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RDAF Buffalo by yours truely.

Nicely done!

ORIGINAL: Shark7
Finland seemed to be able to put them to good use though. I suspect the planes they were facing weren't vastly superior to them as was the case in the Pacific.

Some Russian fighters gave the Me-109 and Fw-190 fits when in the right hands. The Sturmovik was also a tough nut to crack. The Rata was obsolete at war's start, but the next generation of Russian fighters was really fairly good, though maybe lacking in firepower and range.

The Finns were beating front line Russian fighters with fixed landing gear Fokkers. The Buffaloes were a step up.

The Finnish Buffaloes were flown by very good pilots up against some not so hot Russian pilots. The Dutch Buffaloes suffered from poor quality engines (they were recycled airliner engines that were a bit worn out), and the RAF Buffalo pilots at Singapore suffered from a British doctrine of dog fighting anything they encountered. The British in the Far East were slow to change tactics away from dogfighting to utilizing the other advantages of their fighters. The Finns were flexible in their tactics and adjusted them as needed.

In US service, the Buffalo only saw combat once, at Midway. The Buffaloes at Midway were flown by inexperienced pilots thrown into an ad hoc defense. They were outnumbered by highly experienced Japanese pilots.

As a result, the Finns were much more successful with the Buffalo than anyone else. The Buffalo had more maintenance problems than the Wildcat, and it was more expensive to build, but in performance, when maintained properly, it appears that it was on par with the Wildcat.

In the original fighter competition, the Buffalo beat out the Wildcat, though Grumman's initial Wildcat entry was a biplane. The Wildcat went on to gain an incredible reputation and the Buffalo was dumped in the dustbin of history due in part to the Buffalo's poor performance in the SRA, where it was not competently handled and hamstrung by bad engines (in the case of the Dutch). The USN was phasing out the Buffalo when the war started because the Wildcat was much easier to maintain and Grumman had fewer production problems than Brewster.

Brewster's management and production problems were so bad that the government took them over during the war and the company ceased to exist just after the war. The Buffalo wasn't the only problem aircraft Brewster produced.

In the 1938 build up program, the Navy ordered a back up torpedo bomber and back up dive bomber program to serve as a back stop if the TBF or SB2C program ran into trouble. Brewster won the contract for the SB2A Bermuda dive bomber. Even though the Helldiver ran into serious problems that delayed its entry into service (it and the Corsair should have been entering fleet service in June 1942 alongside the TBF), the Bermuda was so much worse it was never seriously considered.

After the Bermuda debacle, the Navy decided to give Brewster the contract to license build Corsairs. The F3A Corsair was so poorly built that none ever left the US. The entire production run was dedicated to training.

One F3A was pulled from a swamp somewhere in the South a few years ago and there are plans to rebuild it. Other than a few Buffaloes, I believe it is the only other surviving Brewster airframe.

The reputation the Buffalo had in the Navy may have been in part due to the known problems with Brewster Aircraft. They were the Yugo of American aircraft builders.

Bill

Great information, Bill! Good info that I never knew.

Thank you very much!

They were the Yugo of American aircraft builders.

An insult to the Yugo!! [X(] [:-] [:'(]

As has been pointed out, it takes an exceptional weapons manufacturer to go broke during the biggest war in history... [8|] [;)]

Remember that Brewester Aircraft Company started out as a carriage and leather makers back in the 1830's. They then expanded into car manufacturing producing copies of successful Delaunay-Belleville French cars. Then just before the start of WW1 they were the sales agents for Rolls-Royce in the US. They were importing and the repair company. Most of these cars were special orders from some of the richest people in the US. Such as JP Morgan, Vanderbilt, Astor, Rockefeller, Ford, Tiffany etc. Post WW1 Brewster lost the deal with Rolls and when then picked up a deal just after the Depression started where they were taking Ford V8 Engines and chassis and putting a Brewster body on it. They were selling well, but something turned in the '30's and the company went bankrupt and sold off at public auction in 1937. Meanwhile one of the other division outside of leather manufacturing/cars/carriages became the aicraft company. It was the only unit of the Brewester Company to maintain the Brewster name after the 1937 bankruptcy auction. However, the aircraft portion was just formed at the wrong time. It was founded in 1924 and begain to flounder in 1929 after the Depression started. According to most historians they believe the Navy contract for the F2A was the only thing keeping that company afloat. The board of Brewster Aircraft basically drove the company out of business because they weren't fully successful to adapt to what was going on in the economy.

