American Expeditionary Force - 1939/1940

[parsifal]

Well according to Wiki, Seversky changed to Republic in September of '39, which was the beginning of the war, so I still think Brewster would've been hocking their Buffalo fighter to Republic, not Seversky.
...anyway, on with the rest of the discussion....
So you're saying Brewster was just stuck because everyone else was too busy?
...and yet, when the Federal Government tells you build those planes and get them over to the war zone!, isn't it funny how everyone suddenly finds the time to get the planes built, even if a single design has to come from multiple manufacturers in order to get it out.
Like I stated before, there were plenty of other manufacturers out there who were better setup, production-wise, to get large numbers of planes out, than Brewster.

Its primarily a matter of foreign investment that drove what companies could expand, and how fast, and to what extent, rather than the domestic demand.

US demand for all types of military hardware, but in particular its aircraft, had languished for years prior to 1939. It was a massive order to receive, if the US military ordered 50 aircraft. US aircraft manufacturers in 1938 were still basically hand building aircraft one at a time.

The problem with the Buffalo was that from an early date it had not been accepted for frontline military service in Europe by either of the main players. The Belgians and later the Dutch did accept the type for frontline service, but either by design, of by accident the Dutch types were only ever used in the far east. The British did accept the type into mainstream service some time after January 1940, but only after heavily criticising it and banishing it to secondary theatres. It was never accepted for carrier service which was also considered

The Finns had done pretty well with the type, though I personally suspect this was due to the poor standards of soviet pilot training more than anything

So foreign acceptance of the type was at best hesitant, and without enthusiastic foreign money to get things going the type was always going to languish in terms of its production

 

[Elvis]

I don't believe any of the planes you mentioned, with exception to the Finns, were -1's.
Anything that came after the -1 was just not as good of an airplane.
The Buff's great strength was its agility.
It is likely that, if all planes were tested, the only plane the Buff would take a back seat to (concerning turn fighting) might be a Zero, and there's even some debate over that.
Once the -1 was replaced with the -2 (and later, the -3), the balance of the plane started to go off-kilter and it just couldn't perform as well as the original production version.
I suspect if the Finn's had gotten either of those later versions, they wouldn't have faired nearly as well as they did...and if you have doubts about the Russian's ability to handle their planes, they didn't seem to have any issues when the Luftwaffe came knocking (granted, there were other circumstances that hindered the Germans).


Elvis

 

[Shortround6]

The government did NOT say "build those planes and get them over to the war zone!,"

The Government did FUND new Factories or factory expansions. The government funded brand new engine plants and arranged for Motor industry management teams to run them.

Ford got 14.3 Million dollars just build the factory that they made the R-2800s in. The $14.3 millon did not include a single engine. Those were separate contracts.
The Government was also controlling allocations of structural steel, cement and most importantly, machine tools, all in 1940. A manufacturer, even if they had money of their own, could not just buy these materials on the open market and enlarge their factories themselves.

as far as Republic goes, Seversky had built fewer than 100 planes in their history by the middle of 1939, they had planes on order, the Swedish versions of the P-35 and 13 YP-43s.

as an indication of how long things could take Goodyear was named as the 2nd associate Corsair producer in Dec of 1941. (Brewster had been brought in Nov 1st) but the first Goodyear built Corsair doesn't fly until Feb 25th 1943. (Brewster, late as always, flies first F3A-1 April 26th 1943) as of Dec 31st 1943 Vought had built 1958 Corsairs, Goodyear 377, Brewster 136.

as a general rule of thumb (Brewster aside) it often took around 1 year to get a plane into production in a given factory, it then took another year to get to the 500th production example (variations due to funding or size of aircraft) but in some cases only a few months to get to the 1000ths example.

I have mentioned before that several of the contracts for the P-43 were much placed more to help fund factory expansion and train the work force/keep it together for the desired P-47 that was in the works than in the expectation of getting a deploy-able fighter.

 

[Peter Gunn]

*SNIP*

...and if you have doubts about the Russian's ability to handle their planes, they didn't seem to have any issues when the Luftwaffe came knocking (granted, there were other circumstances that hindered the Germans).


Elvis

I think parsifal was referring to the state of the red air force in 1940, not 1944. The Luftwaffe ran high wide and handsome through the Russian air force early on.

