system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Eli5: How do icebreaker ships work?

How are they different from regular ships? 
What makes them be able to plow through ice where others aren’t?
gpt
Normal ships is made with a more or less straight wedge bow which is designed to push the water to the side out of the way of the ship. And that is fine because water will just rise up in a bow wave and get out of the way. However if you take such a ship into ice it will encounter problems. Ice is quite hard and when you try to push it aside it will just crash into more ice and be prevented from moving.

So icebreaker bows are not straight wedges but angled forward. So it does not push the ice outwards but rather down and out. When an icebreaker hits the ice it will climb up onto the ice forcing it down into the sea breaking it apart and then the wedge will force the ice flakes under the surrounding ice. It works kind of like an inverted snow plow.

In addition to this the bow is heavily reinforced with lots of internal structures distribute from the bow through the ship and into the propeller as well as thick hull plates to avoid any damage from ramming into the ice.