World's Worst Fighter Aircraft, The 1941 RAAF Brewster Buffalo !
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- Опубликовано: 21 июл 2024
- Built in New Jersey in the USA in a failed bid to win a USA Navy Contract to supply Carrier Fighters, in early 1941, both the Finnish Government & the British Government Purchasing Commission were DESPERATE for Fighters, and the British got their orders in first, so the RAF got all the Carrier-Fighters, whereas the Finnish Air Force got the Land-Based Fighter Versions, and they apparently (?) arrived with Gun-Mountings which didn't fracture with normal usage, and Ungreased Ammunition, & maybe the bigger Engines, which arrived with the Buffalo Replacements that showed up in Australia, after the fall of Singapore.
The "One, Inevitable, Allowable Error" in the Narrative shows up at 14:57, when I said "Engine-Mounts"...; whereas I should have said "Gun Mounts"...., mea culpa
Squafron Leader John Balfe AFC was born in Tasmania in 1912. He was a journalist, representing The Melbourne Argus & Sydney Morning Herald, stationed in Darwin before WW-2. Balfe held a Pilot's Licence frim 1934 to 1952, logged a total of 5,000 Flying Hours, he was a Pilot in the RAAF Reserve prior to WW-2. He spent it's first year in the Army serving in Darwin as a Captain.
Before the first Japanese Raid on Darwin in February 1942, Balfe returned to the Air Force. He served in it for the next 8 years.
War Without Glory
C. John D. Balfe 1984.
Macmillan. Melbourne. Australia.
ISBN 0 333 35677 2.
Tell that to the 490 Soviet planes shot down by the Buffalo in Finnish service.
Different Brewster Buffaloes. And the Russian planes (I-15 was a biplane, I-16 had fixed landing gear) and pilots sucked, versus the Japanese in modern planes (Zeros, Ki-43s) with more combat experience.
@@Icanhasautomaticcheeseburger Finns had practically the same Buffaloes with only little modifications. With those Brewsters only Finnish Fighter Squadron 24 shot down 54 Hurricanes, 13 Spitfires, 4 Tomahawks and also many newer Soviet fighters, like 38 MiG-3, 45 LaGG-3, 22 La-5, 30 Jak-1 and 7 Jak-7. So, they shot down more than 200 modern fighters. The same time they lost only 14 Brewster in air battles (some more were lost in accidents and attacks to airfields). List of those victories can be found in this Finnish Wikipedia article: fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luettelo_Lentolaivue_24:n_ilmavoitoista_ja_sotatoimitappioista
Later this squadron received Messerschmitt Me-109 planes, and Brewsters were given to Fighter squadron 26. Even Brewster was outdated, they managed to shot down total 17 Soviet planes including 1 Airacobra, 1 Warhawk, 4 La-5, 1 LaGG-3 and 2 Jak-9.
Brewster had it’s limits, but more than two years it was the best fighter in Finnish air force. Thus, it was given to best pilots too. In other countries they had much better planes and only bad pilots used Brewsters. Also, Soviet pilots were less skilled and their best pilots were usually sent to other fronts against Germans. This probably explains, why Finns were so successful with Brewsters, but later they were much more successful with Me-109's.
@@miikasallinen3604 Thank you. The Finns put the hex on them with Brewsters.
@@Icanhasautomaticcheeseburger
Polikarpov I-15, I-15 bis had fixed landing gear.
I-153 and I-16 didn't
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polikarpov_I-153
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polikarpov_I-16
This video did say worst of the Pacific theatre.
The Finns had a 26 to 1 kill ratio with their Brewsters. In fact: After evaluation of claims against actual Soviet losses, Brewster BW-364 was found to have been used to achieve 42½ kills in total by all pilots operating it, possibly making it the highest-scoring fighter airframe in the history of air warfare.
The Brewster works well, in the right hands.
G'day,
Thanks mate,
Well, the sources I've seen are a bit more modest than yours, in that the Finnish Buffalo Kill-Rate versus the Soviets was 10:1 and when the Yak-3 showed up the Finnish Air Force upgraded to Bf 109 Fs & Gs, & Hs, and their Kill-Rate suddenly became 25:1, as soon as they got their first Friedrichs.
So it isn't so much a matter that "the Buffalo was a Good Fighter Plane", so much as that the Finns were Shit-Hot Pilots.
Also, the Finns got the *Earlier Buffaloes,* the ones which were *lighter* than the later (higher-powered & more heavily armoured) models which the British bought, & then foisted off onto the RAAF...
Then, again, the Finnish Buffaloes had *German Guns, German Ammunition, & German Radios..;* so their Gun-Mountings failed to fracture, firing the Cowling Guns didn't blind the Finnish Pilots with Vapourised & Re-Condensed Gun-Grease from their *not* US Naval-grade .50 Cal. Ammunition, and the German Radios weren't rendered useless by the Tropical Storms which don't commence at 11 AM every day over the Pripet Marshes & on the Kola Peninsula..., and the Soviets flew Low, so the Finnish Buffaloes never had to fly sufficiently high for their Fuel-Pumps to fail..., either.
Basically, the Finnish Buffaloes were *different Aircraft* which did not suffer from the flaws of the RAF/RAAF/NEIAF/USMC Buffaloes which made such a piss-poor showing in the Pacific, & they were up against badly-trained Soviet Peasants, rather than Japanese Combat-Veterans who'd been winning in China for 5 years before they showed up in the Southwest Pacific...
Ilmarri Jutilainen scored 34 of his 96 Victories while flying in Buffaloes, and his Aeroplane was never ever hit by so much as a single Bullet or Shell fired from any Soviet Aircraft..(!), and whereas Bubi Hartmann scored 352 Kills for the Luftwaffe, & thus he's "officially the most successful Fighter-Pilot" in the history of *sneaking up on Strangers & shooting them in the back, because one's "National Honour" requires it...,* he was shot down, & baled out or crash-landed, at least 4 times...; so I reckon that makes Jutilainen the "top ranked Fighter Pilot in all Human History".
Because, due to Global Warming's ongoing deconstruction of the Global Economy, *No Nation will EVER again provide 97 Aeroplanes for anybody to try to shoot down without being bullet-holed, in order to be able to beat Jutilainen's Record....!*
I once had a few conversations with a bloke who flew a Fairy Battle in France, he was shot down with the "Low-Level Flight" trying to bomb the Bridges between France & Belgium, after May 10, 1940..; a lot of 1930s Hairygoplanes could fly reasonably well, but were not actually particularly well suited for the task, if ever one was ordered to sit in them and then take off to "Pursue the King's Enemies...!"
Such is Life,
;-p
Ciao !
I was just reading the wiki. Yeah, wiki isn't perfect, but regarding fighter plane stats, who is. I said 36/1 when wiki said 26/1, which I tried to correct last night, but couldn't find this vid again till you posted.
The uneveness of pilot training, and airplane evolution, in WW2 was true all over the globe. I'm not an expert, but the disparities in aircraft and pilots was everywhere in most theaters, and the historical preoccupation with nationalism/equipment never dies.
I always wondered how I 16's would do in the best hands, but history just distorts they're place in the evolution of WW2 technology, as if the I-16 and untrained pilots were Russia's answer to the 109. Nobody had an answer to the 109 or the Zero (farther east), because those "answers" take time, but being first with the best didn't often happen or last very long in WW2, but the I-16 might be one of those.
Your argument is well taken. The title of worst, though, would require a comparison with 20-30 other mediocre planes, and is in the end an impossible "truth" to ascertain.
It wasn't gonna happen that the stubby looking aircraft (I-16, Buffalo, etc) would receive the support to evolve, perhaps for good reason, but my impression is that many Finnish pilots, flying the Finnish modified Brewsters liked them. The people who didn't bother to modify them, weren't allowed to modify them, received the worst versions of them, or who didn't train hard with them, didn't.
I suspect your overall assessment is that the US procurement system (then and now) is a mess is accurate.
The recent trillion dollar outlay for new nuclear delivery and weapons systems is stupid enough to warrant a "worst" designation for military reasons, and every other reason.
Jeff Moore
Yeah, I've been calling the F-35 the Jet-Powered Buffalo, and Oz is signed up to buy about 75 of them for $200,000,000 at per each...
I think the I-16 and the I-15 both did pretty well in Spain, even against the Bf-109s (C & D models...).
Here in Oz, they used the biggest Motor available (off a DC-3), with the Centre-Section & Tailfeathers of a Wirraway (a Harvard with a Rear-Gunner & a .303 Browning for the Pilot.., one lucky bloke shot down one Zero with one Wirraway, once...!), and a short little rotund Fuselage & stubby Wings, and called it the "Boomerang"...; it worked out allright for Ground Attack, but essentially the concept of putting Guns on a "1930s Radial Racer " style of thing turns up being about 500 Hp shy of being able to carry all the Military Add-ons and still stay in the sky with the rest of the Competition.
Last November I was at the Armidale Airshow, with 2 Phone-Cameras & a 300mm Zenit Photosniper (1982 vintage Soviet Telephoto "Spy-Camera"), and if you title-search my Uploads for "Armidale Airshow...." there's both Video & Stills of a restored Boomerang, a Wirraway, and a Harvard & a Texan for Comparison ; there's also a Yak-3, and a 6-ship formation team of Nanchang & Yak Trainers ("The Russian Roo-Lettes")..., and while they were flying low under the worst Thundery Sky I've ever seen any Airshow continue to happen under the Team's "Patter-Man" said a thing I suspect you'll enjoy...,
"Soviet Aeroplanes were designed by Geniuses, intended to be maintained by Agricultural Peasants, and to be flown by Lunatics - or Drunks...!".
The Russian Roo-Lettes were doing Formation Aerobatics at Armidale in Yaks & Nanchangs while the RAAF "Roulettes" Formation Display Team, in their Turboprop Pilatus PC-9s, were grounded 60 miles away at Tamworth, by the vile Weather...
Such is Life,
;-p
Ciao !
Appreciate the story. You've been bitten hard by the aerobug. I'm just a couch admirer of the stuff "daddy" flew.
They don't appreciate camera's in museums? It's hard to imagine that these craft were used like Dixie Cups back then, and are precious now.
Where we (US) produced planes like toasters, now its like a craft guild. I remember when Popular Science had regular promos of "consumer" planes to replace your car.
Jeff Moore
Oh yeah, I got bitten very hard indeed by the Aero Bug, I used to think I was Biggles.
If you search for "The 8 Hp, 1975, Red-Baron Skycraft Scout ; World's 1st Legal Minimum Aircraft..." you'll get to see my first Aeroplane hanging up in the Transport Museum 50 miles to the West of here...; I was it's 3rd owner, and the last person to have flown it, in 1978 - it's not much of a "claim to fame", but it means that I can honestly say that Wilbour & Orville had a better Aeroplane in 1903 than what I made my first solo in...(!).
By the early 1960s Cessnas & Beechcraft & Pipers were pretty boring, and Hang Gliding was the reaction, and then Ron Wheeler put a Lawnmower Motor & Wheels onto a "Tweetie" and then managed to get the Department of Transport to write Air Navigation Order 95.10 ; so for a while, here in Oz, we were allowed to fly uncertificated machines without needing any Licences..., and the rest of the World followed, so "Minimum Aircraft" became "Microlights" & "Ultralights" & now they're "Recreational Aircraft", and you need a Micrometer to tell a Jabiru from a Cessna 152 - because General Aviation Aircraft & Recreational Aircraft now overlap...., they've merged.
The vision of everybody having their own Aeroplane and flying to work was never going to happen, because not everybody has the kind of mind which can juggle all the variables needed to manage to not crash when moving through 3 dimensions and managing Airspeed & Angle of Attack & Navigation as well as avoiding collisions...; and the smaller, lighter, and simpler the Flying Machine then the more dependant it will be on having Perfect Weather to operate in.
As the old saying goes, "If you have time to spare then travel by Air...!" ; alluding to the liklihood of being delayed by Weather or diverted to somewhere other than wherever one was trying to reach...
Eventually I crashed my Ultralight Motorglider, and 24 years later I still limp and carry a Walking-Stick...; and I've never bothered to rebuild the Aeroplane, it sits in it's Trailer as a reminder of the days when I was young and thought myself to be unbreakable...
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
Meanwhile, the Blackburn Firebrand and Skua : *sweating nervously*
Finnish air victories by Brewster in WW2 was 447 by wins and 19 of lost!
G'day,
Thanks.
Yeah, something like that...; but as I said in the Video, the Finnish Buffalo was in a different situation entirely from the Pacific Buffalo.
The Finns did not use AmeriKan Guns, to blind the Cockpit or shoot their own Wings off, they used German Guns, which worked as designed.
The Finns did not use AmeriKan Radios and the German ones were not blanketed by the Static from the Tropical Thunderstorms which did not occurr on the edge of the Arctic Circle.
The Finns fought a Low Level Air War, where the Buffalo Fuel Pump did not fail to supply it's Engine with juice.
The Finns were not fighting Elite Combat Veterans in Zeros which were 80 or 100 mph faster than their Buffaloes, they were up against half-trained Students in Polikarpovs...
Finally, though the Finnish Buffaloes had a 15:1 Kill-Rate against the Soviets..., as soon as the Finns were re-equipped with REAL Fighter Aircraft (German Bf-109 F & G models) the Finnish Fighter Force's Average Kill-Rate jumped up to 25:1...
The Finns honestly THOUGHT that the Buffalo was a good Aeroplane, they rated it to be "at least as good as the Curtiss P-36 Warhawk", and EVERY other Air Force on the Planet found the Curtiss P-36 to be about as useful as Teats on a Bull...
