You have to consider that the Fin's did not do arrested carrier landings with them, they were notorious for breaking the lower MLG leg when landing on carriers.
The Finnish Buffaloes suffered from the same weak undercarriages that those in Allied use did. The difference is the Finns made structural reinforcements, along with a number of other changes, to their Buffaloes during the Interim Peace of 1940-41 between the Winter War (1939-40) and the Continuation War (1941-44), a period of reprieve that proved to be a blessing for the Finnish Buffalo as well. Had the aircraft gone into action in Finland right away with all its numerous teething issues: weak undercarriages, engine overheating*, exhaust fumes in the cockpit, etc. etc., it would not have gained the kind of reputation in Finland that it did.
*Engine overheating and the resulting malfunctions were especially problematic still at the beginning of the CW in the summer of 1941, mainly resulting from a disregard for power setting guidelines and the dustiness of Finnish airfields, virtually all of which were unpaved.
Also the Fin's versions were much lighter than the versions flown my the USN & USMC. From what I understand the Buffalo was a good flying aircraft, as long as you did not have to climb rapidly to intercept incoming A/C with short notice.
This "Finnish Buffaloes were significantly lighter" is a myth that refuses to die, and one that comes up every time the aircraft in Finnish use is mentioned. It's just one of those things that have entered into the popular discourse as a "fact". It however isn't one. When the Americans sold the Finns the 44 Brewster Model 239s they stripped the aircraft of what they deemed US Navy property, much to the Finns' surprise who thought they were getting fully kitted-out aircraft for the quite hefty price they paid for them, which meant the Finns had to buy new instrumentation etc. for them. In addition to these changes the Finns got rid of the tailhook and replaced the tailwheel with a larger Nokia tailwheel, installed armour to the pilot's seat on the back and the bottom of the seat, replaced the .30 cal in the fuselage with a fourth .50 cal, though this change would be made to the Finnish Buffalo fleet over the course of several years, usually I think when the aircraft came in for repairs/maintenance overhauls, and finally they gave the aircraft a camouflage paintjob. All this increased weight by about 85-100 kg (190-220 lb), give or take. I'm still
trying to figure out how much a fully loaded "model 1941" Finnish Buffalo weighed, but by my calculations it's at least around 2,700 kg (5,950 lb). This would put a fully loaded Brewster Model 239 by the "1941 standard" of modifications with a 1,000 hp R-1820-G5 Cyclone 9 engine in the same power-to-weight ratio range as a fully loaded F2A-3 in a fighter configuration with a 1,200 hp R-1820-40 Cyclone 9 engine, and a loaded weight of around 3,190 kg (7,030 lb). Trapped fluids in the sumps and coolers would've increased the weight further for both models from the aforementioned by some dozens of kilos. In
America's Hundred-Thousand there's a mention on p. 442 that one measurement of the F2A-3's empty weight yielded 4,732 lb, but on F2A-3 No. 01516 it was 4,879 lb with oil contained in the sumps and coolers, so 147 lb more. Speaking of the AHT book, excellent as it is otherwise, it makes no mention of Finnish weight-increasing modifications to their Buffaloes. Instead the book cites weight figures for the Model 239s that are not accurate to the configurations the Finns flew them into combat with. A typical sortie take-off weight for a Finnish Buffalo was probably around 2,500-2,600 kg (5,510-5,730 lb).
Here's an example of the kind of incorrect weight figures for the 239 in the book. The figures are based on the aircraft's manual the Americans delivered the Finns with the aircraft, not on what the aircraft were actually equipped with when they flew into combat with the Finns.
The Finns assigned their Brewsters to their most seasoned fighter wing. It was considered the best of the hodge-podge of fighter aircraft Finland had purchased either directly from the manufacturers or from war booty stocks from Germany.
Here's something I translated a couple of months ago somewhere else. It's from Jukka Raunio's 2018
Brewster: taivaan helmi vai maailman huonoin? [Brewster: A Pearl of the Sky or the Worst in the World?]. The text in square brackets is my own.
The Brewster Buffalo's [henceforth "Brewster" or "BW"] poor reputation abroad was because of difficult military defeats whose core reasons were largely elsewhere than in the aircraft. It was further exacerbated by Brewster Aeronautical Corporation's problems and misdemeanours. The written word, such as James Gilbert's book [The World's Worst Aircraft] was taken at face value, with no means or will to investigate the matter more deeply. As mentioned before, the Zero was a dangerous opponent to all US aircraft in service in 1941.
The Buffalo was lifted to new heights above all by Jorma "Joppe" Karhunen with his many books, and others who have spoken about flying the aircraft (Ilmari Juutilainen, Eino Luukkanen, Heimo Lampi) haven't dimmed its reputation. And there is no need to dim it. After the Winter War's Fokkers and even lesser aircraft types the Brewster represented unforeseen performance in Finland. The reliability, armament and speed were better than for example in the FIAT G.50s and Moranes received by the Finns around the same time.
The early success of summer 1941 was psychologically important. If for one reason or another the Finnish Air Force would have experienced something similar to what the US Marine Corps experienced at Midway, or the Brits experienced around Singapore, the pilots' trust into the aircraft and into themselves would have suffered. The Finnish pilots' abilities and war experience from the Winter War were certainly in a key position when the reputation of the Brewster was being forged. Another factor in the key position was the enemy, who had to give a long break to learn new things.
