Pykrete and Project Habbakuk

Ed S · July 25, 2009, 08:41:14 AM

I would think that trying to destroy one of those pycrete carriers would be like trying to destroy an iceberg. It's going to take a lot of hits with a lot of big weapons to have any signficant effect. The best you might hope for is to take out enough of the engine pods to slow it down. Then of course, you have to consider that this thing has a formidable air wing and you have to get past that to even get a shot at the carrier. So unless you have a cruise missile with a nuclear warhead, I wouldn't think it would be easy to stop.

Quote from: The Rat on July 25, 2009, 08:25:15 AM
Pykrete was pretty impressive stuff, but I'm sure some bright boffin would have come up with a way of defeating it. But go for it, I've had plans for a while now for a 1/144th Habakkuk but the thought of buying, building, and detailing a bunch of aircraft for it gives me the cold sweats!

1/144 Habbakuk! Man there are some crazy people in this forum. I'd love to see this one.

Ed

jcf · July 25, 2009, 09:46:49 AM

Have you watched the Mythbusters sequence? They demonstrate very well the strength of Pykrete.

Also as period anti-ship weapons (guns, boms and torpedoes) were designed to penetrate or buckle a relatively
thin shell of metal the warhead designs would be of limited effectiveness against the Pykrete blocks.

You'd need something designed to burrow in and then explode, self-propelled quarrying charges so to speak, and
you'd also need a very large number of said weapons.

A possible attack stratagem would be several swarms of the burrowing weapons each launched against a single area
in an attempt to calve off large blocks at and below the waterline with the hopes of destabilizing the floating mass.
In theory if you take enough off of the bottom, the whole thing will turn turtle.

Jon

pyro-manic · July 25, 2009, 10:03:27 AM

Dive-bombers with heavy AP bombs would be able to penetrate pretty deeply into the pykrete, and you might find cracking to be a big issue - Ice doesn't malform and bend like steel, so a few hits on the deck could cause a section of it to collapse onto the spaces below, or render the flightdeck unusable. You could "mission-kill" the ship quite effectively, but actually destroying the vessel totally would be extremely difficult, I suspect.

jcf · July 25, 2009, 10:21:12 AM

Quote from: pyro-manic on July 25, 2009, 10:03:27 AM
Dive-bombers with heavy AP bombs would be able to penetrate pretty deeply into the pykrete, and you might find cracking to be a big issue - Ice doesn't malform and bend like steel, so a few hits on the deck could cause a section of it to collapse onto the spaces below, or render the flightdeck unusable. You could "mission-kill" the ship quite effectively, but actually destroying the vessel totally would be extremely difficult, I suspect.

The wood-pulp mixed in would work against the propagation of cracks and absorb the shock so regular AP bombs dropped
from dive-bombers would probably have little effect beyond surface cratering. Something like a Tallboy would most likely be
necessary.

pyro-manic · July 25, 2009, 10:41:39 AM

I agree it would have to be a rather large bomb. The RN tested the very nasty 2000lb Mk.4 AP bomb against HMS Nelson in 1948 - this kind of weapon would perhaps have been effective against Habbakuk.

SSgt Baloo · July 25, 2009, 10:56:58 AM

I've done quite a bit of reading about Pyecrete and the Habbakuk (the first I heard of it was in the mid-eighties in Discover Magazine). I suspect that the ultimate defense against the Habbakuk was the incredible amount of time, money, and effort required to actually put one in the water. Neat idea, but not time- or cost-effective in light of developments in other fields that rendered it less than necessary.

Just call me Ray · July 25, 2009, 11:30:40 AM

I wonder, would the Habbakuk be large enough to launch and land, say, a B-29? Regardless of the time and expense to make one I'm sure it would've been less costly in lives than island-hopping.

I think it would also be interesting to see what the Soviets would've come up with to counter one post-war, as I'm sure such a large ship would be pretty well suited for jet aircraft too. Maybe a missile or bomb with a thermobaric warhead to just try and melt the damn thing?

