Project Habakkuk | Military Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Edit Geoffrey Pyke was an old friend of J.D. Bernal , and had originally been recommended to Lord Mountbatten , Chief of Combined Operations , by the Cabinet minister Leopold Amery . Pyke worked at Combined Operations Headquarters (COHQ), alongside Bernal, and was regarded as a genius by Mountbatten. [1] Pyke conceived the idea of Habbakuk while in the US organising the production of M29 Weasels for Project Plough , a scheme to assemble an elite unit for winter operations in Norway, Romania , and the Italian Alps. [1] He had been considering the problem of how to protect seaborne landings and Atlantic convoys out of reach of aircraft cover. The problem was that steel and aluminium were in short supply and required for other purposes. Pyke realized that the answer was ice, which could be manufactured for only 1% of the energy needed to make an equivalent mass of steel. He proposed that an iceberg, natural or artificial, be levelled to provide a runway and hollowed out to shelter aircraft.

From New York, Pyke sent the proposal he had composed on Habbakuk via diplomatic bag to COHQ with a label forbidding anyone apart from Mountbatten from opening the package. Mountbatten in turn passed Pyke's proposal on to Churchill , who was enthusiastic about it. [2] Pyke was not the first to suggest a floating mid-ocean stopping point for aircraft, nor even the first to suggest that such a floating island could be made of ice: German scientist Dr. Gerke of Waldenberg proposed the idea and carried out some preliminary experiments in Lake Zurich in 1930. [3] The idea was a recurring one: in 1940 an idea for an ice island was circulated round The Admiralty but was treated as a joke by officers, including Nevil Shute , who circulated a memorandum that gathered ever more caustic comments. The document had to be retrieved just before it reached the Sea Lord's inbox. [4] Code name and spelling Edit The project's code name seems to have been consistently (mis)spelled Habbakuk in the Admiralty and Government documents at the time.

This may in fact have been Pyke's own error, as at least one early document apparently written by him (though unsigned) spells it that way. (However, post-war publications by people concerned with the project [e.g., Perutz and Goodeve] all restore the proper [one 'B' and three 'K's] spelling.) The name is a biblical reference to the project's ambitious goal: "...be utterly amazed, for I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told." ( Habakkuk 1:5, NIV) David Lampe, in his book, Pyke, the Unknown Genius, states that the name was derived from Voltaire's Candide and was misspelt by his Canadian secretary. However, the word does not actually appear in that text, [5] so this is probably inaccurate. Pykrete Edit A block of pykrete In early 1942 Pyke and Bernal called in Max Perutz to determine whether an ice floe large enough to withstand Atlantic conditions could be built up fast enough. He pointed out that natural icebergs have too small a surface above water for an airstrip, and are prone to suddenly rolling over.

The project would have been abandoned, except for the invention of pykrete , a mixture of water and woodpulp which frozen together was stronger than plain ice, was slower melting, and of course would not sink. It has been suggested that Pyke was inspired by Inuit sleds reinforced with moss. [1] This is probably apocryphal, as the material was originally described in a paper by Mark and Hohenstein in Brooklyn, NY. [2] Pykrete could be machined like wood and cast into shapes like metal, and when immersed in water formed an insulating shell of wet wood pulp on its surface which protected its interior from further melting. However, Perutz found a problem: ice slowly flows, in what is known as plastic flow , and his tests showed that a pykrete ship would slowly sag unless it was cooled to −16 °C (3 °F). To accomplish this, the ship's surface would have to be protected by insulation and it would need a refrigeration plant and a complicated system of ducts. [2] Experiments on the viability of pykrete and the optimum composition of it were conducted by Perutz in a secret location underneath Smithfield Meat Market in the City of London.

[6] [7] The research took place in a refrigerated meat locker behind a protective screen of frozen animal carcasses. [8] Scale model Edit The decision was made to build a large scale model at Jasper National Park in Canada to examine insulation and refrigeration techniques, and to see how it would stand up to artillery and explosives. At Lake Louise, Alberta , large ice blocks were constructed, and a small prototype was constructed at Patricia Lake, Alberta , measuring only 60 by 30 feet (18 by 9 m), weighing in at 1,000 tons and kept frozen by a one-horsepower motor. [8] The work was done by conscientious objectors who did alternative service of various kinds instead of military service. They were never told what they were building.[ citation needed ] Bernal informed COHQ that the Canadians were building a 1,000 ton model, and that it was expected to take 8 men 14 days to build it.

The Chief of Combined Operations (CCO) responded that Churchill had invited the Chiefs of Staff Committee to arrange for an order to be placed for one complete ship at once with the highest priority, with further ships to be ordered immediately if it appeared the scheme was certain of success. The Canadians were confident about constructing a vessel for 1944. The necessary materials were available to them in the form of 300,000 tons of wood pulp, 25,000 tons of fibreboard insulation, 35,000 tons of timber and 10,000 tons of steel. The cost was estimated at £700,000. [9] Meanwhile, Perutz had determined via his experiments at Smithfield Market that the optimum structural properties were given by a mixture of 14% wood pulp and 86% water. He wrote to Pyke in early April 1943 and pointed out that if certain tests were not completed in May, there would be no chance of delivering a completed ship in 1944.