The transfer of experience to new pilots was still something not fully developed, and relied mostly on the voluntariness of Winter War veterans. The orchestra called Squadron 24 wasn't entirely at its best in the summer of 1941. Things could well have ended up badly if the opponent had been the equivalent of e.g. Japan or Germany.
Success always requires several factors. One of them was that the materiel pool, which was small to begin with, remained numerically and operationally significant all the way until the final stages of the long war. That required things which Commander of the Air Force Major Arne Somersalo described in the 1920s with the word "belated delivery". The first advantage vis-à-vis the Allies fighting in the Far East were the roads and railways, with which deliveries could be made. Another advantage were the locations and resources where one should deliver to.
The technical personnel of the squadron worked long hours and performed small miracles compared to the amount of resources at their disposal. The resources at the remote forest airfields were after all very small. E.g. there weren't enough tools, nor workers, to perform sheet metal work, nevermind people to assess the strength of repairs. Original spare parts and replacement tools became ever more rare as the war went on.
The effort of domestic industrial and repair centres, suffering from all sorts of shortages, such as Valtion Lentokonetehdas [State Aircraft Factory], Veljekset Karhumäki Oy [Brothers Karhumäki Ltd.], Tampella and Aero Oy's [Aero Ltd.'s] engine repairshop, was indispensible. Supporting these main functionaries were many other companies and state-owned institutions. Without the factory repairs and domestic spare parts the BW fleet would have sunk to insignificance already at the beginning of the Continuation War. It would not have had time to develop the reputation it did.
Wars, especially long ones, are fought with material potential. Individual heroics don't decide them. During the entire Continuation War Finland received material support from Germany and Sweden. Especially from Germany it had to be asked for all the time using every possible channel and reasoning. Germany sent significant numbers of aircraft only in the summer of 1944.
German and Swedish raw materials and intermediary products, and war booty sold by Germany, such as engines, were indispensible in maintaining the Brewster. Making use of them relied solely on Finnish ingenuity. It was unique; options were created in a situation where original spare parts had ran out and obtaining new aircraft was more than difficult.
The Finnish Air Force Headquarters' less-glorified War Materiel Division was thinly manned, but in modern terms it had processes with which to get things done: a system with which to inform about changes, established connections to factories making repairs and to foreign suppliers of equipment (mainly in Germany and in Sweden), aviation attachés, the Air Depot, field air repair centres, etc.
Mistakes and other obstacles came and went, but the system was never paralysed. Fuel, special liquids and cartridges were in supply until the end. Finland's fighter pool was small in the Continuation War as well, but still in June 1944 stronger than that of Sweden, who was rich, had tried everything in acquiring more aircraft and enjoyed peacetime.
But to return to the topic at hand: was the Brewster a pearl of the sky or the worst in the world? Neither. The Brewster was a first-generation all-metal fighter plane equipped with a retractable landing gear and standard revolution propeller. It lacked serious design flaws found in other fighters, such as difficult take-off or landing attributes, instability when firing, tendency for an "insane", i.e. sudden flipover in a turn, poor visibility, weak structural integrity or stiff handling.
The Brewster didn't have an absolute in any performance category, instead it was a "jack of all trades", with which e.g. Toyotas have won tests in the world of automobile magazines. The basic construction however lacked growth potential, unlike e.g. the Bf 109, whose K model differed massively from the 1930s versions of the aircraft, and which was, thanks to increased power, still usable in 1945.
Thus it can be said that the Brewster's reputation in Finland comes down to four principles:
- The commander, flight, swarm and patrol leaders of Squadron 24 had experience from the Winter War, which could be transferred to new pilots in relatively advantegous circumstances. The pilots of the battles over Midway and Singapore were on average less experienced and probably less motivated, as they weren't fighting over their own country.,
- At the beginning of the Continuation War the Soviet Air Forces were under the German steamroller and suffered from Stalin's purges, along with suffering from a lack of materiel and logistics. Japan with her Zeroes and tougher pilots was a significantly more difficult opponent.,
- The Brewster Model 239 was superior compared to the main aircraft of the USSR and adequate until 1943. The F2A-3 and 339E versions were heavier. The hot air and humidity exacerbated their problems.,
- Finland had the time and ability to fix the Brewster's teething issues and supplement its equipment before combat operations. The industrial resources and ingenuinity for maintaining the aircraft was there. For the Allies operating far from home there were no possibilities for factory or central repair centre-level maintenance. Indeed it wasn't even worth it for the great powers to pour resources into improving the aircraft, as they received new types as replacements faster.
The above text didn't go quite as much into what I was looking for, but from what I've learned the Buffalo's failure in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies can be summarised into a few things:
-A lack of time to iron out the teething issues and to get familiar with the aircraft
-Distance from factories capable of providing repairs and improvements to the aircraft
-Not enough pilot experience
-Obsolete air combat doctrine
-An underestimation of Japanese capabilities
The hot climate also probably played at least some role. Whether pilot error was a significant contributing factor as with Finnish experiences of Cyclone 9 overheating in the summer of 1941, I do not know. This is likely another one of those things that requires further investigation.
Some of these were probably factors in the aircraft's performance in the Pacific as well.
I've also read the claim that Richard Dunn has shown in his
South Pacific Air War series that aerial combat between Japan and the US was far more evenly matched than how American historiography has traditionally portrayed it as. Whether this includes fights involving the Buffalo, I do not know. I've not read Dunn's series but I hear it is excellent.
