Poll: Can England be invaded

[Gooble]

For a start there wouldn't be any point in invading Britain. If we were hoarding valuable natural resources, or were refusing to trade (which was making other nations considerably less well off) then that would be different, but neither of those scenarios apply.

Secondly, if we were attacked, then NATO decrees that all other member nations must come to our aid. Including America, and then whoever was invading would most certainly be screwed.

Thirdly, if say the entire world decided to invade, for whatever pointless reason, I'm sure they'd be greeted by an extremely angry and armed populace who would at the very least refuse to work, and at worst involve themselves in a long and bloody struggle against the invasion force. And considering the population of Britain (around 60 million-I know not all of that can fight, but I'm pretty sure most of them would), an invasion would completely ruin the invaders' economies , not to mention the morale of their own population at being involved in a futile war that's costing their country thousands of lives.

So yeah, rule Britannia.

 

[T-Bone24]

When you say England, do you mean Britian? They're not interchangeable, you know.

 

[Elivercury]

Pfft. Royal Marines, SAS and 28 million british armed forces say otherwise. 90 ships of the Royal Navy says they don't even touch down on British soil. We haven't fought alone since the Falklands, but we have the second largest military expenditure in the world, which covers science, engineering and technology. 20 quid and your spare hand grenade says we crack out the lasers if we are threatened with invasion.

Please note that the figures I provide are not only a year out of date, but also including the Gurkha Rifle regiments, who (strictly speaking, according to the 'rules) we would actually be fighting against.

I'd just like to mention that the UK forces is nowhere near the 28 million stated.
Between your lovely garden and the hordes of barbarians, stand an almighty 174,000 (rounded up, from the DASA Quarterly Manning Report, APR 08) fully-trained servicemen and women.
That's across all services, and over 5,000 people UNDER the recommended level.
Of those, 11.9% and 8.9% of the officers and other ranks respectively, are female, so will not be front-line combatants.
As already mentioned, the 105-vessel fleet (including RN Auxiliary) would be dwarfed by the naval capabilities of many larger nations, and equalled by all but the most land-locked countries.
With reference to the incredibly high military budget, I can provide this beautiful quote:

The launching of Astute was 43 months behind schedule, and the Astute class were £900 million over budget.

That's not the only example, as I'm sure you are aware. The budget is most certainly not being spent on the squaddies or hand-held pewpewlaserguns (unfortunately).

Also, the reason why the Hurricane downed more aircraft than the Spitfire was because the Spitfire was equipped with .303 (7.7mm)calibre machineguns, while the Hurricane used 20mm cannons. The only reason why the Spitfire was more widely liked was due to it's elliptical wing-shape, which made it differ from the 'boxed' ends of the Messerschmidt.
While the Hurricane also had elliptical wings, they were less pronounced, so the poor little Londoners didn't know who to root for in the dogfights. Eventually the Spitfire was refitted with the same cannons, but it was a lighter aircraft and the wings weren't deep enough for a similar ammo capacity. Before it could be refined further, dear old Adolf topped himself.


In conclusion, and back on the original topic, yes England could be invaded.
Even if you add in all the Scots, Welsh, N.Irish and Gurkhas to bring the armed forces to full manpower, un-drydocked all the navy vessels, and had every aircraft ready to fly.
Britain is an island. This is it's greatest defence, but also it's biggest curse.
Lots of beaches for landing on.
Not much room to spread population centres out.
Very few ports able to hold the larger navy vessels, and a lack of airfields to service all the aircraft.

Britain could certainly hold out for a while, and most of the initial landings would be met with a large amount of defensive force, however with over 61 million people trying to live off 1,700sq km of irrigated land (estimated in 2003, CIA report) all the attacking force would need to do is adopt a siege mentality and simply starve the population to death.
You can guarantee the rioting would start long before then, particularly in the city centres, which would overstretch the police, and mean understaffed and malnourished armed forces would be recalled from the already undermanned coastlines, opening new avenues for attack in the event the aggressor wished for a rapid conclusion.

While it's true that a siege would spell doom for the uk, with so many mouths to feed and so little land to grow crops with. Given it's island nature it would have to be a naval siege, which then brings back to the question of naval sizes and quality. And with the exception of maybe 3/4 countries, the UK would win a naval conflict relatively unchallenged. Even were it to be against a fleet of similar size and ability, the advantage is still with the UK, as the enemy would have only 100 ships to cover the entire coast of the UK and prevent supplies coming through. Therefore only a small handful of ships would need to be destroyed in order to break the siege.

