Bergships and Pykrete
— Notes from a 1946 lecture by Max Perutz —
In November 1946, the man who did most of the original research on Pykrete (and who bestowed its name), Max Perutz, gave a talk to the British Glaciological Society in which he detailed its physical properties and its possible use for building "Bergships". (Interestingly he never mentions the name "Habakkuk".) The paper wasn't published in the Society's journal until a year and a half later, but reading it now demolishes a lot of the mythology that has grown up around Pykrete and Project Habakkuk.
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Hollow, but with 9m thick hull walls, the craft would have to provide a 600m long runway.