ChromeAlchemist said:
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Please note that the figures I provide are not only a year out of date, but also including the Gurkha Rifle regiments, who (strictly speaking, according to the 'rules) we would actually be fighting against.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:
Wikipedia - HMS Astute(S119) said:
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.