eBay: Brewster Buffalo

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varsity07840 said:
RAF Buffalos were hard pressed to hit 310 MPH at their best altitude, which was pretty low. Four .50 cal. guns are worthless if they can't be brought to bear on a fast climbing tiny aircraft that could turn on a dime. The Ki-27 may have been slower than the Buffalo but it's acceration rate was much faster from crushing speed to combat speed thus negating the Buffalos slight max speed advantage which took all day to attain. As far as telescopic gunsights go, I don' t think the scores of Commonwealth and Dutch pilots shot down by JAAF fighters ( the early Ki-43 used the same sight) were critical of their opponents lack of reflector sights.
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Sorry but I fail to grasp the point you're making. Top speed has nothing to do with the speed at which the maximum rate of climb is achieved. Also, acceleration will not negate a speed advantage, particularly in a 3-D combat where diving speed is used as a suitable tactic against a slower but more manoeuverable adversary.

Read what Geoff Fisken had to say about the tactics employed, "The only thing to do was to get as much height as possible above any Japs before making an attack - preferably two or three thousand feet - when you could make the initial attack and have enough speed created in the dive to go around for a second go...This did not always work as the Jap planes outnumbered us by 10-20 to one but when it did we got victories. When it did not, we got out and lived for another go next day."
 
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Right. Too many people want to blame the aircraft, when the real disparity was training and experience. More than one veteran has said that had all the Allies been equipped with P-51s at the start of the "Great Pacific War", they still would have been defeated by the Japanese.
Reason - The pilots facing the Japanese in the first few months of the war were simply too inexperienced to use their planes to the best advantage. The Finns facing the Soviets found themselves on the other side of the coin. The Finns had excellent training, experience and maintenance, and faced inexperienced and poorly led opponents. By 1943, this edge had gone, the Brewsters were wearing out, and the Soviets were able to devote more and better aircraft and aircrew to what was for them a secondary front.
 
buffnut453 said:
Training and experience were factors but so, too, were outright numbers, lack of early warning and poor tasking, none of which have anything to do with the qualities of the airframe involved. A Spitfire caught on the ground due to lack of warning of an incoming raid will burn just as easily as a Buffalo.
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I certainly can't argue with that.:)
 
buffnut453 said:
Sorry but I fail to grasp the point you're making. Top speed has nothing to do with the speed at which the maximum rate of climb is achieved. Also, acceleration will not negate a speed advantage, particularly in a 3-D combat where diving speed is used as a suitable tactic against a slower but more manoeuverable adversary.

Read what Geoff Fisken had to say about the tactics employed, "The only thing to do was to get as much height as possible above any Japs before making an attack - preferably two or three thousand feet - when you could make the initial attack and have enough speed created in the dive to go around for a second go...This did not always work as the Jap planes outnumbered us by 10-20 to one but when it did we got victories. When it did not, we got out and lived for another go next day."
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Read what Mr. Shores wrote in Bloody Shambles regarding performance of Allied fighters vs Japanese at the start of the war and why text book maximum speed of an aircraft is not always a game winner. The Buffalo took all day to accelerate to combat speed when bounced, which is normally what happened due to its poor rate of climb and service ceiling. The same can be said for P-39s in New Guinea in early 1942.
 
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varsity07840 said:
Read what Mr. Shores wrote in Bloody Shambles regarding performance of Allied fighters vs Japanese at the start of the war and why text book maximum speed of an aircraft is not always a game winner. The Buffalo took all day to accelerate to combat speed when bounced, which is normally what happened due to its poor rate of climb and service ceiling. The same can be said for P-39s in New Guinea in early 1942.
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I never said anything about text book maximum speeds. Speed is just one of many variables that are constantly changing during air combat. Acceleration is another. Both are entirely dependent on power setting and aircraft attitude. The Buffalo actually accelerated very well in the dive which is why Geoff Fisken employed the tactics he described. The Buffalo's climb rate was poor, and its service ceiling less than stellar. However, those aren't the only reasons why the Buffalo often found itself at a tactical disadvantage. Again, per one of my earlier posts, lack of adequate early warning and a ground control system that was virtually non-existent were far more significant operational limitations than the Buffalo's flight performance during the Malayan Campaign.
 
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Really great selection of pictures there. THX for posting. :thumbright:
 
W8131 NX1478

Brewster Buffalo_05.jpg
 
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Press article in Finnish Iltalehti, google translation below.
Iltalehti shortcut Some photos also!

