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ABOUT THIS GROUPInspiration for creating this forum goes back to conversations with my father as early as 1969 at height of Vietnam War The tangible inspiration to create such a forum came when I attended Society of Military history USA s annual April 1996 meeting at Arlington Virginia co sponsored by Centre for Study of Intelligence of CIA history staff.Kevin .C. Ruffner was a great support in sharing much archival data.We stayed in touch till 2000 or so.Society of Military history was a big disappointment when they hesitated in accepting their journals factual and analytical failings in 2000-2004. A lesson that even so highly advanced and educated societies have biases.Not about narrow ideological IDEAS ,its about spirit of pluralism as signified by habeas corpus and healthy scepticism of Bertrand Russell and exactness of Francis Bacon sans Bacons opportunism.Its a citadel of superior minds , addressing broader, really substantial issues confronting mankind !

iconoclastic individuals who can fearlessly look into a symbolic pit of hell and yet speak their minds .Lieutenant general Patrick ex head of DIA has been a most crucial moral support since 2010 , earliest stages of the group.More importantly he has remained a part of the group without taking sides.

That fallacious assessments can be made and no agency in mankind's history was infallible.

That wisdom and intellect converge at one point where analysts detach themselves from narrow man made divisions of state , nationality , ideology, ethnicity and class.

When members of this group enter this group they must leave their citizenship, religion , ethnicity and ideology in a quarantine chamber 1760 yards from this group.

That intelligence agencies have been very frequently misused in history for personal agendas .

Prof Peter Kassebaum is our spiritual father.I want to particular thank CSIO Chairman Mr Miller , a stalwart CIAOfficer who played key role in activating our group.Show lessGroup rulesMEMBERS7,145 members

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Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBChairman of the Board; Centre for the Studies of Intelligence Operations; Director, Classified Intelligence

Admiral Nakhimov to become most powerful Battlecruiser in the World, Returns: 2018

Admiral Nakhimov to become most powerful Battlecruiser in the World, Returns: 2018The Admiral Nakhimov heavy cruiser is to receive new ordnance, putting it ahead of the Russian fleets current flagship, the Peter the Great missile cruiser. Military sources say the installation of the new long-range S-400 and Poliment-Redut...

UnlikeComment You + 8391w William C. PeroneNot good for us. Unlike You + 11w Timothy LinnommeOne falling Mark 7 shell.... Like 16d Peter CrittendenThe battleship was rendered obsolete on 7 December, 1941 .. Like 11d Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBWe lost 1 one, the other was used for parts to bring the other 6 back into battle, We had lost (SUNK) 16 US Carriers however....So how this logic going Peter? Unlike You1d Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBThe Time when USA Was stupid holding a whole fleet together is not A Battleship, that was Idiocy, Complacency of the United States, Maybe it was even baited that way... Unlike You1d Peter CrittendenWWII was won by the carrier, not the battleship . . . and every major battleship sunk during WWII - on both sides - was sunk by fleet air . . . Unlike You23h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBUgh...No...The Battleships Supported the Carrier, How do you think all those Zero's were shot down? and the Normandy, Pacific Islands Blasted...My Dad was a WW II Battleship Captain, Trust me I know Better than your misinformed or rewritten history...Just look it up Like 323h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBBattles Fought and Won By The US Battleship.816 November 1942 Battle of Casablanca World War II United States Navy Vichy French -Navy American Victory.

1415 November 1942 Second Battle of Guadalcanal World War II United States Navy Imperial Japanese -Navy American Victory.

25 October 1944 Battle of Surigao Strait World War II United States Navy Imperial Japanese Navy American Victory8 Nov 1942 Massachusetts versus Jean Bart, Casablanca

13 Nov 1942 South Dakota and Washington versus Krishima, Savo Island, Solomon Islands.

24 - 25 Oct 1944 Yamashiro versus California, Maryland, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and W. Virginia at Surigao Straight.

Show less Like 223h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBJAPAN During the last weeks of World War II, Battleship of the United States Navy, bombarded several cities and industrial facilities in Japan. Battleships and caused heavy damage to several of the factories targeted. The Japanese military stunned by the heavy shells did not attempt to attack the Allied fleet during this period, and none of the warships involved in the bombardments suffered any damage.

