Quote Originally Posted by English assassin
The second certainly has been around for a while: The Royal Navy. (BTW I might be wrong but isn't the Royal Navy the oldest continually exisiting military organisation in the world?) I think its fair to say no other military organisation has had such wide ranging genuinely global commitments in C20, and it managed them superbly against the most difficult background of declining resources and new powers coming into the ascendancy. Its easy to be top dog when you ARE top dog, but meeting your commitments when budgets are being cut and Britain is sinking down to a second rate power, that's a real test of character.
The Royal Navy is pretty great and do have a long tradition of excellence. But they also have some faults that take them out of the running for me.
1. The Press Gang: totally not cool to force others into service.
2. The choice to be fast and maneuverable against the powerful but slow Germans –(Bismarck sp? style ships)

Both issues have been taken care of and now they seem to have a powerful navy (I really like the small aircraft carriers) but the fact that they took so many losses to the Germans because of their ship design takes them out of contention in my book.