Short of ended up against the US (whom i understand have the largest navy by quite some way), a naval battle shouldn't be a big deal, in a siege situation at anyrate. Besides, i imagine we could shoot the boats with missles from land also.

I'm also curious about how the people pointing out how X-thousands of tanks are avaliable to go stomping all over the British Countryside, expect to get so many tanks here. I mean to use the US as an example, that is A LOT of water to get your tanks across, giving you the choice of land or air. Air i imagine is incredibly difficult for something so big, and i doubt it would be possible to dump more than a handful per day, if that. Which leaves sticking them on boats to take them over the drink. However offloading them could be an issue, given alot of the British Coast is rather unfriendly and high up, leaving only a few potential beaches as landing spots - which would obviously be well defended. Not to mention that once you have a couple of failed attempts, there are probably too many tanks piled up to actually land anymore.

But these are just my ramblings and thoughts. I do however agree that if a siege were successful, and food imports cut off, britain probably wouldn't last a month. Although does that really count as an invasion as the author intended it? I got the impression it was purely with reference to combat and conquoring, and not intelligent strategies.

 

[Chipperz]

Of those, 11.9% and 8.9% of the officers and other ranks respectively, are female, so will not be front-line combatants.

Heh, you've obviously never met any female (British, at least) soldiers. Before introductions, I was given a suggestion; "Say what you want to the guys, but if you take the piss out of these girls, they will rip your fucking head off." They're perfectly happy killing stuff, thank you very much.

Sorry to all you Americans out there, but if anyone was going to invade us, I think I'd be more scared of the Israeli army. So far, the only plus side for the U.S. army is that you outnumber us, which won't really help in an urban situation, but Israel? Damn, they're moulded for that shit.

I guess you could just bomb the population centres to hell, but then all you'd be left with is a small slab of rock, surrounded by water and survivors who hate you. If you didn't, you have a small slab of rock, surrounded by water, and with a decent proportion of the population already used to, and willing to partake in, street fighting with superior opponents. Enjoy.

 

[Magical Hans]

Celts...
Romans....
Saxons...
Vikings...
Normans...

Its not impossible, the Nazi could've invaded and were about to, but called off the invasion in favour of taking on Russia

 

[Khazoth]

Right now? Nah, I really don't see it being that vulnerable.

 

[manaman]

my bother thinks that England is invunrable to any attack even if the entire world formed a joint task to take down England. don't get in to why the world is invading England.

No Nukes!

[edit] could england defend it's self against each country one on one. Also new opinion in poll

England lost to France at one point. It has already been taken over before a few times.

If the whole of the world where to stand against anything there is not much the country could do. The would be more trained fighting men and women then the entire population of the country to contend with. The US alone has a slight technological edge, more man power, and arguable better training tactics. Russia about the same in some respects. Not as well trained or equally funded as the US, but the cutting edge has a bit of an advantage, the highly trained elite soldier of Russia make the highly trained elite of the US military look like little sissy girls in some cases. There are a number of countries with smaller forces that are nearly equal or slightly under the same technological level as the brits. Trying to say the island is the best defense? BS Vacuum bombs as perfected by the Russians are capable of yields (on a good day) that are greater then or equal to the bombs dropped on Nagasaki or Hiroshima. They are not nukes.

This is simply a case of a lack of perspective. The island can only do so much to defend a place, eventually numbers alone will wear them down through attrition. Of course that does depend on exactly what the difference in tech level available to them. A million men with sharp sticks are not going to do anything against 100 with automatic weapons and concrete defensive fortifications.

Or the best plan of attack for the rest of the world: Isolation. Given a long enough time of no trade or contact with the rest of the world and they will all be ready to surrender without a shot being fired.

 

[Hutchy_Bear]

Against the whole world? Hell no. We're good but not that good. I mean the British soldier is one of if not the best soldier in the world, but this is due to necessity. We have such a lack of funding that our troops need to be trained in all kinds of things because we don't have the resources. Uk troops have to be able to handle all situations as there is no-one else to help them.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

No country is invulnerable, as there will always be the odds of that country being defeated.

 

[Overlord Moo]

The only uninvadeable countries are Russia and Canada. Napoleon and Hitler got the shit kicked out of them trying to invade Russia, and when the US attacked Canada in the War of 1812, they lost and the Canadians burned down the White House.

Ahhhh, the invasion of Russia in winter. Only mistake Napoleon ever made ( Waterloo was all his leutenent's fault, buchard his own calvary)

 

[minispike47]

You can try *reaches for shotgun*

 

[Valiance]

Even with no nukes, it doesn't matter if you kill Russians or Chinese at a 50 to 1 ratio.

