[REQ] - Habbakuk MOD

[vanjast]

The axis would have attached a large spearfishing hook and towrope, to a torp. containing no explosives.
Then the sub(s) would have towed the ship to the equator, effectively sinking it..

Was an ice-cream machine built into the plans..

[Rockin Robbins]

Were they going to make the planes out of ice too?

[Nameless Bob]

Q. Well, a magnetic torpedo might have a problem. Still, from the shotgun test, an impact torpedo hit would have been devastating. And what kind of repair procedures do you use on ice?

A. Well a torpedo would have been bad but let's remember the original design for 50 foot thick hull top to bottom and you can bet they had plans to reinforce the waterline for torpedo attacks.The British navy test showed that a torpedo would only penetrate 3'.40' was considered to be torpedo proof.You would have to make multiple shots in the same hole to even begin to penetrate the hull and as you said magnetic detonators are useless(not that they weren't allready).Imagine trying to sink the yamato that way(impact pistol at waterline),It would take everything you have and it still might not rollover or go down.Let's think about steel for a moment.It has no flotation and is very heavy.Ice is heavy but has flotation especially when mixed as pykrete.Now for a BB to have a equal hull thickness and strength would make design impossible due to weight and lack of flotation.If you could build a ship with a hull like that and did manage to get it to float god help you if you start to take on water because it wouldn't take much to drag you down.Secondly being made of ice and having your own redundant refrigeration system throughout the ship would make the ship essentially self repairable using seawater and more sawdust.You are floating in your building materials.They specifically designed the refrigation units for this to be done anywhere on the ship for repair.The idea of using the ice system as a weapon was a sort of weird side benefit.With a metal hull if you get damaged enough you can only patch it up and limp home for repairs.Nobody is going to fix it for you at sea and you can't grow more steel.As far as the u-boats or the german aircraft go you must remember that this was no ordinary ship.It would have carried a large amount of fighters, long range bombers, torpedo bombers as well as alot of flak guns.It would have also carried escorts as well(elco or bigger) so it would have had it's own ASW force as well as a large fighter screen.As far as the melting goes as long as the referiagation works no problem in the north atlantic.The test boat they built in the article lasted all summer without melting.When they abandon the project they left the boat where it was with the refrigation removed and it took 3 years for it to finally melt completely and sink.That's 1095 days.If anything I would think they would have problems with ice build up on the hull.You definitely would not be taking this thing on a cruise to the bahamas of course,the trick was for the referiagation to be able to outrun the amount of heat the hull absorbs so that the ice stays frozen.That sample of pykrete they showed in the video was only about 1' square and it didn't shatter until shot with a doublebarrel shotgun with slugs.And if I remember in the video the sample of pykrete when shot with a high powered rifle didn't let the bullet penetrate.He tried to dig it out and couldn't so they blasted it apart with slugs.Now picture that with a 50' x 50' chunk.You'll need a bigger gun.I also would think they have the mother of all ice cream makers on board and lots of coats because I'm guessing most of the ship is not heated.:rotfl:

[Nameless Bob]

Thought I would put this link up.More info about construction/performance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk

good info here too

http://www.uhaul.com/supergraphics/e...9&sort_order=3



The short version


Project Habakkuk (actually misspelled as Habbakuk — see below) was a plan by the British in World War II to construct an aircraft carrier out of ice, for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which was out of range of land-based planes.

The Habakkuk, as proposed to Winston Churchill by Lord Mountbatten and Geoffrey Pyke in December 1942, was to be approximately 2,000 feet long and 300 feet wide, with a deck-to-keel depth of 200 feet, and walls 50 feet thick.[1] It was to have a draft of 150 feet, and a displacement of 2,000,000 tons or more, to be constructed in Canada from 280,000 blocks of ice.[2] (For comparison, an Essex-class carrier displaced 35,000 tons.) The building material was later changed to a mixture of ice and wood pulp known as Pykrete after Pyke, who proposed the Habakkuk project — the material was invented by others. The ship's deep draft would have kept it out of most harbours. Inside the vessel a refrigeration plant would maintain the structure against melting. The ship would have extremely limited manoeuvrability, but was expected to be capable of up to 10 knots (18 km/h) using 26 electric drive motors mounted in separate external nacelles (normal, internal ship engines would have generated too much heat for an ice craft). 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.


The Habakkuk was imagined to be virtually unsinkable as it would have effectively been a streamlined iceberg or floating island kept afloat by the buoyancy of its construction materials, and to be highly resilient to damage by virtue of its sheer bulk.

At the Quebec Conference of 1943 Lord Mountbatten brought a block of Pykrete along to demonstrate its potential to the bevy of admirals and generals who had come along with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mountbatten entered the project meeting with two blocks and placed them on the ground. One was a normal ice block and the other was Pykrete. He then drew his service pistol and shot at the first block. It shattered and splintered. Next, he fired at the Pykrete to give an idea of the resistance of that kind of ice to projectiles. The bullet ricochetted off the block, grazing the trouser leg of Admiral Ernest King and ending up in the wall. The Admiral was impressed by Mountbatten's unorthodox demonstration.

It was projected to take $70 million and 8,000 people working for eight months to construct it,[citation needed] an expenditure which the British were unwilling to make at the time on such an experimental craft. Experiments on ice and pykrete as construction materials were carried out at Lake Louise, Alberta, and a small prototype was constructed at Patricia Lake, Alberta, measuring only 60 feet by 30 feet (18 by 9 m), weighing in at 1,000 tons and kept frozen by a 10 horsepower motor.[2] Work on the project continued through 1943, but major doubts as to feasibility had surfaced by October, and abandonment was recommended in January 1944, by when the Atlantic Gap had already been closed by long-ranged land-based aircraft. The use of ice had actually been falling out of favour before that, with other ideas for "floating islands" being considered, such as welding Liberty Ships or Landing craft together (Project TENTACLE).[3] The ice Habakkuk itself was never begun.

[gimpy117]

never built....

[Task Force]

This idea in realife would have not worked... especialy in the PTO... It would have melted like an iceberg.

[Sledgehammer427]

it would have taken too long, especially since by the time it was proposed WWII was almost halfway over