The major bombardments began on 14 and 15 July 1945 when United States warships attacked the cities of Kamaishi and Muroran. The next attack was made by United States force against the city of Hitachi during the night of 17/18 July, shelled the Nojima Saki and Shionomisaki areas on 18 July and the night of 24/25 July, respectively. On 29 July, American Battleships attacked Hamamatsu, and on the night of 30/31Show less Unlike You + 222h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBGERMANY: On June 6th 1944 Allied Forces landed on the beaches of Normandy. Six American, British and Canadian Infantry Divisions, three Airborne Divisions and numerous supporting units came ashore in landing craft or were airdropped into Normandy. Backing them was an immense Naval Task Force which provided naval gunfire support, screened the force from German U-Boat or surface naval forces and transported the massive ground force. It was an amazing armada.It was an armada that also is forgotten by many who read about Normandy or whose only exposure to the landings are films such as Saving Private Ryan. Today I think it is fitting to remember Battleships that served at Normandy, USS Arkansas, USS Texas, USS Nevada, HMS Warspite, HMS Ramillies and HMS Rodney.Show less Unlike You + 222h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBGETTING TO JAPAN, BATTLESHIP ISLAND SINKING: By the end of 1942, the Japanese Empire had expanded to its farthest extent. Japanese soldiers were occupying or attacking positions from India to Alaska, as well as islands across the South Pacific. From the end of that year through early 1945, the U.S. Navy, under Admiral Chester Nimitz, adopted a strategy of "Battleship island-hopping". Rather than attacking Japan's Imperial Navy in force, the goal was to capture and control strategic islands along a path toward the Japanese home islands, enabling to bringing Carrier based U.S. bombers within range and preparing for a possible invasion.Show less Unlike You + 222h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBJapanese soldiers fought the island landings fiercely, killing many Allied soldiers and sometimes making desperate, last-ditch suicidal attacks. At sea, Japanese submarine, bomber, and kamikaze attacks took a heavy toll on the U.S. fleet, but Japan was unable to sink any of the Battleships, halted the island-by-island advance. By early 1945, Battleship leapfrogging U.S. forces had advanced as far as Iwo Jima and Okinawa, within 340 miles of mainland Japan, at a great cost to both sides. Battleships On Okinawa alone, during 82 days of fighting, killed approximately 100,000 Japanese troops.The Battleship cleaned up and made way at this point, for the U.S. forces to finally near their position for the next stage of their offensive against the Empire of Japan.Show less Unlike You + 222h Andrew BeckwithPeter, here is my request. PROVE it that battleships are obsolete. Prove it. Do not cite the historical record. Thank you if you can do it. I want to see a threat analysis done. Andrew Like 121h Craig ChemalyHow is it possible that battleships are obsolete? How can raining mobile hell down on almost any spot on earth via multiple delivery systems be obsolete? Like 421h Christopher Whalen, CAMSPeter, I disagree with you. Each type of ship carries out a specific or set of functions with regard to naval warfare. The aircraft carrier is important for providing air and command and control. The battleship provides naval gunfire or fire support to ground troops. Destroyers and destroyer escorts provide security for the larger ships (and so on). Saying that a particular ship or capability is the sole reason for success is simplistic. Tom is correct that battleships are still valuable. The point he has been making is that the functions of the battleship have been ignored due to the type of warfare that has been underway over the past 15 years. Since we are now "pivoting" and responding to increased tension with Russia, the navy and congress should relook naval programs. The next war will need a stronger naval capability.Show less Like 321h John ( Jandco ) JanderchickPeter, I disagree also we need these Battleships up and running with new weapons on board she will be a great help out in the world....you see a ship that size coming at you ..you get the hell out of the way fast.... Like 121h Andrew BeckwithPeter, the fact is, that a battleship can have cruise missiles and other weapons platforms and be MUCH harder to sink than a Zumault. If you look askance at a battleship , how is it that battle ships survived the 1945 Okinowa Typhoon, with 40 foot ocean swells on the surface and high winds, when a Zumault , costing 30 times as much to activate would sink in 8 foot swells ? IMO your supposition does not make any sense. Please attempt focusing upon survivability and the alternative which is post modern crap which endangers national security.Show less Like 220h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBHere's How they Fit Today....real Simple: A Kayak is a Big Target Today.....So when the Shit Rains Down on you, What Do you want to be on? A Battleship with Longer Survivability or a Carrier or any ship in US Fleet with