Project "HABAKKUK": aircraft carriers made of ice. Ice carrier "Habakkuk Ice carrier

Named after one of the so-called "minor biblical prophets" - project "Avvakum" was one of the most original inventions of naval thought.

During the Second World War, Britain, which found itself in an extremely difficult situation, frantically clung to various projects that could save its situation and help resist Nazi Germany. In particular, the British Admiralty desperately lacked ships to provide escorts for convoys from the United States to the island. In order to create a base for anti-ship aircraft, the British proposed to create an aircraft carrier from a mixture of wood pulp and ice, which was named "Pikret". The author of this original idea was Jeffrey Pike, an employee of the operational headquarters.

The idea of \u200b\u200bcreating an ice ship came to Pike's mind when the Americans and British contemplated conducting special operations on the northern coast of Europe.

Let's remember how this project was implemented and what this project led to ...

It is not entirely clear who first came up with this, but it is known that the idea of \u200b\u200bicebergs-airfields was discussed in 1942 by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Lord Louis Mountbatten, head of United Operations, the British organization responsible for the development of offensive weapons. Initially, it was about a simple "cutting" of the tops of icebergs, equipping them with engines, communication systems and sending them to the theater of operations with a group of aircraft on board.

It should be noted that such an extravagant idea was born at a time when the industry of the Allies, especially Great Britain, was experiencing an acute shortage of resources, primarily steel. While the need for courts only grew. Frozen water was seen as a cheap and unlimited resource. As a bonus, such an aircraft carrier would be unsinkable, since a whole hail of bombs and torpedoes could not smash a large iceberg into pieces, but would only leave potholes on it.

The melting of such a "case" would not be a problem in an operation that could take a few days or weeks, moreover, it could be slowed down a little with the help of powerful refrigeration units. A little later, the idea was transformed. British engineer and scientist Geoffrey Pyke, an employee of the Mountbatten department, proposed assembling warships from frozen ice blocks, integrating refrigeration pipes into the structure.

The allies at that time did not have enough forces for a full-scale invasion and decided to limit themselves to pinpoint strikes carried out with the help of the newly created special operations forces. Fields in Norway and Romania were identified as critical points of the Reich. However, the special forces had to somehow be delivered to the landing site, and Britain could not boast of solid reserves of steel and aluminum. However, according to Pike's calculations, it takes only 1% of the energy to create a mass of ice equivalent in mass to a conventional ship, in contrast to the traditional method. In addition, Pike proposed the use of natural icebergs, which could be leveled and used as a landing site for naval aviation. Pike sent his proposal by diplomatic mail to Britain and was reviewed by Winston Churchill, who was delighted with such an original idea.

Pike experimented with a curious material that his fellow scientists named after him - picrite (Pykrete), which was a frozen mixture of water and cellulose (in fact, fine sawdust). It turned out that this ice was many times stronger than usual, and even melted several times slower. The idea of \u200b\u200bthis material was suggested to the British by some American professors. But, be that as it may, it was Pike who brought the idea to a finished project and even a real ship.

Of course, Pike was not the first to suggest using an iceberg or ice floe as a stopover for an airplane, or even the first to suggest that such a floating island could be made of artificial ice. Back in 1930, the German scientist Gercke conducted a number of such experiments on Lake Zurich, and in 1940 such an idea was almost seriously considered by the same British Admiralty.

In early 1942, practical research began. The first goal was to determine if the ice floes are large and strong enough to withstand a long stay in the Atlantic. Scientists noted that natural icebergs have too small a surface above the water and suitable for organizing a runway. The project was almost abandoned, but the idea was introduced to use not simple ice, but "Pykret" - a mixture of water and cellulose, which frozen faster than ordinary ice, melted more slowly and had greater buoyancy. "Pikret" could be processed like wood and poured into a mold like metal; when immersed in water, it formed an insulating shell of moist wood, which protected the structure from further melting. However, like any ice structure, "Pikret" had a certain fluidity and began to bend slowly when the temperature reached 16 degrees Celsius. To compensate for this, the surface of the ice ship had to be protected by insulation, in addition, the ship had to have its own refrigeration unit with a complex system of channels.