The Fins also made some changes to the aircraft itself. They coaxed 10-15 more HP out of the engine. They got rid of the pitiful armanent of one .50 cal MG and one .30 cal MG and went with four .50 cal MGs. They inverted the piston rings which greatly improved reliability. They gave it a gunsight that was accurate. They stripped off all the unnessacary parts which shaved off hundreds of Lbs. They added a armoured backseat for the pilot.

The best site about Finish Airforce with a lot about Buffalos:

http://www.sci.fi/~fta/BWtoFAF1.htm

On the same day the Italian test pilot Cugnasca had brought one more Fiat(G.50) from Göteborg. On the next day two more Fiats came from Göteborg. During the same day Winston flew a practice air combat against Karhunen in Brewsters. Later on the same day he flew against Cugnasca and in the fight the Brewster proved to be a little slower but more agile in the close combat.

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

The Fins also made some changes to the aircraft itself. They coaxed 10-15 more HP out of the engine. They got rid of the pitiful armanent of one .50 cal MG and one .30 cal MG and went with four .50 cal MGs. They inverted the piston rings which greatly improved reliability. They gave it a gunsight that was accurate. They stripped off all the unnessacary parts which shaved off hundreds of Lbs. They added a armoured backseat for the pilot.

Actually the Finnish Buffaloes came with 1 .30 caliber and 3X .50 calibers. The engine was also down rated from what the navy had, so adding 15 hp was still leaving them with less power than the Navy Buffaloes.

This details all the Buffalo versions: http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f2a.html

Bill

ORIGINAL: wdolson

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

The Fins also made some changes to the aircraft itself. They coaxed 10-15 more HP out of the engine. They got rid of the pitiful armanent of one .50 cal MG and one .30 cal MG and went with four .50 cal MGs. They inverted the piston rings which greatly improved reliability. They gave it a gunsight that was accurate. They stripped off all the unnessacary parts which shaved off hundreds of Lbs. They added a armoured backseat for the pilot.

Actually the Finnish Buffaloes came with 1 .30 caliber and 3X .50 calibers. The engine was also down rated from what the navy had, so adding 15 hp was still leaving them with less power than the Navy Buffaloes.

This details all the Buffalo versions: http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f2a.html

Bill

how much sense makes it to couple one cal.30 with three cal.50?[&:]

It probably had something to do with weight.  I don't actually the actual reason for whatever configuration they were using.  But usually, it's about weight.
 
-F-

MH: What about their aircraft, including Western Allied Lend-Lease planes like the Hawker Hurricane, Supermarine Spitfire or Curtiss Tomahawk?
Juutilainen: The I-16 was in the same category as the B-239. The Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov LaGG-3 was faster but not very agile. The Lavochkin La-5 and Yakolev Yak-9 were clearly better than the Brewster. The Hurricane was a rather easy opponent to deal with, especially at low level. No problems with the Tomahawk, either. The Spitfire, of course, was superior to the Brewster.

ORIGINAL: castor troy
how much sense makes it to couple one cal.30 with three cal.50?[&:]

It is odd, but it was also pretty common on US fighters in the 30s. I know it was standard on the P-12 and P-26.

Bill

When the USNavy accepted the F2A-1 armament was standardized at 2 .50's in the nose and 2 x50's in the wings. Prototype armament had been 1 x .30 and 1 x .50 in the nose with provision for two more .50's in the wings. As Wdolson said and repeated in my source.....a "typical" armament at the time for a 1930's fighter.