tom d. friedman wrote:
it's funny....... for such an overall bashed, mashed, fat assed, failure in ww 2 fighter aircraft history the old sad sack buffalo sure generates alot of interest!! i'm guilty as charged too!! no comments from finland please.... you overcame the hairy beast's quirks.
One of the interesting things about studying such a huge effort as WW2 is learning how perceptions have changed over the years or how perceptions were fostered. The Brewster F2A is a good case in point. It's only real outright failure was at Midway yet at least two F2As scored kills and one them claimed two including a Zero. I think there were some F4Fs flying with the USMC from Midway and they did not do all that much better than the Brewsters. In Malaya and Indonesia while outclassed by the Zero and Oscar it was no more outclassed than the Hurricane or the P-40. The only P-40s to have an early edge were the AVG and that was due to tactics developed by Chennault. When others used similar tactics with the F2A they could have success too, i.e. Geoff Fisken of New Zealand who scored 6 victories in F2As.
The perception of the F2A as lumbering loser is based on two things the RAF's nickname of Buffalo and the Midway after action report by the USMC squadron commander that famously considered any F2A as lost before it took off against the Japanese. Clearly the F2A was obsolescent and the F2A-3 was a complete dead end in terms of development but the -2 was probably as effective as an F4F-3 and could have contributed as much if only Brewster could have delivered.
There and I am only 1/4 Finnish!
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