 

[parsifal]

The VVS never gained the upper hand over the LW in pure air combat, despite outnumbering the LW by up to 40:1 at times. what they learned was that you didn't need to win general air superiority to succeed on the eastern front. Youcould ignire the machinations of the LW and still win your battle

in Finland the finns established a remarkable reputation and much of it was fully deserved, but it wasn't just with the F2A which in fact wasn't the type that worked the hardest for them, neither was it the type that was most successful. Finnish success had to come from something other than the superiority of the f2A.

Whatever the truth about the F2A, it was pretty much an outcast after its evaluations in January 1940. It was heavily criticised by the British evaluation team, and rightly so, on a number of grounds.

The British were never going to invest their money on a plane they thought was a dud. its as simple and brutal as that

 

[Shortround6]

I don't believe any of the planes you mentioned, with exception to the Finns, were -1's.
Anything that came after the -1 was just not as good of an airplane.
The Buff's great strength was its agility.
It is likely that, if all planes were tested, the only plane the Buff would take a back seat to (concerning turn fighting) might be a Zero, and there's even some debate over that.
Once the -1 was replaced with the -2 (and later, the -3), the balance of the plane started to go off-kilter and it just couldn't perform as well as the original production version.

What you have is the rough equivalent of a Japanese Zero. Maneuverable but lacking in hitting power, lacking in protection and only saved by it's light weight from it's low powered engine. However what happens as your enemy gets better?

Perhaps the US did screw up in the later versions by asking for too much of everything. But the utility of the F2A-1 with the original engine/propeller was going to fade very fast on the world stage.
The original engine was direct drive, no reduction gear and weighed about 1100lbs, the -2 anda -3 used a geared engine that weighed about 1370lbs. The small 3 bladed prop on the 239 went about 262lbs while the larger 3 blade on the later ones went 339lbs.
The power plant weight gained over 500lbs from the -1/239 to the -3.
As other things changed the airframe had to be beefed up to take to the extra weight.

Early armament was a single .50 in the cowl with 200 rounds paired with a single .30 cal with 600 rounds. The wing guns were .50s with 200 rpg. On the -2 the fuselage guns were changed to a pair of .50s with 250rpg. the wing guns and ammo were the same. on the -3 the wing guns could be loaded with 400 rounds per gun. This last was worth 120lbs or so but is the easiest to remedy. Just don't fill the ammunition bin and put in a filler block.

Yes the Finns often pulled the .30 and replaced it with a .50 (or sometimes used Russian 12.7mm's that weighed less).
The original engine was good for about 750hp at 15,000ft and that just isn't good enough. Yes if you can pick your altitude and pick your situation you can make it work but if you need to intercept bombers at over 20,000ft or in other relatively common situations the Buffalo comes up lacking in performance.

 

[parsifal]

geez, you americans have tickets on yourselves if you think the f2A is "roughly comparable" to the zero. There is no comparison between the types. sorry if that offends sensibilities, but talking trash wont change basic truths.

 

[Shortround6]

Sorry I offended your sensibilities. Perhaps I phrased in wrong.
The early Buffalo (F2A-1/239), that some seem so enamored of, had some of the same strengths as the Zero and some of the same weaknesses. I didn't mean it was the equal of the Zero.
It was claimed to be very maneuverable, it very well might not have equaled the Zero, but we are talking about a plane that was a 1/2 ton lighter than the Buffaloes that fought the Zero in South East Asia and the Dutch East Indies. Unfortunately for the light Buffalo it also used a low powered engine so it wasn't as fast as a Zero and I doubt very highly it climbed as well.
In fact at anything but low altitudes even the early Buffalo is at a tremendous disadvantage to the A6M2 (they never met) in that it's 950hp for take off engine was only good for 750-800hp at 15-16,000ft while the A6M2s 940 take-off power engine was good for 950hp at 13,8000ft. so combat at "high" altitudes was only going to increasingly favor the Zero.

The weaknesses of both are that the early Buffalo and Zero didn't have self sealing tanks, the American F2A-1 had no armor, the Finns slipped a piece of steel behind the pilots seat. Neither had bullet proof glass.
Both had longer than average range. I am not claiming the Buffalo could equal the Zero but the Buffalo held 160 US gallons which certainly gives it more range than most other fighters in 1939/40

Both had decent but not great armament, here we have a bit of a problem because of a time warp, the Zero was carrying 109E-3 armament but doing it in Dec 1941/1942 instead of 1939/40, just a comment. However the Buffalo has a bit of a problem too. The early ones not only carry less ammo than the later ones ( actually that might be a bit of advantage/less weight) but they are back to the slow firing .50 cal guns. The wing guns are going to be lucky to reach 600rpm assuming they don't jam. the fuselage .50 is going to be lucky to get close to 500rpm. The F2A-1 can fire longer (with no jams) but it needs to get more hits (3-4 times?) to cause the same damage as the Zero's 20mm guns and it's guns aren't firing fast enough to do that in the same period of time on target.