Before, however, Lord Mountbatten had brought (this was in 1943) a block of picrite to the Allied conference in Quebec. Next to it he placed a block of regular ice of the same size. Then he took out his revolver and fired twice. An ordinary ice cube shattered into small pieces, and the bullet ricocheted from picrite (the cube remained intact), wounding (fortunately, not badly) one of those present. After such a visual demonstration, the Americans agreed to participate in the project.

This ice ship was built in Canada, on Patricia Lake in the province of Alberta, and it was summer, which was required to test both the construction technology and the ship itself. It was called "Habakkuk", in honor of the prophet from the Old Testament who said: "The nations see and are extremely surprised! Because the work that is being done in your days is such that you would not believe if someone said about it. " The ship with a skeleton of wooden beams and filling of ice blocks (stabilized by three small refrigeration units and a network of pipes) was 18.3 meters long, 9-odd meters wide and weighed 1.1 thousand tons. It took 15 people two months to create it.

Experiments with the construction of a scale model have led to the conclusion that the optimal ratio is a mixture of 14% wood pulp and 86% water.

However, by May, the problem of plastic deformation had become extremely serious and it became apparent that more steel reinforcement was needed to build the ship. In addition, it was necessary to increase the insulating shell around the ship. This prompted an increase in the estimate to £ 2.5 million. In addition, the Canadian builders decided that they would not be able to build the ship this season, and the project management concluded that no ship of the Avvakum project would be ready in 1944.

Modern reconstruction of the shooting of Lord Mountbatten. After the shot, a piece breaks off from the picrite block, and nothing remains from the same block of ice

In the early summer of 1943, naval architects and engineers continued to work on the Avvakum project. Requirements for the vessel increased: it had to have a range of 7000 miles (11000 km) and be able to withstand the largest ocean waves. The Admiralty demanded that the ship have torpedo protection, which meant that the hull was at least 12 meters thick. The naval aviators demanded that the ship be able to take heavy bombers, which meant that the deck had to be 610 meters long. Initially it was planned that the ship would be steered by changing the speed of the electric motors located on both sides, but the Royal Navy decided that the rudder was needed. However, the problem of installing and controlling a rudder with a height of more than 30 meters was never solved.

Marine engineers have proposed three alternative versions of the original concept. The projects were discussed at a meeting with the chiefs of staff in August 1943.

According to the original design, the ice roof over the aircraft hangars was supposed to protect the aircraft from aerial bombs weighing up to 1 ton.

Construction of the Habakkuk vessel. Laying the first layer of blocks. Additional insulation was made from pine needles.

Combat ice carriers were supposed to be 1.22 kilometers long and 183 meters wide. Their displacement was supposed to be several million tons. Experts considered that labor and monetary costs made such ships not even very cheap, despite the apparent free ice. In addition, for the cellulose filling of picrite blocks, in the case of the construction of a whole fleet of such aircraft carriers, as the military spoke so enthusiastically at the beginning, it would be necessary to reduce almost all the forests of Canada.

The final version of the Avvakum aircraft carrier proposed a weight of 2.2 million tons. The power plant was supposed to have a power of 33,000 hp. (25,000 kW) and consists of 26 electric motors installed in separate outer nacelles. A conventional propulsion system would generate too much heat and be abandoned. Its armament would include 40 double-barreled 4.5-inch dual-use installations and numerous anti-aircraft gun turrets. The ships could carry up to 150 twin-engined bombers or fighters.

New picrite layer and cooling system.

When Habakkuk proudly sailed on a Canadian lake (and this was in August 1943), the situation in the European theater of operations gradually began to unfold in favor of the Allies.

In the same year, the Avvakum project began to lose priority. There were several reasons for this. Firstly, there was a shortage of steel, and secondly, Portugal allowed the Allies to use airfields in the Azores. In addition, the British carrier-based aviation received additional suspended fuel tanks, which made it possible to increase the range of anti-submarine aircraft, and the Allied industry mastered the production of inexpensive escort aircraft carriers. A prototype aircraft carrier, built in Canada, melted within three years.

However, problems with a shortage of metal have not yet become a thing of the past. It was not for nothing that concrete barges took part in the landing of the allies in Normandy, among the host of different ships. The wooden and iron remains of Habakkuk were found at the bottom of Patricia Lake by scuba divers in the 1970s.

