American Hellcats vs the LW (1 Viewer)

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the Buffalo go bad v/s Japanese fighters in 41/2 but was not the alone. The finnish used that more times that others we can NOT take out finnish performances for judging Buffalo, the finnisch claimed a around a 20:1 ratio v/s enemy fighters (the buffalos in pacific get around a actual 1:5 ratio v/s japanese fighters), the finish losses are around 1/3 of that in Pacific
 
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It seems there was a learning curve, and perhaps older aircraft get more blame than they deserve.

That's a fair comment. Sure, Greg, the Buffalo wasn't as good as the F4F, nor the Zero, nor even the Hurricane, but under more favourable conditions, like say, in Finland it proved its worth. Yes, indeed the conditions between Singapore and Finland were very different, but as I stated earlier, even if the Allies were equipped with better aircraft over Singapore, the situation there would not have been any different. So it wasn't as good a fighter as an F4F, that doesn't make it awful. Although I would rather have gone to war in an F4F over a Buffalo!
 
OK, you guys have somewhat comvinced me that it was only the worst American fighter ... not the worst fighter.

Still, I am struggling to identify any that were, in fact, worse. Nope, can't think of a contemporary that was worse ... but maybe it will surface. Sort of like the PZL Zubr of fighters.

Maybe the Bachem Natter? It killed German tets pilots almost at will, and didn't kill any Allied people at all. Perhaps that IS worse, but not really contemporary with the Buffalo, is it?

Sorry, I am struggling with anything worse ... and not finding any answers ...
 
@GregP
regarding the Bachem Natter you should do some research. In this case even wiki is a good source. Pilot Lothar Sieber was killed on 1. März 1945 during a test flight. This was the only deadly accident during evaluation of the project. BTW it was the first manned vertical rocked lift off ever.
How many pilot whole over the world were killed during testing a prototype of a plane which was successful later.
cimmex
 
The P-80 must have been a bad a/c as it killed its test pilot(s) using Greg's criteria of killing test pilots.
 
OK, you guys have somewhat comvinced me that it was only the worst American fighter ... not the worst fighter. Still, I am struggling to identify any that were, in fact, worse. Nope, can't think of a contemporary that was worse ... but maybe it will surface. Sort of like the PZL Zubr of fighters. Sorry, I am struggling with anything worse ... and not finding any answers ...

I believe the F2A-3 was one of the two worst american fighter used in WW2. The other contender? The Sevrsky P-35. Although in their infancy both were somewhat revolutionary aircraft for their time. I personally believe the F2A-1 to be historically more important as the first modern naval fighter.

As to naval aircraft of other nations that fought in WW2:

Well for starters, the Skua as a fighter. IUC it was procured to provide a carrier's aerial defense (CAP) while also fulfilling an offensive role (fairly effectively) as a dive bomber. I'd also include the A5M as inferior to the F2A-3.

I believe in general, there are many fighters that, at a given moment in time, were successfully employed but time passed them by. The I-16 comes to mind. The Gloster Gladiator, Cr-42 and so on. Few of these enjoyed as celebrated a moment in time as did the B-239/F2A-1. I can only repeat my call to distinguish among the types. I personally don't regard the F2A-1 or B-239 as Buffalos. The name Buffalo wasn't given to them. It was assigned to a very inferior mark that enjoyed virtually no success whatsoever beyond a few individual a2a victories. It was then popularly broadened to include all of the marks. It's easy to ascribe success of the B-239 to the superb pilots of LeLv 24, but it also had some limited success when used by a less celebrated group LvLe-26 who were able to shoot down advanced types including an La-5, a Lend Lease Tomahawk, and a P-39 late in the war.

Enemy types claimed by the Finn B-239 included 15 Spitfires, about 60 Hurricanes, about 50+ Mig-3, 45+ Lagg-3, about 20 La-5, and 5 Tomahawks and 1 P-39.

These are listed at the Buffalo's website:

http://www.warbirdforum.com/scores.htm

So, after this information, are we really talking about the same aircraft when folks talk generically about the Buffalo!
 
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