SO for the Americans in 1939/early 40 for an "expeditionary force" going to Europe the Buffalo offers some of the same strengths and weakness the Zero had in the Spring of 1942.
Maneuverable but slow compared to some of the enemy (30-35mph slower than the 109E?worse at altitude?) lacking in protection unless you take the hit to performance. Longer ranged than most European fighters, comparable armament (different but not a lot weaker or a lot stronger).

I hoe you can see that I was not trying to claim the Buffalo was actually equal to the Zero in performance or combat capability but would have had a similar relative position to other fighters of 1939/40 as the Zero had in 1942/early 43. perhaps more maneuverable, but slower and lacking protection. This combination didn't work for the Zero long term and I doubt the same combination would have worked for the Buffalo vs the Luftwaffe in 1940.

A question is, after the Polish campaign, with the Germans, British and French all frantically trying to refit existing planes with armor and self sealing fuel tanks over the 1939/40 winter and spring, is this AEF going to sit on it's hands and accept higher pilot losses to keep the "maneuverability" or is it going to follow the other nations and add several hundred pounds of protection.

 

[buffnut453]

in Finland the finns established a remarkable reputation and much of it was fully deserved, but it wasn't just with the F2A which in fact wasn't the type that worked the hardest for them, neither was it the type that was most successful. Finnish success had to come from something other than the superiority of the f2A.

Just to put up front, I entirely agree that the Finns' success was not just related to the B239. Undoubtedly, personnel proficiency (both pilots and groundcrew) had a lot to do with it. However, I'm not sure what you mean by "worked the hardest" or "most successful" because those are highly subjective measures. What we can say is that the B239 achieved a better kill-to-loss ratio than many other aircraft that also served in Finalnd. For example, it had a better kill-to-loss ratio than the similar quantity of P-36s flown by the Finns.

Whatever the truth about the F2A, it was pretty much an outcast after its evaluations in January 1940. It was heavily criticised by the British evaluation team, and rightly so, on a number of grounds.

What evaluations in January 1940? The British didn't receive any Buffalos until the latter half of 1940, and those were ex-Belgian/French airframes.


Now...back to the question of an AEF. The question of armour protection is something of a red herring if we're talking about a France scenario because most fighters lacked armour plate at that time (the RAF quickly learned the lesson and installed armour in Hurricanes and Spitfires in time for the Battle of Britain. So an unarmoured Brewster fighter would be no worse off than any British- or French-built fighter in the period up to June 1940. Under those circumstances, the F2A-1 might have had reasonable performance at lower altitudes compared to the other types in service, and air combat during the Battle of France typically took place at lower altitudes than was the case during the Battle of Britain.

As already noted, the big challenge is getting sufficient numbers of ANY Brewster product to Europe in the required timeframe. The F2A-1 lacked power but F2A-2 variants only started rolling off the production lines in the early 1940 which is too late to influence the German offensive as it happened (one Belgian B339B was captured by the Germans while the remaining Belgian airframes were assigned to France, some being delivered but none used even for testing. As we know, the British B339Es were discarded for use in Europe but those only started arriving in late 1940/early 1941, which is too late for an AEF scenario.

Bottom line, I see no way for an operationally viable Brewster-equipped AEF squadron to be even close to ready in early 1940.

 

[Shortround6]

What evaluations in January 1940? The British didn't receive any Buffalos until the latter half of 1940, and those were ex-Belgian/French airframes.

The British Purchasing Commission was in the US before the Germans invaded Poland, looking for just about anything they could get their hands on. They were preparing (but not signing) a contract for 120 Brewster 339s in Aug of 1939. The XF2A-2 Had flown in July of 1939. This has the heavier, more powerful engine than the 239 and the bigger prop. In Oct 39 the British Air Ministry says the Brewster fighter is not suitable for the RAF. I can only assume that some pilot attached to the British Purchasing Commission was allowed to fly the XF2A-2 at the factory even if only briefly and filed a report. Poland had ordered 250 F2A type fighters in Aug 39 and I don't know when talks started with the Dutch.
Despite the report the British gave a contract to Brewster in Jan 1940 for the 120 fighters at a price of $9.6 million. the contract is later increased to 170 aircraft.
You are quite correct in that the British didn't see any F2As/339s in England until July 1940 and No.71 squadron performs Flight trials in Sept 1940 when the 339E is rejected for use in Europe.

