Ice aircraft carrier Habakkuk. Habakkuk: how the British tried to build an aircraft carrier out of ice Why the project was curtailed

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 tip 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 as the 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 for a longer time. The new material, which, as it turned out later, had even more buoyancy, it was decided to name "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 from 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 equip the ship with additional protection against torpedoes from German submarines. For these improvements, 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 German supremacy 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 start producing cheap aircraft carriers. The unusual project was gradually forgotten and remained only in the form of drawings. The test sample of the ship soon melted, leaving behind a metal skeleton frame.

Almost every country made a major breakthrough in science, technology and technology during World War II. 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 was 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 ​​inventing 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 paikrit should have been the most common 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 included both civil servants and military personnel. According to the plan, the aircraft carrier was supposed to be 610 meters long, 92 meters wide and 61 meters 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. On this 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 very material in his time.

During the Second World War, Britain, which found itself in an extremely difficult situation, frantically clung to various projects that could save its position 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.

It is not entirely clear who first came up with this, but it is known that the idea of ​​icebergs-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, 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.
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 moment did not have enough strength 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 a solid stock 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 suggested using natural icebergs, which could be leveled and used as landing sites 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 called Pykrete by his fellow scientists, which was a frozen mixture of water and cellulose (in fact, small sawdust). It turned out that this ice was many times stronger than usual, and even melted several times slower. The idea of ​​this 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 aircraft, or even the first to suggest that such a floating island could be made of artificial ice. Back in 1930, the German scientist Gerke 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 damp wood, which protected the structure from further melting. However, like any ice structure, Pikret had a certain fluidity and slowly began to bend 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. The usual ice cube shattered into small pieces, and the bullet ricocheted from the 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.
A scale model of the 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. The ego was named “Habakkuk”, after 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.

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 the early summer of 1943, naval engineers continued to work on the Habakkuk project. The 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 required the ship to have anti-torpedo protection, which meant that the hull had to be at least 12 meters thick. The naval aviators demanded that the ship be able to receive 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.
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 seeming free ice. In addition, for the cellulose filling of picrite blocks, in the case of the construction of an entire fleet of such aircraft carriers, which the military talked about so enthusiastically at the beginning, it would be necessary to demolish almost all the forests of Canada.
The final version of the Habakkuk aircraft carrier offered a weight of 2.2 million tons. The power plant was supposed to have a capacity of 33,000 liters. with. (25,000 kW) and consists of 26 electric motors installed in separate external 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 mounts and numerous anti-aircraft gun turrets. The ship could carry on board up to 150 twin-engine bombers or fighters.

When the large-scale model of the aircraft carrier "Habakkuk" proudly sailed on the Canadian Patricia 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 Habakkuk 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.
The prototype aircraft carrier, built in Canada, melted within three years. His wooden and iron remains were found at the bottom of Patricia Lake by scuba divers in the 1970s.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. This old truth has been confirmed more than once by history. During World War II, Great Britain faced great difficulties with steel.

In the North Atlantic, German submarines fought quite successfully against the Allied fleet. Airplanes could very much help in destroying the "packs of wolves", but the problem was that England did not have enough time or, most importantly, steel for the production of aircraft carriers.

It was at this time that a British scientist came up with a rather fantastic idea - an aircraft carrier made of ice. The name of this scientist is Jeffrey Pike, and he worked not as anyone, but as an adviser to the head of the operational headquarters of Lord Mountbatten. The ship made of ice not only had to be cheap to manufacture, but its repair had to take place quickly - they froze a new block of ice at the place of damage, filed it down and that's it.

Pike was known for his penchant for outrageous ideas. He suggested cutting off a large piece of the iceberg and towing it into the ocean. Level the surface and build (even if made of ice) all the necessary structures for the aircraft and crew.

In what way it is not clear, but Pike was able to convince Mountbatten. And he, in turn, was able to convince Churchill and everything started to happen ... The project was named "Habakkuk" (or Habakkuk - in English) referring us to one of the biblical books of the prophet Habakkuk (Old Testament).

According to Pike's plan, the aircraft carrier was supposed to be 600 meters long, almost 100 meters wide and weigh more than 2,000,000 tons. Its defense was to be carried out by a variety of anti-aircraft guns, and the runway was to accommodate up to 150 fighters and twin-engine bombers.
Naturally, ice has a significant drawback - oddly enough, it tends to melt. This problem was solved by laying a complex network of refrigerant pipes that were supposed to cool the aircraft carrier iceberg.

On the shores of Lake Patricia, in the Rocky Mountains of Canada, a prototype was built almost 18 meters long and weighing a thousand tons. The cooling system allowed to keep the "ship" throughout the summer.

During the tests, new difficulties arose. Although ice is a fairly hard material, it is extremely fragile. In addition, under heavy weight, it deformed, and its buoyancy left much to be desired. As luck would have it for Pike (and not lucky for the British Navy), two scientists at Brooklyn Polytechnic made an interesting discovery. If you mix water with sawdust and freeze, then the resulting "material" is 14 times stronger than ordinary ice and has a high resistance to compression, chipping - yes, it turned out to be stronger than concrete! In addition, the sawdust prevented intense melting. This "miracle material" was named after Pike - pykrit.