And I will remind you about, as well as about. Remember the same as we discussed and

In 1942, the situation on the western front for Great Britain was disastrous. The German Kriegsmarines inflicted significant losses on the Royal Navy over and over again. Germany's powerful industrial base allowed the country to quickly compensate for its losses in technology, while Great Britain, having entered the war insufficiently prepared, considered any, even the most insane, ideas that could help it withstand the enemy.

One of these ideas was the option of creating an aircraft carrier, the building material for which would serve as ice - a temporary replacement for steel, the deficit of which at that time reached its peak. It is known that in 1942 this idea was discussed in the highest circles of the United Kingdom, including Winston Churchill himself, then acting Prime Minister.

Developed at once two approaches to creating an aircraft carrier from ice. The first - the cheapest - consisted in cutting off the top of a large iceberg and re-equipping its surface for a runway. It was assumed that such ships, which are extremely cheap, would be used for short-term air operations against strategic enemy targets. Such an iceberg aircraft carrier also had to be equipped with defense systems, living quarters and an engine with rudders. The use of such a ship would be limited to a few months.

The second approach involved the creation of an aircraft carrier from scratch from pre-prepared ice blocks, between which refrigeration pipes would run, which would allow the ship not to melt and perform its functions for a long time.

After lengthy discussions, the British Department of Defense chose the second option as the most promising. Engineer Jeffrey Pike was appointed project manager. Experimentally, he found that if you mix water with cellulose, then after freezing, ice is obtained, which is superior in strength to ordinary and does not melt longer. The new material, which, as it turned out later, had even greater buoyancy, it was decided to call "pykret". The American and Canadian allies were involved in the British project, and soon a test sample of the ship was built and launched in Canada in just two months, where tests began.

Building an aircraft carrier out of ice - the process of stacking "paikret" blocks

By 1943, the 18-meter ship was successfully tested in summer conditions, but the British Admiralty had several questions for the engineers: they asked to increase the strength of the deck for landing heavy bombers and to equip the ship with additional protection against torpedoes from German submarines. For these modifications, it was necessary to strengthen the metal frame of the vessel, which resulted in additional money and, most importantly, time costs. The project no longer seemed like a panacea for Germany's superiority at sea, especially since by the end of 1943 the situation in the war turned in favor of the Allies. Britain has finally managed to overcome the shortage of steel and establish the production of cheap aircraft carriers. The unusual project was gradually forgotten and remained only in the form of drawings. The test specimen of the ship soon melted, leaving behind a metal skeleton frame.

During the Second World War, almost every country managed to make a big breakthrough in the field of science, technology and technology. Thanks to this, the implementation of the most outlandish and non-standard projects began. For example, British inventor Geoffrey Pyke came up with a crazy idea to create the largest aircraft carrier, even to date, which should have been mostly made of ice. The brilliant scientist proposed to implement this idea to the British navy.

The aircraft carrier was planned to be made of a new material - Pykrete, which would be named after its inventor. This same pykrit was 86% ice, and 14% sawdust. The idea of \u200b\u200binventing this material was born in Jeffrey Pike's head only because of the acute shortage of metal in Great Britain, which was inherent in that time. By the way, it was because of this that Great Britain was unable to implement a significant part of its military plans aimed at fighting Nazi Germany.

So, the basis for the pykrit should have been the most ordinary ice, which can be produced in huge quantities at all times. However, along with this, paikrit got the disadvantages of its "progenitor", namely, melting, albeit not as fast as that of ordinary ice, but still melting. Therefore, it was necessary to think over a scheme so that, using seawater, it would be possible to constantly replenish the melted material.

The project of this unique aircraft carrier was named Habbakuk, and the work on it was entrusted to special units of the U.K. Combined Operations division, which consisted of both civil servants and the military. According to the plan, the aircraft carrier was supposed to be 610 m long, 92 m wide and 61 m high. The total weight of such a giant vessel, the structure of which should have consisted of 12-meter blocks of new material, could exceed 2 million tons.

To understand how much this is even for the modern world, it is worth remembering the size of an aircraft carrier belonging to the Nimitz class. Its length is only about 330 m, width - 77 m, and its weight is only 100 thousand tons. Such a modern aircraft carrier carries an average of 90 aircraft and requires a crew of 3,000 to maintain it. In the new project Habbakuk, the aircraft carrier's ability to carry aircraft doubled (about 200), and the command staff at the same time increased to only 3,700 people.