The fact of the matter is that the Finnish Pilots were a very great deal better trained than the Soviets, the Buffalo was about equal to the Polikarpov I-16 & it was better than the Biplane I-15...; and when the Finns decided that the Buffalo was "a good thing" they had never had an actually good Fighter, so the Buffalo was the best they'd ever seen...
The world is a complicated place, and simplistic comparisons are almost never valid ; but while the Buffalo was the King of he Karellian Peninsula, it was also a completely hopeless Piece of Shit in the Pacific.
Such is Life,
;-p
Ciao !
@@WarblesOnALot the French also had some success with the hawk 75
@@pouletbidule9831
G'day,
Thanks.
Yes, I have heard (read) that some Curtiss 75s did some fighting with the French...; but I never know if the "Curtiss 75 Stories" are particularly credible...
Apparently when the first Spitfire met & was badly frightened by a Fw-190a over the Channel (1942 ?)..., the RAF attributed that as being a Jagdwaffe Joyride in an old captured Curtiss Hawk 75.
The Radial Engine apparently confuzzlicated quite a lot of people, and often enough anything featuring "The Sound Of Round", if it looked a bit different..., then it automatically became
"a (captured) Curtiss Hawk 75..."
at least, in the eye of the beerholder it did...(!).
Such is life,
Have a good one...
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
The Finns had sense enough to fix the guns and the fuel gauges.
G'day,
Thanks...
Yeah, and they used German Radios too, which weren't effected by the Static of the Tropical Thunderstorms which Finland & Russia are untroubled by....
And, not only but also, the Finns put experienced Combat Pilots into their Buffaloes, and sent them up against Soviet Neophytes in I-15 Biplanes, & I-16 Open-Cockpit Monoplanes...; whereas the RAAF, the RAF, the RNEAF & the US Marines all put their Peacetime-trained Combat-Neophytes into overweight and underpowered Buffaloes with one set of Guns to render the Pilot blind from Cosmoline Grease on the Windscreen & another set to shoot their own Wings off, Radios which didn't work, and Fuel-Pumps that required manual assistance over 10,000 Ft..., all to try their hands against experienced Combat Veterans in Zeros - just when the Zero was at the very peak of it's effectiveness as a Fighter...
Chalk and Cheese, pretty much...
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
@@WarblesOnALot It was a good plane with American guns and radios. Pilots liked it. It had a good armament 4 browning m2 gun but it was a bit slow. It was roomy and easy to maintain. Good strong landing gear. Worlds best kill ratio/plane. It wasn't the best or fastest plane but it was well designed and made.
Buffalo was far from the best fihgters, but the best we Finns could get on tose days. In 1941 it was competitive to all Sovjet fighters, even for land and lease P-39 delivered to SU, as being more agile, even though armament and speed was far below P-39. It served OK for Finnish air force for two years, but bagan to be outdated by end of 1942 in dog fight also in Finnish-Sovjet air war.
It is diffucult to compare, because circumstances and opponets wary so much. However BF-109 would have been a bad choice to Asia Pacific too, due to its' short operation range and weak, tricky handling landing gear. BF served well in Finland, but too many of them were crashed on takeoff and landing in our short and bumpy forest runways. We had also unexperienced pilots flying them.
Sorry I was wrong with P-39, I checked the files and I didn't find P-39 kills by Finnish buffalo at quick sight, but but many with Sovjet P-40s
@@hannu1321 they also had some okay French/American aircraft like the morane 406 or hawk 75
You a totally wrong on this one matey,it was a good reliable plane for the day.
It wasn't a high altitude aircraft
G'day,
Thanks.
Actually, nope..., you didn't read the Title...; the 1941 RAAF Brewster Buffalo WAS indeed a truly hopeless piece of Shit.
I went to the Source Material, and herein read from the First-Person Accounts of people who flew the things.
I know that in Finland, with an earlier model of the Buffalo which was lighter, using German Radios & with Guns that neither blinded the Pilot nor broke their Mountings & Jammed, and they didn't shoot their own Wings off either...; the Buffalo did brilliantly well, against the Polikarpov I-15s, I-153s & I-16s being flown by badly-trained Neophytes.
But this Video isn't about the Finnish Buffalos, it's about the ones which the RAF gave the RAAF to try to operate in Malaya & Singapore.
Different Aeroplanes in a different War, y'see.
Such is Life,
Have a good one.
;-p
Ciao !
The RAF achieved about 35 aerial kills with the Buffalo.
@@WarblesOnALot what German guns and radios? If 50cal Browning m2 is german then so be it. There were radio made in usa. Summer 1944 changed 50 cal machine gun to finnish made machine guns. Only thing finns ghanged on the plane was gun sight and bigger rear wheel. Engine had 940hp on it. I think that it would be dum to try different machine guns if it allready has good guns in it. They still use m2 in USA.
@@Pectopah123 I take it you've heard of post market modifications, or modifations on planes at all?
it was a dog...
If it was the worst how did the Finns manage to shoot down 41 or 43, I forget the exact amount, of enemy aircraft with one. I think it was one of the best if it was used right. No other aircraft in the entire war matched the record of the Finnish one.
Sorry Jeff, I should have read before writing.
'Pappy' Boyington said of the Buffalo that "It would do a loop in a phone booth". Maybe there was something lacking in the pilots?
G'day,
Thanks.
Actually, the Buffalo in the Finnish Museum shot down 44, and it's the highest scoring individual Airframe in the history of War. One Finnish Ace scored 43 Kills in Buffaloes, 5 Finns became Aces in Buffaloes (and only 500 Buffaloes were ever built, so 1 Ace produced per 50 Buffaloes constructed. Eleven Finnish Aces shot down 205 Enemy Aircraft while flying Buffaloes, and because of the Finnish success with them Buffaloes join the Fokker Eindekker in having shot down more Aircraft than were built in their own Production-Run.
Because the Finnish Buffaloes were early models, lacking the later "improvements" which made the Pacific Buffaloes so badly overweight, and lacking the .50 calibre Guns to break their Mountings, they used German Guns (which worked), and German Radios which also actually worked), and the "Continuation War" happened below the height where the Buffalo's Fuel-Pump failed...
But the biggest factor is that the half-trained Soviet Peasants in Polikarpovs (I-15s & I-16s) were not highly trained elite Squadrons of Combat Veterans with years of fighting in China under their belts, and the Soviet Beginners were not flying Zeroes, either.
If it's any consolation, the Finnish Buffalo Jockeys shot down 15 Soviets for every Buffalo they lost...; but when they were re-equipped with an actually good Fighter (Me-109 F & G models) the Finnish Kill-Rate jumped up to 26:1.
Two different Aeroplanes, differently equipped & differently operated by two different Air Forces, against two different Opponents, in two different Air-Wars, in two differnt Locations and two different Climates....; it isn't like comparing Apples with Apples, as it turns out.
The RAAF Buffalo was not the same as the Finnish Buffalo, in any way other than that they were both built in a 5-storey Building in New York by the Brewster Company.
Such is Life...
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
Finnish fighter pilots had interesting opinions of some aircraft used by Soviet pilots. They agreed that Hurricane was one of the most easiest aircraft to shot down in combat while Soviet I-16 Rata was far better, nimble and dangerous in dogfight.
My dad was a mechanic -- Aviation Machinist's Mate, USNR -- called to active duty about the end of 1940. He worked on nearly every carrier plane the Navy had all through the war. Of them all, he said, the Brewster Buffalo was the worst. "They broke down all the time". When loaded with armor, with self-sealing fuel tanks, with enough fuel to be useful, the Buffalo was under-powered. Further, the air-frame was too small to fit a larger engine, so it was a dead end.
My father was ground crew in that squadron in Malaya and worked on the Buffaloes. He said they were considered quite 'state of the art' in the late '30's but obsolete by 1941. Jack 'Kongo' Kinninmont was a school friend of his and they joined up together. Jack stayed on in the RAAF after WW2 and flew Vampire jets in Korea (where he said he blacked out after putting one into a dive to attack a ground target and came to just in time to pull the stick back).
My grandfather was a fitter armourer with 21sqn in Malaya also.
My uncle was an aircraft armourer in RAAF 453 squadron in Singapore. He related stories to me of his time in Singapore the Sumatra. He spent his 22nd birthday sheltering in dugout trenches on Singapore Island. The armourers would have to remove ammunition from crashed ir damaged returned planes before salvage crews would inspect the aircraft for possible reuse.
Those lads had some guts to say the least. Total respect. Hope they got more combat worthy aircraft after the Buffalos.
Finns called this plane Pearl of the sky "Taivaan helmi" or "Pylly-Valtteri" with total of 460 victories...it was still used in 1944 against much more modern soviet planes and still achieving victories...this plane was no joke in right hands and tactics...cheers mate
The Finns weren't up against zero's
@@wufongtanwufong5579 Finns were against soviet union 193-1944
My Father built the Brewster Buffalo. Pappy Boyington loved them!
Pappy never flew the buffalo. EVER! It came out when he was in boeings and then went to china and was gone when he came back.
One problem that does not get much mention is that Brewster had a reputation for poor quality control. When they moved on to building other planes like the Corsair, the government had to take over their factory because of the crap that was coming off the assembly line. Of course, this was a different factory than the one that produced Buffaloes. That one was a multi story building in New York City that was totally unsuited for mass production of anything. Moving airframes on freight elevators between floors during the course of construction is not an efficient way to build hundreds of airplanes.
G'day,
Thanks.
Yes..., the Feature Article which Aeroplane Monthly printed some years ago mentioned that stupid 4-Story Factory setup.
After assembly, Buffaloes were disassembled for trucking to an Airfield to be Test-Flown, then pulled to bits again and crated-up for shipmemt via Train to California or an East-Coast Seaport for a Boat trip to Hawaii, the Phillipines, Indonesia, Malaya, Burma..., or Finland.
Have a good one.
;-p
Ciao !
The Finns used the Brewster with great success.
G'day,
Thanks,
Yes, that's right...
That's why I said exactly that, at the conclusion to the Video.
And I also said that the Finnish Buffaloes had German Radios & German Guns, and they were fighting below 10,000 ft against Aircraft with no performance advantage over them.
The RAF/RAAF (& USMC) Buffaloes were afflicted with Fuel-Pumps which required manual-assistance above 10,000 ft in a War happening between 10,000 & 20,000, using British HF Radios which were useless against Thunderstorm-Static in a place where Lightning commenced by 10 AM daily, and they had one set of Guns with which to blind the Pilot with another set that either jammed immediately or they shot the Wings off....
Also, the Finnish Fighter Pilots using Buffaloes in the Continuation-War, against Polikarpov I-15s & I-16s flown by inexperienced Soviet recruits (since the last "Purge") were mostly veterans of the 1939-40 Winter-War.
Whereas the RAAF Buffaloes, self blinded & deaf, gasping & spluttering from Fuel-Starvation, were flown by Peacetime-Trained Fighter-Pilots facing combat for their first time...; and they were up against Japanese Combat-Veterans in Zeroes, at the peak of the "Zeke's" combat career, when all the bugs had been worked out of it, and in every way it outperformed the Buffalo by a wide margin, & it's experienced Pilots had never been beaten.
It helps if one watches the entire Video, before showing off one's pet personal store of knowledge with a Rapid-Response Comment on the Thread...
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
greets and you are giving info i did not know ;) kiitos
granskare the Fins lightened the airframe and got Superior proformence
@@WarblesOnALot As you pointed out, he winter war in Finland was very, very different from the Pacific theatre.
The Russians had success with the P-39, as well but once again, under different circumstances. Much of the aerial combat on the eastern front was fought at relatively low altitudes. Partly because of weather and partly because of the nature of the fight. The German pilots were often charged with protecting ground troops subjected to the many, many close support ground pounders the Russians flew.
They spent a lot of effort trying to protect their Stukas.
The soviet planes were not outdated. Only their pilots were crap... just like were the allied pilots flying the Buffalo, which is why they lost so badly to the japanese piltos. There was nothing wrong with the plane.
The Brewster model B-339E, (Buffalo in British service), was defiantly a very flawed fighter, but the engine used in that model was the Wright GR-1820-G105A rated at 1,100 hp for takeoff. It may be true the engines were only delivering 600 hp in the field due to fuel differences, engine wear, climate conditions, and maintenance problems, but the engine was still rated at 1,100 hp under test conditions. However, even at the full hp rating, the Buffalo was “meat on the table” for the Mitsubishi A6M Zero! (Data source; War Planes of the Second World War by William Green, Volume IV, page 33.)
G'day,
Thanks.
Yeah, it was totally hopeless in the Pacific, the Dutch and Australians and British & the US Marines all had similar experiences...; slow, overweight, underpowered, with Radios & Fuelpumps which didn't work, and Guns which jammed, blinded the Cockpit & shot it's own wings off....
So it's really weird that the Finns have a Buffalo in a Museum because it shot down 44 Enemy Aircraft, and thus is the highest-scoring individual Airframe in the history of War..., while 5 Finns became Aces while flying Buffaloes (there were only 500 Buffaloes ever built !), 11 Finns shot down 205 Enemy Aircraft while flying Buffaloes, and one Finn scored 43 Victories in Buffaloes - while the Finnish experience so heavily outweighed everything which happened to Pacific Buffaloes that the Buffalo joins the Fokker Eindekker in having shot down more Enemy Aircraft than were built in it's own Production-Run.
I grew up on the stories of how bad it was in Malaya, and really only came up to speed on the Finnish experience as a result of the Comments in this Thread...; but I underconstumble a lot more about it these dayze...
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
Incredible, and to think that the Fw190 was already in service during this time miles ahead of the Zero and the Buffalo
G'day,
Thanks.