At the turn of October and November 1939, the Finnish Broadcasting Company announced: "Uolevi Alvesalo, Lieutenant of the Air Force, you have been born twin boys. Mom and boys are doing well. "
Lieutenant Alvesalo had already been assigned to additional refresher exercises in October.
"The fact that our birth was announced on the Finnish Broadcasting Company must have been quite extraordinary," says Ilpo Alvesalo, another of Uolevi's and Lea Alvesalo's twin sons.
November 30, 1939 The Soviet Union invaded Finland and the Winter War began. The twin boys had to be baptized in candlelight when Helsinki was bombed.
During the Winter War, only a few reserve pilots entered the fronts because there were more pilots than scarce aircraft. When the Continuation War broke out, the Reserve Directors also got into action.
Fatal flight
On January 29, 1942, it was sunny, with frost minus 30 degrees.
At the Tiiksjärvi air base in Karelia, the squadron of 24 squadrons was on the narrow narrow berths. The pilots woke up in a bitter morning. The first wake-up flight attendant "Pappa" Turkka lit a fireplace and put a replacement coffee on the fire.
The silence of the morning was broken by the phone's hesitation, to which the flight attendant responded. The Air Force Headquarters had been given instructions and ordered a reconnaissance flight from Merimaasel to Petrozavodsk and Sekeh.
- Up the poppies! the flight attendant commented.
The Brewster fighters stood with the engines pre-heated between the big rigs. The sun was shining and the frosts glistened brightly. Noon fame reached Eka Magnusson led the fleet: five aircraft took off and went to make a reconnaissance mission in the Murmansk track. The planes were flew by Nissinen and Kinnunen, Sergeants Lampi and Lehto, and Lieutenant Alvesalo.
In severe freezing weather, pilots were ordered to test their fighter jets at the start of the flight. The frost could solidify the grease of the machine guns so that the guns were no longer working.
Next to Lieutenant Alvesalo was Sergeant Heimo Lampi. The men-driven fighter jets flew at a height of about 500 meters in a parade wedge. Soon, Alvesalo informed Lamm by radio that a small lake could be seen below where the Brewster rifles could be tested.
Alvesalo nodded to Lamme and steered his own plane down. The lieutenant pressed the trigger button on the machine guns, but only two of the four machine guns on the machine spit his crackling projectile onto the ice. Alvesalo immediately made new charging strokes and pressed the machine gun launch button again.
At that moment, he noticed that the tree tops were already up to the plane. The clear sky and the eye-facing sun had cleared the horizon from the pilot, and Alvesalo's plane collided with the icy lake.
"What's that man doing?"
Sergeant Lampi, who flown next to Alvesalo, described the events of January Thursday in his book The Last Downsides (WSOY 1967):
- The snow cover on the lake glows and glows stunningly as we approach it at 450 kilometers per hour. I squint my eyes and glance at Alvesalo, who is drooling on the left in the foreground. I see him playing in the cab in the front.
Lampi got to test his own machine guns, which are working properly. In his book, he describes the events as follows:
- The surface of the lake is approaching fast, but Alvesalo continues to plunge. What's that man doing? I still see him in the forefront position, and he doesn't seem to have any intention of rectifying the machine. At about five meters high, my pace plane was horizontal. At the same time, Alvesalo's plane hits the ice with tremendous force. A tall statue of snow throws up into the air and everywhere in front of me is flying pieces of a crushed machine. A depressing sight opens under me - the Brewster fighter jet in Alvesalo has been crushed completely. Its fragments are about three hundred meters apart. The smoky engine and the tail of the machine are the largest pieces left of the machine.