According to one legend, in 1942 Lord Mountbatten broke into Churchill's house and threw a piece of pykrit into the bathroom with warm water. Then two adult and important men watched for a long time as the ice refused to melt in the warm water.

Another anecdotal situation, confirmed by several witnesses, occurred during the 1943 Quebec Conference. Lord Mountbatten brought two blocks straight to the conference - one made of regular ice, the other made of pykrit. Then he pulled out his pistol and shot it at the block of ice. It shattered to pieces. When he fired at the second, the bullet simply bounced off and, hitting the leg of Admiral Ernest King, hit the wall.

Successful paikrit checks have intensified work on the Habakkuk project. Calculations showed that 300,000 tons of pulp, 35,000 tons of sawn timber and about 10,000 tons of steel would be needed to build the ship. The cost of this "ship" was around £ 700,000.

However, as we worked on the project, its cost skyrocketed to 2,500,000. it took more steel and more effective insulation. In addition, there were problems with handling and speed, which would not exceed 6 knots.

But the biggest problem was, oddly enough, raw materials. Those. the main goal for which the British ice aircraft carrier was created was not achieved. Wood was also in short supply, and complex cooling installations were also very expensive. None of the allies could afford such a waste.

In the end, the Habakkuk or Habakkuk project was revised and eventually abandoned. It was easier to create jump airfields in the Azores and achieve almost the same results at minimal cost.

The remains of the prototype aircraft carrier remained at the bottom of Lake Patricia, delighting local divers.

Based on materials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk

Aircraft carrier "Project Avvakum" (Habbakuk) Is one of the most incredible and bizarre projects in military history. The ice ship, the project of which was proposed by a genius inventor who was in a psychiatric hospital, was supposed to save Britain in its extremely difficult position during the Second World War.

At the height of World War II, the Germans effectively blocked Britain from the rest of the world, intercepting Atlantic convoys of ships that brought the necessary supplies to the island using submarines. In theory, aircraft could provide some protection to ships. However, due to the very limited range at that time, aircraft could not accompany the convoy throughout the entire route, and as a result, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the convoy remained under the protection of only a limited number of naval escort vessels.

Geoffrey Pyke- A mentally unstable Cambridge student who offered very strange ideas about how to win the war, turned out to be a genius inventor. In a hospital bed in a mental hospital, he had the idea for a giant aircraft carrier made of ice that could provide air cover for vulnerable convoys in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Pike got the idea after reading National Geographic material about icebergs and their immense power. The inventor sent his idea to Lord Louis Mountbatten, chief of staff for combined operations. Mountblatten was impressed by Pike's unusual decision and decided that his idea needed to be worked out.

The project was originally named "Berg-ships," and both Pike and Mountbatten were planning an entire fleet of huge aircraft carriers that would be nearly impenetrable to enemy fire and could be repaired at sea simply by adding more ice.

Already at the first stage of the project, it became clear that ordinary ice would not be suitable for the project. It melts too quickly and is too heavy, which means that only a small percentage of the ship will be above water and can act as a runway.

The project was almost abandoned, but with the invention of "Pikerite" (and this is exactly what Pike called his invention without hesitation) everything changed. This material was a mixture of 14% water and 86% sawdust, which was frozen into a single block. This material, when frozen, was lighter than ordinary ice, stronger than it, and melted more slowly. Pykerite could be easily produced, processed, and incredibly cheap to manufacture.

It was planned to build a project vessel 600 meters long, 90 meters wide and 200 meters high. The displacement of the vessel, capable of carrying 200 fighters and reconnaissance aircraft on board, would be more than 2 million tons, and its hull would be more than 12 meters thick, which would make it invulnerable to shells and torpedoes. The onboard cooling system was supposed to keep the hull frozen thanks to a series of cooling channels in the ice blocks.

Inside the aircraft carrier, a huge hangar and living space were provided for 3,590 sailors and pilots. Project Avvakum was supposed to move thanks to 26 motor gondolas frozen into the sides. In this case, the maximum cost would be 7 nodes.

The 19-meter scale model of the ship was built in 1943 in Canada, on Patricia Lake (Alberta), and it was summer outside. After all the theoretical calculations turned out to be correct, the construction of a full-fledged warship was planned for 1944, but these terms turned out to be unreasonably optimistic. The Admiralty began to lose interest in development for many reasons, including rising construction costs and the need to obtain permission from Portugal to use airfields in the Azores. In addition, at the same time, a project was successfully carried out to intercept and decode communications between submarines, i.e. bombers and warships already knew where to look for enemy submarines.

The need for a giant aircraft carrier simply disappeared. As a result, in December 1943, the Avvakum project was canceled. Interestingly, the 19-meter prototype ship in Canada has been melting for three years.

Continuing the topic - a review of the puzzling ones.