Well, yeah, the Butcherbird was just coming into service in latw '41, but the Zero had been in service for 2 years before the FW-190, and the Buffalo was designed to meet US Navy Carrier-Fighter Specifications in about 1936...
And the FW-190 was designed in the knowledge that the Zero existed, and was beating the Bejesus out of the AVG's P-40 Thomas-Hawks in China.
So, a Zero a Buffalo and a FW-190-a are not really contemporaneous...(?).
Such is Life,
Have a good one.
;-p
Ciao !
Good points , can’t really compare apples to oranges but I looked on wiki and noticed the FW 190s first flight was June 1939 and the zero April 1939 .Not sure how much Kurt Tank knew about the Zero at the time .Safe to say the FW took longer to develop before it became operational .
Ah, yes, I see what you mean ; April to July in '39 - with both Aircraft being on the Secret List in both Countries..., means that both Designers were working independantly.
Perhaps both were inspired by Polikarpov's I-16 "Rata" ?
It, as well as the I-15 & the I-115 were so tightly and efficiently cowled that the Radial Engine's Waste-Heat, expanding the Air allowed to enter the flat-fronted Cowling for cooling the Cylinders and Heads, generated a Net Thrust as it departed through a constricted annular Slot and each Exhaust Stub blew through it's own annular Exit-Port - so the Exhaust Gas velocity, via Venturi Effect, scavenged the heated Cooling-Air and sucked it out of the Cowling....
And the Ratas were fighting Me-109s in Spain in 1936...
The Yanquis called it the "Meredith Effect" when it was the North AmeriKan P-51 Mustang's Radiator which they were discussing...; but Polikarpov got there firsties !
Such is Life,
Have a good one.
;-p
Ciao !
It's about fulfilling requirements. The Buffalo and zero were designed with range as a requirement, price, and speed of manufacturing.
The Zero was a naval fighter. The fw190 was not built for carrier operations (obviously) and therefore didn't have to make those design compromises. The zero had twice the range of the fw-190 and I think the Buffalo did too. Every decision an engineer makes has a result and a side effect. Compromise after compromise. The fw-190 is obviously superior to either of them on paper, but not necessarily in the big picture. After all, the Fw190 did get massacred by allied aircraft in the end. Sure it was better than a Spitfire, but it wasn't better than 2 Spitfires.
@@AdamAdamHDL Better than which Spitfire? The fw-190 was better than than the MK5 but not the MK9. The later Griffon engined Spitfires also outperformed the later upgraded fw-190.
Nice one Wobbles. Thanks for the aviation history lesson.
The range part was untrue. The Buffalo had longer range than any other allied aircraft until the Mosquito and P-38 came into service.
My dad trained American pilots on the ordinance found on F3Fs, F4Fs, SBD Dauntless and briefly the Brewster Buffalos at NAS Miami. They lost 6 pilots and planes in the first flight of buffalos. The planes required a higher octane, I think 104. The problem was nobody mentioned it when they delivered the planes from Britain. The US Navy rolled them into the weeds as soon as the F4Fs and SBDs showed up. Nobody wanted to fly them.
G'day,
Thanks,
Um, why did they get delivered via Britain ?
The Brewster Company was a US Concern, the Factory was in New Jersey in a 6-Storey Building ; which was itself an insane arrangement, with components shuttling up & down in Elevators during manufacture, then they were Test-Assembled at the Factory, and disassembled for transport to an Airport, reassembled for Test-Flying, before being disassembled again for Crating into Wooden Boxes for entrainment to a Port in California for shipment to the Pacific, or in New York to go to Finland...
I don't think any went to Holland, though the Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force did operate some Buffaloes, before surrendering them (in flying condition) to the Japanese, who then made lovely Propanda-Movies with them...
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
That was how my Dad told the story. Perhaps he made the British connection in error.
+Tony Haines
Well, it would be easy to mix up the origins of something which was mostly operated by the British RAF & Finland, particularly if he was mainly operating on Wildcats & Hellcats, Corsairs & Bearcats, in Florida - where a Buffalo might be a rare sort of a thing ; because the Buffalo performed so much worse than anything else the US Fighter Manufacturers were supplying, and a lot of the British Carrier-borne Fighters in 1939-41 were almost as bad as the Buffalo (check out the Blackburn Skua which was pretty vile, and the Blackburn Roc which was even worse...).
Most Servicemen get to know a fair bit about the stuff which they personally use a lot, and they collect a lot of rumours and impressions & scuttlebutt about the equipment they hear about other people using...; it's all part of "the Fog of War", apparently...
Take it easy,
;-p
Ciao !
There were different models you must remember. Those that were sent to Finland were early models closer to USN specification with better quality control. These were then stripped and lightened to be “the Zeke of Finland”. USN issues were recalled and corrected, gained weight and were flown by green pilots at Midway so never got a good review versus the Wildcat. British and Dutch models were mass produced, and fitted with refurbished ex us airline DC-3 engines in order to complete the orders. Gun mounts and other details were sub standard. It did not help that British orders specified extra armor, self sealing tanks and Brewster cut corners in production. Due to their incompetence producing Corsairs they would be put under administration. Had the RAF received half the planes at twice the quality then they might have had a chance against the Japanese.
They were not purposely stripped but demilitarized and sold as surplus due to policitical reasons. No guns, no sights, no carrier gear...
A late family friend flew them for the US Navy in the very early days of WWII in the Pacific. The Navy got rid them as the landing gear assembly was weak and prone to collapse on the harsh Navy cable, bone jarring, stop landings. He just said he was glad to longer be flying it.
G'day,
Thanks.
In the Southwest & Central Pacific, and "French Indo-China", and Burma, the best that can be said of the Buffalo is that 1 Kiwi from the RNZAF, flying with the RAF in Malaya & Singapore scored 5 Kills while flying his Buffalo, the only Ace the Buffalo ever made, outside of Finland, whereinat about 15 people became "Aces", while they were Buffalo-Jockeys - and one Buffalo Airframe racked-up 44 Aerial Kills under the command of various different pilots (the highest scoring individual Fighter Airframe..., in the history of War in the Air, perhaps...?).
Just(ifiably ?) sayin',
Take it easy...
;-p
Ciao !
Also had a friend and mentor who flew them for the Navy early in the war. He said they yawed so bad in flight that you would find yourself looking forward out of the side of the cockpit. He became a 13 kill ace after he got a "Cat". He also came home in one piece and lived into his 90s.
I would say that the Blackburn Roc was a worse fighter.
It was so good they grounded them and used the turrets as ground bases anti aircraft defence so you are probably right mate!
I'm starting to re-consider anything said by Australian Pilots about WII aircraft. The Finns did just fine with them, dropping the weight, tuning them up and using them to their strength. (Turn fighting in mountain areas.) They didn't like the p-39 either, I'm starting to think it was a lot better than the Australian flight reports.
There are no mountains in Finland. And finns didn't modify Brewsters a lot. They only replaced the gunsight and replaced the original 7,62mm mg in the fuselage with 12,7mm LKK42 from 1943 on.
The Brewster has the record for most aces per planes produced and the most kills to a single airframe (44). The Finns called it the 'pearl of the sky' and rated it their first choice as a fighter. It shot down Russian fighters as well as P40's and Hurricanes by the dozen . Even in the Pacific it still had a kill ratio of 2:1. Maybe it was politically easier to blame the aircraft and not the incompetent and unprepared people in charge of our defence at the time. The Finns adapted it to make it work and it proved to be a very good aircraft. It is not the fault of the aircraft if it is not operated or maintained to suit the conditions it is expected to perform in.
BTW- it did win the USN bid for a carrier fighter and it was the first monoplane fighter with retractable wheels and enclosed cockpit to operate from USN carriers.
G'day,
Thanks.
All that and a bag of Potato Chips...
But, as I've already said, the Finnish Buffalo used German Radios which were not drowned-out by the Static from the Tropical Thunderstorms which do not occurr over the Karellian Peninsula...., and the Finns used German Guns which neither blinded the Pilot with Grease on the Windscreen and nor did they shoot the Wings off the Buffalo when fired...., the Finns fought a Low-Altitude Air-War wherein the Buffalo's Fuelpump was not overwhelmed by the low Air-Pressure and therefore it did not oblige the Finns to pump Petrol with one hand any time they went above 10,000 Ft...; and the Finns never began (in the Winter War) by being Combat-Virgins, Neophytes, up against highly-trained "elite" Combat-Veterans with 5 years of War in China behind them...., and finally, the Finns never fought against Zeros - the Finnish Buffaloes scored most of their Fighter-Kills over Polikarpov I-15 Biplanes, & I-16s...
Also, I query your assertion that the Buffalo avhieved anything like a 2:1 Kill-Rate in the Pacific..; I think you have that backwards, and even that sounds overly generous, two Buffaloes shot down for every Japanese Aircraft destroyed by a Buffalo sounds about half right - in that all other Buffalo losses from Accidents & Air Raids don't figure in the "equation".
The USMC Buffaloes out of Midway were all shot down for no result..., the Netherlands East Indies Army Air Farce's Buffaloes got shot out of existance - except for the ones which they surrendered to the Japanese for evaluation & the making of Propaganda Films, the RAF and RAAF Buffalo experience was as I detailed in the video.
Overweight, underpowered, encumbered with useless Radios, fitted with suicidally counterproductive Guns & a dysfunctional Fuel-Pump....; the Brewster Buffalo was not a suitable Conveyance, in which to venture aloft intending to pursue The King's Enemies, not within the Pacific Theatre of Operations, it wasn't.
Take it easy,
;-p
Ciao !
David Toohey OHHH PLEASE! YOU'RE SAYING IT HAD MORE KILLS THAN MUSTANGS OR HELLCATS... COMPLETE BULLSHIT MY FRIEND. COMPLETE BULLSHIT... LOL!!
+Samuel Parker
G'day,
Thanks.
Ah, well, you might want to rethink that position...
What he said was that the Brewster Buffalo (which had a really small Production-Run, something like 500 Airframes all-up) produced more Aces than any other Design, calculated on how many Aeroplanes were built versus how many Pilots became "Aces" while flying them.
I'm looking at "Air Aces" , 1983, by Christopher Shores, and on page 110 it names 10 Finnish Aces who scored between 5 and 42 Aerial Kills while flying Buffaloes... (226 Kills between them).
No Australian, British, Dutch, or AmeriKan Buffalo Pilot ever became an "Ace" while trying to stay alive in a Bufflo against the Japanese...
For context, from Page 7 of the same source, "...during WW-2 over 1,000 British Commonwealth Pilots, and 1,200 AmeriKans, and 2,000 Soviets, and 4,000 Germans were credited with 5 or more Aerial Victories, and thus became "Aces" as the word is commonly understood. These men probably claimed well over 50% of all the Victories credited to their respective Air Forces..." (while Finland produced 8 Aces during the Winter War & another 11 during the Continuation War ; as I said, 10 of the 19 became Aces while they were flying in Buffaloes).
So, the Buffalo produced roughly 1 Ace for every 50 Aeroplanes manufactured..., and meanwhile there were about 26,000 Spitfires built but there were not 1,300 "Spitfire Aces", nothing like it - more like 300 or 400 at most because the Brit's had LOTS of other "Successful Fighter Designs" ; there were what, 15,000 Mustangs (?) produced - but there were not 750 "Mustang Aces", were there...(?) - more like 300 perhaps, and a big bunch of them involved "Ground-Strafing 'Kills'..." which the USAAC's 8th Air Farce allowed in 1944-45.
The fact is that a great big Shitpotful of the Spitfires and Mustangs never ever made "Aces" out of their pilots, because they were far too busy crashing & burning under the Guns of some of those 4,000 German Aces...; and the US Pilots spent such a limited time in Combat in the Pacific before being rotated to a Back-Area and then promoted to become an Instructor..., that not a lot of people (relative to production-figures) ever made "Ace" Status by flying a Wildcat, Hellcat, or a Corsair (and I don't think any Kittyhawk Pilot ever made "Ace" in the Pacific).
So, yeah, you'll have to give him that point.
The Finnish Air Force also made the Buffalo one of the very very few Fighters to have shot down more Enemy Aircraft than the number of it's own Production-Run - despite the disasterous showing which the Buffalo put up in the Pacific.
It's a connundrum.
Take it easy...
;-p
Ciao !
More kills /aces per planes produced. Read the text before you sprout your bullshit.
+David Toohey
G'day,
There there, take it easy Old Bean, I had already explainificated to him the magnitude of his erroneousness in underconstumbling what you said.
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
The Buffalo used the same Wright R-1820 engine that many other aircraft used. Depending on which supercharger arrangement the engine had, it was rated from about 900 HP to 1350 hp. For the Buffalo it was rated at 1100 to 1200 hp depending on model. Early models had a problem with the engine throwing oil at full power but the Finns found a solution. The AT-6 Texan trainer (Harvard) had a 600 hp engine with 1340 cubic inch displacement, a physically smaller engine never put in the Buffalo The later versions of the Buffalo had much larger fuel tanks giving the plane an incredible 1400 mile range - but loaded up with fuel decreased the agility of the plane.
The Brewster Buffalo may be the only fighter credited with destroying more enemy aircraft than its total production run. Most of the British Brewsters were destroyed on the ground, just like the losses the USA suffered in Hawaii and the Philippines.
G'day,
Thanks for the "Gen." about the Engines...
On that point about destroying more Enemy Aircraft than it's own Production Run, it's not a statistic which I've ever previously encountered encountered...; but I suspect that the Fokker Eindecker (E-1, E-2, & E-3...; they were the same basic Airframe but with different Armament fitouts & Engines) a hundred & two years ago during the "Fokker Scourge", would have racked up more Kills than there were Eindeckers ever built (?).
