Brewster F2A-4 Buffalo, the worst US fighter that fought in WW2?

[ssnider]

This is what the Finnish pilots thought of the Brewster compared to the Hutticane:

Hurricane Mk II: Straight from the Hans Wind, the top-scoring Brewster ace, while keeping a lecture to new fighter pilots: "Hurricane is the easiest enemy plane to shoot down. Under 3000 metres (9000ft) it's no match for us. It's slow and very clumsy and stiff. When you meet a Hurricane, immediately start a dogfight, then it can only depend on our good will. Aim to the front part of it, then it usually flares up" (This was taken from the "Lent{j{n n{k|kulma II")

 

[oldcrowcv63]

Well, I debated with maturity for maybe 20 posts and them just lost patience. Mea Culpa and abject apologies. You can't argue with an evangelist; he has God on his side.

The Buffalo is in the basement according to ME, but not you, and that's OK ... OK? Let it go ...

None of the Navy pilots I ever spoke with flew Buffalos, but several flew against them in mock combat and universally said they were "meat on the table." Good enough for me, even if not for you. I have not run across even ONE former Navy pilot who thought the Buffalo was anyyhing but an abject failure. Accordingly, I feel the same way, with a LOT of heresay to back me up.

Perhaps you can tell ME about the pilots who loved the Buffalo, had COMBAT experience both the Buffalo as well as other aircraft and STILL said the Buffalo was a good plane.

That might be interesting.

But is it appropriately experienced hearsay? I submit that the expert opinion you cite refer ONLY to the F2A-3 Buffalo and that few surviving today had experience with flying either the F2A-1 or F2A-2. As of June 5, 1942, there were simply too few USMC avaitors to be available to poll today, but of course we know the opinion of those that survived and lived to fight another day. My guess is that the pilots you are quoting encountered the F2A-3s during their advanced training phase where the Brewster was employed for a period after its withdrawal from front line service. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the authors of the books you mention aren't implicitly rendering judgment on only the F2A-3 and the export models, lumping in the Finn "Buffaloes" by assuming their pilots were so extraordinarily gifted as to overcome the obvious shortcomings of the entire line. That the Finn B-239 pilots were fine is beyond contention, but they were also human. Their judgement regarding the aircraft's qualities should be given equal weight. To the best of my knowledge, Finland didn't consider producing P-36 or Fokker D-XXIs. (Maybe they did, but found production of the B-239 was just easier?)

I'd be curious to know how those few USMC Midway survivors would have compared the F2A-3's performance with that of the F4F-4's flown by their USN counterparts during the battle. According to naval aviators the F4F-4 had significantly less performance than F4F-3 flown by the marines, more even than would be expected based strictly on the flight test data. Lundstrom apparently interviewed some F4F-4 aviators and they were quite critical of the -4 Wildcat asserting the test data was inaccurate. (I wonder if Rich Leornard might have heard some such comments from his dad?).

I am not aware of any USN aviators who flew the F2A-3 in combat, although at least one combat vet (GF), quoted here, felt they might have done better in combat had they been in an earlier mark ( -2) instead of the F4F-4. The Finn pilots endorsed the qualities of the F2A-1, whle lamenting some of its evidently-genetic shortcomings such as its weak landing gear.

During the very brief period, from late 1939 through mid-summer 1940 there was no other naval fighter that could touch the F2A-1.

 

[GregP]

Hi Njaco,

Nothing wrong with liking a plane. I like the Buffalo, too. But I would not choose it as a mount for fighter combat, regarless of what gets posted.

Even Eric Brown said it had poor fighter performance and that was posted as a positive comment, I'm sure.

Almost no aircraft is entirely devoid of some good qualities. Most of the descriptions of it I have read of teh Buffalo were complimentary in some manner while simultaneously noting its weaknesses as a fighter.

So, my opinion is just that; it was pleasant to fly and handled OK, but was not much of a fighter. That opinion has been shared by most of the WWII fighter pilots with whom I both talked and also happened to mention the Buffalo. Admittedly, that hasn't been often ... probably no more than half dozen conversations included the Buffalo. But NONE of them had anything good to say for it and THEY were in the generation that flew the Buffalos. So, OK, I like it as a historical plane, and would love to fly one, but would never think of taking it into combat.

