Post by skorzeny on Jun 13, 2006 6:26:11 GMT -5
One of the weirdest ideas to come up in WWII was 'Project Habbakuk', which called for the creation of aircraft carriers made of ice! Not just normal ice, but a manufactured super ice - Pykrete.
Here is a link that displays Pykrete: stonebooks.com/archives/050724.shtml The links at the bottom will redirect you to everything you might ever need to know about the history of this fascinating stuff.
How does Pykrete figure into AE-WWII? Well, everybody else seems to have some sort of really rich secret projects to draw from (American Tesla technology, Japanese microwave experiments, Soviet mind control and more German stuff than you can keep track of), so it seems wrong not to consider something unique for the British that is based in actual WWII weird science.
Extend Pykrete to a substance called 'Pykrete II' which combines the properties of Pykrete with freon and other quick-freezing gas. Essentially, the result is something like a 'cold' flamethrower (any sci-fi fans who have seen the Toho film 'Atragon' will have some idea of how such a weapon might work). Perhaps as portable as a normal flamethrower, these devices might be used both to knock out enemy troops, but also incapacitate enemy vehicles (as any veteran of Barbarosa will tell you, fuel lines don't react well to sudden drops into sub-zero temperatures). Special grenades might also be possible with this substance, allowing another method of delivery for the weapon.
Pykrete soldiers would probably wind up looking like a cross between a haz-mat outfit and an Eskimo seal hunter - men kitted out in extreme cold weather gear and protective covering should any of the substance be blown back at them (not that they'd be terribly resistant to a more concentrated blast of their weapons).
Here is a link that displays Pykrete: stonebooks.com/archives/050724.shtml The links at the bottom will redirect you to everything you might ever need to know about the history of this fascinating stuff.
How does Pykrete figure into AE-WWII? Well, everybody else seems to have some sort of really rich secret projects to draw from (American Tesla technology, Japanese microwave experiments, Soviet mind control and more German stuff than you can keep track of), so it seems wrong not to consider something unique for the British that is based in actual WWII weird science.
Extend Pykrete to a substance called 'Pykrete II' which combines the properties of Pykrete with freon and other quick-freezing gas. Essentially, the result is something like a 'cold' flamethrower (any sci-fi fans who have seen the Toho film 'Atragon' will have some idea of how such a weapon might work). Perhaps as portable as a normal flamethrower, these devices might be used both to knock out enemy troops, but also incapacitate enemy vehicles (as any veteran of Barbarosa will tell you, fuel lines don't react well to sudden drops into sub-zero temperatures). Special grenades might also be possible with this substance, allowing another method of delivery for the weapon.
Pykrete soldiers would probably wind up looking like a cross between a haz-mat outfit and an Eskimo seal hunter - men kitted out in extreme cold weather gear and protective covering should any of the substance be blown back at them (not that they'd be terribly resistant to a more concentrated blast of their weapons).