 

[Mike Williams]

Now...back to the question of an AEF. The question of armour protection is something of a red herring if we're talking about a France scenario because most fighters lacked armour plate at that time (the RAF quickly learned the lesson and installed armour in Hurricanes and Spitfires in time for the Battle of Britain. So an unarmoured Brewster fighter would be no worse off than any British- or French-built fighter in the period up to June 1940.

Some clarification regarding armour protection on Spitfires and Hurricanes if I may:

Hurricane
17 Sqdn. Operations Record Book, 5 October 1939: "bullet-proof section in the windscreen."
1 Sqdn. Operations Record Book, 12 March 1940: "All aircraft in squadron have been fitted with rear armour."
151 Sqdn. Operations Record Book, 11 May 1940: "Rear Armour plating has now been fitted to all the Hurricanes at present held by the squadron."
145 Sqdn. Operations Record Book, 18 May 1940: "armour plated aircaft"

Spitfire
No. 41 Operations Record Book, 23 November 1939: "Armour Plating".
No. 609 Operations Record Book, 27 May 1940: "rear armour plating".
No. 611 Operations Record Book, 2 June 1940: "armour plating".
No. 152 Operations Record Book, 24 May 1940: "We had the armour plating completed in 12 hours...". This is particulary interesting as it states that armour plating was required for aircraft operating during the Dunkirk evacuation.

 

[buffnut453]

I'd be interested in the source of the info that the Air Ministry decided in Oct 39 that the Brewster fighter is not suitable for the RAF. I have a report from the Air Attache in Washington DC dated 18 Nov 1939 which states:

"The F2A is built to the same specification as the F4F and its performance is almost as good. It is a good looking and clean aeroplane and will probably be a success. The company have no orders beyond the 54 in production for the Navy and consequently are in a good position to accept orders. They offer delivery of 100 F2As starting in March 1940 and completing the order in October 1940. This programme is so fantastic, the production organization so indifferent and the financial standing of the company and its set-up so doubtful that I would be averse to entering into any contract with this firm except with the most stringent safeguards."

It's clear the Air Attache was not having the wool pulled over his eyes, nor was he viewing the Brewster aircraft with rose-tinted spectacles. However, it's pretty clear that he believed the aircraft was suitable despite his very strident views about the Brewster Aero Corporation.

 

[Shortround6]

I'd be interested in the source of the info that the Air Ministry decided in Oct 39 that the Brewster fighter is not suitable for the RAF. I have a report from the Air Attache in Washington DC dated 18 Nov 1939 which states:

No primary source. I am quoting from America's Hundred Thousand.

I do thank you for your report. It may show how desperate the British were at the time, They may not have believed the promise of 1000 planes in 8 months but they did place the order for 120 shortly after.


I would note that I can't find a good history of the purchasing of the Martlet/Wildcat by the British that gives dates of orders or tests.
I know that the Martlet Is were ex French aircraft with Wright R-1820 engines but I don't know when the Martlet IIs with P&W R-1830s were ordered.
There may be some confusion between not being good enough for the RAF and yet being good enough for the Fleet Air arm? The Air ministry being interested in replacing or supplementing Fulmars/Gladiators?

 

[buffnut453]

No primary source. I am quoting from America's Hundred Thousand.

I do thank you for your report. It may show how desperate the British were at the time, They may not have believed the promise of 1000 planes in 8 months but they did place the order for 120 shortly after.

Sorry...that was a typo. Should have been 100 not 1000. Corrected in the original post.

Agree it does indicate how desperate things were perceived at the time.

 

[vikingBerserker]

I had no idea the Poles had ordered the Buffalo and no idea any ever made it to Europe. Great info.