The other contender which immediately springs to mind is the Sopwith Camel, which is said to have shot down more Enemy Aircraft than all other Entente Cordiale ("Allied") Aircraft put together...; there were 5,490 Vamels built, and more Camel Pilots were killed in Training-Crashes than died as a result of Enemy Action, but I don't know what the total number of Kills made by Camels actually was.
My father's Uncle flew a Camel, (Lt Les. Wharton MM, 4 Squadron AFC, October 1918), he made the History Books on his first flight over the Lines when he wandered off on his own, attacked a pair of LVG Two-Seaters & shot one down (!), was then himself attacked by at least 6 Abatrosses (Albatri ?), which holed his Fueltank so he dived into a Cloud and hid ; on emerging he was knocked-out by a fragment from an Anti-Aircraft Shell, and managed to wake up in time to pancake just behind the British Front Lines..., I still have an Australian Flying Corps Xmas Card which he sent from Hospital in England during the first week of November 1918....
He'd been a Seargant at Poizierres, whence came the MM & Commission (& a Shoulder-Wound) while capturing 500 yds of a German Trench..., and he'd originally started as a Private going onto the Beach at ANZAC Cove on 25 April 1915 & he was there for 5 months until breaking an ankle...; after his War he became a Schoolteacher (like his father before him, and as did all his siblings except my Grandfather - the Family's "Black Sheep" who became a Wheelwright/Woodsman/Blacksmith, instead...).
His son grew up to fly a Tour on Lancasters out of East Anglia in 1943-44, before flying Catalinas from Western Australia to Ceylon, Madagascar, & Sooth EfriKa in '44/'45, and Post-War he pioneered QANTAS' Lockheed Constellations flying into Hong Kong...; the year I finished High School, he retired as Director of Flight Operations... (1978).
Hence, I have a longstanding fondness for Sopwith Camels, but I've never seen one in real life...; the closest I ever got was working on VH-PSP, an Armstrong-Siddley Gennet Major powered Sopwith Pup Replica, built by Transavia in Sydney, in 1977/78 - when I worked at Olde Bowral Airfield for the Pup's owner in '78-'79...
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
So your father's uncle's son flew Catalinas in Sooth Efrika in 44/45. Probably 209, 259 or 262 Squadron RAF or maybe SAAF 35 Squadron or perhaps seconded to 321 (Dutch NAS)? Care to give a name?
+Jimbob Jones
G'day,
Well, as I heard the stories, Alan Wharton (son of Les Wharton the Camel-Jockey) flew a tour of operations as a Terrorflieger (Goebbels invented that word, just for the Aircrew of Bomber Command !) in Lancasters out of Anglia bombing Germany in 1943, then he came back to Oz and flew Catalinas from Western Australia to Sooth EffriKa ; after the War he joined Qantas and "pioneered the Lockheed Constellation Route into Hong Kong...", retiring as Director of Flight Operations in 1978.
I never met him, only ever heard of him from my father, but I do know that he was in the RAAF and I think they flew the Catalinas out of Carnarvon, where they called themselves the "Black Cat" Squadron...; the closest I ever got to catching up with him was when I was a Student Nurse at RGH Concord, and I had a Patient who'd also flown Lancasters out of England in '43, who remembered Alan Wharton and told me an annecdote.
Apparently there was a time when Alan complained that his Aircraft was flying Left Wing Low, so it was re-rigged and after a Circuit then he reckoned it was flying Right Wing Low, so it was re-re-rigged and after another Test Flight he said it was flying with "Both Wings Low" (!) ; whereupon his Flight Leader or Squadron Leader told him to "Take your bloody Aeroplane Wharton, wrap it up in a Ball-of-String, and then shove it up your Arse !"....
And therefore, apparently, following that little incident, his nickname was "Stringball", or "Ball-Of-String Wharton", ever afterwards ; at least, I heard of it 40 years afterwards and 12,000 miles from where it had occurred.
As a kid I was much more fascinated by the Sopwith Camels than the Lancasters...
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
Howzit in Arsetralia bru? Anyways, I could find only one Wharton, Fl.Lt. initial R, who was 262 squadron navigator, operating from various bases in South Africa, primarily St. Lucia estuary, about 100 miles North of Durban. In early '45 the remnants of 262 was absorbed by SAAF 35 Sq, and a number of those blerrie Aussies were inherited. 35 Sq had detachments at many places along the East African coast as well as at Seychelles and Tulear, Madagascar. In around April '45 the squadron switched to Sunderlands, which was evidently not mentioned by your cousin (?) Pity I could not find an Allan Wharton RAAF, but I'll check some other sources. Oh, yeah and it's actually pronounced "Souf Efrka"! Cheers.
+Jimbob Jones
Well, go your hardest...; Alan Wharton was RAAF, and his father Les Wharton was in the 1st AIF at Gallipoli, and then France, before transferring to the AFC...
My mother's father was licenced as an Aviator by the Royal Aero Club of NSW, who issued him International Aviator's Certificate #96 in September 1917 from the W. Stutts' School of Aviation at Williamtown, NSW ; he joined the AFC on New Year's Eve 1917, & had his AFC Wings pinned on his Chest by the King of England, at an Investiture at Buckingham Palace in March 1919.
As an Infant, I recall my maternal Grandfather, and between him & Biggles I was thoroughly hooked on Aeroplanes, at a very early age.
You might get a giggle from my "Personal Aeroplanology..." Playlist...(?).
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
I don't see how the engine was rated at 1200 HP while it delivered only 600 HP.
Someone fudged the books and no one caught on to it.
G'day,
Thanks,
I think you're right...; in hindsight.
When I made this Video I was too trusting of the printed-word.
;-p
Ciao !
This is what I was looking for
You've got a lot videos
I saw your comment earlier on another video about the Buffalo suggesting this video
G'day,
Thanks !
Yeah, I have about 4,000 Videos in my Back-Catelogue - there are 18 Playlists of them, sorted by Topics, with 5 Playlists of Wildlife Encounters sorted by Species...
This Video is in my "Personal Aeroplanology ..." Playlist...
My Chanbel is a bit of a rare Corner of YT, it's never been monetised, or partnetised, I have no Computer, nor any skills to use one ; my daughter created the Channel & bookmarked it onto my prepaid Mobile Phone ten years ago.
Originally I started trying to use YT to publicise the results of my R & D Program into
"The SunFoil Project..."
and that's one of the Playlists.
It turns out that, for a Hermit - I have a fair bit to say (!).
Searching my Videos by "Most Popular" is pretty good value, too ; maybe give that a go (?).
Have a good one...
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
@@WarblesOnALot
Did you know about Hargrave and "The Great Stone Book" ?
And did you know there was an advertisment at the beginning of your Buffalo video ?
You read well and sound great, I know a vertully unknown story that needs telling and you would do it justice
Have you ever heard of "The Battle on the Bakri Parit Sulong Road" Malaya January 1942 ?
Or "The Massacre At Parit Sulong ?
@@hodaka1000
I hadn't heard of the Great Stone Book.
RUclips these dayze puts Ads on any video they feel like sticking them into.
Being unmonetised means that YT gets the money - to offset their costs involved in hosting all my Videos for free to me - and playing them Worldwide, on request
It still feels like a good deal, to me.
Such is life,
Habv aGoodn one....
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
The Supermarine Spitfire,
To make matters worse, the Japanese had a fighter aircraft which could ‘dance’ even better than the Spitfire, a fact which was very well known even at the time, and about which the newly-arriving Spitfire pilots were warned.
The Zero developed its maximum speed of 291 knots at its rated altitude of 16 000 feet. The Spitfire produced 290 knots at 15 000 feet, confirming that below 20 000 feet the two types were more evenly matched in speed performance. Given the Zero’s much superior acceleration, in practice this meant that the advantage tipped more heavily in favour of the Zero at these lower altitudes. In comparative tests at 17 000 feet, the Spitfire was again unable to safely draw away from the Zero. The unanimous conclusion of Wawn and Jackson was that ‘the Spitfire is outclassed by the Hap at all heights up to 20,000 feet’.
As was already well known, the Zero had all the advantages in combat manoeuvrability at slower speeds. This was a product of the Japanese machine’s superior power loading and lower wing loading. The Zero stalled at only 55 knots, whereas in clean configuration the Spitfire stalled at 73. Being able to fly more slowly while still under complete control meant the Zero could fly tighter turns without stalling out. The stall speeds cited apply to straight and level flight at 1G - hardly a realistic scenario in combat, where pilots would typically stall out of accelerated turns. In a modest 3G turn, the Spitfire would stall at 130 knots IAS, which equates to a TAS of 242 knots at 20 000 feet. At 6G (a hard turn or pull out at high speed, with the pilot blacking out), the Spitfire stalled at 184 knots IAS, which equated to 257 knots TAS at 20 000 feet, and 294 knots at 30 000. The latter was only 11 knots less than the Spitfire’s maximum speed at that height (at the emergency power settings of 3000 rpm and plus 2 ½ pounds boost), so it is clear that as height increased, the pilot found himself stuck in an increasingly narrow corner of the flight envelope, until any attempt to pull G would result in an instant high speed stall. This helps to explain the high incidence of Spitfires stalling and spinning out of combat turns over Darwin in 1943.www.darwinspitfires.com/index.php?page=spitfire-vc-versus-the-zero
Japanese air raids on Northern Australia hastened the formation in late 1942 of No. 1 Wing RAAF, comprising No. 54 Squadron RAF, No. 452 Squadron RAAF and No. 457 Squadron RAAF, under the command of Wing Commander Clive Caldwell, flying the Spitfire Vc(trop). The wing arrived at Darwin in February 1943, and saw constant action until September. The Mk Vc versions received by the RAAF proved unreliable and, initially at least, had a relatively high loss rate. This was due to several factors, including pilot inexperience, engine over-speed due to the loss of oil from the propeller speed reduction unit (a problem resolved by the use of a heavier grade of oil)] and the practice of draining glycol coolant before shipment, resulting in internal corrosion of the Merlin engines.
Another factor in the initial high attrition rate was the relatively short endurance of the Spitfire:most of the sorties were, as a matter of course, flown over the wide expanse of ocean between Australia, New Guinea and Timor. Even when fitted with drop tanks the Spitfires could not afford to fly too far from base without the danger of running out of fuel over water. As a result, when an incoming raid was detected, the Spitfires were forced to climb as fast as possible in an attempt to get into a favourable position. In the prevailing hot, humid climate this meant that the Merlin engines were often overheating even before combat was joined. The Spitfires were fitted with the Vokes tropical filters which reduced performance: in an attempt to increase performance the filters on several Spitfires were removed and replaced by the standard non-tropicalised air intake and lower engine cowlings which had been manufactured by the base workshops. The experiment proved to be a failure and the Spitfires were quickly refitted with the tropical filters.
Many of the Australian and British airmen who flew in 1 Wing were experienced combat veterans, some of whom who had flown P-40s with the Desert Air Force in North Africa, while others had flown Spitfires over Europe. They were used to being able to outmanoeuvre opposing fighters and were shocked to discover that the Zeros they were now flying against were able to outmanoeuvre the Spitfire. Several Spitfires were lost before the pilots learned not to attempt to get into a turning dogfight with the agile Japanese fighters. In spite of these problems the Spitfires were reasonably successful and at times were able to catch the Mitsubishi Ki-46 reconnaissance aircraft which had hitherto flown fast enough and high enough to evade interception
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Spitfire_operational_history#South_West_Pacific
Of course, the Brits and Americans thought that the Japanese could not produce decent aircraft and because of their bad eyesight could not fly aircraft. We certainly learned the fallacy of that thought when we met the Japanese Zero.
G'day,
Thanks mate,
Too true...!
;-p
Ciao !
I don't think that's true. See John B. Lundstrom's "The First Team: Pearl Harbor to Midway" for the USN view of the Japanese.
Did one of those pilots really avoid getting shot down by turning only when he saw the Zero's guns smoke?
Thank you Sir. The F2A was the first ever model I made in the 80's...I knew it was crap... but did not realise just how bad it was. 186575 App Hazel.
G'day,
Thanks !
Actually, you should note that it was only the Pacific Buffalo which was a heap of Dung with wings, in Finland the Arctic Buffalo produced about a dozen Aces, Ilmarri Jutilainen scored 34 of his 94 Kills (without his Aircraft taking a single Bullet or Cannon Shell hit from any Enemy Aircraft !) while flying Buffaloes, and in their Museum the Finns have a venerated Buffalo which has 63 Kills & may perhaps be the highest-scoring indivudual Fighter Airframe in the History of War (Armstrong's Sopwith Camel in Italy being the other contender ), but the 63-Kill Buffalo is certainly the highest-scoring Fighter Airframe which survived.
Feel free to backtrack me to my "Personal Aeroplanogy..." Playlist...; you may well enjoy it (?) !
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
Question:
Which was the best fighter in December 1941 - March 1942?
1) The RAF/RAAF Brewster Buffalo Mk.I
or its most commonly encountered opponent in Burma, Malaya and Java:
2) The IJAAF Nakajima Ki-27b ‘Nate’?
Discuss.
Thousands of aircraft makes and models manufactured over the pass 100 years or so, they are all special in their own ways.
The Buffalo was not the worst fighter of WWII. The Finns did very well with it in northern Europe. In the Pacific the Zero was possibly the best fighter of the time, and was flown by very experienced pilots. At the time Allied airmen generally suffered from poor training, tactics, leadership and they were on the defense. Hurricanes and Spitfires were handed their asses when confronted by Zeros and no one is calling them terrible fighters.