By May the problem of plastic flow had become serious and it was obvious that more steel reinforcement would be needed as well as a more effective insulating skin around the vessel's hull. This caused the cost estimate to increase to £2.5 million. In addition, the Canadians had decided that it was impractical to attempt the project "this coming season", and Bernal and Pyke were forced to conclude that no Habbakuk vessel would be ready in 1944. [9] Pyke was excluded from the planning for Habbakuk in an effort to secure American participation, a decision which Bernal supported. Pyke's earlier disagreements with American personnel on Project Plough , which ultimately caused his removal from that project, were the main factor in this decision. [10] In the early summer of 1943, naval architects and engineers continued to work on Habbakuk with Bernal and Perutz.

The requirements for the vessel became more demanding: it had to have a range of 7,000 miles (11,000 km) and be able to withstand the largest waves recorded, while the Admiralty wanted it to be torpedo-proof, which meant that the hull had to be at least 40 ft (12 m) thick. The Fleet Air Arm decided that heavy bombers should be able to take off from it, which meant that the deck had to be 2,000 ft (610 m) long. Steering also raised problems; it was initially projected that the ship be steered by varying the speed of the motors on either side, but the Royal Navy decided that a rudder was essential. However, the problem of mounting and controlling a rudder over 100 ft (30 m) high was never solved. [9] Variants Naval architects had produced three alternative versions of Pyke's original concept, which were discussed at a meeting with the Chiefs of Staff in August 1943: Habbakuk I (soon discarded) would have been made of wood.

Habbakuk II was closest to the COHQ model and would be a very large, slow, self-propelled vessel made of pykrete with steel reinforcement. Habbakuk III was a smaller, faster version of Habbakuk II. Air Chief Marshal Portal asked about potential bomb damage to Habbakuk III, and Bernal suggested that a certain amount of deck covering might be ripped off but could be repaired by some kind of flexible matting. It would be more difficult to deal with bomb holes in the centre portion, though the roof over the aircraft hangars would be made proof against 1,000 kg bombs. Bernal considered that no one could say whether the larger Habbakuk II was a practical proposition until a large scale model could be completed and tested in Canada in the spring of 1944. He had no doubts about the suitability of pykrete as a material, but said that constructional and navigational difficulties remained to be overcome. [9] The final design of Habbakuk II gave the bergship (as it was referred to) a displacement of 2.2 million tons.

Steam turbogenerators were to supply 33,000 hp (25,000 kW) for 26 electric motors mounted in separate external nacelles (normal, internal ship engines would have generated too much heat for an ice craft). Its armament 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. [2] Shooting incident Edit According to some accounts, 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 ricocheted off the block, grazing the trouser leg of Admiral Ernest King and ended up in the wall. Sir Alan Brooke 's diaries [11] support this account, telling how Mountbatten brought two blocks, one of ice and one of pykrete. After first shooting at the ice, with a warning to beware of splinters, Mountbatten said "I shall fire at the block on the right to show you the difference". Brooke reports, "the bullet rebounded out of the block and buzzed round our legs like an angry bee." The meeting in question was a high-level summit with a US delegation in the Château Frontenac in Quebec. Max Perutz gives an account of a similar incident in his book, I Wish I Made You Angry Earlier: a demonstration of pykrete was given at Combined Operations Headquarters (COHQ) by a naval officer, Lieutenant Commander Douglas Grant, who was provided by Perutz with rods of ice and pykrete packed with dry ice in thermos flasks and large blocks of ice and pykrete.

Grant demonstrated the comparative strength of ice and pykrete by firing bullets into both blocks; the ice shattered, but the bullet rebounded from the pykrete and hit the Chief of the Imperial Staff (Sir Alan Brooke) in the shoulder. Brooke was unhurt. [12] End of project Later that year Habbakuk began to lose priority. Mountbatten listed several reasons:[ citation needed ] The great demand for steel. Permission had been received from Portugal to use airfields in the Azores which facilitated the hunting of U-boats in the Atlantic The introduction of long-range fuel tanks that allowed British-based aircraft extra patrol time over the Atlantic Increased numbers of escort carriers In addition, Mountbatten himself had withdrawn from the project. The final Habbakuk Board meeting took place in December 1943 and it was announced that "The large Habbakuk II made of pykrete has been found to be impractical because of the enormous production resources required and technical difficulties involved". 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).

[13] It took three hot summers to completely melt the prototype constructed in Canada. Perutz, in his account, writes that he sojourned in Washington D.C. while U.S. Navy engineers evaluated the viability of Habbakuk. He concludes: "The U.S. Navy finally decided that Habakkuk was a false prophet. One reason was the enormous amount of steel needed for the refrigeration plant that was to freeze the pykrete was greater than that needed to build the entire carrier of steel, but the crucial argument was that the rapidly increasing range of land-based aircraft rendered floating islands unnecessary." [14] Criticism Edit The Habakkuk design received criticism, notably from Sir Charles Goodeve , Assistant Controller of Research and Development for the Admiralty during World War II. [15] In an article published after the war Goodeve pointed out the large amount of wood pulp that would be required, enough to affect paper production significantly.