Parts of a Brewster fighter colliding with an icy lake spread about three hundred meters. The engine and tail of the machine are the biggest pieces left of it. Alvesalo's home album
Sergeant Lampi circled around the broken plane trying to find Alvesalo's body:
"It seems to me that he has broken down in the same way as his machine," Lampi writes.
It seems to me that he has broken down in the same way as his machine.
Searching in vain for his comrade's body, Lampi communicates via radio with Captain Ahola: "Alve's sleep, machine's sleep." That meant the destroyer was a scrap and Alvesalo was dead.
Lampi was ordered to continue his reconnaissance task. Later, the patrol would come down with a stick to retrieve the deceased.
Godfather and miracle cure
Sergeant Lampi mourned the death of his fellow pilot and the fact that Alvesalo's little twin boys were fatherless.
When the four pilots landed after completing their mission back to Lake Tiiksjärvi, they decided to co-opt the "Alve" twin boys into the squad's godson. The pilots promised to train both boys until the age of sixteen, and still clapped their hands on the seal.
But really, Alvesalo wasn't dead:
- Under Hangen was like beautiful organ music, the man himself later recalled his awakening after the collision.
He had been unconscious for about one and a half hours after the plane crashed inside a one meter thick hangar.
He had been unconscious for about one and a half hours after the plane crashed inside a one meter thick hangar.
The spirit of Alvesalo had been saved by the armored seat of the plane, for although Brewster had been almost completely fragmented, the pilot's armored seat had been thrown through the canopy into a snow project. Under the hanging, the seat had still slid tens of meters inside the snow, which prevented the pilot from seeing the air.
After reaching the lake from the organic cave, Alvesalo noted that his left ankle had been fractured. There were open sores on the head and bruises on the shoulders and stomach that had been made by the down belts.
At first, Alvesalo, in shock, remembered nothing of the whole accident, but thought that his enemy had shot down his plane on the Soviet side. Alvesalo started looking for skis to fly safely from the junk. Suddenly, he heard the sound of the airplane and hid under a piece detached from the airplane as he thought the enemy aircraft had come looking for him.
In fact, the fighter jets were 24 fighter planes from Finland, returning from their reconnaissance flight to the Muurmann track.
Some time later, two people appeared on the edge of the forest with them. The Finns had come to ski to retrieve Alvesalo's body.
It was quite a surprise when it came to light that the man was alive and not badly injured.
The lieutenant was transported through an ear to an ambulance to take him to Ontasenvaara Field Hospital. Information about Alvesalo's survival was sent to the Tiiksjärvi squadron from the hospital. The news was received with great joy in the pilots' barracks, and even more so when "Alve" returned some time later and returned to the crowd.
Alvesalo's spirit was saved by good fortune and the fighter's armored seat that protected the pilot. Alvesalo's home album
Run into the swamp
The first flight after the accident was mentally challenging, but soon the feelings of fear leveled off.
Alvesalo also got into action on the evening of June 8, 1942, when ten enemy fighters and seven bomber units approached the base of the Tiiksjärvi air fleet. The combat flight was supposed to get 10 Brewsters, but when one of the planes seemed to be left without a pilot, Alvesalo, who was on a rest flight, offered to join the enemy. He did not even change clothes, but was dressed only in nets and an old patrol uniform.
Twins, Ilpo (left) and Lassi Alvesalo with their mother Lea Alvesalo. Alvesalo's home album
Alvesalo dropped a Russian Hurricane before a machine gun jet pierced his machine's fuel tank. The lieutenant had to make a forced landing in the swamp, where the plane slid like a winged canoe. Flood flooded into the cockpit and the landing rush ended on a cuckoo bulge growing on the island.
Immediately after the forced landing, Alve left to sneak out of the mire. The Finnish front line was about 10 kilometers away, and in a vague tracksuit, being caught behind the lines could at worst end up being a spy shooter.
Fortunately, the lost pilot had reached the front line. When Alvesalo ended up near Rukavaara, he encountered a Finnish guard who was waiting to arrive.
Alvesalo was in luck this time too, as the adjacent front line stationed a company that had recently entered the front line, and inexperienced soldiers could have gunned down a strangely dressed passerby.
Despite the destruction of Lieutenant's aircraft, Sekehe's air battle was a success for the Finns, as by number the overwhelming enemy lost five Hurricanes, and there were no personal losses.
Joint meetings
Lieutenant Alvesalo's twin sons Ilpo and Lassi, who were taken as the godson of the Air Force 24, later trained as dentists and researchers. Ilpo is an adjunct professor of epidemiology at the University of Helsinki and emeritus professor of genetics at Lassi University of Oulu.
Ilpo Alvesalo is one of Uolevi Alvesalo's twin sons born on the eve of the Winter War. He was 80 years old with his brother last October. Piia Alvesalo
- Our father told us about these wartime events. He was very happy that these fellow pilots took us as godparents - my dad thought it was a great thing, says Ilpo Alvesalo.
During the war, two younger brothers, Tapio and Simo, were born to the Alvesalo family.
The pilots followed the education and success of the twin boys for a decade. The twins met them for the last time in the late 1980s.
- It was a really nice meeting. They were praised for taking us as godparents and for their homes.
- They were our spiritual godparents for the rest of their lives, Ilpo Alvesalo, who turns 80 in October, concludes.
 
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