NationStates Jolt Archive

Today gentlemen, I would like to announce the construction of a massive carrier, that will seem to defy and revolutionize all that you knew and thought was possible in aircraft carriers. I have decided to take an idea from a man, Geoffrey Pyke, and make it a reality. We would like to announce plans to build an aircraft carrier that will weigh approximently 2 Million Tons and be 2 Thousand Feet Long and 300 Feet. It will also have a hull that is 30 Feet Thick. It will be constructed from a material that is Stronger Than Concrete.

Now I know you are saying this is a godmod or whatever, but i assure you it is all possible. The mystery material that make this all possible is ice. But this is not just anykind of ice this is pykrete(or pycrete... really exists). I will not reveal how to construct this material, but it melts extremly slower than regular ice and is immensly stronger, while maintaing the bouyancy.

You may think that it is useless due to the fact that it must be in very cold tempertures to avoid melting, but you are wrong. This design will encorporate coolant which will run through out the ship via pipes can keep it frozen almost anywhere. If the ship is damaged, who cares, it can be repaired immediatly with readily availible supplies, which would be hard not to have.

This ship could easily carry well over 200 aircraft. Much more stats are not yet availible, but will hopefully surface soon. The prototype will be built within 5 years(NS). These are not yet for sale but may be soon. Anyone found trying to recreate a ship similiar to this will call for an immediate millitary response by my allies and I.

Questions, comments please!

bump

Would not the carrier crew slide of the flight deck, not to mention being continually cold

Would not this... pykrete merely shatter (if it's so like ice) upon the impact of a armored shell? How would you stabilize such a thing? A kinetic shell or one that causes large amounts of heat simply destroy the hull. Also, could you list detailed stats?

Pycrete is frozen sawdust. It was developed by the British in WW2 and was demonstrated to Churchill by some guy (possibly Mountbatten, but I can't remember) who threw a block of the stuff into Churchill's bath, where it began floating. A prototype ship was built, and was sucessfully sailed on a Canadian lake during summertime.
The project was abandoned at the end of the War, and the fact noone has tried it since suggests that there were some flaws in the plan. The only book I've read which mentioned pycrete didn't really give a reason, only that nuclear weapons made it obsolete. I suspect there were other reasons as well.

I would imagine that a nuclear blast (and resulting heat) would be pretty damn deadly to a ship made of frozen sawdust. If the heat doesn't melt the carrier, it will surely combust the sawdust.

Then again, a nuke'll settle pretty much any ship's hash

Depends on the nuke, and depends on the ship ;)

I have (in post modern tech, and its explained damit!) long range plasma cannons that can melt main battle tanks completely. I sell such weapons on my storefront.

Soooo.........

Someone sees your big ship.
Said someone goes to my store, and buys a plasma cannon.
Said someone then ductapes said plasma cannon to a cessna.
Said cessna proceeds to destroy said big ship in large steambathed explosion.

Soooo.........

Why not use something like foam?

(ooc:

*Rolls Eyes*

I've heard of frozen ice cream. I've heard of frozen hotels. But now...

Frozen ships? I've seen everything. Don't let Doujin (or really, anybody else with any guns of respectible caliber) close to these ships. There's several reasons why such a vessel would never work as an aircraft carrier. Where are you going to mount the blast deflectors? The fuel? Engines? The Planes?)

Uh...huh. TAGGED

(ooc:

*Rolls Eyes*

I've heard of frozen ice cream. I've heard of frozen hotels. But now...

Frozen ships? I've seen everything. Don't let Doujin (or really, anybody else with any guns of respectible caliber) close to these ships. There's several reasons why such a vessel would never work as an aircraft carrier. Where are you going to mount the blast deflectors? The fuel? Engines?

and talk about the Aircraft :roll:

"Mr, Burns, your F-14D Tomcat slpped off the Deck of the Carrier."

"Damn there miserable Hides!"

(Guessing)
One thing I should clarify is that the ship itself isnt made entirely of ice, just the inner layer of the hull, before the crew areas. From outward appearances it would probably look pretty normal. At least that would be the smart design.......

(ooc: I can see it now.