He also claimed that each ship would require 40,000 tons of cork insulation, thousands of miles of steel tubing for brine circulation, and four power stations, but that for all those resources (some of which could be used to manufacture conventional ships of more effective fighting power) Habakkuk would only be capable of six knots of speed. Much of his article also contained extensive derisive comments about the properties of ice as used for ship construction. Recent recreations Edit In the 15 April 2009 episode of Mythbusters , Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage built a small boat out of a modified formulation of pykrete (using newspaper instead of wood pulp). They successfully piloted the boat in Alaskan waters at a speed of 25 miles per hour (40 km/h). Based on this success, they determined that it is possible to build a boat out of pykrete. They also determined that pykrete lived up to its purported properties of being bulletproof, stronger than ice, and taking longer to melt than ice. However, they expressed doubt that an aircraft carrier made of pykrete could have survived long.

[16] In September 2010, the BBC programme Bang Goes The Theory also attempted to recreate a pykrete boat. A hull using 5,000 kg of pykrete was frozen in a cold-store, then launched in Portsmouth harbour for a planned trip across the Solent to Cowes. The hull immediately started to leak, due to holes that had been cut in its rear side to mount an outboard motor. [17] [18] [19] See also Project Habakkuk | The Dabbler Project Habakkuk Posted by Worm in The Wikiworm Dec, 07 2013 4 Comments Perhaps Boris Johnson could press today’s weird wikipedia discovery into action as the new Thames estuary airport? Project Habakkuk was a plan by the British in World War II to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice), for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time. The idea came from Geoffrey Pyke who worked for Combined Operations Headquarters.

Pyke, (regarded as a genius by his boss, Lord Mountbatten) had been considering the problem of how to protect seaborne landings and Atlantic convoys out of reach of aircraft cover. He proposed that an iceberg, natural or artificial, be levelled to provide a runway and hollowed out to shelter aircraft. Pyke was not the first to suggest a floating mid-ocean stopping point for aircraft, nor even the first to suggest that such a floating island could be made of ice. The idea was a recurring one: in 1940 an idea for an ice island was circulated round The Admiralty but was treated as a joke by officers, including Nevil Shute, who circulated a memorandum that gathered ever more caustic comments. In early 1942 experts were called in to determine whether an ice floe large enough to withstand Atlantic conditions could be created fast enough. It was pointed out that natural icebergs have too small a surface above water for an airstrip, and are prone to suddenly rolling over.

The project would have been abandoned, except for the ‘invention’ of pykrete, a mixture of water and woodpulp which frozen together was stronger than plain ice, was slower melting, and of course would not sink. Pykrete could be machined like wood and cast into shapes like metal, and when immersed in water formed an insulating shell of wet wood pulp on its surface which protected its interior from further melting. However, there was a problem: ice slowly flows, in what is known as plastic flow, and tests showed that a pykrete ship would slowly sag unless it was cooled to −16 °C (3 °F). To accomplish this, the ship’s surface would have to be protected by insulation and it would need a refrigeration plant and a complicated system of ducts. Experiments on the viability of pykrete were conducted in a secret location underneath Smithfield Meat Market in the City of London. The research took place in a refrigerated meat locker behind a protective screen of frozen animal carcasses.

(This meat locker is now site of seminal London nightclub, Fabric.) The requirements for the vessel became more demanding: it had to have a range of 7,000 miles (11,000 km) and be able to withstand the largest waves recorded, while the Admiralty wanted it to be torpedo-proof, which meant that the hull had to be at least 40 ft (12 m) thick. The Fleet Air Arm decided that heavy bombers should be able to take off from it, which meant that the deck had to be 2,000 ft (610 m) long. Steering also raised problems; it was initially projected that the ship be steered by varying the speed of the motors on either side, but the Royal Navy decided that a rudder was essential. However, the problem of mounting and controlling a rudder over 100 ft (30 m) high was never solved. According to some accounts, 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 ricocheted off the block, grazing the trouser leg of Admiral Ernest King and ended up in the wall. Later that year Habbakuk began to lose priority. Mountbatten listed several reasons: The great demand for steel. Permission had been received from Portugal to use airfields in the Azores which facilitated the hunting of U-boats in the Atlantic The introduction of long-range fuel tanks that allowed British-based aircraft extra patrol time over the Atlantic Increased numbers of escort carriers In addition, Mountbatten himself had withdrawn from the project. 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).

The Habakkuk design received criticism, notably from Sir Charles Goodeve, Assistant Controller of Research and Development for the Admiralty during World War II. In an article published after the war Goodeve pointed out the large amount of wood pulp that would be required, enough to affect paper production significantly. He also claimed that each ship would require 40,000 tons of cork insulation, thousands of miles of steel tubing for brine circulation, and four power stations, but that for all those resources (some of which could be used to manufacture conventional ships of more effective fighting power) Habakkuk would only be capable of six knots of speed. Much of his article also contained extensive derisive comments about the properties of ice as used for ship construction. Ice aircraft carriers during WW2 – HeritageDaily – Heritage & Archaeology News Send email Mail Project Habakkuk or Habbakuk (spelling varies; see below) was a plan by the British in World War II to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice), for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time.

