Brewster buffalo Vs Curtiss P-36, Which one was better for defending Burma?

[Glider]

My understanding was that the Finnish Buffalo was a very different aircraft from the later versions used in the Far East. Also let us not forget that there was a massive difference between the quality of the Russian and Japanese pilots and aircraft.
Against the Japanese I would go for the P36 over the Buffalo simply because in RAF service the Mohawk did much better than the Buffalo against the Japanese. The Mohawk was kept in service until they were almost falling out of the sky, despite the arrival and availability of much larger numbers of Hurricanes.

 

[jetcal1]

Bf 109 and Spitfire come to mind.

And while there's a few more that could be considered, that sir.....is essentially a wrap on the question!

 

[pinsog]

If you want a better engine in the P36/Hawk75 go with a P&W 1830-33 2 speed engine. You gain 160 pounds or so but top speed would jump from around 300 mph with the Wright 1820 to around 325 mph at 17,000 feet with the P&W.

I think the French H75's had pilot armor.

I'm not sure the Buffalo was such a bad plane (the lighter version before the US Navy ruined it) I personally think the problem with the Buffalo was that the Japanese fighters it faced had the same strengths and did everything just a little better. I think the Buffalo would have done better against an Me109 than a Zero. At least an earlier version of the Buffalo could always out roll and out turn a 109. A Buffalo could out roll a Zero but not out turn it. It's really the same problem the Hurricane had against the Zero as well.

A good example is a small fast boxer vs a heavy weight boxer. The small boxer is fast and can avoid getting hit. But if the small fast boxer faces a slighter larger, slighter stronger small fast boxer then he has 0 cards to play.

I'd pick the P36/Hawk75 for Burma with a P&W 1830-33 2 speed engine.

 

[Lefa]

I think the French H75's had pilot armor.

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Yes, but pretty thin, I would remember reading somewhere that only 8mm thick, In the tests the Finns shot through it with a 7.7 mm browning bullet from close range.

 

[GregP]

A LOT of the service record of a type depends on the experience level of the initial pilots (who pass on their opinions of the planes to the next pilots) as well as the quality of both the opposition's pilots and planes. In Finnish service, their best pilots flew the Buffalo against Soviet pilots who had zero combat experience and almost no training other than basic training and Soviet squadron service. Soviet pilots were discouraged from being inventive and were expected to fly "by the book." Bend a bird, go to Siberia. They were shot out of the sky in droves by both the Finns and the Germans.

A Soviet pilot flying an I-16 in 1939 - 1940 was a FAR cry from a Soviet combat veteran flying an La-5 / Yak-3/9 in 1944 - 1945. The Soviet pilots were nothing in 1939, but a German pilot found it very hard to survive in a Soviet sky in late 1944 / 1945. How many Finnish victories came after mid-1944? A VERY few, but their tactics and pilots were top notch.

It took some combat losses to teach the surviving Soviet pilots about combat, much as the initial US pilots were "green" and suffered initially against the Germans, who were combat veterans.

The Buffalo design was not very expandable to make it better, and the P-36 was. There may have been little to choose between them in 1939 - 1940 but, by late 1943, the basic Hawk airframe was very much the better airplane. Despite that, I'd take another plane in late 1943 if I were there and had a choice.

 

[MIflyer]

According to this reference Hindustan Aircraft built only one Hawk 75 from scratch.
Karachi was the normal arrival location for aircraft shipped to India.

 

[Shortround6]

according to "Curtiss Fighter AIrcraft" by Francis Dean and Dan Hagedorn the saga of the H-5 and HAL is as laid out in post #37.

HAL didn't build the H-4 variant. They "inherited" the H-5 parts and pieces from the Chinese when COMCO evacuated from China.
No this is large semantics are there was very little difference in the planes themselves but they may have used different engines The A-5 was supposed to use the G100 engines. What they actually got when finally assembled may have been different, the Armament may have been different, the A-5 was supposed to have two .50 cal in the cowl and a 23mm cannon under each wing but the cannon were never delivered (Denmark had been overrun by the Germans)

As noted above ex French A-4s did serve with the Indian AIr Force as did some ex Iranian planes, Both of these used cyclone engine as well as the 4-5 planes assembled by HAL so unless you have very good serial numbers and even the dean/Hagedorn account lists different possible RAF serial numbers. For instance DR761 to DR808 were supposed to have been set aside for the HAL aircraft. But other accounts say they were included in the range of BT462 to BT470 but those are commonly believed to have been EX French AIrcraft known to have served in India. In any case DR761 served with No 151 OUT as did AX799 which was the RAF serial number assigned to the original Curtiss built pattern aircraft which managed to survive the evacuation from China.

 

[Lefa]

How many Finnish victories came after mid-1944? A VERY few, but their tactics and pilots were top notch.

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True, after all, the war on Finland ended on September 4, 1944

Squadron 24 list of gains and losses

Squadron 34 list of gains and losses

 

[GregP]

Right, so a few, but not nearly at the rate they were happening earlier, which was my point. The Finns didn't get "worse"; their opposition got a LOT better.

 

[ssnider]

Right, so a few, but not nearly at the rate they were happening earlier, which was my point. The Finns didn't get "worse"; their opposition got a LOT better.

By that same logic the kill ratio of the Hellcat doesn't count because they fattened it up on Kamikaze kills. Or the Japanese piolets got a lot worse. By the way the Hawk 75's did less well in 44 as well.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Not many aircraft get known as "the world's worst fighter aircraft" but the Buffalo was consistently reputed as such, so the P-36 would likely have been an improvement for sure ~

IMO the Buffalo was fine for Malaya. The problem was Malaya Command only had four squadrons with a total of 60 active Buffaloes to cover the entire Malay Peninsula and the Sarawak, an area 35% larger than the UK (that by end 1941 is protected by over 70 operational fighter squadrons). AIUI, the British government was advised by CnC Far East Command that 500 first line combat aircraft were needed to defend Malaya., but only 60 Buffaloes and 40-odd Blenheims were active, plus a force of Vilderbeests, Hudsons and Tiger Moths.

Put 20 squadrons of Buffaloes, with 300 active aircraft plus spares in Malaya before Dec 1941 and the Japanese will have a challenge. Getting 300 may be a challenge, so the force may end up being a mix of Buffaloes and Hawk 75s, allowing us to answer this thread's comparison directly.

 

[Hardlydank]

I am thinking that whether some improvements on high-lift device, such as apply Fowler-flap, can significantly boost the maneuvering capability of these two.

Can the P-36 match in tight-turn of Zeke/Oscar after this kind of modification?

I think such a mod could maybe match the A6M but I doubt it could match the Ki-43. I suppose it depends on the speed since these IJ fighters were unmaneuverable at high speed