 

[parsifal]

hi buff

My sources are general like SRs, but not as good as his

wiki, not a great source, so take it with the caution it requires, says the following

"Facing a shortage of combat aircraft in January 1940, the British government established the British Purchasing Commission to acquire U.S. aircraft that would help supplement domestic production. Among the U.S. fighter aircraft that caught the Commission's attention was the Brewster. The remaining 32 B-339 aircraft ordered by the Belgians, suspended at the fall of France, were passed on to the United Kingdom.[44] Appraisal by Royal Air Force acceptance personnel criticized it on numerous points including inadequate armament and lack of pilot armor, poor high-altitude performance, engine overheating, maintenance issues, and cockpit controls, while it was praised for its handling, roomy cockpit, and visibility.[11] With a top speed of about 323 mph (520 km/h) at 21,000 ft (6,400 m), but with fuel starvation issues over 15,000 ft (4,600 m), it was considered unfit for duty in western Europe.[11] Still desperately in need of fighter aircraft in the Pacific and Asia for British and Commonwealth air forces, the UK ordered an additional 170 aircraft under the type specification B-339E.[45] The aircraft were sent to Royal Australian Air Force, RAF and Royal New Zealand Air Force fighter squadrons in Singapore, Malaya and Burma, shortly before the outbreak of war with Japan."

The fact that no orders were initially placed for the type directly by the RAF is telling as to what they thought of it in early 1940. it would take the destruction of all their continental allies, and orders left flapping in the wind from those powers, and a desire to get the US economy on a war footing no matter what the cost, to turn that around and cause the British to purchase the type despite its shortcomings

The RAF liked the type so little they initially attempted to fob the type onto the RN. The RN never liked the type either, and the fact that it never achieved carrier qualification with them does rather show their true animosity towards this a/c and highlights its serious and unfixable shortcomings. There was a significant design flaw in the Brewster airframe. If the pilot set it down hard as is normal for carrier operations, the main wheel strut often buckled, two inches below its pivot point on the wing. It was described by US test pilots as follows "The struts had a tendency to move forward. When you retracted the gear on the next flight, the box strut scraped on the wheel well [preventing it from closing fully]. You couldn't have that happen, the gear not retracting, so the mechanics would file some [metal] off and get closer to the rivets." Finally, on an especially hard landing, the gear would collapse. The absence of proper wing folding was also fatal in the smaller RN carriers. Despite the shortcomings of the fulmar,, and some rather fantastic exceptions in the few combat reports made of the type within the british forces prior to 1941, the RN generally preferred the fulmar (despite the latters obvious shortcomings as well) over the American type.

 

[buffnut453]

I think we need to be a little careful of simply jumping on the bandwagon of criticizing everything about the Brewster fighter. You state that "The fact that no orders were initially placed for the type directly by the RAF is telling as to what they thought of it in early 1940." What, then, are we to make of the fact that the first P-40s only started arriving in the UK in November 1940 and those were from a French order. Actual British-ordered airframes weren't arriving until 1941, just a few months before the British-ordered Buffalos were arriving in Singapore.

And while we're on the subject of P-40s, the following from Wiki:

The first Tomahawks delivered came without armor, bulletproof windscreens or self-sealing fuel tanks, which were installed in subsequent shipments. Pilots used to British fighters sometimes found it difficult to adapt to the P-40's rear-folding landing gear, which was more prone to collapse than the lateral-folding landing gear of the Hawker Hurricane or Supermarine Spitfire . Testing showed the aircraft did not have the performance needed for use in Northwest Europe at high-altitude, due to the service ceiling limitation.

Sounds a lot like the same criticisms you cited about the Buffalo.

As to the Buffalo's undercarriage, the F2A-1 certainly had undercarriage issues that were largely fixed in the -2 variant. The problems re-emerged when the USN asked for the extended-range -3 airframe which had so much extra weight that the undercarriage couldn't take it for carrier ops. Out of interest, the RAF airframes, although far heavier than the F2A-2, suffered relatively few undercarriage failures. Of the surviving accident record cards (which run from 8 April thru 18 Dec 41, there are the following landing accidents involving wheels-up landings or where the undercarriage collapsed:

Hit Obstruction on Airfield - 2
Pilot Error - 9.5
Undercarriage Failed to Lower - 1.5
Undercarriage Failed to Lock - 4.5
Heavy Landing - 1.5 (one landed heavily on one wheel)​

So we have a total of 6 incidents specifically due to failure of the undercarriage system (usually the undercarriage locking mechanism), 1.5 incidents due to heavy landings (in all cases, the pilot was partially blamed for the incident so I allocated 0.5 to pilot error and 0.5 to undercarriage failure), and 11.5 due to pilot error, either colliding with an obstruction or simply not following correct procedures. Given these statistics over a period of intensive work-up and training, and noting that the aircraft were operating from grass runways under tropical weather conditions with daily heavy rainfall that rendered airfields unserviceable, I hardly think the undercarriage can be overly criticised as being too weak. I don't think any other airframe would have performed better, and some would be much worse. Again, I'm not saying it was perfect and it may not have been sufficient for carrier ops, but it was certainly good enough for land-based ops and probably no worse than the P-40 as noted above.