Vaporizability?.....Today with Burnable Wooden Zumwalts, and Aluminum Littoral Combat Ships, they have ZERO CHANCE....One Light weight Strike and they are gonners....Show less Unlike You + 220h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBAdmiral Rickover, the father of nuclear navy, had to answer the question before the U.S. Senate: With out a Battleship to protect our Carriers How long would our aircraft carriers survive in a battle against the Russian Navy? His response caused disillusionment: They would be disabled almost immediately from Combat , maybe if very lucky Two or three days before they sink, maybe a week if they stay in the harbor.Show less Unlike You + 220h Andrew BeckwithThomas is right. One well placed 5 inch shell from a destroyer will blow apart a Zumault. Like 220h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBObsolete after WW II? Huh? North Korea, Vietnam, Persian gulf Huh? Forcible Entry. Because of her remarkable ability to absorb punishment, and to dish it out, the battleship is widely believed to be ideally suited for supporting amphibious landings. The New Jersey showed what her nine 16-inch guns could do in 1969 when she nosed up to a small, heavily fortified island off North Vietnam. The enemy soldiers were allowed to escape unharmed. Then the dreadnought opened fire. A newspaper headline later told the result: ''The New Jersey Sinks an Island.''Show less Like 220h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBNaval strength is measured in terms of the number of available offensive platforms - ships that mount weapons capable of taking war to the enemy. In 1982, after launching the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Vinson, the Navy had 13 such surface platforms - the 13 aircraft carriers. But the aircraft carrier is a thin bred line Heavy maintenance thoroughbred; for every carrier in deployment there are two others back home being overhauled or resupplied or having their pilots and crew brought up to peak performance levels. Thus, in practical terms, at any one time only four or five aircraft carriers were spread around the globe ready for action. The four Iowa-class battleships were transformed into major offensive platforms by being fitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles. The Tomahawks look like flying torpedoes with stubby wings; they can hit ships from 300 miles away, or land targets from 1,500 miles.Show less Like 220h Andrew BeckwithPeter, it so happens that a battleship can anchor within 20 miles of a beach for an invasion force and shoot inland. Done all the way up through the 1980s. I.e. you try that with a carrier and the carrier will be SUNK Like 220h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBThe return of the battleships thus increased the Navy's number of offensive platforms from 13 to 17, but the practical impact was even greater. Battleships are workhorses and require fewer overhauls than carriers. Since only two of the four battleships needed to be back home at any one time, the Navy was able to increase the number of forward-deployed major offensive platforms from four or five to six or seven. By 1986, each of the battleships had become the nucleus for a so-called surface-action group whose power was greater to that of a carrier group. In a Classified 4 Battle Exercises in 1987 with Carrier versus Battleship, the Battleship Battle Group DESTROYED the Carrier Strike Group. 4 out of 4 Different Models the Carrier Groups went down. the Exercises were Classified in Fear of the Russian building even more Battlecrusier KIROV's . It worked, and the US avoided a Battleship Arms Race. It was Declassified in 2005 With Russia and China Being our Best Friends....Here you go 2018Show less Like 219h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBStarted with DNA, My Dad was WW II Commander on Iowa and then WisKey, I know them inside out, I also know what kind of damage they can take equivalent to 32 Feet of Reinforced Rebar Bunker Concrete, I know what Force and...Show more Like 219h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBI know their Mark 8 Mechanical Servo's are far superior to digital of Today, I know the Ship would not get stranded due to EMP, I know the true run costs and they are a penny on the dollar compared to a Carrier, I know of the Defense Contractor Scheme to Throw disinformation mud on them so they can open up a $$ Waste Land for themselves. I know these ships could sail for 300 years structurally , that's how well built they are, I know because I spent a Year on Big J as an Classified Intelligence Agent...Show less Like 219h Andrew BeckwithSo, Thomas, is this due to the battleship not sucking in mega billion bucks for maintainance ? I think this has something to do with it. I.e. the Carrier and the Zumault are pigs as far as $$$ for support whereas the Battleship is cheap, comparatively to operate Like 219h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBWell Let's Discuss that Cost thingy....1600Crew/ BB Fuel Cost Largest cost of any Ship is Fuel...