Kampfwagen
Junior Member
Being military enthusiasts, I figured you guys might like this information. It dosent really fit anywhere else, seeing as it isint chinese. But is american, so I suppouse it would fit here to some extent.
I write this as I look up more detailed information: But here is the gist of it.
During WW2, as you all know, the German U-Boats for the first part of the war had almost total control of the seas. The merchant ships had total controll of the north atlantic and shipping lanes between Britian and America were totaly in the hands of the Axis and Britian was being starved.
Enter Geffory Pyke. Mister Pyke had a very bizzare idea. The basic idea was such:
Cut out a chunk of iceberg, flatten the tip top of it, and turn it into a floating mobile air-base to stage anti-U Boat bombing runs. Churchill found the idea so apealing he even put in the good word himself. However, there were some logistical problems. While an Iceberg looks towable from the surface, it is only ten percent we see. The other 90 percent is under the water, and much heavier.
Pyke, not one to give up decided to revise his strategy. His revision? Make a two hundred ton, five thousand foot long carrier, made solely of ice.
The design was to be a gigantic hollowed out carrier with 28 seperate propeller blades, powered with electricty instead of deseil or other fossil fuels. Inside, it could well over one hundred and thirty airplanes, with another thirty or so on deck, full living quarters, food storage containers and weapons storage. It even included Flack Cannons and Port/Starboard defense cannons made entirely of, you guessed it, Ice.
However, there were three major hurtles:
One was getting that much ice.
Two was finding a suitible wet-dock so that all their hard work didnt melt away every summer.
Three was to shape the ice and assemble it into a ship without it shattering into a thousand peices.
Problems one and two were solved rather easily. In Alberta, Canada there is a rather obscure location known as Patricia Lake near the township of Jasper. This was the wet-dock and also cool enough year round to produce sufficent quanities of ice.
Problem three was solved rather simply: Put wood chips in the ice. This process, of surrounding woodchips with ice and then shaping them how you like, was known as Pykrete, after the ecentric starter of this little project.
The biggest advantage of making a ship of ice, asside from the obvious cost reductions, was that when thick enough (in the case of this ship, forty feet thick), a hull made of ice was practicaly indestructible to the torpedos and bombs at the time. With Pykrete, it was made doubly durable.
The first of these ships was actualy begining to be assembled in Jasper. Churchill had even comissioned a name: H.M.S Habakkuk, the name of a prophet from the bible. The inspiration came from this awesome quote:
Behold ye among the heathen, and regard and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told to you.
Churchill wanted One Hundred of these ships.
But they ran into a bit of a snag. The builders of the ship were unsure they could manage to get one ship out within two years, much less a fleet of one hundred. Whilst both ships were still being constructed, Churchill canceled the project, with both the logistical problems and the need for such a ship diminished with the Battle of the Atlantic practicaly won.
When all machinery was removed, the remains of the H.M.S Habakkuk were sunk. In 1970, they were rediscovered in lake Patricia, where it is still there to this day! In 1988, a plaque dedicating the bizzare project was placed on the shore of Patricia. It has since become an object of curiosity to SCUBA divers and military maratime enthusiests.
For those wondering, I got most of my information from the documentary "Weird Weapons: Allies" and this site:
I write this as I look up more detailed information: But here is the gist of it.
During WW2, as you all know, the German U-Boats for the first part of the war had almost total control of the seas. The merchant ships had total controll of the north atlantic and shipping lanes between Britian and America were totaly in the hands of the Axis and Britian was being starved.
Enter Geffory Pyke. Mister Pyke had a very bizzare idea. The basic idea was such:
Cut out a chunk of iceberg, flatten the tip top of it, and turn it into a floating mobile air-base to stage anti-U Boat bombing runs. Churchill found the idea so apealing he even put in the good word himself. However, there were some logistical problems. While an Iceberg looks towable from the surface, it is only ten percent we see. The other 90 percent is under the water, and much heavier.
Pyke, not one to give up decided to revise his strategy. His revision? Make a two hundred ton, five thousand foot long carrier, made solely of ice.
The design was to be a gigantic hollowed out carrier with 28 seperate propeller blades, powered with electricty instead of deseil or other fossil fuels. Inside, it could well over one hundred and thirty airplanes, with another thirty or so on deck, full living quarters, food storage containers and weapons storage. It even included Flack Cannons and Port/Starboard defense cannons made entirely of, you guessed it, Ice.
However, there were three major hurtles:
One was getting that much ice.
Two was finding a suitible wet-dock so that all their hard work didnt melt away every summer.
Three was to shape the ice and assemble it into a ship without it shattering into a thousand peices.
Problems one and two were solved rather easily. In Alberta, Canada there is a rather obscure location known as Patricia Lake near the township of Jasper. This was the wet-dock and also cool enough year round to produce sufficent quanities of ice.
Problem three was solved rather simply: Put wood chips in the ice. This process, of surrounding woodchips with ice and then shaping them how you like, was known as Pykrete, after the ecentric starter of this little project.
The biggest advantage of making a ship of ice, asside from the obvious cost reductions, was that when thick enough (in the case of this ship, forty feet thick), a hull made of ice was practicaly indestructible to the torpedos and bombs at the time. With Pykrete, it was made doubly durable.
The first of these ships was actualy begining to be assembled in Jasper. Churchill had even comissioned a name: H.M.S Habakkuk, the name of a prophet from the bible. The inspiration came from this awesome quote:
Behold ye among the heathen, and regard and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told to you.
Churchill wanted One Hundred of these ships.
But they ran into a bit of a snag. The builders of the ship were unsure they could manage to get one ship out within two years, much less a fleet of one hundred. Whilst both ships were still being constructed, Churchill canceled the project, with both the logistical problems and the need for such a ship diminished with the Battle of the Atlantic practicaly won.
When all machinery was removed, the remains of the H.M.S Habakkuk were sunk. In 1970, they were rediscovered in lake Patricia, where it is still there to this day! In 1988, a plaque dedicating the bizzare project was placed on the shore of Patricia. It has since become an object of curiosity to SCUBA divers and military maratime enthusiests.
For those wondering, I got most of my information from the documentary "Weird Weapons: Allies" and this site:
.