Hobbes · July 25, 2009, 11:57:08 AM

Melting the amount of ice we're talking about here is not practical. To melt 1 ton of ice, you need (my guesstimate) at least 100 litres of fuel, so to melt a Habakuk carrier, you'd need to deliver an entire supertanker worth of inciendaries.

The best bet to defeat Habakuk would be a nuclear-tipped torpedo.

seadude · July 25, 2009, 05:15:30 PM

QuoteI've had plans for a while now for a 1/144th Habakkuk but the thought of buying, building, and detailing a bunch of aircraft for it gives me the cold sweats!

1/144th?!

Do you have any idea how huge that is? A 1/350th scale Habbakuk would probably be about 6-7 feet long. A 1/144th ship would be too big to fit in my apt.

BTW, here's a chart showing the mechanical properties of concrete, ice, and pykrete.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/icyhusky/habbakukmodel/3669189912_15db04a61d.jpg
I'm not sure how accurate it is since I'm not an engineer, but I found it at this site:
http://project-habbakuk.blogspot.com/

The Rat · July 25, 2009, 05:37:18 PM

Quote from: seadude on July 25, 2009, 05:15:30 PM
1/144th?! Do you have any idea how huge that is? A 1/350th scale Habbakuk would probably be about 6-7 feet long. A 1/144th ship would be too big to fit in my apt.

According to the figures I dug up the 1/144th dimensions would be 13.75ft x 2.05ft. Doable, but not very transportable unless it's sectioned. If I build it what I may do is ask various of our Canadian members to contribute a model or two, and have them sent to my place. Then I would occasionally transport the whole kit and caboodle to shows in the area along with a What If stand.

That's assuming I ever get around to joining IPMS Canada and starting a What If sig.

Mossie · July 25, 2009, 06:11:24 PM

The Habbakuk could be the stand! How about 1/350? It'll be a bit more handlable plus you should be able to get some aircraft to crew it, 1/350 B-25's are available from Trumpeter.

The Rat · July 25, 2009, 06:17:50 PM

Quote from: Mossie on July 25, 2009, 06:11:24 PM
The Habbakuk could be the stand! How about 1/350? It'll be a bit more handlable plus you should be able to get some aircraft to crew it, 1/350 B-25's are available from Trumpeter.

What I wanted was a few RCAF squadrons on it, with Spitfires and/or Hurricanes, Lancasters, and maybe some patrol aircraft like PBYs.

Mossie · July 25, 2009, 06:30:06 PM

You can find them if you hunt for them, there are resin sets available at reasonable prices. It's a UK site, but there are some land based types available here, including Spits. No Hurricanes, but there are P-38 & P-47's.
http://www.helmet-aircraft-200.com/epages/Store3_Shop2318.sf/en_GB/?ViewAction=View&ObjectID=1472409

Scroll down here & you can find a PBY, as well as a PBM Mariner:
http://www.floatingdrydock.com/model.htm

You should be able to find some other types with a little rumaging!

seadude · July 25, 2009, 06:45:24 PM

Let's put things in perspective, shall we?

Pic showing 1/700 Nimitz AC hull, 1/700 Iowa battleship hull, and two 1/700 scale WWII AC flightdecks (end to end) compared to my 1/700 (34" long) Habbakuk hull.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/icyhusky/habbakukmodel/DSC02124.jpg

Pic showing my 1/350 Montana (Ship is 32" long.) compared to my 1/700 Habbakuk hull:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/icyhusky/habbakukmodel/DSC02154.jpg

I'm gonna need a LOT of table space when I take both of these to a contest.

Mossie · July 26, 2009, 04:51:15 AM

Well, I worked out that I am a 1/350 HMS Habbakuk! It's length would be 1.74m, which is my height & beam 0.26m, of which I'm a touch wider (and growing more by the day!).