Here’s a radical suggestion for stopping the Calcutta crush without a bid:
C1:
Flying tiger to Burma
Leave as big a stack as possible within range of Yunnan.
UK1:
If SZ37 Cruiser is still alive, attack with DD, and all planes
DD to SZ37
Cruiser to SZ38 or to SZ37 if DD dies in battle (SZ38 means Japan has to commit a plane or it can’t use any planes from CVs in SZ36/SZ43)
TT from SZ39 picks up 2 inf from Malaya to Burma
Everything India -> Burma
All planes land on Burma
SZ71 DD -> SZ79 (West India)
French DD SZ72 -> SZ79
With all of this, Burma is well not quite impregnable J2 but too expensive to take down.
C2/UK2 you have to retake Yunnan and Shan state if the Japanese put down an airbase and probably otherwise, or Japan can plonk down their entire airforce on those territories. After that, retreat to India. The extra round of inf bought will make the naval assault too hard J4 without land based planes. By J5 Japan will probably have enough because its troops can have walked across from the Chinese coast and it’s unlikely you’ll be able to stop it applying the entire air force, well unless the USA gives it better things to do I suppose.
Radical plan with a bid? Bid a fighter, land on Java with UK and ANZAC, fly all the planes there, use the ANZAC DD to block bombardment. With the ANZAC planes reaching India, it will be real hard to take India J3. Assumes that Japan doesn’t win the SZ62 attack. If Japan can fill and use all 3 TTs to attack Java, it’s still only 37% and -7IPCs. Not great for the allies but not great for the Axis either.
I don’t think either of these plans is as good as a Yunnan stack if you have enough of a bid to do that.