Unfortunately, this project, like other monstrous developments, ended only with the creation of a prototype from a new material with a length of only 20 m. His career did not have time to start and ended, but in vain! The hosts of the famous TV show about debunking the myths, Adam Savage and Jamie Hineman, made several samples of pykrit and experimented with it a lot. As a result of their tests, it became clear that Jeffrey Pike is a brilliant inventor and it was not in vain that he proposed this material at one time.

The project to build an aircraft carrier based on a frozen mass of ice and sawdust melted, lasting only a year. It never became reality. Although the Habakkuk project (the Habakkuk project) was initially strongly supported by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill himself.

And here the biblical prophet Habakkuk

University of Maryland professor Susan Langley has been researching the Habakkuk project for a long time, and has written a book and doctoral dissertation on it. Langley, who is also fond of diving, repeatedly dived into Lake Patricia (Canada, Jasper National Park in Alberta) to inspect what remains of the never-created ice aircraft carrier.
Langley writes that the idea to name the ambitious project this way belongs to Churchill himself - he pinned too many hopes on this naval structure made of ice and sawdust. Habakkuk predicted the capture of Jerusalem, and the Habakkuk mission was to help the British defeat the Nazis.

What the ice carrier was like

The bizarre aircraft carrier was designed by Jeffrey Pike, an eccentric scientist for the British military, as Susan Langley calls him. "Habakkuk" was to become the most powerful aircraft carrier in history and protect the British Atlantic convoys from enemy submarines.
In the last, ninth, volume of the nine-volume The War Illustrated, published in April 1946, the design dimensions of the ice-wood aircraft carrier are indicated: 2,000 feet (610 m) long, 300 feet (92 m) wide. The floating airfield was designed for 200 fighters or 100 bombers, plus repair shops and other necessary premises were designed on it. The Habakkuk's estimated speed of 7 knots (8 miles per hour), its diesel generator was supposed to consume 120 tons of fuel per day. The aircraft carrier intended to be equipped with tanks for a fuel supply of 5 thousand tons, which would allow the ship to move within a radius of 7 thousand miles. According to preliminary estimates, this whole colossus should have cost no more than £ 10 million.
The idea of \u200b\u200busing ice and sawdust came to the mind of the British due to the high cost of steel in wartime. Pike, having heard about the strength of the Arctic ice, decided to make it a strategic material that will help the British win the war. The secret project delighted Winston Churchill himself, who also caught fire with this idea.
In early December 1942, work began on the implementation of the "project Habakkuk".

"Shoebox"

The Canadian Lake Patricia was chosen as the experimental site, where at the beginning of 1943 a 60-foot prototype ship "Habakkuk" with walls and floors of wood was built. Inside was a massive chunk of ice, surrounded by refrigeration pipes. According to Susan Langley, this whopper was more like a large shoebox, and the pipeline resembled a chest.
Technical problems immediately began - in some places the pipeline was damaged, so the water did not cool the ice, the pipes simply pumped air. Then they doubted the strength of the ice itself. Pike's invented building material "pikering" (a mixture of frozen water and sawdust), as it turned out, is simply impractical to produce in the huge quantities required for Habakkuk.
By mid-1943, the excitement around the ice-wood aircraft carrier began to fade, and in June of that year, tests in Canada were curtailed altogether.

Why was the project canceled?

According to Susan Langley, three main reasons contributed to the cooling of interest in Habakkuk. First, Great Britain had the opportunity to equip a permanent base in the North Atlantic in Iceland, which made the development of floating airfields, especially such as Habakkuk, futile. Secondly, the British received new aircraft with a greater range. Third, the military industry has developed improved radars to more accurately track enemy submarines.
“All these innovations made Habakkuk obsolete even before it was successful,” concludes Langley. “It would be possible to build it. But it is no longer expedient. "

What is there now, at the bottom of Patricia?