The idea came from Geoffrey Pyke who worked for Combined Operations Headquarters. Project Habakkuk: what not to hide in an iceberg | The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning Blog Buy the book The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning will be published for worldwide distribution by Harper Design. RELEASED May 5, 2015 (Australia June 1 and UK June 4). To see where to buy it . Project Habakkuk: what not to hide in an iceberg Investigating the Arctic and Antarctic you discover unusual things about where humans have put energy, intelligence, innovation and money. This is plain crazy, where glaciology & warcraft met during WWII. Canadian engineers in Jasper helped build a model ‘iceship’ for the Brits. Project Habakkuk was a plan by the British in World War II to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice), for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time. The idea came from Geoffrey Pyke who worked for Combined Operations. Initial concept Geoffrey Pyke was an old friend of J.D.

Bernal, and had originally been recommended to Lord Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations, by the Cabinet minister Leopold Amery. Pyke worked at Combined Operations Headquarters (COHQ), alongside Bernal, and was regarded as a genius by Mountbatten.[1] Pyke conceived the idea of Habbakuk while in the US organising the production of M29 Weasels for Project Plough, a scheme to assemble an elite unit for winter operations in Norway, Romania, and the Italian Alps.[1] He had been considering the problem of how to protect seaborne landings and Atlantic convoys out of reach of aircraft cover. The problem was that steel and aluminium were in short supply and required for other purposes. Pyke realized that the answer was ice, which could be manufactured for only 1% of the energy needed to make an equivalent mass of steel. He proposed that an iceberg, natural or artificial, be levelled to provide a runway and hollowed out to shelter aircraft. From New York, Pyke sent the proposal he had composed on Habbakuk via diplomatic bag to COHQ with a label forbidding anyone apart from Mountbatten from opening the package.

Mountbatten in turn told Churchill about Pyke’s proposal, who was enthusiastic about it.[2] Pyke was not the first to suggest a floating mid-ocean stopping point for aircraft, nor even the first to suggest that such a floating island could be made of ice: German scientist Dr. Gerke of Waldenberg proposed the idea and carried out some preliminary experiments in Lake Zurich in 1930.[3] The idea was a recurring one: in 1940 an idea for an ice island was circulated round The Admiralty but was treated as a joke by officers, including Nevil Shute, who circulated a memorandum that gathered ever more caustic comments. The document had to be retrieved just before it reached the Sea Lord’s inbox.[4] above from Wiki Swann, Brenda; Francis Aprahamian (1999). J.D. Bernal: A Life in Science and Politics. Verso. ISBN 1-85984-854-0. Perutz, Max F. (2002). I Wish I’d Made You Angry Earlier: Essays on Science, Scientists, and Humanity. Oxford University Press. pp. 86–87.

ISBN 0-19-859027-X. “Ice Island in Mid-Atlantic Proposed”. Moder Mechanix. October 1932. Retrieved 18 February 2009. Terrell, Edward, Admiralty Brief: The story of inventions that contributed to victory in the battle of the Atlantic, p. 27. London: Harrap, 1958 Further reading: Perutz, M. F. (1948). “A Description of the Iceberg Aircraft Carrier and the Bearing of the Mechanical Properties of Frozen Wood Pulp upon Some Problems of Glacier Flow”. The Journal of Glaciology 1 (3): 95–104. I appreciate Antarctica is preserved for peace and science under the Antarctic Treaty (1959) so we can now learn more about the earth’s ecosystem and less about camo aircraft shelters. The Strange Files: Project Habakkuk ICE SHIP! - YouTube The Strange Files: Project Habakkuk ICE SHIP! Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading...

Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on May 1, 2015 Project Habakkuk was a plan by the British during the Second World War to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice) for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time. Category Project Habakkuk was an aircraft carrier on ice for WW2 : theCHIVE View as Slideshow 1 World War II was filled with a lot of interesting inventions and military hardware used by a lot of countries. Some of which were used, and some of which were oddball and crazy, and never made it beyond the prototype stage. Take for example: Project Habakkuk.

Conceived and proposed in 1941 by eccentric British inventor Geoffrey Pyke, Project Habakkuk was a “monumental” plan (LOL!) to make an aircraft carrier out of ice, or rather a “super ice” known as Pykrete (Named after Geoffrey Pyke.), for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic ocean which were out of range of land based Allied aircraft. This super ice was made with nothing more than water and wood pulp (86% water, and 14% pulp, by weight.), and then frozen. The consistency of the mixture before freezing would be comparable to oatmeal, but much thicker. Pykrete has some rather interesting properties: 1. Relatively slow melting rate (due to low thermal conductivity). 2. Vastly improved strength and toughness over unmodified (crystalline) ice, actually closer to concrete. 3. Could float and was unsinkable. 4. Nearly impervious to various types of ordinance. Pykrete is slightly more difficult to form than concrete, as it expands during the freezing process, but can be repaired and maintained from the sea’s most abundant raw material: Water.

The mixture can be molded into any shape and frozen, and it will be extremely tough and durable, as long as it is kept at or below freezing temperatures. Pyke then proposed the idea to Lord Mountbatten, who was Chief of Combined Operations, who then pitched the idea to Britain’s Winston Churchill. As an initial investigation into the viability of “Habakkuk”, a 1/10th scale model (In Width and Height, but not in Length.) was constructed in early 1943 on Patricia Lake near Jasper, Canada to test building materials and construction techniques. It was built from blocks of regular ice (Not pykrete.) cut from the lake with embedded air ducts for refrigeration. Begun in February 1943, It was completed in April the same year. Although the prototype was a success in proving the validity of such a concept and the construction techniques used, the plug was pulled in June…….literally, and the refrigeration equipment was turned off. The structure lasted well through the summer until it finally sank to the bottom of Patricia Lake.

