Do You Have an Illogical Hatred of an Aircraft?

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I think the Buffalo has gotton something of a bad rap. The actual design may not have been so bad but the execution may have been terrible.

The Finns did get F2A-1s from a Navy contract while the Navy deferred their deliveries to a later model.

Newer models got such improvements as more fuel tanks, total capacity was 240 US gallons which almost makes the Mustang look like a piker, and is double that of a Hurricane, Spitfire or 109. considering it's engine wasn't as powerful this couldn't be good for performance. Some rather rediculous ammo loads didn't help things either. 600rpg for the fuselage guns and 800rpg for the wing guns

THe engine situation was really icing on the cake. THe US refused to allow the export of 'military' model engines and since, as the story goes, Wright couldn't supply Cyclones fast enough (or cheap enough?) many export Buffalos got ex-airliner engines that had been overhauled. Apparently not all these re-builds were of the same quality leading to widely different performance in the same squadron. And/or perhaps not all Buffalos had the same supercharger gears?

Combine this with Green (to combat) pilots using bad tatics and your results are not likily to be good.

I believe the Midway combat was the ONLY combat the Buffalo saw in US service and there are a number of other aircraft who's initial combat debute wasn't very good.

A Buffalo with a new 2 speed engine (not 2 stage) carring half the ammo and fuel and flown by combat experienced pilots might have had a different record. Not saying it was as good as an F4F
 
Shortround6 said:
I think the Buffalo has gotton something of a bad rap. The actual design may not have been so bad but the execution may have been terrible.

The Finns did get F2A-1s from a Navy contract while the Navy deferred their deliveries to a later model.
Click to expand...

It must have been pretty bad to be nicknamed The Flying Coffin. The navy knew wat they had and sold it to whoever would take them. The Finnish took what they could afford and did their best with it fighting the Soviets and succeeded. Wish I could say the same about the Brits using it to fight the japs.I think part of the reason for that was the B-339E had the underpowered Wright R-1820-G-105 Cyclone engine and the extra weight (around 900 pounds) Where did the extra weight come from?
 
Read "Bloody Shambles." Although the RAF Buffs were overwhelmed by the Japanese, they didn't do as bad as one may think.
 

Try Wikipedia entry: Brewster Buffalo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

which isn't too bad and try :http://www.warbirdforum.com/buff.htm
 
I don't hate any aircrafts. I just feel that some aircraft is overrated and some others are underrated. For example P51Mustang vs P38Lightning. Always talk about how exceptional/fantastic/unmatchable was the Mustang, and always talk about how bad was the Lightning. Simply not true. Mustang was a tricky aircraft, handling was slugish, weak protection of engine (which only had one, bad for an escort fighter deep over enemy territory), etc... Lightning was a very good aircraft if used the right tactics, feed with the right fuel. More versatile than the most other aircrafts. Some twinengined could matched or did better as an attacker, but non of the twinengined were as good fighter as the Lightning.

I also feel underrated the P40 Hawks, Hawker Hurricane, etc...

So I don't hate any aircraft. I only would hate that one, what crash when I fly by it or sit on it...
 

You seem badly misinformed regarding over all reliability and survivability of the P-38 vs the P-51 in the ETO.

The ratio of enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground (versus lost to strafing) between the two was far lower for the P-38 than the Mustang. The P-47 was also more effective than the Lightning and less effective than the Mustang in the 8th AF. Efficiency in this definition is the ratio of enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground (and air) to the number of US fighters lost in the ETO.

If you have another definition please tell me what you wish to use?

Without comparing actual sorties against heavily defended targets it is difficult to truly compare. AFAIK they do not exist but the P-38 lost more (by 2x) strafing compared to the number of aircraft destroyed than the P-51.

When the design changes (intercooler, manuever flaps, boosted ailerons) were made to the last series of J and all L versions of the P-38, it was both more reliable in the very cold ETO skies as well as more manueverable..
 
drgondog said:
Efficiency in this definition is the ratio of enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground (and air) to the number of US fighters lost in the ETO.
Click to expand...

I don't agree with cuccos19 but I have a question, how would this statistics looked like if it was a ratio of enemy aircraft destroyed to the number of US fighters used in the ETO?
 
marshall said:
I don't agree with cuccos19 but I have a question, how would this statistics looked like if it was a ratio of enemy aircraft destroyed to the number of US fighters used in the ETO?
Click to expand...

That is a good question - and probably needs to be examined period by period.

Far more German aircraft were destroyed by Mustangs in the four months February through May 1944 than January through April 1945 when nearly all of the 8th AF (except 56th FG) were Mustang orgs. So take just the 8th AF as it had the dominant % of Mustangs (including the attached 354 Pioneer Mustang Group). Virtually all of the 9th AF was P-47, then gradually building up P-38 force as 8th got rid of them.

The 9th AF ratios were far lower than 8th AF for both the P-47 and P-38 in comparison to Mustangs... so let's deal with 8th AF only

In that same period (Feb-May, 1944) more LW fighters were shot down by first two (354 and 1/2 of 357), then three plus (354, 357, 4 and 2/3 355), then four plus (364, 357, 4, 355 and 1/2 352) then six (354, 357, 4, 355, 352, 339) Mustang Groups over those four months than all of the other 11 P-47/3 P-38 (Feb 1944) to 7 P-47/4 P-38 (May 1944) groups combined. So during this period the Mustangs were flying 1.5/16, 3.6/16, 4.5/16 and 5/16 of the sorties for approximately 70% of the credits - far out of proportion to the sorties (~ 13%).

In this period the number of sorties per group per mission were the same - but only the P-51s and P-38s were getting into most of the air battles over Germany where the action was... so even on the per sortie comparison the 51 was far higher than the Jug and Lightning - simply because they were where the action was - over Germany not France and Belgium where only JG2 and JG 26 were located.

The 38 did not do well despite being over Germany. I believe the primary factor was that is was huge, distinctive, easy to spot first and enabled the LW pilots to decide whether to stalk or slip away - depending on tactical advantage. The Mustang on the other hand looks like a 109 from a distance.

There were periods when the 8th AF jugs could compete - Normandy campaign, Operation Market Garden, and Battle of Bulge were good air fight opportunities where range was not an issue and the P-47 groups did well.

The aircraft were pretty evenly matched when the P-47D-25 and P-38J-25 and P-38L were in theatre - but most of the big air battles were over.
 
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Since this is the illogical thread, I'll make the subjective statement that the P-38 always seemed to me a lot like a supermodel girlfriend: beautiful but high maintenance. By the time that enough bugs were worked out for her to work in the ETO, the Air forces there had already "broken up with her" and moved on to their new girlfriend, the Girl-Next-Door Mustang.
 
glad to see im not the only one that picked P-51 Mustang at least i know im not alone now i have 5 that i Have an Illogical Hatred for

P-51 Mustang
Avro Lancaster
p-39 airacobra
Mitsubishi G4M "Betty"
Macchi M.C.200 Saetta
 
I dislike the P38. I always thought it to be a bad copy of the G.1, as made by the US got all the votes. This of course is utterly untrue, hence the "illogical"
 
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