The Brewster was popular with the Finns in WWII in their war against Russia. From Wikipedia: The Finns were the most successful with their Buffalos, flying them in combat against early Soviet fighters with excellent results. During the Continuation War of 1941-1944, the B-239s (F2A-1) operated by the Finnish Air Force proved capable of engaging and destroying most types of Soviet fighter aircraft operating against Finland at that time and achieving in the first phase of that conflict 32 Soviet aircraft shot down for every B-239 lost, and producing 36 Buffalo "aces".
In service from 1941 to 1945, Buffalos of Lentolaivue 24 (Fighter Squadron 24) claimed 477 Soviet Air Force warplanes destroyed, with the combat loss of just 19 Buffalos, an outstanding victory ratio of 26:1.
Many Finnish pilots racked up enormous scores by using basic tactics against Soviet aircraft. The default tactic was the four-plane "parvi" (swarm), with a pair flying lower as bait, and a higher pair to dive on enemy interceptors. The Soviet Air Force was never able to counteract this tactic. The top-scoring B-239 pilot was Hans Wind, with 39 kills. Lt Hans Wind, with six other Buffalos of LeLv 24, intercepted some 60 Soviet aircraft near Kronstad. Two Soviet Pe-2 bombers, one Soviet Hawker Hurricane fighter, and 12 I-16s were claimed for the loss of just one B-239 (BW-378). After evaluation of claims against actual Soviet losses, aircraft BW-364 was found to have been used to achieve 42½ kills in total by all pilots operating it, possibly making it the highest-scoring fighter airframe in the history of air warfare.[citation needed] The top scoring Finnish ace, Ilmari Juutilainen, scored 34 of his 94½ kills in B-239s, including 28 in BW-364.
I have seen elsewhere--but cannot find the source--that he Buffalos were also successful against Spitfires, and that a single Buffalo had the highest number of kills of any other fighter aircraft of WWII, though it was flown by various pilots, not a single individual.
So, are the Finns better pilots than the Aussies?? With a handful of Buffaloes, the Finnish airforce drove the Soviets from the skies over Finland. Perhaps the hot, humid conditions of the Pacific theater lessened their performance.
G'day,
Yes, indeed, the Finns in Buffaloes were VASTLY better trained than the Australians in Buffaloes.
The Finns had flown through The Winter War in Fokker Monoplanes with fixed Undercarts and open Cockpits, fighting Polikarpovs.
The RAAF's experienced Fighter Pilots were in England or the Middle East, and the people sent to fly Buffaloes in Malaya were Combat Virgins, trained to try refighting the First World War under conditions and assumptions which were NOTHING like what Reality was like in Malaya & Singapore in '41 & '42.
The RAAF did no better in 1941/'42 in the Pacific than the RAF did in 1939/'40 in France ; because their Tactics were Bullshit, the Aeroplanes were full of Bugs and Snags and inherant Weaknesses, and all their Training was wrong - designed for War in 1918.
But the Germans had played lots of Away Matches in Spain, as had the Japanese in China - both since 1936...; and so the JapaNazis shot the living Shit out of the Allied Fighter Farces for the first year or so, wherever you go.
Shooting down Beginners, flying overweight underpowered unreliable Hairygoplanes, using shitty Tactics, in defence of a bullshit Strategy...; is usually not a difficult feat - regardless of the Nationalities involved.
Such is Life,
Have a good one.
;-p
Ciao !
The Finnish pilots were very well trained. Many Aussie and Kiwi pilots were novices. It makes a big difference when you are fighting against experienced combat pilots.
@@WarblesOnALot Also the pacific fights occurred in high altitudes where the Buffalo was not good. The fights with soviets happened at low altitudes.
@@dingdong2103
G'day,
Yes'um.
Which is why I talked at length about the Pneumatic Fuel Pumps which only worked below 10,000 Ft, and to go any higher than that the Buffalo Jockeys had to pump Fuel manually to maintain power..., and the Air War over Karelia was mostly below 10,000 ft whereas in the Pacific it was from 10,000 to 20,000 ft.
The Gun-Mounts and the Radios and the Greasy Ammunition were each one, as big and as bad of a problem as the dodgy Fuel-Pumps.
Such is Life,
Have a good one...
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
Aviation technology was accelerating very rapidly in the late 30s and early 40s. Many airplanes were obsolete within a few years of going into service. The Buffalo was one of them. A lot of nations were caught very short going into WW 2 and had no choice but to use whatever was available. The Buffalos would have been withdrawn a lot sooner if there had been anything there to replace them with but there wasn't!
Good research here. Did not know about Sopwith's help to design the Zero. Dramatic reading of the pursuit of the Buffalo you made in here. It was enthralling.
For everyone to know: Finnish Buffalos' did not have german guns at any point of the war. Only modifications that finns made were replacing the gunsight and replacing the original 7,62mm mg with 12,7mm LKK42. Self sealing fuel tanks and any armor were never fitted in planes that were sold to Finland because they were the early production F2A1. Some planes were fitted with russians engines and wooden wings, just for test purpose for the Finnish Brewster copy VL Humu that was under design at that time.
A good pilot in a bad plane wins over a good plane with an ordinary pilot.
The finns proved that. The Soviets had many good planes and good pilots too.
Only US Naval ace with aerial victories in both Europe and Asiatic combat theaters, Dean “Diz” Laird of Loomis, CA, told me he loved the aircraft. “It was the first aircraft that could do anything I wanted when pushing the stick over”.
Hailing from Singapore here and I can’t tell you how frustrating it was for the Buffalo fighters under the Commonwealth who fought the Japanese KI-43s. Even with a small number of Hurricanes as reinforcements it didn’t help much.
Only the Dutch East Indies Air Force had some success with their Buffalo fighters but eventually they had to give it up. Interestingly only “IL-2 1946” has an extensive campaign on this.
G'day,
Thanks !
The Brit's don't much like to have people knowing about the times they marched off to
Waaauughhh(!)
And got shot to shit
Before
Surrendering.
Rue
Britannia
Is not a tune they want to hear being sung.
Such is life,
Have a good one...
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
The U.S. Navy DID buy Buffaloes. In fact they won out over the Wildcat in the first contract. Eventually though, the Wildcat, the F4F, was accepted, but the Buffaloes continued in service with the Marines. The U.S. Marines also were flying the Buffalo, the F2A-3 version at the battle of Midway. They were all shot down being no match for the Japanese Zero.
They also used the plane effectively for what it was. The Brits had to learn the hard way you don’t get into a turning dog fight with the zero.
Actually, the F2A beat out the early F4F for the fighter contract for the USN. It became the first monoplane fighter to serve with the US Navy. Just FYI. :)
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Thanks,
All that, and a bag of Potato-Chips, but the Buffalo was still the most hopeless piece of shit operating in the Pacific in 1941-42...; at least, this side of the Vickers Vildebeste, it definitively WAS THE WORST MACHINE is which one might be dispatched, to pursue and chastise the King's Enemies...
Take it easy,
;-p
Ciao !
The Finns didn't think so. It was one of the most successful fighters they had.
+Big Gay Al
Yes, indeed.
But the Aerially Battle-xHardened Finns had German Guns, and German Radios, in a low-altitude Air-War, agsinst Neophyte Russki's.
Shit happens......
;-p
Ciao !
Odd how they used this machine which was totally outclassed by the opposition, but when the Boomerang came along it was not used as an interceptor because it was considered too vulnerable in combat even though it was a lot more comparable to the AM6 performance wise.
G'day,
Thanks again,
Well, in 1941 the Buffalo was literally all the British, Dutch, Australians & US Marines in the Pacific could obtain, so they tried to make a go of it..; but they had far too many factors stacked against them.
The Boomerang was an attempt to take the biggest Engine Oz could get (from a DC-3) and stick in on the Centre-Section & Undercarraige of a Wirraway, and cobble up a Single-Seat Fighter Fuselage to follow along behind the Engine, and tinker a set of Wings to lift the Fuselage while riveting-up a set of Tailfeathers with which to control the Wing...; the idea then was to give it some Machineguns and use it as an emergency stop-gap Fighter.
The Concept dated from late 1941, in the days when Canberra was planning to defend "The Brisbane-Melbourne Line" because there was only One Monoplane Fighter in Australia when Pearl Harbour was bombed, it was a Mk-1 Hawker Hurricane, it was based in Melbourne, it had NO GUNS at all, and was only flown for Airshows & Recruiting Events - because in 1941 under the Empire Air Training Scheme the role of the RAAF was to train Australians to be posted as Replacements for the RAF in Europe, & the Muddled East.
So, about the time Japan annexed French Indo-China (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos...), Oz decided to try to hand-whittle something with which to have a better chance than a Wirraway if the opportunity ever came to set off in pursuit of The King's Enemies.
I think that by the time the Boomerang was coming off the Production-Lines it was 1943, and both the Amerikans & Australians had flown the Zero which was captured in the Aleutians & repaired for evaluation...; and it was known that the Boomerang wasn't up to snuff when it came to playing Air-Superiority, it would always need something like a Kittyhawk, or a Wildcat, perhaps a Tropicalised Spitfire to fly Escort for it if any Zeroes were around.
And because so much had been made of "Australia's First Indigenous Fighter-Plane", in the Pro-War Propaganda..., it had to go into service, so therefore it became a Ground-Attack/Army Co-Operation Machine ; in New Guinea & Burma, for a while..., until it could be quietly retired behind news of Spitfires & Mustangs being issued to the RAAF, with the CA-5 being under development when Hiroshima was nuked.
The Buffalo experience taught the RAAF to know better than trying to fly their own Bullshit Propaganda in the same Sky as an Enemy who had superior Hairygoplanes...; thus, the Boomerang was never permitted to disgrace itself, it was merely "somewhat disappointing"..., though "it was well-liked by those who flew it...".
I saw a restored Boomerang flying, in November 2015, at the Armidale Airshow ; the Videos are up, posted then, if you want to see it...
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
How comes that this plane needed more fuel when flying higher? With lower air pressure the manifold pressure drops and then the engine needs less fuel per minute, doesn't it?
G'day,
Thanks.
Well, as far as needing less Fuel as the Air gets thinner, yeah - that is right ; but the problem was that the Fuel-Pump was Pneumatic..., and above 10,000 Ft there wasn't sufficient Air-Pressure to pump enough Fuel to meet the Engine's requirement.
I dunno the details, but I'm assuming that there was a little Engine-driven Air-Compressor to pressurise the Fuel-Tank, which "blew" the Fuel from the main Tanks up to a small Gravity Tank on the Firewall which then fed the Carburettor...; like a Sopwith Camel, but without the Windmill, and there was a Manual Fuel-Pump to deal with any leak or failure of the Tank or the Air-Pump.
Presumably the Buffaloes' Air-Pump needed the thicker Air below 10,000 Ft feeding it in order to maintain functional Output-Pressure against the emptying Main Tanks...?
Good question though...
Have a happy Solstice Festival.
;-p
Ciao !
The only Zero casualties were due to the Japanese pilots who died laughing at the crap we had to fly in the RAAF.
G'day,
Well, kinda...; but the Lockheed Hudson was almost competitive, and there was a Kiwi in the RAF (Sgt GB Fisken) who shot down 6 Japanese Aircraft over Singapore, while flying in his Buffalo - and then he got another 5 more later on, over the Solomon Islands in a P-40 Warhawk, flying with the RNZAF.
Perhaps the biggest problem was the White Imperial Mindset, which led the RAAFie Chappies to expect the Japanese to be shortsighted, untrained, and flying Kites made of Rice-Paper & Bamboo..., because God was unquestioningly assumed to be a fat old white Englishman who would always put his finger on the Scales to ensure a British Imperial win.
As it turned out though, Jesus was the first Marxist, and it was the USSR which defeated Fascism and the Great Waaauuugh(!) of Two killed off every far-flung Dream of Empire which the (thieving) EuroPeons thought that they had owned....
Such is life,
Have a good one...
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
Can we say that Zero`s over power in pacific war theatre made possible to came Buffalo`s miracle appears in finland. That plane never would not have been sold to finland if it would have been popular at bigger war theaters.
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Thanks.
Um, well, I don't think we can say that..., because Finland bought it's Buffaloes after the Winter War of 1939-40, but before the Japanese started taking over French Indo-China in 1941...; when Buffaloes were being rejected by the US Navy but France & Holland were buying them, for the Netheands East Indies Air Force & the French Indochinese Air Force, and the US Marines wanted to buy some, as well.
Once Finland invaded Russia in the Continuation War (1941-'44) then it got no more War Materiel from the US or British Empire because the USSR was an Ally being attacked by Germany, Italy, Hungary, Rumania, Vichy France, Volunteers from Holland, Norway & Denmark (in the Viking SS...), and Finland.
I think that White EuroPeon/British/AmeriKan Imperial Racism ensured that when the Japanese Aircraft turned out to not be Biplanes made of Bamboo & Rice-Paper - flying backwards to keep the dust out of their eyes, and the Japanese Aircrew turned out not to be badly Short-sighted with no ability to become any sort of a theat to the Oh SO Very Superior EurpPeons
It's almost a pity that Umlarri Juttilainan never flew a British Buffalo in the Pacifc, against the Japanese...(?).
It would've been interesting to know.,
Have a good one,
Such is Life.
Ciao !
The Brewster F2A Buffalo was an American Built aircrafts first flight was in 1937
The US never regarded the Buffalo very highly. By 1941 it had been totally replaced on carriers by F4F Wildcat (which was also on the way out). The state of British and Commonwealth aircraft in the far east was an absolute disgrace.
The Finnish success with these planes is often mentioned in the comments below, the Finns had hand me downs of many different types that otherwise didn't see much action. Gloster Gladiators and Bulldogs, Fokker D.XXIs, Buffalos and whatever they managed to capture and repair of Soviet equipment.
G'day,
Thanks.
Yes, the Finns did do very well with the Buffalo, as indeed is often mentioned here in the Comment Thread...
