brewster buffalo... flying cow pie or ass kicker??

[tom d. friedman]

i've been reading a number of ww 2 pacific oriented books over the past months. in each book the reputation of the lowly buffalo has been basically dragged through the mud, but with intermittent victory credits too, from both the raf & u.s. forces, but the scale is otherwise lopsided toward the statement that the buffalo was a cow pie in aerial combat. i've seen the overall combat record of the type with the allies, & yes there are numerous noble victories sprinkled in, but my question is how did the finnish air force managed to take a much maligned & criticized type & make into an ass kicker?? the buffalo is highly lauded in finnish ww 2 service, a real ace maker in their air force. did the buffalo perform better in the cold than in the tropics?? did it fight against more inferior types on the eastern front, thus cake victories?? or the finns had good russkie supplied vodka?? i'm interested in the opinions to follow!!

[lmritger]

Ass kicker, when flown properly.

The Finns had several things going for them... Russian tactics, at least through mid-1943, were very rigid and inflexible, largely prohibiting freedom of individual action so the Finns could dance in and out of Russian formations, picking off aircraft at will. The Russians also had formation command problems; most Russian-designed aircraft were fitted only with a radio receiver. The Finns were also very highly motivated... the Soviet Union had bullied them into conflict, expecting the Finns to roll over like Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, but Stalin seriously underestimated the Finnish sense of national identity and their fierce determination to protect it. Consequently, they absolutely decimated the Russian forces. And I wouldn't call Spitfires, Hurricanes, Airacobras, LaGGs, and Yaks "inferior equipment"!

On the Allies' side, we made a number of mistakes with the F2A; we weighed it down with armor and other equipment without a corresponding increase in engine power, and we had no idea how to properly fight the ridiculously nimble A6Ms and Ki 43s until late 1942. By that point, all of the British squadrons had been overrun, and the Marine F2A-3s had been decimated by the IJN due to poor fighting tactics on our part.

I think the real bottom line is, don't f**k with the Finns!

[Karpis]

Forgive me if I sound naive, but wasn't the P-40 somewhat of a clunker without the right pilot in it? I always thought the Buffalo was similar in that respect.

[Jack Cook]

but wasn't the P-40 somewhat of a clunker without the right pilot in it

The P-40 was a WAR machine.
But any a/c is only has good has it's pilot.
I'll take Bud Anderson in a P-26 over Dilbert the pilot in his F4U any
day of the week.

[Jiggersfromsphilly]

Bud might want to have a say in that choice!

[Shay]

wasn't the P-40 somewhat of a clunker

BANISHMENT AWAITS YOU


Just Kidding

Shay
____________
Semper Fortis

[Mikael O]

One shouldn't forget that the finnish fighter pilots where trained to a very high standard, having practised both dogfighting and gunnerytraining. I think I remember that they experimented with two ship formations and finger four around the same time the Germans did that in Spain.

That could be one reason for why they got a so high ratio between lost aircraft and shoot down enemy aircraft even compared to the Luftwaffe.

/Mike

[Oscar2]

Quite a number of RAF/RAAF/RNZAF guys got several kills in the Buffalo in Malaya. Big problem was lack of resource/training/parts etc combined with Japanese having superior numbers and the element of suprise. The coffee table "aces" love to leave out the facts sometimes and start looking at things like published aircraft data which may not mean squat in the combat arena. Some comments were that the Buffalo was superior in handling etc to the Hurricane which was also trashed by the Japanese....