Specifications for the prototype were the following: Height: 18-20 feet Project Habakkuk - Military Power Military Power List all pages Project Habakkuk Project Habakkuk or Habbakuk (spelling varies; see below) was a plan by the British in World War II to construct an aircraft carrier out of Pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice), for use against German U-boat s in the mid-Atlantic, which was out of range of land-based planes. External links+ History The Habakkuk, as proposed to Winston Churchill by Lord Mountbatten and Geoffrey Pyke in December 1942, was to be approximately 2000 ft long and 300 ft wide, with a deck-to-keel depth of 200 ft, and walls 40 ft 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.

3 (For comparison, an Essex-class carrier displaced 35,000 tons.) In 1943 Montreal Engineering Company Ltd.—now AMEC—at the request of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, undertook its first-ever commission from an outside organization: Project Habbakuk, the code name for an unusual idea originating with a scientist in the British Admiralty. The plan called for breaking off huge sheets of ice from the Arctic icecap, towing them to the war zone in the mid-Atlantic, and using them as landing fields for aircraft—a sort of combination iceberg-aircraft carrier. When that idea proved not feasible, research shifts to investigating the possibility of building a huge ship of more conventional design—entirely out of ice. The idea was scrapped the same year. 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. It was projected to take £70 million and 8,000 people working for eight months to construct it, 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 one-horsepower motor. 3 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. It took three hot summers to completely melt the prototype constructed in Canada. 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). 2 The ice Habakkuk itself was never begun. Shooting incident 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 ricocheted off the block, grazing the trouser leg of Admiral Ernest King and ended up in the wall. The Admiral was impressed by Mountbatten's unorthodox demonstration. Cultural references The ship appears in alternate history fiction; for instance, it appears as a boss unit in Warship Gunner , 5 Commander and Warship Gunner 2 . 6 A similar project is undertaken in Harry Turtledove's Darkness Series as a floating base for dragons, the fantasy world's analogy for aircraft. The ship is also seen in Zack Parson's novel " My Tank is Fight! " Spelling The project's code name seems to have been consistently (mis-)spelled Habbakuk in the Admiralty and Government documents at the time.

This may in fact have been Pyke's own error, as at least one early document apparently written by him (though unsigned) spells it that way. (However, post-war publications by people concerned with the project, e.g. Perutz and Goodeve, all restore the proper (one 'B' and three 'K's) spelling.) The name is a biblical reference to the project's ambitious goal: "…be utterly amazed, for I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told." (Habakkuk 1:5, NIV) David Lampe in his book, Pyke, the Unknown Genius, states that the name was derived from Voltaire's Candide and was mispelt by his Canadian secretary. The name stuck and was never corrected. The reference to Bible appears to have come after the war when journalists were told about part of the project and they connected the Biblical text with the name. Criticism The Habakkuk design received criticism, notably from Sir Charles Goodeve , Assistant Controller of Research and Development for the Admiralty during World War II.

4 In an article published after the war Goodeve pointed out the large amount of wood pulp that would be required, enough to affect paper production significantly. He also claimed that each ship would require 40,000 tons of cork insulation, thousands of miles of steel tubing for brine circulation, and four power stations, but that for all those resources (some of which could be used to manufacture conventional ships of more effective fighting power) Habakkuk would only be capable of six knots of speed. Much of his article also contained extensive derisive comments about the properties of ice as used for ship construction. References project habakkuk : definition of project habakkuk and synonyms of project habakkuk (English) History Initial concept Geoffrey Pyke was an old friend of J.D. Bernal , and had originally been recommended to Lord Mountbatten , Chief of Combined Operations , by the Cabinet minister Leopold Amery . Pyke worked at Combined Operations Headquarters (COHQ), alongside Bernal, and was regarded as a genius by Mountbatten.

[1] Pyke conceived the idea of Habbakuk while in the US organising the production of M29 Weasels for Project Plough , a scheme to assemble an elite unit for winter operations in Norway , Romania , and the Italian Alps . [1] He had been considering the problem of how to protect seaborne landings and Atlantic convoys out of reach of aircraft cover. The problem was that steel and aluminium were in short supply and required for other purposes. Pyke realized that the answer was ice, which could be manufactured for only 1% of the energy needed to make an equivalent mass of steel. He proposed that an iceberg, natural or artificial, be levelled to provide a runway and hollowed out to shelter aircraft. From New York, Pyke sent the proposal he had composed on Habbakuk via diplomatic bag to COHQ with a label forbidding anyone apart from Mountbatten from opening the package. Mountbatten in turn told Churchill about Pyke's proposal, who was enthusiastic about it. [2] Pyke was not the first to suggest a floating mid-ocean stopping point for aircraft, nor even the first to suggest that such a floating island could be made of ice: German scientist Dr.