Once they replaced the Radios and fixed or replaced the Guns, and because they were able to fly & fight low enough for the Fuel-Pump to operate properly...; then they had an Aeroplane which was able to beat the Polikarpovs, and there were no Zeroes flying for Stalin, either.
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
@@WarblesOnALot yes but russia had lot of p39's, hawker hurricanes, Spitfires and many exellend russian planes. Yes no zeros.
It's a constant in Australia for Australia's Politicians and Bureaucrats to make astonishingly bad buying and management decisions. A good decision is usually a total accident.
It was still way better than the Boomerang. Overheating engines put them out of service worse than air combat. When they could fly they fared better than the Hurricane against the Zero.
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Thanks,
The Boomerang was a makeshift design, essentially the biggest Engine Australia could source (out of a DC-), with the Centre-Section & undercarraige & Tail off a Wirraway, with a set of outer Wings & Cockpit to fair the extremities together...; it was slow, but still better than a Wirraway for fighting Zeros with.
And, by the time Boomerangs were bring designed Buffaloes were unavailable.
;-p
Ciao !
Spitfires got whipped by the Zero too, because they tried to TURN with them.
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Actually, when the RAAF finally got Spitfires to Darwin they mostly crashed out of fuel, after getting lost, after getting separated , after being scrambled too late to reach the Bombers before they'd disgorged their loads..., those which didn't crash on take-off in the dustclouds on the Dirt Strips...; and any which mixed it with the Zeros in a Turning-Fight got a horrible surprise, after which about a third of those who made it back to Base broke their Undercarraiges while trying to land.
When reading between the lines in the Propagandised Dispatches of the time.
Such is Life,
Have a good one...
;-p
Ciao !
Which version of the Spitfire are you referring to ?
Not even the P-51 Mustang could turn with the Zero.
@@tomw377 Neither the Hellcat or the Corsair could out turn a zero.
@@giauscaesar8047 All of them
Was it Mitsubishi A6M Zeros or Nakajima Ki 43 Oscars that fought the Buffalos over Malay and Singapore?
Thanks for posting,very informative!👍🏿
Jman👀
G'day,
Thanks mate !
I'm a bit of an Aeroplane Tragic, so I post stuff which I think is too good to be forgotten...; I have a "Personal Aeroplanology" Playlist..., if you feel like checking out some obscure feats of "Airmanship" (?).
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
This is what "Pappy" Boyington had to say about the Buffalo from someone who talked to him in the late 70's :
I remember asking him about the Brewster Buffalo (Then, Now and Always, my favorite aircraft). I had no sooner finished saying the word 'Buffalo', when he slammed his beer can down on the table, and practicaly snarled, "It was a DOG!" (His emphasis). Then he slowly leaned back in his chair and after a moment quietly said, "But the early models, before they weighed it all down with armorplate, radios and other shit, they were pretty sweet little ships. Not real fast, but the little fucks could turn and roll in a phonebooth. Oh yeah--sweet little ship; but some engineer went and fucked it up." With that he reached for his beer and was silent again. After that answer, I somehow had the feeling that I had just gotten a glimpse into Boyington's attitude towards life in general.
The worst fighter of WW2 was the Blackburn Roc. Even as a monoplane with a retractable undercarriage, it was still at least 20 mph slower than a Gloster Gladiator.
When I see superlative adjectives in titles, I just don't bother.
G'day,
Thanks,
Well, y'see, as it happens, I'm glad to be able to reassure you that your misapprehensions are all in vain...; and the VANITY is all your own.
My own first Aeroplane hangs in a Transport Museum, due to it's remarkable primitivity, wherein the Wright Brothers had a better Aeroplane in 1903 (Title-search YT, for "The 8Hp, 1975, Red-Baron Skycraft Scout..." to see that story...) ; so I have a bit of an affection for Aeroplanes with bad habits, marginal performance, and multiple "Traps for the Unaware" designed & built into them.
The simple fact that the Pacific-War Brewster Buffalo had two pairs of Guns, one pair which blinded the Pilot with,recondensed, Vapourised Grease from the Ammunition congealed onto the Windscreen in the Propeller-Blast - and a completely different pair of Guns which broke their Mountings, recoiled backwards while still firing (now uncontrollably) while waving around, shooting out through the Wing-Skin & Mainspar, and finally shooting the Wings off...; in my opinion, fully qualifies the Brewster F-2A Buffalo as being indeed..., THE WORLD'S WORST FIGHTER AIRCRAFT...
Get used to it, Munchiekins.
Stop projecting.
Not everybody is as deeply addicted to telling Bullshit as you are, in some pathetic attempt to make your Rave more interesting.
Some people are content to limit themself to telling the Truth...; and I try to be one of them.
Such is Life,
Have a good one...
;-p
Ciao !
Very interesting!
G'day,
Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it.
Have a good one...
;-p
Ciao !
Sort of depends on what is the thing that's expected to be fought. Certainly not a first-line fighter, to put up against other fighters. But if they could have gotten to bombers they would have been effective on those. Of course, there'd be no point of first-line fighters if one didn't wish to protect their bombers. Why this was not evident to planners I don't know.
A defense fighter does not need the range of an escort. The Spit was an extra terrific defense fighter... not a good escort, as an example. But the Zero, though having range, were flimsy.
G'day
Thanks mate.
Well, yeah..., if you scroll through the Comments here you'll see that the Finns had early-model less-armoured Buffaloes without the Mount-breaking .50 Guns, with the Air-War there mostly below 10,000 Ft, and German Radios which worked, no Tropical Thunderstorms to generate Thermals, Hail, Cu.-Nim's & Lightning's Static, with Combat Veteran Pilots instead of Rookies, and Polikarpov 1-15s, I-115s, & I-16s flown by Novices to fight against..., rather than 5-year Combat Veterans in Zeros...
In Finland the Buffalo may have nailed the record for the most Aerial Kills made by 1 Airframe (37) in the history of Air Combat, it shot down more Enemy Aeroplanes than Brewster ever built Buffaloes...; and only it and the Fokker Eindekker can make that claim.
Spitfires were lovely as Defensive Fighters if they were protecting a tiny little Potato-Patch surrounded by Radar and networked with Ground Observers & Fighter Control Radio Networks which permitted interception of approaching Bogeys before they crossed the Coast & got behind the Radar.
Here in Oz, in March 1943, when the Spitfires finally showed up to protect Darwin from the February 1942 Bombing..., they were almost absolutely bloody hopeless, destroying more of themselves with Take-Off Crashes (Formation Take-Offs on narrow dusty Airstrips..., 1,500 Hp accelerating full-throttle into the leading Section's Dusty Slipsteam...), Landing Crashes (that shitty little narrow weak splayed-out Undercart - almost as horribly crippling as the delicate set of Dunlops dangling under Mister Messofshite's 109 series of Fighters with NO Useful Range at all whatsoever, outside little tiny confines of Europe), and getting Lost over the Ocean and/or Ourback with no Radar to vector them onto the Raids or steer them back tp Base.
On top of that some Shitefires were shot down by the Japanese Escort Fighters..., and a minuscule number of Japanese Aircraft were downed, AFTER they had bombed whatever they wanted to hit.
In the Real World, the further one flew a Spitfire out from the Cliffs of Dover.., the more bloody useless they were...; even the Soviets preferred Hurricanes - for the Landing-Gear...
So, yeah..., it's a multifactorial Equation.
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
Found it. Thank you.
G'day,
No worries,
;-p
Ciao !
The 1,200 Horsepower engine applied to the USN designated F2A3. The final production model.
G'day,
Thanks.
One can learn a lot about the Buffalo from backscrolling this Comment Thread...
Particularly with respect to the Finnish Buffaloes..., with less Power but less Armour, and thus less Weight, and the Radios, Fuel-Pumps & Guns all fixed function as required.
In Helsinki there's a Buffalo in a Museum which has 44 Aerial Kills - which it scored with various different pilots flying it ; it is THE HIGHEST SCORING INDIVIDUAL AIRFRAME IN THE HISTORY OF WARFARE UPON THE EARTH...
One Finnish Ace scored 43 Kills in a Bufffalo, 11 Finnish Aces shot down 205 Kills while flying Buffaloes, 5 Finns became "Aces" while flying Buffaloes...; the Finnish Buffaloes shot down 507 Soviet Aeroplanes, but Brewster only built 500 Buffaloes.
Thus, the Buffalo joins the Fokker Eindekker as the only two Fighter Aeroplanes which shot down more Enemy Aircraft than were built during their own Production-Run.
All of which makes the much vaunted Camel, SE5a, Albatross, Fokker Triplane, Fokker D-7, Spad, Nieuport, Polikarpov I-16, Zero, Me-109, Hurricane, Spitfire, Fokke-Wulf-190, P-47, P-51, Wildcat, Hellcat, Bearcat, Corsair, Sabre, MiG-15, Mirage, MiG-17, Phantom, F-100, F-104, F-105, Harrier, F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18, MiG-25, MiG-27, F-22 & F-35....; all look like a bunch of Wanbabes...
Sopwith Camels shot down more German Aircraft than all other Allied Aircraft COMBINED, in WW-1, but there were 5,759 Camels built in total, and they "only" shot down 1,765 Enemy Aircraft between them....
Curious, is it not ?
Have a good one,
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Ciao !
@@WarblesOnALot How many Fokker Dvii,s were built and how many enemy air craft did they shoot down
@@dwdunn5601
G'day,
Thanks.
I dunno, but it was nothing like as many Shootdowns by the Fokker D-VII as came off it's Production Line.
The Sopwith Camel shot down more Enemy Aircraft (1,294 of them...,) than any other single type of Allied Aeroplanes did in WW-1, and there were 5,490 Camels built.
The Fokker D-VII was introduced too late in the War to really compete with the Camel's Kill-Tally and by the time the D-VII was introduced most of the German Pilots then flying were relatively undertrained...
So my guess is that the Fokker Eindekkers (E-1 to E-3 inclusive) might be in the race with the Buffalo, but I simply don't know.
Nowhere is it written that I shall know everything...(!).
Such is Life,
Have a good one...
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
Have a good one.
Australia was part of the British Empire during WWII, that said the Brewster Buffalo was a great mount in the right hands
14.38 the only fighter with 2 types of guns? didn't the Messasmitt have 8 mm & 20 mm guns.
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Thanks.
I think you'll find that the Author was referring to Single-Seat Fighters operared by the RAAF during WW-2, which on a mental Trivia-File Check/Scan would only hold good until the first Spitfires 2 x 20mm Cannon + 4 x .303-ich Machine-Guns (Mk-5, Mk-8 ?) showed-up in Darwin in 1943....
So, in the period this was being written about - the statement was true ; partly because the RAAF never operated any Messerschmits, nor Bayerische Flugzugwerkes either.
Though the RAAF did inherit some Dornier Flying Boats, flown into Oz by the Netherlands East Indies Air Force - in their retreat from Java & Batavia...; there were no "Emils" in amongst the Flock of Orphans.
Have a good one,
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Ciao !
The Brewster Buffalo wasn’t the worst fighter of WW2, it was just the worst fighter of WW2 so far, you never know, they might find a worse one.
Sounds like the Aussies as usual are claiming the worst fighter ever title, always just got to be the winner at whatever they do. The Buffy was better than the Polikarpov I16, Russians became aces in them fighting Bf 109s. I think the Aussie(commonwealth) pilot training was as much the problem as was the plane. The Finns used both Blenheim's and Buffalo's with distinction, better battle hardened pilots maybe, their results were far better than RAF, RAAF, RCAF, or RNZAF flying the same planes.
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Thanks.
Well, you're almost not-wrong.
The fact is that Neophyte Pilots from the RAF, RAAF, RNEIAF & USMC, flying late-model Buffaloes in combat in the Pacific, against Elite tCombat-Veterans flying Zeroes...; were flying the ONLY fighter in the History of War which carried one pair of Guns with which to blind the Pilot, and another pair of Guns with which to shoot-off it's own Wings.
They therefore had the living Shit shot out of them, and the shitty Radios and inadequate Fuel-Pumps were but mere Garnishing on the main-course of Futilitarisnism.
By contrast, the Buffaloes which went to Finland were Early Models, and thus much lighter, with all the Gun Problems being resolved and German Radios, while fighting a Low-Altitude War which didn't overtax the Fuel Pump...; thus the Finns have one Buffalo in a Museum because it shot down 44 Enemy Aircraft, becoming the highest-scoring AIRFRAME in History..., 5 Finns became "Aces" while flying Buffaloes, 11 Finnish Aces shot down 267 Enemy Aircraft while flying Buffaloes, & one Finnish Ace scored 34 Kills while in a Buffalo.
I be not as silly as you look (?) !
Take it easy,
;-p
Ciao !
David Edmond Training qualities and materials and equipment supplied to Australia military during the 2nd WW depend on the higher command plannings. The better aircraft were used mainly for European campaigns as Australian continent were thought to be safe from the Japanese attacks and threat of invasion during the early stage of the Pacific war.
@@WarblesOnALot 36 Finnish aces got at least 5 victories with the Brewster.
+Timo Pukkila
G'day,
Thanks.
I have a list of their names.
Because of the Finnish experience, the Buffalo made more Aces per Aircraft produced than any other Fighter Aircraft in History...; 36 Finnish & 1 New Zealand Aces, from about 550 Airframes.
Such is Life,
Have a good one...
;-p
Ciao !
Warbles ....
Your work is great ......
But your reference books are hard to find and expensive ..... :(
G'day,
Thanks.
Ah, well, I'm a bit of a Pack-Rat (Hoarder), and I started collecting the Books a long time ago.