The first Brewsters in the UK were ex-Belgian airframes which lacked armour plate but the British-ordered airframes were equipped with self-sealing tanks and armour plate, albeit the seat armour was installed at squadron level after it entered service. It was those ex-Belgian airframes that were fobbed off on the RN but they had never been equipped with arrestor gear and so were unsuited for carrier operations. As late as November 1941 (IIRC) the RN was still asking Brewster whether they could send conversion kits to enable arrested landings on carrier decks.

As I've stated numerous times, the Buffalo wasn't a great aircraft and Brewster was a disaster as a company....but many of the faults were common to other airframes of the period.

 

[Shortround6]

I will grant you that some of the Brewster's combat problems came from the engines used. Many of the Dutch and British planes getting used but overhauled engines instead of new ones. There were also 3 different basic engines used in the Buffaloes which doesn't help.
The F2A-1 and 239s had R-1820G5 engines with a maximum RPM of 2200.
The British and Dutch (mostly) planes had R-1820-105A engines with a max rpm of 2300-2350
The US F2A-2 and F2A-3 got the military equivalent of R-1820-200 series engines with a max rpm of 2500.
The three engine all used different crankcases in addition to a host of other changes. You can't just pour better fuel into the older engines and wind them up higher to get more power.

As noted in passages posted by Parsifal, the British versions wouldn't perform up to "book" standards due to fuel starvation issues. I have no idea why this was, like if they needed bigger fuel pump/s or if it was a venting issue, pump was trying to pull a vacuum in the fuel tank?
As noted before the early engine was good for 750hp at 15,200ft. The G-100 series engines were good for 775hp at 17,300ft by the book. The G-200 series engines were good for 1000hp at 14,200ft. Fuel needed was 87 for the G, 90 for the G-100 and 100 or 100/130 for the G-200.

It also doesn't really matter that the early P-40s didn't have protection. They weren't used in combat by the US and the British either used them for training, shipped them off to Russia or otherwise kept them out of combat in Europe. For several months they were an "emergency" reserve to be used in case of an invasion.

we are also covering a spread of over two years. The point of this thread was an American expeditionary force in late 1939 or early 1940, in time to help the French or perhaps later to help with the BoB. Except for the Finns (who really didn't get their Buffaloes in time for the winter war) The Buffaloes didn't see combat until Dec 1941 and on into early 1942. Please note the F2A-3 wasn't even ordered until Jan 21st 1941 and first delivery wasn't until July of 1941. Same month as the first P-40D.


For information on weights see:
http://www.alternatewars.com/SAC/F2A-3_Buffalo_PD_-_1_December_1942.pdf

and http://www.alternatewars.com/SAC/F2A-2_Buffalo_PD_-_1_May_1943.pdf

These do not agree with America's Hundred Thousand. The -3 was beefed up (about 70lbs more wing weight alone)) in part to handle higher loads. However this does not mean the higher loads were always carried. For instance both sheets show "fighter" loads of only 110 US gallons of gas.

And please note that the F2A-2 is without pilot and fuel protection.

 

[swampyankee]

Brewster had horrible internal problems. In a period when the US needed every manufacturer of aircraft to step up, Brewster stumbled and couldn't complete production contracts later in the war.

 

[buffnut453]

Shortround,

The reason I raised the issues were twofold. Firstly, people tend to lump all the Buffalo's limitations together when there were distinct differences between the individual models delivered to different air arms (eg "the undercarriage was weak" which is true for the -1 and -3 but not, I think, for the -2 or its sub-types B339B, C, D and E).

I'm well aware (indeed I pointed out) that the F2A-2 lacked armour protection...but so did the P-40 in that timeframe. My point is that MANY aircraft in 1940 lacked armour plate protection for crew, so singling out the Buffalo as lacking in this regard is to use an uneven playing field.

I stand by my comment, however, that the only way to get ANY Brewster fighters to Europe in 1939/40 would involve taking -1 airframes from the USN and cancelling the Finnish transfer of airframes...but, even then, you only have at best a couple of squadrons' worth which isn't going to change the status quo.

Cheers,
Mark