and what defence against laser carrying sharks?

...how the Philidelphia Experiment was sent back in time?

Wasn't this the cover story for the Philadelphia Experiment?

-240C? What cryogen are they using? HTS normally means LN2, which is a nice, balmy -196C (77K). Neon? Hydrogen?

Mine's the one fused into the steel bulkhead.

"The benefits of HTS degaussing will give us a great warfighting advantage going forward."

Retreat is actively discouraged obviously.

<click> - <TUNG!> wobble wobble wobble

Might all that wobbling run the risk of capsizing the ship?

If its safe then it would be a good way to clear the old monitor stockpiles. More research needed

"...because we know our work will save lives,"

Er, that would that be American lives, right?

I expect the extended this life expectancy of US warships and sailors will result in the reduced life expectancy for any "insurgents" the warships are deployed against.

...as they'll be the ones with a ring of pack ice around the hull

IIRC, the influence mines that damaged both the USN ships in 1991 were thought to have been Italian Manta acoustic and magnetic detecting types, supplied (with US approval) at an earlier date when Saddam was viewed as a bulwark against Iranian influence. Both the USSs Princeton and Triploi were using degaussing rings, which implies this old design of mine still managed to pick up enough of a magnetic signature or just enough of an acoustic signature to detect both ships, and may therefore still be a threat to even a superdegaussed ship. Looks like time for the laser-turrets to be mounted on massive hovercraft!

"apology accepted, captain needa"

and a homing torpedo from undiscovered country? well the things gotta have a tailpipe

You TOTALLY get the award for putting into actual words what actually happens when you hit the degauss option!

Classic!

Paris, 'cos I reckon, well, '<click> - <TUNG!> wobble wobble wobble' y'know...

Mental Image of dog shaking off Water/Bugs converted into ship shaking of mines...

ya thanks for that!

No comments about large hadron collisions then?

Mine's the one with G.S. Venus on the back...

It's perfectly possible to use liquid nitrogen at -240°C, it boils at -192°C, but with additional cooling it can easily be taken cooler. If you don't have a ready supply of liquid N2 you might want to keep it below boiling point so it doesn't all disappear when you reach e.g. the Persian gulf. The more you chill the superconductors the larger the magnetic field you can use without the superconductivity breaking down.

But does it go up to 11?

You can guess what DVD would be in my jacket pocket.

You have this big collection of different metals sat in salt water, basically a bloody big salt water battery... The sneaky bad guy commie bastards are just going to change the design of their mines to detect the eddy currents... or go back to the WWII spiky BLAM on contact design.

What happens if/when the Hull gets pierced?

I do hope they included an emergency exit for all that (very) cold stuff, preferably one that takes it away from the crew.

Unfortunately, report of the successful test was delayed in reaching the command ashore, as all the hard-drives on board were similarly degaussed.

Oh well... semaphores anyone?

One explanation that I heard is that the ship sailed into a fog bank at night, and an inexperienced observer saw this and thought it had vanished. All the rumours started there.

The conspiracy theory is that they were testing out a way to make ships invisible, but instead it caused the ship and its crew to be transported through space and time and so on.

A middle ground explanation is that there was a top secret (naturally) project to make ships invisible *to radar*. And it worked. Unfortunately, the intense electromagnetic fields interfered with the brains of some of the sailors, causing hallucinations and psychedelic episodes. Since it turned out to be impossible to screen off the sailors from the effects so as to keep them fit for combat, the project was quietly shelved. But by this time, a number of sailors had hallucinated a lot of stuff, and were no longer competent to keep silent about it.

Degaussing is only "permanent" when the degaussed metals are not moved through a magnetic field - such as the one caused by a blob of molten iron/nickel 7000 miles under our feet.

Even that moves, so degaussing is only permanent if the degaussed object is moved in sync with it.

Paris, because she thinks about as slowly as the earth's magnetic field changes.