"This is CNN Special Reporter Maggie on the deck of the TGF Icecube, where we are preparing to get underway."

*Vessel Lurches as it begins to move, Camera crew slips overboard*

"Oh shit...that's the third time this week!")

On the other hand a giant ice cube of this size floating in the ocean should help ease global warming ;)

(ooc: But just think...all of the poor whales will die from inhaling frozen sawdust!)

(whales dont breathe water)

(ooc: I know that. But since environmentalists always scream "Save the whales!", I figured it was a suitable subject.

I've actually been reading a lot about this Pykrete. The guy's idea could actually work. It would be incredibly expensive, and slow (7 knots)...but if he wants to go ahead with it, it is plausible.)

(ooc: I know that. But since environmentalists always scream "Save the whales!", I figured it was a suitable subject.

I've actually been reading a lot about this Pykrete. The guy's idea could actually work. It would be incredibly expensive, and slow (7 knots)...but if he wants to go ahead with it, it is plausible.)

OOC: Agreed. To be honest though I cant see any reason to change to this material for combat purposes, though there might be one or two commercial applications.

*Launches Tomahawks with FAEB and\or napalm warheads*

Bye bye Mr. Carrier.

Seriously. It's ice and saw dust. High heat levels will not only melt it, it will cause catastrophic secondary explosions due to dust clouds thrown up by the initial explosion igniting.

Not to mention that at 2000 feet long and 300 feet wide, you have an extremely unstable craft to start with. You're nearly twice as long as a Nimitz but only about 50 feet wider.

Also, increasing the length of the carrier without greatly increasing the width is stupid in the first place, unless you want your planes coming in at varying angles right on top of each other, and doing the same on take off.

Another thing, the speed such a craft combined with its size makes it an enormous waste of resources. Not only would it take it forever to reach its destination, its size combined with its speed makes it perfect for target practice.

Finally, you and your allies could take no such action if someone decided to build this ship. You can't copyright real life material.

(Actually you can copyright real life material, if it is a very recent development, you cant however copyright real life equipment.

Good:
Copyrighting Transparant Alumina
Copyrighting Quasiturbines
Copyrighting the Doujin

Bad:
Copyrighting Iron
Copyrighting internal combustion engines
Copyrighting the M16

That said it would only be possible to copyright this if you made a new, more efficient method of cooling it, or replaced the sawdust with something else, or somesuch modification to this.)

Also bad:

Copyrighting the F-16, F-18, etc, by saying you own Boeing.

What were the problems Pyrete faced in R.L?

Would not the carrier crew slide of the flight deck, not to mention being continually cold

not if a tarmat type surface wer placed on top of it

Would not this... pykrete merely shatter (if it's so like ice) upon the impact of a armored shell? How would you stabilize such a thing? A kinetic shell or one that causes large amounts of heat simply destroy the hull. Also, could you list detailed stats?

pycrete can easily deflect a bullet a close range, it is like concrete

Concrete is hideously ineffective against most forms of weaponry though. It has a poor MPA value and cannot take much punishment.

(ooc:

*Rolls Eyes*

I've heard of frozen ice cream. I've heard of frozen hotels. But now...

Frozen ships? I've seen everything. Don't let Doujin (or really, anybody else with any guns of respectible caliber) close to these ships. There's several reasons why such a vessel would never work as an aircraft carrier. Where are you going to mount the blast deflectors? The fuel? Engines? The Planes?)

Theres the beuty of it, you dont need to try to deflect the blas. say it gets hit with a torpedo and causes a 6 foot hole in the side of the ship, the hull is 30 ft thick so the ship will still float, and then you could repair the ship right on the spot, bucket of sea water, some saw dust, pour it in the hole, wait like 30 min and your ship is good as new

I understand this may be coming a little late, but CiraTech Ind. several years back created a synthetic fiber that when treated a certian way, formed metal plates which can be connected to a power source (solar pannels, engines, etc.) via a set of the fibers not treated and thus this heated pad warms very quickly and can be easily controlled via the amount of head allowed to reach the wires. It is known as Inferlite. In theory, if you placed this upon the flight deck, it would increase friction but also keep the ship relativly warm. Yet it may deminish the life-span of the ship a fraction. If you are interested please contact CiraTech Ind. on gaining production rights.

