 17-10-2005 by Teknikal]

Originally posted by CrazyOrange
Problem with the design is that it is 3/4th submerged because of the ice). So you need DEEP harbors for a decent size. It wouldn't fit in any harbor, so it wouldn't have done anything to help win the war.

[edit on 16-10-2005 by CrazyOrange]

There would be no need to enter any habors when this thing could field full sized bombers with ranges in the thousands of miles. You could always use convential ships to resupply it.

I agree with Teknikal this ship would virtually impossible to sink with weapons used in WW2 with exception of the Atom bomb and only the US had that so fat chance of that being used on it. It was going to have 50-foot-thick walls as strong as concrete. It would have effectively been a streamlined iceberg kept afloat by the buoyancy of its construction materials.

[edit on 17-10-2005 by ShadowXIX]

It's really a shame they never built it, it'd be intresting to see how it'd have turned out. But building something out of a material that needs to be constantly maintained is at least in my opinion, asking for trouble. Also, while difficult to sink, it may not have been as difficult to render useless.

Originally posted by The Amazing Phil
It's really a shame they never built it, it'd be intresting to see how it'd have turned out. But building something out of a material that needs to be constantly maintained is at least in my opinion, asking for trouble. Also, while difficult to sink, it may not have been as difficult to render useless.

With present day technology I would agree however, those were truly bad times for the British and thinking outside of the box to help protect convoys bringing supplies was paramount. So assuming the threat we were dealing with was sub based, given how hard the stuff was, and how big these ships were going to be (They planned on lots of B-17 sized A/C) it may have worked.

I saw the show on history that covered the pykrete carrier idea and I couldn't help but think if I were a german naval officer I would have a few small subs equipped with blowtorchs built to attack that think

With built in refrigeration systems I think that the Pykrete carrier would be both survivable and easy to repair. Just throw a couple of buckets of water into the shell holes and wait for it to freeze. Instant repair. The problem that I have with the whole idea is how do you propell it? With over 75% of it's mass underwater the ship would be huge. Where do you put the engines, generators and fuel tanks? Remember all of these generate heat which would make mounting them kind of tricky. Not to mention the sheer size necessary to propell this behemoth at a reasonable speed.

I was also wondering where the crew would sleep and work in a ship made of ice when you consider that it must be freezing in there literally. Would they have insulated and heated quarters or would they have to dress like they were camping on an iceberg?

Also would the aircraft and other mechanical and electrical equipment be shielded from the cold somehow?

[edit on 17-10-2005 by warpboost]

Originally posted by FredT

Originally posted by The Amazing Phil
It's really a shame they never built it, it'd be intresting to see how it'd have turned out. But building something out of a material that needs to be constantly maintained is at least in my opinion, asking for trouble. Also, while difficult to sink, it may not have been as difficult to render useless.

With present day technology I would agree however, those were truly bad times for the British and thinking outside of the box to help protect convoys bringing supplies was paramount. So assuming the threat we were dealing with was sub based, given how hard the stuff was, and how big these ships were going to be (They planned on lots of B-17 sized A/C) it may have worked.

Maybe, although the initial mental image I had was of all the Spitfires and what not coming back to land and sliding right off of the end and into the briney... that'd have been a far cry from the heady days of Trafalgar. Thankfully we didn't need it though.