That defines a bad fighter and the Buffalo is that in spades. Truthfully, I'd chose ANY other monoplane fighter over a Buffalo. The F4F Wildcat's reputation is solidly cemented in history and will always be head and shoulders above the Buffalo in any realalistic historical account.


Still, if a Buffalo came onto the warbird scene, I'd be happy to see it since it would be rare and would have no need to go into combat ever.

Until this thread, I never knew there were any Buffalo fans out there. While I disagree with them regarding the combat potential of the Buffalo, fans will always find nice things to say about their favorite. And that is OK.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Gentlemen, a few things to look at here...

When the Buffalo entered service in December 1939 the Zero was still another 7 months from being deployed. Even as the first aircraft were reaching the fleet, Brewster was already having issues with not only the basic design but also production. I think what we are looking at here is the people who were running Brewster sold the US Navy a bag of goods and were always behind the power curve in not only correcting design problems, but also achieving promised production numbers. The aircraft had potential AFTER it's deficiencies were identified and corrected. From Wiki;

"Pappy" Boyington observed: "But the early models, before they weighed it all down with armor plate, radios, and other [equipment], they were pretty sweet little ships. Not real fast, but the little [aircraft] could turn and roll in a phone booth."

The bad reputation of the Buffalo mainly came out of one battle and that was the mauling VMF-221 received at Midway. By that time the Buffalo was obsolete and so were the tactics being used. Look at those who scored kills and how they scored during the battle - I believe one was from head on, the other was from a diving attack. Also consider the quality of pilots from VMF-221;

"Many of Parks' pilots, fresh from flight training Stateside, had very little operational experience. This fact, combined with the overwhelming size and disposition of the Japanese force posed against the atoll's defenses, would have more bearing on the outcome than the operational capabilities of the F2A."

As indicated earlier, commonwealth pilots had some very limited success with the aircraft and this as a result of experience and tactics. Meanwhile the Finns used their Buffaloes with great effectiveness against the Soviet Union. "Tactics, training, combat experience."

Could this aircraft be considered "One of the worse aircraft ever built?" I think not - I think there were high expectations of this aircraft coupled with criminal marketing by executives at Brewster. This would be further evidenced by strikes, indictments and the eventual take over by the US Government of the company. Eventually the aircraft met it's design requirements, but by that time it was obsolete. With the reputation of this company well tarnished, putting the blame entirely on the Buffalo aircraft was and still is an easy way to smoke screen some of the other issues that plagued this aircraft from its conception - design, production, training tactics. Whether you want to consider the Buffalo one of the worse combat aircraft to every be deployed, so be it, but also consider the operators, tactics and training before painting with one wide brush. If you want to consider it a complete operational failure, there was plenty of blame to be shared on the operator's end as well.

 

[GregP]

You have some good points there FlyboyJ.

 

[A4K]

I just like it. no reason.

Me too, always have.
The old Revell (of USA) 1:72 F2A-2 Buffalo was the first carrier type I ever bought (back in about '84). Got it purely for it's looks!

 

[krieghund]

Here's some USN data on the aircraft being discussed. What would happen if you upgraded the R1820 in the F2A?

 

[Vincenzo]

beautifull data krieghund (nothing for F2A-1?)

 

[krieghund]

I do somewhere in hard copy. I'm still looking for it. Put a R-2600 on the F2A and you have a poor man's F8F....maybe.

 

[Shortround6]

Thank you very much for the work and information.

As for the R-2600 on the F2A.... AARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!

"poor man's F8F....maybe"

maybe is right. Putting an engine that weighs 600lbs more (plus the bigger heavier propeller) on a plane that already has landing gear issues? Prop went from 9ft on the F2A-1 to 10ft 3in on the F2A-3. You may need a 12 ft prop for the R-2600 and longer landing gear to go with it to prevent prop strikes, A larger tail (or longer?) to counteract the greater torque and.... and... and....and......You may wind up with an R-2600 powered fighter but there will be darn little of the F2A left except the cockpit

 

[Njaco]

I do somewhere in hard copy. I'm still looking for it. Put a R-2600 on the F2A and you have a poor man's F8F....maybe.

