If they J1, then I would suggest buying an extra carrier and having these guys hang out with the USA, making the main fleet much less vulnerable to a pre-emptive attack. With a sub or two, and a tac, the ANZAC forces can usually mop up the Japanese fleet if it survives an initial attack by the US.
If they dont, then your planes can land on java, usually, they find a good way to cross, and at least as far as the Japanese TTs are concerned, you can screen those out (even if they have an NB)
The idea of sending the 6 planes to moscow, however, denies you alot of other milestones in the game; without the grey and tan planes in theatre, Bombay is easy to take, and if not, Sydney will be. Players who are not cautious about building reserves with ANZAC can easily find both capitals under threat, esp. once Japan can use Malaya’s base. Whichever one you defend, they attack the other (now that you can’t cross back). If you dont defend either, they can take both.
Another fine plan is to marry the UK air force from India with the one from the Med, assuming that one survives. That roving force can do alot to wreck the Axis, or it can defend the factories in the core area (persia, Iraq–the axis mundi of the board. pun intended).
No matter what you do, its still more than one turn from India to Moscow, and this is very intentional on the part of the game designers. At that juncture in the game, the areas around Moscow are under threat, so you can’t land planes alone anywhere but moscow.
Sending all your auxiliary planes from the minor allies to rescue Moscow will probably save it, but you’ll lose the game when the Japanese dominate that board, or the Italians/Germans take Africa and the 2$ Russian zones. For all these reasons, I prefer to leave most of those planes nearer to where they start, using them to tear Japan apart, rather than sending them on a long range adventure that prevents them from attacking and expressing threat. If Japan is threatened by the USA, there are plenty of times that they have to weaken their westward push, and at that point, UK planes can join whatever Russian stacks are still fighting, once you see the outcome (save Bombay, we hope).