Gerke of Waldenberg proposed the idea and carried out some preliminary experiments in Lake Zurich in 1930. [3] The idea was a recurring one: in 1940 an idea for an ice island was circulated round The Admiralty but was treated as a joke by officers, including Nevil Shute , who circulated a memorandum that gathered ever more caustic comments. The document had to be retrieved just before it reached the Sea Lord's inbox. [4] Code name and spelling The project's code name seems to have been consistently (mis)spelled Habbakuk in the Admiralty and Government documents at the time. This may in fact have been Pyke's own error, as at least one early document apparently written by him (though unsigned) spells it that way.

(However, post-war publications by people concerned with the project (e.g., Perutz and Goodeve) all restore the proper (one 'B' and three 'K's) spelling.) The name is a biblical reference to the project's ambitious goal: "...be utterly amazed, for I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told." ( Habakkuk 1:5, NIV) David Lampe, in his book, Pyke, the Unknown Genius, states that the name was derived from Voltaire 's Candide and was misspelt by his Canadian secretary. However, the word does not actually appear in that text, [5] so this is probably inaccurate. Pykrete A block of Pykrete In early 1942 Pyke and Bernal called in Max Perutz to determine whether an ice floe large enough to withstand Atlantic conditions could be built up fast enough. He pointed out that natural icebergs have too small a surface above water for an airstrip, and are prone to suddenly rolling over.

The project would have been abandoned, except for the invention of Pykrete , a mixture of water and woodpulp which frozen together was stronger than plain ice, was slower melting, and of course would not sink. It has been suggested that Pyke was inspired by Inuit sleds reinforced with moss. [1] This is probably apocryphal, as the material was originally described in a paper by Mark and Hohenstein in Brooklyn, NY. [2] Pykrete could be machined like wood and cast into shapes like metal, and when immersed in water formed an insulating shell of wet wood pulp on its surface which protected its interior from further melting. However, Perutz found a problem: ice slowly flows, in what is known as plastic flow , and his tests showed that a Pykrete ship would slowly sag unless it was cooled to −16 °C (3 °F). To accomplish this, the ship's surface would have to be protected by insulation and it would need a refrigeration plant and a complicated system of ducts. [2] Experiments on the viability of Pykrete and the optimum composition of it were conducted by Perutz in a secret location underneath Smithfield Meat Market in the City of London .

[6] [7] The research took place in a refrigerated meat locker behind a protective screen of frozen animal carcasses. [8] Scale model The decision was made to build a large scale model at Jasper National Park in Canada to examine insulation and refrigeration techniques, and to see how it would stand up to artillery and explosives. At Lake Louise, Alberta , large ice blocks were constructed, and a small prototype was constructed at Patricia Lake, Alberta , measuring only 60 by 30 feet (18 by 9 m), weighing in at 1,000 tons and kept frozen by a one-horsepower motor. [8] The work was done by conscientious objectors who did alternative service of various kinds instead of military service. They were never told what they were building.[ citation needed ] Bernal informed COHQ that the Canadians were building a 1,000 ton model, and that it was expected to take 8 men 14 days to build it.

The Chief of Combined Operations (CCO) responded that Churchill had invited the Chiefs of Staff Committee to arrange for an order to be placed for one complete ship at once with the highest priority, with further ships to be ordered immediately if it appeared the scheme was certain of success. The Canadians were confident about constructing a vessel for 1944. The necessary materials were available to them in the form of 300,000 tons of wood pulp, 25,000 tons of fibreboard insulation, 35,000 tons of timber and 10,000 tons of steel. The cost was estimated at £700,000. [9] Meanwhile, Perutz had determined via his experiments at Smithfield Market that the optimum structural properties were given by a mixture of 14% wood pulp and 86% water. He wrote to Pyke in early April 1943 and pointed out that if certain tests were not completed in May, there would be no chance of delivering a completed ship in 1944.

By May the problem of plastic flow had become serious and it was obvious that more steel reinforcement would be needed as well as a more effective insulating skin around the vessel's hull. This caused the cost estimate to increase to £2.5 million. In addition, the Canadians had decided that it was impractical to attempt the project "this coming season", and Bernal and Pyke were forced to conclude that no Habbakuk vessel would be ready in 1944. [9] Pyke was excluded from the planning for Habbakuk in an effort to secure American participation, a decision which Bernal supported. Pyke's earlier disagreements with American personnel on Project Plough , which ultimately caused his removal from that project, were the main factor in this decision. [10] In the early summer of 1943, naval architects and engineers continued to work on Habbakuk with Bernal and Perutz.

The requirements for the vessel became more demanding: it had to have a range of 7,000 miles (11,000 km) and be able to withstand the largest waves recorded, while the Admiralty wanted it to be torpedo-proof, which meant that the hull had to be at least 40 ft (12 m) thick. The Fleet Air Arm decided that heavy bombers should be able to take off from it, which meant that the deck had to be 2,000 ft (610 m) long. Steering also raised problems; it was initially projected that the ship be steered by varying the speed of the motors on either side, but the Royal Navy decided that a rudder was essential. However, the problem of mounting and controlling a rudder over 100 ft (30 m) high was never solved. [9] Variants Naval architects had produced three alternative versions of Pyke's original concept, which were discussed at a meeting with the Chiefs of Staff in August 1943: Habbakuk I (soon discarded) would have been made of wood.