Susan Langley, according to her stories, first learned about the "plane of ice" lying at the bottom of a Canadian lake in 1982, and at first did not believe that it was possible at all. But she, seriously engaged in underwater archeology, decided to check what she had heard and two years later investigated the bottom of the lake at the alleged flooding site of the remains of "Habakkuk".
Langley saw what looked like a barge. Then the researcher sank to the bottom of the lake several more times, already in the framework of projects sponsored by government grants. Numerous studies formed the basis of the book and doctoral dissertation.
The wreck of the failed aircraft carrier lies at a depth of 100 feet (30 m). This is a dangerous dive for divers as there is a high risk of decompression. Deep visibility is low. According to Susan Langley, if anyone else wants to see the remains of the unrealized Habakkuk project, they should hurry up - the skeleton at the bottom is gradually collapsing, and soon there will be nothing to see.

No one can say for sure what the finished aircraft carriers-icebergs would be like ... (photo from www-old.aad.gov.au).

When the Allies were preparing to land in Europe, they seriously considered the project of building a fleet of huge aircraft carriers from ice. There are still many who believe that this idea was pure madness, as well as those who believe it to be an original and reasonable technical idea.

Initially, it was about a simple "cutting" of the tops of icebergs, equipping them with engines, communication systems and sending them to the theater of operations with a group of aircraft on board.

It should be noted that such an extravagant idea was born at a time when the industry of the Allies, especially Great Britain, experienced an acute shortage of resources, primarily steel. While the need for courts only grew.

Frozen water was seen as a cheap and unlimited resource. As a bonus, such an aircraft carrier would be unsinkable, since a whole hail of bombs and torpedoes could not smash a large iceberg into pieces, but would only leave potholes on it.

... It is possible that they would resemble this project of the "big Habakkuk" (picture from de220.com).

The melting of such a "case" would not be a problem in an operation that could take a few days or weeks, moreover, it could be slowed down a little with the help of powerful refrigeration units.

A little later, the idea was transformed. British engineer and scientist Geoffrey Pyke, an employee of the Mountbatten department, proposed assembling warships from frozen ice blocks, integrating refrigeration pipes into the structure.

The idea of \u200b\u200bthis material was suggested to the British by some American professors. But, be that as it may, it was Pike who brought the idea to a finished project and even a real ship.

Before, however, Lord Mountbatten had brought (this was in 1943) a block of picrite to the Allied conference in Quebec. Nearby, he placed a block of regular ice of the same size. Then he took out his revolver and fired twice.

An ordinary ice cube shattered into small pieces, and the bullet ricocheted from picrite (the cube remained intact), wounding (fortunately, not badly) one of those present. After such a demonstration, the Americans agreed to participate in the project.

Modern reconstruction of the shooting of Lord Mountbatten. After the shot, a piece breaks off from the picrite block, and nothing remains from the same block of ice (photo from geocities.com).

This ice ship was built in Canada, on Patricia Lake in the province of Alberta, and it was summer, which was required to test both the construction technology and the ship itself.

It was called "Habakkuk", in honor of the prophet from the Old Testament who said: "The nations see and are extremely surprised! Because the work that is being done in your days is such that you would not believe if someone said about it ".

The ship with a skeleton of wooden beams and filling of ice blocks (stabilized by three small refrigeration units and a network of pipes) was 18.3 meters long, 9-odd meters wide and weighed 1.1 thousand tons. Its creation by 15 people took two months.

Construction of the Habakkuk vessel. Laying the first layer of blocks. Additional insulation was made from coniferous needles (photo from de220.com).

Combat ice carriers were supposed to have a length of 1.22 kilometers and a width of 183 meters. Their displacement was supposed to be several million tons.

Experts considered that labor and money costs made such ships not even very cheap, despite the apparent free ice. In addition, for the cellulose filling of picrite blocks, in the case of the construction of a whole fleet of such aircraft carriers, which the military spoke so enthusiastically at the beginning, it would be required to reduce almost all the forests of Canada.

New picrite layer and cooling system (photo from de220.com).

When Habakkuk proudly sailed on a Canadian lake (and this was in August 1943), the situation in the European theater of operations gradually began to unfold in favor of the Allies. After a short thought, they abandoned the ice fleet.

The wooden and iron remains of Habakkuk were found at the bottom of Patricia Lake by scuba divers in the 1970s.

Or maybe it makes sense in some cases to build ice ships, what do you think?

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