$100 Million Per year today's costs....The Carrier5000/Crew with 3,500 Support Sailors, $7 Billion for First Reactor Charge, which lasts 13 years, after that, by Law, the Carrier Goes Down For 7 Years for A new Nuclear Refueling and $7 Billion Dollars if not more by then. So you amortized Costs while afloat (Where the Value is not on Dry Dock with 8500 Crew Hanging around) We are somewhere between $500 million and 1.4 Billion Per Year Fuel Only, Not Counting the Support Ships Hanging Around....This is why we have an WATER UP TIME ATTAINMENT OF 11 Carriers and 2.7 on Water....YOU are Paying for a Mansion and But You are living in the closet....Show less Unlike You + 219h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBI often encounter an American Only Phenomena when performing cross analysis arguments, where the American always say, Yeah will just blow that Big Target out the water...Yeah...that's what we'll do...Never thinking that the Enemy is going right for your BIG ASS RAZOR THIN HULLED CARRIER...For Some reason we have painted a very sick illusion we are infallible, the only reason why we haven't seen it, it's because we shy away from Enemy Country's Forcing Us around....Our Ships Look "ToyLike" with Stealth Shield Slathered all over, there is no intimidation, and when it comes to stealth, Quantum Radar, and Laser Paint Satellites take Composition and Dimensional Metrics of each signature ship and ID's For Locked On Life....Show less Unlike You + 218h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBSo a 600 Foot Zumwalt Made From Balsa Wood And Glue looks just as good as a 887 Foot Super Armored Battleship with 18 Inches of Class Grade Amor Class Forged Steel, the LCS, Nearly 500 Feet, a Kayak, 5 Feet, all now Capable, so you can be big and you can be small, it's now all the Same, it's ALL ABOUT SURVIVABILITY, and Aircraft Carrier are the Biggest Flaming Gas Garages ever made on earth, and are not protected. Iran just demonstrated they can penetrate the carriers Electronics as it Droned right over the Carrier in Gulf. Had it been loaded with an Exocet, it would be sunk today, a Battleship, it would literally Bounce off. I have data to prove these statementsShow less Like 118h Bella SGWell, for those that mention that the Battleship became absolete in 1941, I guess that is why Reagan/ Lehman re- commission them in 1980s . I guess they had no vision and had no clue of what they were doing. After all, they are just two of the best of the best the US ever had, but what did they know, LOL?For those that do not believe in the Battleships I guess they believe in the " state of the art F " Zumwalts and LCSs. Oops... I forgot to mention that thanks to Mr. Snowden, the Zummies can be hacked and after billions wasted the little "state of the art" pieces of junk are absolete. Oh and the LCSs... I guess they don't know they deteriorate and need maintenance and fixing every other day. But who is counting the billions, actually trillions wasted in maintenance!Show less Like 318h Bella SGAnd then there is the safety factor for our men, and while it takes 3 hours to sink a Zummie / LCS, it takes 3 days for a Battleship to go down. Well, 3 days gives time to survive ... 3 hours gives you time to pray and I got to tell you gentlemen... money is just that... money, but for those that have their sons and husbands putting their lives on the line for the country, somehow I 'd rather have them on a Battleship. You can always make more money and raise taxes, but you can never replace a dead son or a dead husband.Show less Like 318h John ( Jandco ) JanderchickWhat happen to Peter ?? Is he still on here ???? Like 218h Andrew Beckwithgood riddance if Peter leaves. Like 117h Bella SGAnd for those that defend the carrier , I guess they need to see the tragedy that happened in 1987 when an Iraqi jet aircraft, fired missiles at the American frigate USS Stark (FFG-31) and how fast thirty-seven United States Navy personnel were killed and twenty-one were wounded. Like 217h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBBSome have said over the years that post-Soviet Russia was only relevant on account of its nuclear arsenal. This was merely an excuse to ignore it in favor of other things as we met the supposed End of History. The fact is, Russia is, well, Russia and as long as people call that territory home, those people will have certain interests that are not going away. This weeks discussions have certainly not provided all the answers on Russian resurgence, though we hope to have offered a meaningful contribution; but to ignore the discussion and downplay Russia as a relic of the Cold War is folly. Russia is right where we left it, and will continue to make its impact felt.Show less Unlike You14h Thomas J. Miller, CLM, CSSMBB.......And closing out the week a graphic depiction of the Soviet fleet of 1990 was compared with the Russian fleet of 2015, researched and designed by Louis Martin-Vezian. The scale of the work ahead Russia intends to reach the maritime heights of 25 years ago or bigger is becoming alarmingly clear. Unlike You14h Agha ASimple fact that German industry and Japan industry simply could not compete with allies in second world war in naval production. US and Britain won because of overwhelming odds. Today it is not like that.35s Agha AIn aircraft carriers I do agree with MrPeter Crittenden