General Strategy for Defeating UK (as Philippines)?

[subjunctive]

It's 1913 and I'm very well-off: ~$4000/day with military sliders at 90%+, $21.5 million total funds.

As the Philippines, I have a numerically superior military to the UK: 380 brigades and 120 warships (77 of which are cruisers + battleships), while the UK has 336 brigades and 71 total ships.

However, I'm in a difficult position as the UK is allied with Russia, which is industrially well-off (#6) and has 99 brigades. Moreover, I have land borders with the UK in Africa (where I own everything from Egypt/Ethiopia to Congo, and Togo to Zanzibar), but most importantly with India. So nothing is preventing swarms of UK and Indian troops from vomiting over into my holdings in SE Asia.

The supply limit in the Burmese provinces bordering India is rather low too, so I can't mount a meat grinder defense along there. There's only two isolated provinces that have high enough supply limits to hold my 120k armies, one in Pegu and the other in Ratchaburi.

While I'm confident that I can destroy their navy and probably blockade much of their provinces, I don't know that I can sustain a prolonged land war with the UK. Is there any strategy to do so considering my geographic position?

My army composition is: 16 inf, 4 cav, 20 art. 4 of those 120k armies are guards. I don't know if/how I should incorporate tanks and airplanes into these, especially if I'll be holding a primarily defensive war rather than trying to take territory.

Map:
https://i.imgur.com/r0SIwoU.jpg

 

[Gurkhal]

Here's just a crazy idea that may or may not work. Would it be possible for you to invade the UK itself and put their industries out of order by occupation? I think that using your naval advantage to force them to break up their armies MAY be a viable strategy to win the war as it would allow you to strike directly against their heartlands without having to wade through their land legions.

 

[joe9594]

Just out of interested how do you have enough accepted pops to get that many divisions of guards and artillery? The starting population of the phillipines is less than 1 million (adult men which is the only thing victoria counts as being important). Do they have some way of getting more accepted cultures or is it some migration exploit thing or what?

 

[ShadeThorn]

have any of the great canals been built?

 

[grimkm]

I tend to use 2 cav, 2 art and 4 infantry topped up with engineers when available. These are quite small, and can grind quite easily at the india border for you, with a view to rotate stacks in and out as and when. I've had 100 warscore simply by occupying india and encircling the british isles with a naval blockade before. It really ruins their economy.

 

[subjunctive]

Just out of interested how do you have enough accepted pops to get that many divisions of guards and artillery? The starting population of the phillipines is less than 1 million (adult men which is the only thing victoria counts as being important). Do they have some way of getting more accepted cultures or is it some migration exploit thing or what?

I'm using the Historical Project Mod, that's probably the main difference. I also start off as a Pres. Dictatorship and keep the Reactionaries in power, and I actually try to keep militancy up so I can enact social reforms (usually all healthcare levels first, then education-related ones), so that probably helps with the growing population. Also, Asian Minors are a primary culture for the PH in the current HPM.

have any of the great canals been built?

Yes, Suez by my ally Germany, and Panama by me.

In any case, I managed to get 16.5 warscore right off the bat by destroying the entire Australian navy in one battle. I divided my armies into 60k stacks and paid attention to whether the provinces they're in had rivers or not; the penalties for crossing them and dig-in bonus are indeed very helpful. A 90k British army attacked one of my stacks and got thoroughly annihilated, that gave me another 11 warscore. It didn't look like my forces in Burma were doing as well though, but my concession demand only cost ~5 warscore and they were willing to give it to me already, so I didn't push my luck and I accepted their peace. Not sure I can pull off 30 warscore in land battles the next time.

 

[Fire and Ash]

Pacific nations have an easy time dealing with GPs. Just max naval tech and no one can touch you. You can win most wars by just destroying the navies that try to attack you.

You've got options depending on what you want to take. What I would do is build a navy large enough to take most of my army from the Pacific Europe. Drop them off with an ally and wait for them to recover from the attrition. Then I would invade the US. You've got a gamey tactic to beat the Brits. If their army is massive, invade Ireland, take it and let the British in. You can either stack wipe them easily or you let them liberate Ireland, then blockade them there while you take the mainland.

The only provinces you really have to worry about our core ones. Your colonies won't contribute much in score, however some provinces like Oil and rubber production can be important to hold on to.

It looks like you won the war easily. One of the issues the UK will usually have is that by late, they've lost the tech advantage they start with. They won't focus on improving literacy in the colonies so they will usually be a level or more behind in army and naval tech. Once you get to around the 1900s as a pacific nation you can start hard stomping them. Also taking China is kind of game breaking, but if you take even a few provinces, the Brits can't touch you.

 

[luitzen]

Just out of interested how do you have enough accepted pops to get that many divisions of guards and artillery? The starting population of the phillipines is less than 1 million (adult men which is the only thing victoria counts as being important). Do they have some way of getting more accepted cultures or is it some migration exploit thing or what?

Artillery doesn't require accepted pops, only guards (and this is probably therefore near his max). Considering he has 64 guards representing 192k pops at a soldier percentage of around 5%, meaning that he needs a total population of around 3.8 million max (probably less because units can already be recruited from pops smaller than 300.