But at any rate I attribute the training of main-line/standard/regular army units in Britain and America as roughly equal though a bit defense/offense. The reason why Britain performs better sometimes is because all but the most elite organizations like the Spartan Hoplites and US Strategic Command (before they eased up on regulations) develop organization fat. People and units who do not pull their full weight due size and potentially excellence. America has both, but is not tyrannical enough not to develop fat.

If I were to bring an army of light infantry with me with equal equipment I would choose the British for defense (not peacekeeping, outright static battle) and the Americans for everything else. British intelligence is better, but US SIGINT is even better. British excellence in Burma and South Africa are also long-past. However when she goes prepared she is still a decent peacekeeper when she remembers to use her excellent defense. 

Lastly... a correction, do not misunderstand that I say something like American ballistics will do huge damage because they're willing to hit more targets. No, they simply have more missiles that are more accurate with more differentiation in payload.

 

Oh and btw. British bombers were more accurate in Gulf War I, but by now that has been reversed. The inaccuracies of American airpower have been demonstrated many times, but with guided munitions is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. It is a unique American talent in their incredible ability to solve problems with large amounts of technological development and money once the technological fundament is in place and they need it.

The US Marines is the best Marine Corps on earth because of their size, training, weapons, power projection, and very good training. The RMC is the best trained Marine Corps because they are very selective and very small.

Could the RMC invade France or Germany? Probably not, due to pure lack of size, not quality, weapons, etc. Could the USMC? Yes, due to a combination of size, good training, weapons, etc. It would be impossible to have a huge force like the USMC compared to the small RMC. There is no way to train such a large number of people to be as good as a very selective group like the RMC

To answer the question "Are the British the best trained army in the world?", I would say that they probably are. France and Germany might have something to say about that, though.

Also, I think that the Vatican Honor Guard would probably have a very hard time holding off a real Army. They, as someone said in a earlier post (forgot who wrote it), are more of a Secret Service/police force

I've read some posts and I have been convinced to change my mind somewhat. Obviously upper-tier regular units in Britain are better than upper-tier regular units in the US especially in defense. However while more physically fit I do not believe British mid-tier regular troops are as capable of offensive combat operations as the American mid-tier regulars, even if they had the equipment.

 

However it is unfair to compare the Royal Navy Commandos to the US Marines, the US Marines are specialized upper-tier forces, not elite special forces.

 

As the US army fields about equal special forces to Britain's upper-tier forces I'd still say they are better after being convinced that the upper-tier Brits are that good. It is clear where the US has put in the same amount of effort in its selection process that the result is roughly analogous. The US has more and better troops than Britain, it simply has a large amount of almost-as good troops that they do no train as seriously. At any rate those of the almost-as good troops that see combat are definitely better in the end.

 

 

... but I'm not sure. If the British army is so great, then despite its orders it should have managed to retain some control in Southern Iraq. They largely did not, while the Americans largely did (with some reinforcements albeit). I see select British units that are better than the American regulars in theatres, but their American counterparts do just as well, perhaps because their doctrine is better or their arms are more free or whatever, the point is in recent combat record the Americans do better than the British.

 

Comparing 3'rd Para to a regular infantry division, or even the Marines or 82'nd Airborne is not fair. And I've read of 3'rd Para's performance in Afghanistan, it seems roughly analogous to the Marines and 82'nd Airborne to me.  Their performance is better in defense and equal or better when they go on the offense with American air support or their own air, but they lose points on aggression.

i must say it is refeshing to hear a non bias approach in this topic, i get so sick of peoples patriotic egos getting in the way, if i have at all been bias at any point in my analysis i apologise. i must also say ur comments are good, and yes i fully appreciate that the american armed forces is something that u r not to mess with british or not but i will stand by my original analysis that the british man for man are better trained. it is a very bold assumption indeed to claim that you can train the many as well as you can train the few (even with all the resources u want). about thermopylae, i never claimed for one second that the greeks acutally won at all, in fact they lost the battle, but because of their actions they won the war and i was merely trying to highlight that numbers do not count for everything. and the comments about american anarchy yes ill admot a little far fetched, but it was only a theory ill admit in needs refinning im not going to claim i know everything. although perhaps u could give me a little more credit as to what i know about the american forces.u may also notice that i did not claim they were incapable. their training is of good quality far superior to that of most nations (EU nations, eastern armies etc), but i will say that the british infantarymen are of superior quality, but then again there are the us marines which outnumber the british army and are on equal if not better terms than the british infantarymen, now people might say what about the royal marine commandos, why yes of course they would be of considerable benefit being the best trained soldiers (soldiers, not elite force, marines count as soldiers) compared to most armies, but again numbers would eventually win, and plus american technology would prove superior. on the subject of technology i will add that british armourys are stuffed full of american hardware, as most of britians special forces reject the british equipment and go for the lighter american weapons/equipment. on the subject of tanks yes i am fully aware of american air superiority (i compared eurofighter to superhornet btw, euro seemed to prevail i figures), and that it would be able to deal with the challenger 2, which in terms of technology (for once is superior to the abrams, in all but numbers and cost lol). the challenger hasa suffered no active losses in any action, and a challenger 1 scored the longest range kill in any tank to tank action (nearly 4 km i think). i think abrams losses are around 5-13 i may be wrong however.

