Interesting. I've just started reading Burma 1941-43 which is Mostly the GOC's despatches . There were initially only 2 battalions of Brits in Burma as well as the Burma Rifles and he did not have a high opinion of the BRs. Only up to the fall of Rangoon at this stage but interesting from that higher level perspective.
The figures I posted earlier are for later in the war. I have also painted up some of the AB western desert figures to use for earlier in the war and they would be suitable for everywhere from Burma to Singapore and as Australians early on in PNG.
I've also painted up some of the EWM Brits in topees. From my reading the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in Burma in 1942 were very poorly equipped. No steel helmets and only a small issues of bren guns, the remaining LMGs being Lewis guns. It seems the army in the Far East was very much the poor cousin when it came to new equipment. There is some evidence that British units in Malaya, like the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, were similarly equipped and in topees. There are photographs of them training for combat wearing them in December 1941 however it's less clear if they had been issued steel helmets for combat by the time the Japanese invaded.