Habbakuk II was closest to the COHQ model and would be a very large, slow, self-propelled vessel made of Pykrete with steel reinforcement. Habbakuk III was a smaller, faster version of Habbakuk II. Air Chief Marshal Portal asked about potential bomb damage to Habbakuk III, and Bernal suggested that a certain amount of deck covering might be ripped off but could be repaired by some kind of flexible matting. It would be more difficult to deal with bomb holes in the centre portion, though the roof over the aircraft hangars would be made proof against 1,000 kg bombs. Bernal considered that no one could say whether the larger Habbakuk II was a practical proposition until a large scale model could be completed and tested in Canada in the spring of 1944. He had no doubts about the suitability of Pykrete as a material, but said that constructional and navigational difficulties remained to be overcome. [9] The final design of Habbakuk II gave the bergship (as it was referred to) a displacement of 2.2 million tons.

Steam turbogenerators were to supply 33,000 hp (25,000 kW) for 26 electric motors mounted in separate external nacelles (normal, internal ship engines would have generated too much heat for an ice craft). Its armament 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. [2] Shooting incident According to some accounts, 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 ricocheted off the block, grazing the trouser leg of Admiral Ernest King and ended up in the wall. Sir Alan Brooke 's diaries [11] support this account, telling how Mountbatten brought two blocks, one of ice and one of Pykrete. After first shooting at the ice, with a warning to beware of splinters, Mountbatten said "I shall fire at the block on the right to show you the difference". Brooke reports, "the bullet rebounded out of the block and buzzed round our legs like an angry bee." The meeting in question was a high-level summit with a US delegation in the Château Frontenac in Quebec. Max Perutz gives an account of a similar incident in his book, I Wish I Made You Angry Earlier: a demonstration of Pykrete was given at Combined Operations Headquarters (COHQ) by a naval officer, Lieutenant Commander Douglas Grant, who was provided by Perutz with rods of ice and Pykrete packed with dry ice in thermos flasks and large blocks of ice and Pykrete.

Grant demonstrated the comparative strength of ice and Pykrete by firing bullets into both blocks; the ice shattered, but the bullet rebounded from the Pykrete and hit the Chief of the Imperial Staff (Sir Alan Brooke) in the shoulder. Brooke was unhurt. [12] End of project Later that year Habbakuk began to lose priority. Mountbatten listed several reasons: The great demand for steel. Permission had been received from Portugal to use airfields in the Azores which facilitated the hunting of U-boats in the Atlantic, and closed the Atlantic Gap . The introduction of long-range fuel tanks that allowed British-based aircraft extra combat time over France. The American preference for conventional aircraft carriers. In addition, Mountbatten himself had withdrawn from the project. The final Habbakuk Board meeting took place in December 1943 and it was announced that "The large Habbakuk II made of Pykrete has been found to be impractical because of the enormous production resources required and technical difficulties involved". 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).

[13] It took three hot summers to completely melt the prototype constructed in Canada. Perutz, in his account, writes that he sojourned in Washington D.C. while U.S. Navy engineers evaluated the viability of Habbakuk. He concludes: "The U.S. Navy finally decided that Habakkuk was a false prophet. One reason was the enormous amount of steel needed for the refrigeration plant that was to freeze the pykrete was greater than that needed to build the entire carrier of steel, but the crucial argument was that the rapidly increasing range of land-based aircraft rendered floating islands unnecessary." [14] Criticism The Habakkuk design received criticism, notably from Sir Charles Goodeve , Assistant Controller of Research and Development for the Admiralty during World War II. [15] In an article published after the war Goodeve pointed out the large amount of wood pulp that would be required, enough to affect paper production significantly.

He also claimed that each ship would require 40,000 tons of cork insulation, thousands of miles of steel tubing for brine circulation, and four power stations, but that for all those resources (some of which could be used to manufacture conventional ships of more effective fighting power) Habakkuk would only be capable of six knots of speed. Much of his article also contained extensive derisive comments about the properties of ice as used for ship construction. Recent recreations In the 15 April 2009 episode of Mythbusters , Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage built a small boat out of a modified formulation of Pykrete (using newspaper instead of wood pulp). They successfully piloted the boat in Alaskan waters at a speed of 25 miles per hour (40 km/h). Based on this success, they determined that it is possible to build a boat out of Pykrete. They also determined that Pykrete lived up to its purported properties of being bulletproof, stronger than ice, and taking longer to melt than ice. However, they expressed doubt that an aircraft carrier made of Pykrete could have survived long.

[16] In September 2010, the BBC programme Bang Goes The Theory also attempted to recreate a Pykrete boat. A hull using 5,000 kg of hemp fibre Pykrete was frozen in a cold-store, then launched in Portsmouth harbour for a planned trip across the Solent to Cowes . The hull began to melt almost immediately; after an hour it had taken on enough water to cause it to capsize before they could even leave the harbour. [17] [18] [19] See also Mobile offshore base Notes ^ a b c Swann, Brenda; Francis Aprahamian (1999). J.D. Bernal: A Life in Science and Politics. Verso. ISBN 1-85984-854-0 . Project Habakkuk Privacy Project Habakkuk Project Habakkuk or Habbakuk (spelling varies; see below) was a plan by the British in World War II to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice), for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time.