I dunno......

 

[Juha]

beautifull data krieghund (nothing for F2A-1?)

If one think the reputation of Brewster and its salesmen, it is surprising how well Brewster's figures matched Finnish tests, In speed trials flown by BW-366, max speed was 480kmh when Brewster's figure was 484kmh. At sea level BW-366 428kmh and Brewster's figure 427kmh.
Climb, Brewster promised 6 min to 15.000 ft (4572m) witn normal power at 2275kg and 6.7 min at 2387kg. FiAF B-239 with pilot's back armour and other mods, t/o weight 2415kg a bit under 8 mins to 5000m, looked from very vague graph, I cannot remember if I have a better one somewhere, one old source says 7' 10" to 5000m.

I would say, that if all manufactures specs would have been that near to service tests, buyers would have been very happy.

Juha

ADDUM, I found a better graph, not that I was looking for but even better, According to a graph in SIhL 1/1999 BW-366 (a FiAF B-239) 7'17" to 5.000m and 9'26" to 6.000m.

 

[Marcel]

It's such a stretch to say THE buffalo was bad. The Dutch had the B339C en D. The C version was really bad, the D version was quite okay, some Dutch pilots considering them superior to the Hurricane mk.II. On the other hand there was the B339-23 which was really bad, because of the low powered engine. The C- and D models were quite a bit lighter than the Britisch E-model and the D model had about 100 hp more. I could cite a few Dutch pilots about it, but I'm to lazy to bother.

One thing is for sure without denying that the Buffalo was moderate at most: lack of succes of the Buffalo in the Pacific is by no means a measure of the a/c's performance. It's more a tribute to faulty tactics, low numbers and no early warning. For instance, the whole of the NEI, an area of about the size of Europe was defended by about 80 Buffaloes w/o radar. That's pretty lame and even the Spitfire would not have made any impact under those circumstances.

 

[rank amateur]

I dunno......View attachment 205296

Ooh my god, it seems that dr Frankenstein switched careers and used F4u parts to mutilate a poor Buffalo

With looks like that, its impossible that she can fly well. There must be CG issues

 

[oldcrowcv63]

Ooh my god, it seems that dr Frankenstein switched careers and used F4u parts to mutilate a poor Buffalo

With looks like that, its impossible that she can fly well. There must be CG issues

I love it!

Just think of the armor plate thickness you could put behind the pilot to correct the CG issues!

 

[oldcrowcv63]

Just for the record, The original title for this thread was

"Brewster F2A-4 Buffalo, the worst US fighter that might have fought in WW2"

I botched the title with so many typos (probably due to the delerium tremens brought about by my outrage at Grep for maligning my beloved Brewster (F2A-1/B-239) ) that an unidentified moderator came in to correct it but then another not to be named mod ignored my fervent pleas to restore my intended text. I figured I violated some sacred rule of the forum, so let it lie. The thread turned out pretty good anyway. A very lively discussion which I am sure completely converted Greg into a Buffalophile. Like me, he probably now sleeps with a stuffed Brewster Buffalo (of course mine is an F2A-1/B-239). The cartoon of the F2A-4 Corsalo (Buffalair?) was especially personally rewarding. Thank you Njaco, you really made my day.

 

[rank amateur]

The cartoon of the F2A-4 Corsalo (Buffalair?) was especially personally rewarding. Thank you Njaco, you really made my day.

Granting that this Buffalo has a new wing and a new engine, it deserves a new name and a new military denotation. Might I suggest Brewster F4A-1 Seacow.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Brewster would have screwed up production. F4A-1 Seascum

 

[rank amateur]

Brewster would have screwed up production. F4A-1 Seascum

That's a poetic name for a gawd awfull ugly plain. Members of the jury, we have a winner!

Chrzzzzz

 

[tomo pauk]

I do somewhere in hard copy. I'm still looking for it. Put a R-2600 on the F2A and you have a poor man's F8F....maybe.

-snip-

As for the R-2600 on the F2A.... AARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!

-snip-

Seen that coming...