What does England mean to you?

[Iceglow]

First up...please click HERE!

Ok now we're setting the mood correct for this post. Cuch I love you normally but right now you're talking so much outta your ass when you speak I see right through you like a damn polo mint.

Going in to world war 2 which btw, England initiated because we refused to back down over the ultimatum of "Invade Poland and well it's war" England had a much smaller military force than Germany at the start of both world wars however England was world class in terms of military size. We were in fact THE most professional army in the world at the time. Our airforce rightfully scared the crap out of the Lufftwaffe because whilst they had the machines and the pilots to launch a blitzkrieg (which translates literally to lightning strike) which could crush the opposition of a country in a matter of hours or days. (look at how fast the blitzkrieg tactic worked against France, Poland, Austria and other nations in Europe which fell to the Nazi war machine) and the tactics to win the british RAF had something what made their previous successes moot, they had radar, planes on an equal playing field and more experience than any of the previous airforces the lufftwaffe had come across in the war so far. They also were fighting for their homes, their families and I don't know about you but if I was flying for that? Knowing do or die, victory or your family could be blown to hell? I would fly my smurfing ass off regardless of whether it was safe to do so and if I made it back alive well that'd be a bonus.

England never fell to the Germans and not because Hitler didn't try, he failed because he wanted to use the same tactic as had worked on mainland europe on England. Bomb us in to a submissive state (infrastructure and industry was his primary targets and the morale of the populace a close secondary) and then march in the tanks and infantry. His tactic failed at the get go because even discounting the fact that he made his foolish move to attack Russia at this time too (you don't fight Russia and America at the same time, you get them to fight each other and mop up the survivors ~ Quote in the Tom Clancy book The Sum of All Fears says this nicely, though the quote easily can be changed to the west or England considering the time point we were talking about, Russian strength lay in numbers of "disposable" troops they could basically force in to taking and holding objectives by sheer force of bodies and will, British strength lay in tactics and equipment) Russian forces didn't really press Germany back from Stalingrad until after D-Day when Hitler was forced to move more and more infantry away from the eastern front to protect Berlin from the advancing allied forces to his west. Though Russia did force the Germans out of Russia and all the way back to Poland they did not do so alone. Eventually the men of Russia would have been exhausted and the Germans would have won had it not been for D-Day which is way after the Germans had failed to defeat the English, in fact by then the war was all but over one way or another he was already defeated.

England succeeded where others failed not just because of the channel but because they were professionals who realized the value of the tactical withdrawl from Dunkirk and who had saved their planes and kept their pilots training for such an occassion. Our pilots were as good as they could get, their training solid and whilst the tactics weren't always sound we had more victories in the air than any other country fighting against the Nazi warmachine.

I will also point out that if England had fallen to the Nazi warmachine, just how long do you believe your precious Ireland would've lasted? I'd measure it in the number of hours it would take for Hitler to have his planes refuelled and reloaded and some ships on the otherside of the country to invade you I'll give it 24 hours from official surrender of England to the defeat of Ireland. That is if Ireland didn't surrender immediately upon England falling to the Germans.

With units like the SAS, SBS, Ghurka's and the Para's we still are one of the most professional and powerful armies in the world even though we are still much smaller than armies of many countries. God forbid being on the receiving end of such forces even in modern warfare, Just look to our recent historical victories in theaters where we fought alone. Our parachute regiment earnt a truly fearsome reputation against the Argentinian's in the Falklands war. Hell we have the Ghurka's and frankly the idea of pissing them off makes me more afraid than the idea of pissing the SAS or SBS off. Our special forces for years have educated and cross trained other nations special forces including those of America, Germany and Austrailia (all of whom are known for having some of the toughest special forces in the world but they still have a healthy respect for the training our SAS and SBS boys go through to be the best)

Ofcourse Cuch you could be trolling us brits or you could just be acting like an ass but just because the irish got the raw end of a deal you gotta think that without us, you'd be speaking as much german as any of us.


On topic now...

England to me is home, I've travelled to a few countries now and whilst yes, I could probably live somewhere else and enjoy it England is home. I laugh when people like Dennis ect say bad breath because yeah some people do but so do people in their countries too and believe me having served enough tourists I can tell you aside from old people, the smelliest are always tourists :P

I don't always like England at times I wish I could just flee to any other place on earth as it could be better than here. However I know if I went there and done that I would in all likely see that "the grass is always greener on the otherside" visiting a country is very different from living in one and whilst many people visit America ask them how many of them would want to actually live there, to abide by the laws and to have the same opportunities as the americans there. Ask them if they'd like to give up things like the NHS (bad mouth it all we like, we get world class medical care for "free" just by paying our taxes which really aren't even the highest in Europe) most people would say no.