However there are 2 Second-Hand Bookshops in my local town, and "Badja's Old Books" actually had 2 copies of "War Without Glory..." when I snaffled one of them as soon as I saw in in there...
The Copy which I had bought in about 1986 somehow disappeared when I separated from my Trouble-&-Strife in 1994, and being the Housekeeper - she kept the House along with many of my bits & bobs & books.
Such is the price of having terrible taste in Partners, and then excercising the talent (!).
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
TeeeHeee! This plane looks more like a Koala than a Buffalo.
Ranking an aircraft against others is complicated and subjective. There seems little doubt that the U. S. Marines were disgusted with the performance of the Buffalo at Midway and, in spite of official and self wartime censorship, this was reported in contemporary publications.
But not everyone agreed, and the plane’s advocates weren’t limited to the Finns. Here are two quotes from pilots who flew the Brewster fighter against the Japanese over Malaya and Singapore in early 1942.
“(A) beautiful plane to fly... I didn’t think the Hurricane was as good as a Buffalo.” - Sgt. Geoff Fisken DFC RNZAF
“I proved twice in the course of this combat that the Buffalo was equal to the maneuverability of the Zero.” - Sgt. Jim MacIntosh RNZAF (awarded two “probables” following a dog fight with Zeros on January 18, 1942)
From Buffalos Over Singapore by Brian Cull (Grub Street 2003)
Now list the pilots who condemned the buffalo as a piece of crap.
Ask my uncle who had to fly one of these heaps.
My point was that the ranking of aircraft is largely subjective. The “heaps” were effective warplanes for the Finns. At least some of the RAAF and RNZAF pilots who flew them against the Japanese liked them.
The RAF wasn’t impressed with the B-17. The 8th Air Force rejected the P-38. The Russians were quite fond of the P-39.
There was a famous RAF pilot, whose name escapes me at the moment, who flew in a Spitfire unit and then went on to command a Hurricane squadron. He said that in combat he didn’t think there was much of a difference between the two.
It is difficult to rank aircraft.
@@Gyrocage I know my uncle crashed a bufalo and went back to England after he recovered. He spent time training pilots in all types of planes and finally went to a tempest squad. He said the buf was the worst thing ever to crawl into the air.
That is my only ranking, my much listened to uncle.
None of the Allies in the Pacific were ready for war in December of 1941. The Japanese were completely underestimated, Allied troops of all forces were largely undertrained and spread thin over large areas, modern equipment was in short supply, and cooperation among the Allies was at best haphazard. You don't conduct successful defense under these circumstances.One New Zealand Buffalo pilot said he never fired his guns until his first combat mission. The Buffalos provided to British Empire squadrons were substandard. They were not the maneuverable late 1930s types (F2A-1 and F2A-2) flown by the U.S. Navy, or the Finnish Air Force. The RAF had asked Brewster to heavily modify the Buff with armor, flare bin and chute, and radios, that added an extra 900 lbs. The British Buffs also were powered by rebuilt Wright Cyclone airliner engines that didn't have the advertised horsepower and were problematic due to oil leaks. Dutch Curtiss Hawk 75s had some of the rebuilt engines and had the same oil leakage difficulties. Dutch Buffaloes had brand new engines and better performance, but still had to be lightened to improve performance. Keep in mind that the Curtiss P-40 and Hawker Hurricanes also had problems against Oscars and Zeroes until proper tactics were developed.
G'day,
Thanks.
Congratulations..., nothing you mentioned was in error.
The fact that the Buffalo in the Pacific was a DIFFERENT Aeroplane fighting in a DIFFERENT War to the Buffaloes which were pastured in Helsinki is why the title of this Video specifies the 1941 RAAF Buffalo.
Most of the Buffalo Could'a Bin Fan-Club competely miss the salient points which matter, and simply assume that the problem in the Pacific was the Pilots & the Doctrine and the Training.
A different Kiwi Buffalo Jockey to the one you quoted was able to shoot down 5 E.A. and made "Ace" Status while flying them with the RAF.
The fact of being overweight, & underpowered though, yes they were bad strikes against the Pacific Buffalo, but with cunning to exemplary Airmanship they could be ameliorated ; but the Radios which only recieved Static from Thunderstorms, the Pneumatic Fuelpumps which relied on Barometric Pressure to fill after each Stroke and thus commenced to progressively fail the further they were taken above 10,000 ft..., and the two sets of Guns - Cowling Guns to blind the Pilot with recondensed vapourised Grease off the Ammunution at every shot..., and the Guns which ran wild and loose inside the structure & shot the Wings off the Aeroplane from the inside...: they were issues which NO Amount of Pilot Proficiency could deal with satisfactorily.
Such is life,
Have a good one...
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
British and Australian forces in Malaya, Singapore, and Burma had 60 Brewster Buffalos shot down in aerial combat, 40 destroyed on the ground, and 20 lost in accidents. In return they shot down 80 Japanese aircraft.
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Thanks.
Excuse moi ?!
"Buffaloes shot down 80 Japanese Aircraft in the Malaya, Burma, and Singapore..."
Considering that the Top-Scoring Buffalo-Jockey in the Pacific was a Kiwi flying with the RAF in Malaya, who shot down FIVE Japanese Aircraft, and actually made "Ace" in a Buffalo while flying against the Japanese....(he got another 2 or 3 in Kittyhawks, later on).
That leaves your claim rather hanging in the Breeze, mate ; because there were NOT another 75 Imperial Buffalo-ologists who scored 1 Kill apiece, nor 37 who got 1 and 18 who got 2 each...
My immediate thought is that thou hast misplaced thy Decimal Place..., especially when allowance be made for "Honest" Overclaiming, and Propagandistic Horseshit ; and what ye meant to say was 8.0 ACTUAL Kills to the Brutisch Imperial Buffalumps, while jousting with the Nipponese Aerial Samurai while pursueing the King's Enemies over the Royal Rubber Plantation, & Teak Wallah's Forestry Coops.
Just(ifiably ?) sayin',
;-p
Ciao !
@@WarblesOnALot 4 Buffalo pilots made ace statis. The Buffalo did well against the early model Japanese fighters like the Ki-27 with fixed gear, but then suffered against the Ki-43 and especially the Zero. Most of the planes they shot down were probably single and twin engine bombers.
I quote fromacemaddox.com/en/flying-tigers-shadows-over-china/aircraft/brewster-buffalo-mk-i-f2a/
"Although the Buffalo is seen by some as a failure, many Buffalo-strengthened units fought strongly until the sheer number of Japanese fighters overwhelmed them. Official numbers are impossible to verify, but around seventy Buffalos were lost in combat, forty were destroyed on the ground, up to forty were lost in training and non-combat accidents, six were sent to India, and four were sent to the Dutch. In the final tally, the RAF Buffalo squadrons of the CBI racked up 80 combat kills."
Another site put their losses as 60, not 70.
The air craft may have been terrible, but the fault is defense departments allowing inferior or obsolete weapons in combat.
I think the US Marines experience with the F2A against the Zero at the battle of Midway proves that the Buffalo was definitely inferior to the Zero. Only 3 were ended up serviceable out of about 20 planes, the Japanese lost 9 planes. Another big factor was the experience of the pilots. At that stage of the war the Japanese had very experienced pilots, not so the allies. Also the allies were often outnumbered. I think in experienced hands the plane was quite capable, as shown by the Finns.
G'day,
Thanks.
Yes...., indeed.
There was one Kiwi flying with the RAF, who actually racked-up 6 Kills in Buffaloes, he was the only Pilot in the Pacific who made "Ace" in a Buffalo !
In Finland, about 15 Buffalo Pilots made Ace in the things, Ulmari Jutilainnen scored 34 of his 94 Kills in Buffaloes, one other Finn scored 46 kills in Buffaloes ; and in Helsinki there's a Buffalo in a Museum which has 44 Kills credited to that one Airframe - using different Engines & flown by various people over several years.., it's the highest-scoring surviving Fighter Airframe in the History of War....!
For every 33.3 Buffaloes ever, built, one Buffalo created an Ace....; no other Fighter Aircraft has ever gone close to that.
Buffaloes shot down more Enemy Aircraft than Brewster ever built Buffaloes...!
(perhaps the Fokker E-1 in 1915 could make that Claim as well...; but, if all the E-1/E-2/E-3 variants were counted, then maybe that's a record which only the Buffalo holds....?).
So, yeah, if it's Guns & Radios were both fixed up, if the fighting was below 10,000 Ft so that the dodgy Fuelpump didn't matter, if it was flown by Veterans, if the Veterans were up against Soviet Novices in Polikarpov Bis-15s & I-16s...; then the Buffalo was apparently quite a handy dandy little Fire-Chariot, within which to ascend unto the Skies, therewithin to pursue and accost & punish & defeat the Enemies (Any Me ?) of one's King - or Prissydunce....!
However, in the Pacific..., only that one Kiwi, Flg Off GB Fisken, RNZAF, figured out what to do with the Buffalo, with which he was issued ; achieving 6 Victories over Singapore with 243 Sq RAF..., & another 5 in P-40s over the Solomon Islands while flying with 15 Sq RNZAF...
So, there is that...
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
Thanks for the video Mate. I was Down Under with your native Aussies on a couple of port calls there around the America's Cup time 1985/86 in Freemantle and Perth too, 1980s. Oi. I enjoyed hearing about Oz and its war history again. Cheers from Florida USA. The Buffalo was a bad fighter except against lesser pilots or planes. I'm sorry we sent you those planes but the UK probably sent them as rejects. The US flew them a few days in WW2, lol. Cheers again.
G'day,
Thanks !
It's a very weird thing, actually, because the EARLY Buffaloes - as supplied to Finland late in and immediatly after the 1939-'40 "Winter War"...; all had actually NEW Engines which produced their Rated Power - rather than Recycled/Rebuilt Units which struggled to deliver 90% of "Rated Power"..., and the Finns' Buffaloes were not weighed-down with a heap of Armour for it's Engines, nor encumbered with .50 inch Calibre Machineguns which broke the Mountings designed for .30-inch Brownings..., and the Finns' .30- inch Browning Ammunition was not packed in Cosmoline Grease - as was the Ammo. for the .50-inch Brownings which met USMC Standards, and was supplied to the Empire in 1941.
One Kiwi made "Ace" Status in Singapore, as a Buffalo Jockey, downing 6 Japanese while seconded with the RAF...; 11 Finns became Aces in Buffaloes..., Ulmari Juttilainen scored 34 of his 94 kills (without his machine ever having been hit by ANY Gunfire from ANY Enemy Aircraft...!) while flying Buffaloes..., and in Helsinki they have a Buffalo in a Museum which has 38 Kills logged by the AIRFRAME - with about 9 Pilots doing the shootings...
There were about 530 Buffaloes ever made, and they shot down about 550 Enemy Aircraft.
!!!!!
That makes the Buffalo
The
MOST
SUCCCESSFUL
Fighter Aircraft in the
History of
Aerial
Warfare...;
Apart from perhaps the
Fokker
Eindecker...(?).
The Sopwith Camel shot down more Enemy Aircraft than any other WW-1 "Fighter/Scout", and it shot down less than half as many Enemy Aircraft as there had been Camels produced.
Camels killed more of it's own Pilots in Training Crashes, than Camel Pilots who died as a result of Enemy Action.
And NOTHING Else which fought in WW-2 ever approached the Buffaloes' Kill-Ratio ; nor has any "Waaauughhh(!)Fighter Hairygoplane" ever since...(!).
Enjoy !
Such is life,
Have a good one.
;-p
Ciao !
In hindsight, a minor overhaul in an adequate aircraft machine shop would have done wonders for the aircraft. Problem is such facilities didn’t exist in the far-flung colonies nor did they have time to think about it when events “hit the fan.” Secondly, the tropical environment and medium-to-high altitude mission were completely inappropriate for the design. Other commenters agree, as they note Finnish successes in tuned-up versions in a cold weather environment, and applied to low-altitude scrambles against similar period Soviet aircraft. Either way, it was just a rough and largely ignored inter-war design that filled a gap, nothing more.
Probabilly the Finnish exploits were due to superior training and the fact that they pratically removed almost everithing not essential from the airframe, and also because a lot of soviets' pilots were undertrained and with old aircrafts
Finns did not remove anything from the airframe. Finnish Buffalos' were original F2A1 with only the carrier landing gear being removed, making it model BW239.
And Finns added armour plating behind pilots seat
I think the Brood X cicadas are the Brewster Buffaloes of the insect world.
The original Brewster Buffalo beat the original Grumman Wildcat in its first evaluation. Grumman however worked on developing and improving the Wildcat with more enthusiasm and frankly probably more talent than Brewster. In fact Brewster turned out to be a poorly managed and outright corrupt organization.
I compared the aircraft to the Finnish and Dutch lend Lease aircraft, they look remarkably the same. The Finns and Dutch had a favorable kill to destroyed ratio, so I don't understand why the Brits and Australians had such a bad time. Of course it does not help, if it stays parked on the airfield, all lined up like in the photograph above.
What if the buffalo dogfight with polikarpov 1-16 , if the RAF bought the polikarpov, they might win the war
Tactics, tactics, tactics, the Brits at Rangoon used the Buffalo and the AVG used the P-40 b and c models. The AVG, on arrival considered the Buffalo to be the better plane. Chennault would have none of it and showed his pilots how to fight the Japanese using the planes best qualities against the enemy. Hit the fighters head on and then dive on the bombers. This negated the nimble qualities of the Japanese aircraft.
When the Brits adopted these same tactics with the Buffalo they did far better than they had before, but the powers that be wanted to courts martial British pilots for doing so. They sent a Hurricane squadron to Burma to "Teach them a lesson", lesson learned, the Japanese shot them out of the sky. Exasperated, they sent a squadron of spitfires with the same results.