They'd just keep coming.

England's island has far too little going for it in the department of economics. More raw resources just means that over time, (and yes, it will be a long time,) they'll out produce, out reproduce, and overwhelm you.

Even though I think they would probably hold off any country in Europe, I think that the Germans certainly could have taken it in WWII if several bad decisions weren't made by Hitler.

 

[Berndawg69]

America's Marine Branch alone could invade England But seriously, who wants England? I'd take Japan

 

[Pigeon_Grenade]

It could be invaded but the consequences from MANY nations will make any invasion cease to be. Seriously America, Germany, and many others would come to their aid immediately.

Canada too would come to there Aid

 

[minispike47]

[/quote] This is simply a case of a lack of perspective. The island can only do so much to defend a place, eventually numbers alone will wear them down through attrition. Of course that does depend on exactly what the difference in tech level available to them. A million men with sharp sticks are not going to do anything against 100 with automatic weapons and concrete defensive fortifications. [/quote]

Haven't you seen Zulu!

 

[Daveman]

lol the question in the poll is the opposite of the thread title...

Invasion, Scotland's perfectly positioned to attack them.

Please say Britain guys, it's a bit silly saying England. Sigh, retarded ex-colonies...

 

[Gitsnik]

Ok well rather than just blindly screaming, hows about an Aussie army-brats take on how to do this:

Abuse personal security around the Queen and her offspring. Remember that guy who dressed up as Osama Bin Laden and got up the embankment at the party? Britain seems to drop the ball a lot, so two counter sniper teams covering my own sniper team to take out as many royals as possible. Once they start firing they won't stop until either the royals are all dead or they are. This serves two purposes, first it will rally the brits to the cause, but it will significantly harm their morale. Even the colony like Australia is still split over a republic or not.

Britain has a very small armed force. South America alone has a population to win a war of attrition against the brits, but with their forces demoralised, and assassin teams going from top to bottom along the chain of command it could probably be done with a couple of legions from various armed forces around the world.

Or you know, lay waste to the entire country with as many missiles as we can - including incendiary bombs and high yield explosive warheads. Then send in teams to mop up.

Edit: The major guys to watch out for are the SAS. This brings into account what they are actually good for - small, tactical engagements. If they weren't specialists, the entire armed forces would be trained like them. Many would survive the sniper arrangement used for the rest of the COC, so we use as much explosives as possible and glass the ground beneath their feet. Scorched Earth policy.

 

[Bigsmith]

Does the word 'Helicopter' mean anything to you?

Yes, I believe it was invented in England. As was the difference engin (caulator) the steam train, the car, the suspension bridge. Hey did you lot know that the efile tower in France was built by brittish artist, and the longest bridge in france was built be the british and the Golden gate bridge was, you guessed it designed and built by the british.

In modern day times I would have to say yes it could but why? I mean we won 2 world wars without the help of america (yes we did shut up americans you never took part in WW1 or 2), our contry is falling apart and the great nation it was once 50 years ago is not. Our amazing navy is under funded although the biggest thing we have to support us is our allys. If the whole world was to attack us then I suppose we would have no chouse but to nuke france before we all get killed.

 

[Bigsmith]

Ok well rather than just blindly screaming, hows about an Aussie army-brats take on how to do this:

Abuse personal security around the Queen and her offspring. Remember that guy who dressed up as Osama Bin Laden and got up the embankment at the party? Britain seems to drop the ball a lot, so two counter sniper teams covering my own sniper team to take out as many royals as possible. Once they start firing they won't stop until either the royals are all dead or they are. This serves two purposes, first it will rally the brits to the cause, but it will significantly harm their morale. Even the colony like Australia is still split over a republic or not.


Britain has a very small armed force. South America alone has a population to win a war of attrition against the brits, but with their forces demoralised, and assassin teams going from top to bottom along the chain of command it could probably be done with a couple of legions from various armed forces around the world.

Or you know, lay waste to the entire country with as many missiles as we can - including incendiary bombs and high yield explosive warheads. Then send in teams to mop up.

Edit: The major guys to watch out for are the SAS. This brings into account what they are actually good for - small, tactical engagements. If they weren't specialists, the entire armed forces would be trained like them. Many would survive the sniper arrangement used for the rest of the COC, so we use as much explosives as possible and glass the ground beneath their feet. Scorched Earth policy.

So your saying the only way to attack britian is a complete exterminatus?