The idea came from Geoffrey Pyke who worked for Combined Operations. Read more about Project Habakkuk: Shooting Incident , Criticism , Recent Recreations Other articles related to "project habakkuk, project": Project Habakkuk - Recent Recreations ... In September 2010, the BBC programme Bang Goes The Theory also attempted to recreate a Pykrete boat ... A hull using 5,000 kg of hemp fibre Pykrete was frozen in a cold-store, then launched in Portsmouth harbour for a planned trip across the Solent to Cowes ... Geoffrey Pyke - World War II - Military Inventions - Project Habakkuk ... Minister Churchill issued a directive that research on the project should be pressed forward with the highest priority and he expressed the opinion that nature be allowed to ... In February 1943, the prospects of the project were transformed ... The project to build a giant aircraft carrier of pykrete was known as Project Habakkuk ... Famous quotes containing the word project: “Indigenous to Minnesota, and almost completely ignored by its people, are the stark, unornamented, functional clusters of concreteMinnesotas grain elevators.

These may be said to express unconsciously all the principles of modernism, being built for use only, with little regard for the tenets of esthetic design.” —Federal Writers Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943) Terms related to project habakkuk: Related Phrases Project Habakkuk, The floating Iceberg carrier | Alternate History Discussion Project Habakkuk, The floating Iceberg carrier Feb 20, 2004 From wikipedia: Project Habbakuk was a British World War II plan to construct an "unsinkable" 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 Habbakuk was to be approximately 2,000 feet long and have a displacement of an amazing 2,000,000 tons or more, constructed in Canada from 280,000 blocks of a sawdust/water ice mixture known as Pykrete (after its inventor Geoffrey Pyke, who proposed the Habbakuk project inspired by its slow-melting properties).

The ship's deep draft would have kept it out of most harbors. 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 using 26 electric drive motors. Its armaments would have included 40 dual-barrelled 4.5" DP turrets and numerous light AA, and it would have housed an airstrip and up to 150 twin-engined bombers or fighters. The Habbakuk would have been virtually impossible to sink, as it would have effectively been a streamlined iceberg kept afloat by the buoyancy of its construction materials. However, it was projected to take $70 million and 8000 people working for 8 months to construct, an expenditure which the British were unwilling to make at the time on such an experimental craft. A small prototype was constructed in Lake Patricia, Alberta, measuring only 60 feet by 30 feet, but Habbakuk itself was never begun. But what if the Habbakkuk was built? Would the war go any different?

Copenhagen , Denmark For 70 mill. Â£ you also could get at least 10 big CV's, and even with the limited aircomplement of the Illustrious class (4 mill Â£ excl. aircomplement) that would give in the region of 400 aircraft on ships going 30+ knots. The 8000 men using 8 months (64.000 man-month) seems cheap though, as a CV cost in the region of 31.000 man-months. But even if counting in man-months 64.000 man months would get you 70 corvettes, and if we imagine the RN short of 70 corvettes I think the Battle of the Atlantic would have been lost. I believe the "gap" in the Atlantic where land based aircraft couldn't reach was much better closed by relatively cheap escort carriers build on commercial hulls. The Icecube carrier didn't use much steel though, but I don't thing steel was in critically short supply, but man-hours, machinery and weapons was.

(warship cost data from DK Brown: Nelson to Vanguard, a highly recommendable book) Regards For 70 mill. Â£ you also could get at least 10 big CV's, Click to expand... posted by Redbeard Redbeard, your post was good, but I think you overlooked the fact that the wikipedia article that Gamingboy copied said 70 mill. $ and not 70 mill. Â£ . As far as I know, the Pound has almost always been somewhat stronger than the Dollar, so if we take an average exchange rate of Â£1.50 to $1.00 then the cost of the Habbakuk in Pound Sterling would be Â£46.7 million. Of course maybe the exchange rate was 1:1 back in the war...does anyone know for sure?? Anyway, assuming my exchange rate is anywhere near what it was in the 1940s then the number of CV's one could get for the Habbakuk would have been around 6 or 7 and the number of corvettes would have been around 46 or 47.

Of course the RN could only get either 6-7 CV carriers OR 46-47 Corvettes. Maybe it would opt for 3 CVs and 24 Corvettes. What about the option of building a "Habbakuk" type carrier but only half or a third the size? Was cost proportional to size? If so then the small prototype that was built would have been 3% of the cost of the full Habbakuk as it was only 3% of the size (lengthwise anyway). The American strategy was to bypass Japanese held islands whenever they could, the ultimate prize being Okinawa, which finally allowed a staging area for the long range hi-flying B29s to bomb the home islands. But what if several Habakkuks could have been set up just off Hokkaido in 1942? Could they have allowed shorter range B17s to fly escorted by fighters and allow a European style bombing campaign against Japan? Click to expand... Interesting idea Napoleon XIV, the cost of the campaigns to capture the Japanese held islands and Okinawa could probably have funded at least one if not two or three (maybe even 5) Habbakuk-class carriers.

That would be interesting now wouldn't it?

Question: Project Habakkuk was a plan by the British in World War II to construct what from ice?
Answer: Aircraft carriers