(ooc: If this actually worked, don't you think that somebody would have used it already? Yes, it'll float, and yes, it might be strong...but 7 knots? You'd never get something that big on station before the war could end. Back in World War II, when everything was inaccurate, indirect fire guns, the design might have had merit. Now, however, in the days of computer-controlled gunnery, sea-skimming antiship missiles, and thousands of other technological innovations, your ship will be sunk just as quickly as, say, a Nimitz-class CVN. No matter how many feet thick your hull is, in the end, it's ice.)

*Launches Tomahawks with FAEB and\or napalm warheads*

Bye bye Mr. Carrier.

Seriously. It's ice and saw dust. High heat levels will not only melt it, it will cause catastrophic secondary explosions due to dust clouds thrown up by the initial explosion igniting.

Not to mention that at 2000 feet long and 300 feet wide, you have an extremely unstable craft to start with. You're nearly twice as long as a Nimitz but only about 50 feet wider.

Also, increasing the length of the carrier without greatly increasing the width is stupid in the first place, unless you want your planes coming in at varying angles right on top of each other, and doing the same on take off.

Another thing, the speed such a craft combined with its size makes it an enormous waste of resources. Not only would it take it forever to reach its destination, its size combined with its speed makes it perfect for target practice.

Finally, you and your allies could take no such action if someone decided to build this ship. You can't copyright real life material.

The reason for it being 300 is that is what the original plan called for, changes still have to be made with the modernization process. I nave said how fast the ship could go, logicaly with all that room, massive engines could be put in that would allow it to achieve a decent speed.

And I am not saying that i have copyrighted pykrete i am syain that I am copyrighting the plans for this ship, and technically it is not real world invention due to the fact it does not exist, a prototype was built but a full version was never completed, so by making a modernized one it is completly different and I have the right to copyright it.

(ooc: If this actually worked, don't you think that somebody would have used it already? Yes, it'll float, and yes, it might be strong...but 7 knots? You'd never get something that big on station before the war could end. Back in World War II, when everything was inaccurate, indirect fire guns, the design might have had merit. Now, however, in the days of computer-controlled gunnery, sea-skimming antiship missiles, and thousands of other technological innovations, your ship will be sunk just as quickly as, say, a Nimitz-class CVN. No matter how many feet thick your hull is, in the end, it's ice.)

The reason we dont have them today is because of inflight refueling capabilitites, the extremly long ranges plane have, and the abillities of most jets to land on relativly short airfields. I never said it would go 7 knotts. If they were built in WWII then the thousands of live lost while island hopping to get in bomber range of Japan might no have been lost. It was designed to be a floating island. This is strong stuff its made out of. In a famous demonstration of pykrete, Geoffrey Pyke took a gun and shot in to ice, it shattered. He then shot into pykrete, it bounced of and hit an American general in the leg.

Besides, it is not made to be amazingly strong, it is made to be massive and immensly heavy, pykrete is the material of choice, because if you made it out of almost anything else it would sink like a rock, or wouldnt be to defend itself at all.

Anyway im not sure if it will be an carrier, thats just what the original plans called for it to be. It could end up being a floating island for people to live on, or something.

The reason for it being 300 is that is what the original plan called for, changes still have to be made with the modernization process. I nave said how fast the ship could go, logicaly with all that room, massive engines could be put in that would allow it to achieve a decent speed.

Doesn't matter that that's what the original plans called for, doesn't change the fact that it's still shaped like a giant floating pencil. Rough seas or an extraordinarily large impact would be incredibly dangerous threats.

Also, an increase in engine size doesn't always guarantee an increase in speed, because as you increase size, you increase weight. You also decrease the space available for other needed systems. It's more about how powerful your engine is and how efficiently that power is transferred to the water.

(ooc: As a giant floating island, it might work. Incidentally, when I said "blast deflectors", I meant the giant heat-resistant panels that deploy to deflect the jet wash from aircraft taking off of the carrier. :D)