The insistence of pilots to dogfight on Japanese terms was the real killer. There were other obsolete fighters that faced the Japanese, yet they don't make the list. The Dutch had several Fokker DVII fighters in service that were all destroyed with out a single kill, Apparently the only tactic that would have helped would have been to avoid contact. In the Philippines, P-26 fighters went against Japanese bombers avoiding the Japanese fighters as much as possible.
That is the most fictional account of WW2 I’ve ever seen
@@commando4481 Be specific, use references.
Nice commentary. Only thing though, are you sure the Zeros were actually used in Malaya/Singapore? I thought the Japanese Army was in charge, and at this time, their main fighter was the Nakajima Ki43 Oscar. Of course, since the Oscar was worse than the Zero, this would be further disgrace for the Buffalo and her pilots...
G'day,
Thanks,
As far as I know, the difference between the "Army Zero" & the "Navy Zero" was that the Naval version had the outer 18 inches of it's Wingtips able to be folded, vertically, to facilitate their fitting on the IJN Carrier's Elevators.
The RAAF were under the impression that they were facing Zeros.
I haven't ever quibbled over such a minor & disputable point.
;-p
Ciao!
Only the Japanese Army Air Force flew over Malaya, Singapore, Sumatra and Western Java. Those units primarily flew the KI-27 Nate, which was still highly maneuverable although it had fixed landing gear.
The only IJAAF unit to fly the KI-43 Oscar was the 64th Sentai. The Oscar was nearly as maneuverable as the Zero. Its primary shortcoming was a weak armament of only two .50-caliber MGs in the nose.
Japanese Navy A6M-2 Zeros flew over Borneo, Celebes, Bali and Eastern Java from land bases. A number of carrier-based Zeros participated in the air strike on the port of Tjilatjap on the south coast of Java in March 1942. IJN pilots were considered better trained than their IJAAF counterparts.
No... it wasn't the worst aircraft... it was just the wrong aircraft at the wrong time... it was actually a great aircraft.
It only suffered lousy landing gear.
Otherwise it was not bad.
It had a pair of the heavy .50 in the cowling with a lot of ammunition which didn't jam or malfunction under g-forces. It was very manueverable. Check
Pappy Boyington's description of flying it. He says "you could turn it inside a phone booth".
The American Brewster had the 1,200hp engine.
It had very, very good range. (About 1,550 miles).
It had a lot of pilot armor, like the Wildcat.
It was basically a cockpit sitting on top of a radial engine tapering off into an oval cone.
Finnish pilots flew this fighter successfully, shooting down all kinds of opposing fighter planes, beating both German and Russian pilots.
G'day,
Thanks.
As it happens, you're not correct.
I was reading from first-hand accounts of RAAF Pilots who flew the Buffaloes which the British RAF bought from the US and supplied to Australia, for the defence of Malaya and Singapore.
The .50 Calibre Guns fractured their .30 Calibre Mountings, the Cowling-Guns then simply jammed, and the RAAF Armourers worked their Arses off to cobble up stronger Mountings ; and then when that worked the Pilots complained about the Cosmoline Grease, in which the US Navy required the Ammunition to be packed before shipping, congealing all over the Windscreen and effectively blinding the Pilot in Combat...; the Wing Guns broke their Mountings, and sometimes then failed to jam - so they fired loose & uncontained within the Wings, sometimes shooting the Wing off...
The HF Radios were hopeless after 10 AM every morning, because they were drowned-out by the Static from the Tropical Thunderstorms...; and the Pneumatic Fuelpumps relied on ambient Barometric-Pressure for the Return-half of every Stroke, so above 10,000 Ft the Pilot had to Hand-Pump supplementary Fuel in order to provide the Engine with sufficient Flowrate as to be able to obtain Full Power from the Engine.
These points are NOT up for debate because they're well doccumented.
To date, you are the very first (Fantasist ?) to suggest that the Buffalo in the Pacific was anything other than a lump of Dogshit with Wings ; in fact at Midway the US Marines didn't do any better with their Buffaloes than the RAF did with theirs in Malaya.
The Finns had earlier, lighter, versions, with Guns appropriate to their mountings, using German Radios (no Tropical Thunderstorms over Karellia, either !), and they fought an essentially Low-Level War against the USSR...; with very GREAT Success..., which is a topic for a different Video entirely.
There was one Kiwi flying with the RAAF in Malaya who made "Ace" Status flying the Buffalo...; but everybody else found them to be effectively useless.
Boyington is not at all known for exploits involving the Buffalo..., Curtiss Tomahawks & Kittyhawks with the Flying Tigers in China, yes, and Corsairs in the Pacific, yes indeedy ; but Boyington the Buffalo-Jockey - nope, not in Combat (though like Chuck Yeager and the Bell Airacobra, he may have flown them in training, under Peacetime conditions, or something...?).
Such is Life,
Have a good one.
;-p
Ciao !
You know the plane is bad when you have to hand pump fuel and ditch radio to reduce weight. What a joke of a plane and yet it came from Australia
G'day,
Thanks.
Ah, excuse moi...?
The Brewster Buffalo was designed, and built, in a 5-Storey Building in New Jersey ; in New York, in the Excited Status of Norte ArmedmeriKano....
It was built to sell to the US Navy, but it underperforned & the US Marine Corps was the only US customer, then the Finns bought some, but the Dutch & French & British were absolutely DESPERATE for metal-built Monoplane Fighters, with retractable Undercarraiges, for the Pacific...
Therefore the British bought as many Buffaloes as they could get, and issued 2 Squadrons of them to the RAAF on loan,with which to defend the British Empire - at Malaya & Singapore.
Brewster Buffaloes were entirely a creation of the Spawn of Unkle Spam, foisted onto the Pommies, and they franchised the bloody things to Oz.
Because History doesn't exactly repeat, but it rhymes..., right now Oz is buying 75 F-35s for $120 to $150 million at per each, and it's essentially a Jet-Powered Brewster Buffalo ; overweight, underpowered, slow, the Electronics Bays overheat & so the Weapons-Bays have to be opened for 10 minutes every 10 minutes - so it isn't "Stealthy", and the rinky-dink Helmet required to fly it is SO bloody Heavy that it breaks the Neck of Pilots (weighing under 75 Kg) when they try to eject.
The US Aero-Industry excels in designing & building hopelessly Shitty Aeroplanes, selling them to the US Government, and then seeing them foisted onto Allies & Client-States of Unkle Spam...; it's why Iran is still flying it's F-14 Tomcats.., and it's why Australia has FA-18 Hornets (the old ones with a Fuel-Tank between the two Jet Turbines & Single-Point Failure Elevator Hydraulic Actuators.. ) and it's why the RAAF eventually used all but one of it's F-111 Aardvarks for Landfill - the ones which didn't crash.... (3 went "SPLAT !" just within 60 miles of where I'm sitting at the moment !).
Maybe you were thinking of the CAC Boomerang (?) which looked somewhat similar to the Buffalo, it was an Australian "Stop-Gap Fighter" - basically they took a slightly modified Wirraway (Texan) Tail, Wing Centre-Section & Undercarraige, with an Engine off a DC-3, and enough of a new-designed Fuselage & Outer-Wings to sew it all together...; it was too slow to mix it with Zeros in 1943, but worked well as a Ground-Attack Aircraft in Papua New Guinea...
Scroll through this Comments Thread to be AMAZED at how well the Buffalo did in Finland - they have one in the Helsinki Museum which has 63 Victories ; it's the highest scoring (surviving) individual Fighter Airframe on Earth, possibly in History...(although Raymond Collishaw's Sopwith Camel, in Italy, may have shot down 68...?) !
Such is Life,
Have a good one...
;-p
Ciao !
WarblesOnALot yeah, after reading the comments I understood I have made a stupid comment. Early US monoplanes in general were bad compared to what they had to face (as far as my knowledge goes) . Except in case of Finland vs Soviets. Incompitent leaders +low morale + slow biplanes and tactics on Soviet side made things easy for Finns.
The P40 in the Philipines fared no better aginst the better Japanese Zero fighter, whereas the Japanese fighters in the Malaya / Burma theatre were ALL less advanced than the Buffalo.
The RAAF website gives the HP of the Buffalo MK1 as 1200 hp, with a Wright Cyclone engine.
This is a classic case of blaming the aircraft for shortfalls in training, support and logistics.
The Buffalo was the ONLY allied aircraft that could out turn a Zero.
G'day,
Good luck with rewriting History, mate.
The 1941 RAAF Brewster Buffalos had time-expired reconditioned Powerplants which never ever reached their rated Power Output, and they were larded up with half a ton of Crap which the Finnish Buffaloes didn't have to lift.
But the failure-prone Gun Mounts, the useless Radios, and the inadequate Fuelpumps were all issues with which other Fighters never had to deal.
Which lying infantile Video Game gave you the impression that a Brewster Buffalo could out-turn a Zero ?
Would you like to buy the Sydney Harbour Bridge ? I can do a ripper of a two-fer, for just 300% more you can get the Opera House as well by way of a Job Lot...(!) ?
There there, nivertheemoind.
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao
@@WarblesOnALot ruclips.net/video/dOLIVGvv6yY/видео.html
@@WarblesOnALot ruclips.net/video/lIX7eI4ptqs/видео.html&ab_channel=aviationbuff
Why does nobody credit the Imperial Japanese Army Nakajima Ki-43 Oscar with the lion's share of kills agains the RAF? I know that Ki-43 and A6M Zero look similar at a certain angles and that Imperial Japanese Navy did have a unit of A6M Zeros in Thailand but if you read Chris Shores Bloody Shambles books 1&2 you will see that it was IJA fighters that defeated the RAF and Dutch air forces over Malaya, Singapore, Palembang and Java.
say what you like, but i love the look of the buffalo barrel
I reckon the Fairey Fulmar was worse.
At what? You need to look at it's role before saying something like that. The RN FAA philosophy going into the war was to have multi-role aircraft designed specifically to navigate over oceans in environments where they tended not to meet high performance land-based interceptors. Bear in mind that it was designed to fight an enemy that didn't have a naval air capability. It performed reasonably as a heavy fighter/reconnaisance/light bomber aircraft. It's record as a naval fighter wasn't that bad with Fulmars having shot down 112 aircraft against a loss of 40.
@@nerdyali4154 Yeah, but the thing was slow. Why did it have to be so big? Would you want to face a Japanese Zero in one?
n February 1921 the Mitsubishi Internal Combustion Engine Manufacturing Company in Nagoya invited Smith, along with several other former Sopwith engineers to assist Mitsubishi in creating an aircraft manufacturing division.[4] After moving to Japan, they designed the 1MT, B1M, 1MF, and 2MR.[4] Smith returned to England in 1924 and retired from the aviation industry. The A6M was an entirely indigenous design
G'day,
Thanks.
Yeah, I know, but don't you dare tell the Anglophile Hyperpatriots who choose to believe that the only reason why the Mitsubishi Zero managed to ethnically-cleanse the Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere of all the EuroPeon Empires in 1941, was because the Zero was a highly-evolved Sopwith Camel, because they willnae be wont tae believe ye...(!).
Happy Solstice Festival...
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
You haven't heard of the Boulton Paul Defiant or the Blackburn Skua or the Fairy Battle or the CAC Wirraway forced into battle against Zeros 100MPH faster or the best of All the Blackburn Roc turret fighter all of these aircraft were death traps
Their only one problem when you have not fighters at all , You take what you can get . They had not trained pilots .
G'day,
Thanks.
Well, the RAAF in Malaya were well-trained, but they were "trained to fight World War One in the EuroPeon Style", if that makes sense ; and the British Empire had no Fighters fit to operate against the Zero until mid 1942, when the "Tomorrowhawks" finally became Kittyhawks when they arrived with 75 & 76 Squadrons in Papua New Guinea.
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
Hey don't criticize the buffaloes, the water buffaloes are close to us Malays, then the British brought the Brewster Buffaloes to Malaya. We love the BBs.
G'day,
Like I said,
Watch the Video, and read through the Comments Thread.
;-p
Ciao !
A case of don,t believe everything that you read, a New Zealander Jeff Fisken became an Ace against the Japanese over Singapore in one. Another Kiwi, Charles 'Vic" Baugh preferred it to the Mohawk ( P - 36 ), and the Hurricane, as a first generation Monoplane fighter as it was better than nothing, Fisken learned to get the best out of it by the fact that he was assigned to test fly them as they were reassembled. The Japanese Navies, Mitsubishi A6m2 Zero/Zeke and its Army equivalent Nakajima KI -43 -1 Oscar were a second generation monoplanes, at this time in the war they were supplanting the A5m 'Claude" and Ki -27 "Nate", both low wing fixed landing gear fighters. These aircraft were not designed or copied from European designs, they were Japanese designs, the ghost of allied wartime propaganda strikes again. Much of what is or has been written of the early campaign in the Southern Asian, is tainted by the expectation that the Japanese would be frightened by taking on the European Powers, and the "British" colonial empire, which only received a fraction of the armaments required. A little more reading on the subject will clear some of the "bull fertilizer" that abounds when researching wartime subjects. Try, "Buffloes over Singapore", by Brian Cull, Grub Street Books, "Last Stand in Singapore" by Graham Clayton, Random House New Zealand, the privately published "Ketchil, A New Zealand pilot's war in Asia and the Pacific". Also as background, "Singapore, The Pregnable Fortress", by Peter Elphick, Hodder and Stoughton.
The worst fighter anything plane that was never delivered.
Not true. Finnish fighter pilots flying the Buffalo shot down 592 aircraft. One ace, Hans Wind, shot down both Me109’s and Russian flown Spitfires.