Quote Originally Posted by King Malcolm
We didn't hide on our island until the US helped. We defended our shores well. We defended our Empire slighlty less well, but managed nonetheless. Had we been bordering Germany, we would have been relatively successful in defending our borders.
Of the 50 or so infantry divisions available to england at the time, only 8 where fully equipped first line, and a further 12 where partially equipped second line. The rest where hardly worthy of the name "infantry division" consisting of reservists and Home Guardsmen with little training and equipment.

Most of these 'divisions' were simply light infantry grouped together and not in fact divisions in any real sense.

The Home Guard (Local Defence Volunteers ;LDV) would have been both valiant and pathetic due to the fact that they had no equipment and no training. Early units mostly wore civilian clothing and were equipped with rifles, shotguns, pikes or whatever else they could find. Some american .30 rifles from WW1, molotov cocktails and later thompsons smg's.

An Eye-Witness Account- By Ronald Ashford, born 1922

" In 1940, I was a volunteer in the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV), later to be renamed the Home Guard and I was one of thirty men serving under First World War veteran; Sir basil Eddis.

After drilling without weapons for some three months, we were each issued with 303 rifles and four clips of 303 ammunition- each clip holding five rounds."

That's a total of 20 bullets! Scarryyyy If you think THIS was going to stop the German army then you are as deluded as the French High Command was!

The United States would have been in some ways in a worse position than the Russians as New England held most of their industrial capacity at the time and they, unlike the Russians, lacked a large army or air force. The technical expertise in the American population would however have gone a long way to offset this.