Ice carrier: myth or reality?
Almost every country during the Second World War managed to make a major breakthrough in science, technology and technology. Thanks to this, the implementation of the most outlandish and non-standard projects began. For example, the British inventor Geoffrey Pyke came up with the crazy idea of creating the largest, even today, aircraft carrier, which should have been mostly made of ice. To implement this idea, a brilliant scientist suggested the British military the fleet.
The aircraft carrier was planned to be made from a new material - Pykrete, which would be named after its inventor. This Pikrit on 86% consisted of ice, and on 14% it consisted of sawdust. The idea of the invention of this material was born in the head of Jeffrey Pike only because of the acute shortage of metal in the UK, which was inherent in that time. By the way, precisely because of this, the United Kingdom failed to realize a significant part of its military plans aimed at fighting against fascist Germany.
So, the common ice that could be produced in large quantities at all times was to form the basis of paycrit. However, along with this, Paykrita got its own “progenitor” shortcomings, namely, melting, albeit not so fast as in ordinary ice, but still melting. Therefore, it was necessary to think over the scheme so that, using the outboard water, one could constantly replenish the melted material.
The project of this unique aircraft carrier was named Habbakuk, and work on it was assigned to special units of the UK Combined Operations division, which included both civil servants and 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 gigantic vessel, the design of which would consist of 12-meter blocks of new material, could exceed 2 million tons.
To understand how much it 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 the weight of all - 100 thousand tons. Such a modern aircraft carrier carries an average 90 aircraft, and its maintenance requires a team of 3000 people. In the new Habbakuk project, the aircraft carrier's 2 times increased the ability to carry aircraft (around 200), and the command personnel at the same time increased to just 3700 people.
Unfortunately, this project, like other monstrous developments, ended only with the creation of a prototype from a new material with a total length of 20 m. At the same time, his career that did not have time to start and ended, but in vain! Leading the famous TV show about the debunking of myths, Adam Savage and Jamie Hinemen made several samples of Paycrit and experimented with it in abundance. As a result of their tests, it became clear that Jeffrey Pike was a brilliant inventor, and it was not for nothing that he proposed this material in his time.
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