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[orange]

9 out of 10 modern countries have at some point been invaded/attacked by forces sponsored by a British ruler (of some kind).

Andorra
Belarus
Bolivia
Burundi
Central African Republic
Chad
Congo, Republic of
Guatemala
Ivory Coast
Kyrgyzstan
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Mali
Marshall Islands
Monaco
Mongolia
Paraguay
Sao Tome and Principe
Sweden
Tajikistan
Uzbekistan
Vatican City

[V. Gesakaarin]

I guess the US is in a continued race to be number 1 again by ensuring they can make it 10/10 versus the Brits. 

[Louella Dougans]

I guess the US is in a continued race to be number 1 again by ensuring they can make it 10/10 versus the Brits. 

Supposedly, from the end of the Second World War, to around about the end of the 1st Gulf War, the initials of all the places that the USA had military combat operations in, such as Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, and others, could be rearranged to spell:

ELVIS S KING.

[Desiderya]

That's why they seemed so keen on getting another "I" on the list. 

[Nmaro Makari]

Woo. Not really.

Surprised Vatican City's on here, all those wascally Popes trying to do things like stop our King being one level below polygamy.

[Aellos Lisetier]

To be fair, even at the time of the reformation trying to invade the vatican would have been somewhat... suicidal... somewhat on a par with flying into GSF territory and mouthing off against the Mittani in local...

[Vic Van Meter]

I guess the US is in a continued race to be number 1 again by ensuring they can make it 10/10 versus the Brits. 

WE LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU, DAD!

Edit:  Fun fact!  Even though Sweden is on the list, Britain and Sweden were officially at war for two years sometime in the 1800s.  They never invaded and the only casualties of the war were a group of farmers that the Swedish government killed when they revolted.  Of course, the revolution was over their refusal to be conscripted... to fight a war that never actually happened.  In fact, I think the Brits had a few ships peaceably stationed at a Swedish harbor.

[orange]

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[Lyn Farel]

To be fair, even at the time of the reformation trying to invade the vatican would have been somewhat... suicidal... somewhat on a par with flying into GSF territory and mouthing off against the Mittani in local...

Well, it didnt stop some other people to invade Vatican, kill one pope and use the next as a political toy in early XIXth... Though reformation happened way before.

[Nmaro Makari]

I guess the US is in a continued race to be number 1 again by ensuring they can make it 10/10 versus the Brits. 

WE LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU, DAD!

[Aellos Lisetier]

To be fair, even at the time of the reformation trying to invade the vatican would have been somewhat... suicidal... somewhat on a par with flying into GSF territory and mouthing off against the Mittani in local...

Well, it didnt stop some other people to invade Vatican, kill one pope and use the next as a political toy in early XIXth... Though reformation happened way before.

True, but generally they were much better positioned to do it, for the UK it would have meant an amphibious assault at the end of very long supply lines, not quite as bad as the crusades perhaps but still... intensely problematic

[Vikarion]

True, but generally they were much better positioned to do it, for the UK it would have meant an amphibious assault at the end of very long supply lines, not quite as bad as the crusades perhaps but still... intensely problematic

If you are still speaking of the medieval era, the idea of supply lines is very anachronistic. Most of the time, armies lived off of the countryside. This continued to be the case up until around the dawn of early industrialized warfare, and even then, such as in the American civil war, many armies lived off of the land, the most famous incident of this being Sherman's March to the Sea.

[orange]

True, but generally they were much better positioned to do it, for the UK it would have meant an amphibious assault at the end of very long supply lines, not quite as bad as the crusades perhaps but still... intensely problematic

If you are still speaking of the medieval era, the idea of supply lines is very anachronistic. Most of the time, armies lived off of the countryside. This continued to be the case up until around the dawn of early industrialized warfare, and even then, such as in the American civil war, many armies lived off of the land, the most famous incident of this being Sherman's March to the Sea.

It is also why withdrawal strategies included scorched earth.  If you have effective lines of logistics, then scorched earth is less effective.