as far as modern success well i seem to recall that britain won in the falklands, which some people seem to forget (wonder why) against a well equipped army that were closer to home. the nearest comparrsion that i can find is america in somalia which didnt as well as the us would have like , but was still a success but not to the same scale as the falklands, somalia ran more along the lines of peacekeeping, initialy anyway. the gulf war was when both nations fought together and won, so not much can be said about that. the second invasion of iraq is much the same story, but i can say something about figures, the british lost in the area of 180 men throughout the entire campaign , i believe american losses were over 3000+ casulties ( i may be wrong).

in afghanistan same story different desert, both nations doing a fine job and have learnt much along the way.

so from this u can say that britian has had as much modern experience as the american forces

just to clarify again i am fully appreciative of the us armed forces capabilities and if i have made this unclear in my previous post well my mistake. about cyber warfare i did not take that into account but then again i dont think that i would be too much of an issue in a conventional war which is what i was going for.

about the royal navy vs us navy then again i still stand by my point, the british have recently aquired their new destroyers the daring class ships, the most advance warships currently afloat but as of yet that only have 2. comparitive sizes of us navy to royal navy is about 2 to 1, so not as big as i initially expected. oh and f22 is not fully in service yet nor is f35, which both nations will have. oh and tha radar the f22 has derives from typhoon radar (derives). if american was to bring its entire fleet air arm it would still only have around 1000 planes so raf numbers compared with this makes the air war even, again my idea was only a theory. about targeting british land assets im pretty sure that would have thought about that before hand a set up a nice defence against such attacks, such a rapier missle systems to counter any us missle attack. and flexibility wise the british tend to be more agile in deployment due to their small size and high proprtion of apc/afv to men (check out FRES future rapid effect system, should explain more). as far as fighting to the last man

i previously forgot to add this, i hoped this might provide all those of you who are not particularly familiar with the British armed forces with a small insight into how they operate from the people themselves. hopefully this will help to dispel the myths tha the british army are entirely technologically redundant, and have no ability to launch offensive operation, or defend themselves, as from this site you will be able to see it is quite the opposite, and maybe some people will start to understand that numbers are not everything (and also the professionalism of the British armed forces, and of how high qaulity they are)

Below is the link to the British armies equipment page, everything from vehicles to infantary weapons, and may be suprised to see that much of the equipment (mostly vehicles) are British varients of pieces of equipment used by american forces, so all those biasly supporting american superiority without even a slight consideration for anyone else, you have been arguing against yourself.

http://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/equipment.aspx 

 

Below this is the link to the British armies firepower display video, i must say it is very impressive, well worth taking a look. if this link fails to work it is a the video is at the bottom of the first equipemtn page, so it shouldnt be too difficult to find.

enjoy :)

this operation was an offensive attack lead by the british which was a complete success, the much smaller operation operation led by the US army named Operatio strike of the sword was also a strategic victory. both operations were 100% succesful in completing their objectives.

to say that britian is no good on the offensive is as far from the truth as you could ever want to be. in the grand scheme of things taking freindly casulties, enemy KIA into account then operation panthers claw was far more succesful, having cost fewer allied and british casulties and killing more enemy fighters.

the british lost only 13 men in the operation but killed 200+ enemy fighters

the US in their operation lost around 20 men and killed 50-70 enemy fighters.

both nations completed their objectives and killed many enemies.

a news report was on following the completion of both of the operations in which american soldeirs and commanders were interviewed on what they thought about the British soldiers. they were not abel to give enough praise for them saying that they enjoyed working with their british allies as when they saw the british men operate they knew that they would get the job done and do it very well.

so this proves that the British have not lost the ability to attack (Falklands!)

 

Both the USA and Brittish have routinely hired NZ (New Zealand) SAS troops to train there troops and special forces and yet no mentioned is made about this or how a small 4million popultated country halfway around the world trains these people and yet itz not ranked in the best trained troops but the troops they do train are