[Aellos Lisetier]

True, but generally they were much better positioned to do it, for the UK it would have meant an amphibious assault at the end of very long supply lines, not quite as bad as the crusades perhaps but still... intensely problematic

If you are still speaking of the medieval era, the idea of supply lines is very anachronistic. Most of the time, armies lived off of the countryside. This continued to be the case up until around the dawn of early industrialized warfare, and even then, such as in the American civil war, many armies lived off of the land, the most famous incident of this being Sherman's March to the Sea.

It's anachronistic in some senses, but there are still issues to be considered: reinforcements, replacement equipment and what the hell you're going to do with the army when winter comes and so forth, some of which can be constructed in the field or repaired, others can't: a skilled fletcher can fetch arrows and a bowyer can indeed work from what is available (although some woods are better than others) but replacing cannon, repairing swords and armour and so forth needs smelted metal, some of that you can bring with you, you might be able to capture more but if you're setting up to take and hold vatican city you're going to need regular supplies for garrison forces, pillaging the countryside isn't capable of supporting a large army(which you would need since the Catholic nations wouldn't take a vatican invasion lying down (aside from anything else it mucks up *their* plans for controlling the papacy) for prolonged periods of time since sooner or later you've stripped the area raw: the taking isn't the hard part, as you've pointed out an army can live off the land to do that, it's the *holding* where the pseudo-supply-lines start to come into play unless you want to turn the whole thing into a full-on invasion of Italy (which if going after the vatican alone hadn't got spain and france to put their differences on hold, this would) since the vatican itself is too small to be really self supporting of more than a minimal population so either you end up with scope creep where you end up taking more of Italy, probably trigerring a larger pushback which ultimately Britain couldn't have won except maybe at the height of the empire, not against France, Spain and Italy combined or you have to look to bringing in supplies from elsewhere... or people start starving.

[Vic Van Meter]

True, but generally they were much better positioned to do it, for the UK it would have meant an amphibious assault at the end of very long supply lines, not quite as bad as the crusades perhaps but still... intensely problematic

If you are still speaking of the medieval era, the idea of supply lines is very anachronistic. Most of the time, armies lived off of the countryside. This continued to be the case up until around the dawn of early industrialized warfare, and even then, such as in the American civil war, many armies lived off of the land, the most famous incident of this being Sherman's March to the Sea.

It's anachronistic in some senses, but there are still issues to be considered: reinforcements, replacement equipment and what the hell you're going to do with the army when winter comes and so forth, some of which can be constructed in the field or repaired, others can't: a skilled fletcher can fetch arrows and a bowyer can indeed work from what is available (although some woods are better than others) but replacing cannon, repairing swords and armour and so forth needs smelted metal, some of that you can bring with you, you might be able to capture more but if you're setting up to take and hold vatican city you're going to need regular supplies for garrison forces, pillaging the countryside isn't capable of supporting a large army(which you would need since the Catholic nations wouldn't take a vatican invasion lying down (aside from anything else it mucks up *their* plans for controlling the papacy) for prolonged periods of time since sooner or later you've stripped the area raw: the taking isn't the hard part, as you've pointed out an army can live off the land to do that, it's the *holding* where the pseudo-supply-lines start to come into play unless you want to turn the whole thing into a full-on invasion of Italy (which if going after the vatican alone hadn't got spain and france to put their differences on hold, this would) since the vatican itself is too small to be really self supporting of more than a minimal population so either you end up with scope creep where you end up taking more of Italy, probably trigerring a larger pushback which ultimately Britain couldn't have won except maybe at the height of the empire, not against France, Spain and Italy combined or you have to look to bringing in supplies from elsewhere... or people start starving.

This is all true, and I'd also have to add here that the Brits would have had to take their navy through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea.  That's straight through Moors and/or Catholic nations and into a sea that was essentially owned by those same Moors and Catholics.  Rome was pretty well impenetrable unless you knocked off Spain or the Holy Roman Empire in its entirety.

Not that Britain didn't try its damndest to destroy the Spanish, but it's harder than it looks.