Ineffective & deficent Allied equipment

[Steve]

This was split from a similar thread in the Axis equipment section, and worthy of seperate thread-Andy H

Quoting a South African tank commander Bob Crisp on the British Cruiser or A10 tank "like mobile pre-fab houses and just about as flimsy. By far their worst failing was their complete inability to move more than a mile without breaking a track, or shedding one on a sharp turn" his unit took 60 to Greece in 1941 and he estimated 6 at most were lost to enemy action and the rest abandoned due to breakdowns.

[Paul Timms]

My friend Dennis said that the Boys ATR would be "lost" at every opportunity. It was very heavy to lug around and totally useless in combat.

[Robert Hurst]

Hi Steve

I would like to nominate two aircraft: one the British Fairey Battle and the other the American Brewster Buccaneer.

The reason why I am nominating the Fairey Battle light bomber is as follows: although it was a considerable improvement on the Hawker Harts and Hinds it superseded in the mid-1930s, by 1939 it was totally obsolete both in terms of performance and armament. The confirmation for this assessement can be seen in the losses it incurred during its operatonal service in the early part of the Second World War.

The reason why I have nominated this particular American aircraft is that apart from having a performance that made it completely unsuitable for operational service, but also because of the immense amount of time, money and effort, never mind the disappointment of its intended users, that was wasted on a useless plane.

Regards

Bob

[varjag]

May we add the Westland Whirlwind, Bolton-Paul Defiant, Blackburn Roc, Hawker Tornado and Avro Manchester to the lineup? OK - Tornado and Manchester led to Typhoon and Lancaster - the others were dead ends. This just off the cuff...But - come on lads, British aeroplane failures are legion, surely there are dozens more.

[Mauser K98k]

The Brewster Buffalo was a dog too.

Many fine British and US Marine pilots were lost trying to fight Zeros with this dud.

[Juha Tompuri]

The Brewster Buffalo was a dog too.

Many fine British and US Marine pilots were lost trying to fight Zeros with this dud.

Flying Coffin at Pacific, Pearl of the Sky at Finland
http://www.au.af.mil/au/goe/eaglebios/86bios/wind86.htm
http://www.danford.net/buff.htm

Regards, Juha

[Mauser K98k]

The Buffalo could hold it's own against a Russian Rata, but was hopelessly outclassed against Japanese Navy pilots in Zeros.

[Mark V]

The Buffalo could hold it's own against a Russian Rata, but was hopelessly outclassed against Japanese Navy pilots in Zeros.

It is funny that it just don't get into heads of our dear American friends. Brewster was very good airplane - in Marine and USN use it was just bit overburdened with too heavy equipment and fuel load.

Brewster really doesn't deserve the reputation it has in US and Britain.

When flown in lighter condition by competent aviators it ruled our sky uncontested where ever it was seen till the end of 1942 - and i am not talking about Ratas. Brewster was many ways superior against Hurricane (which FAF pilots found especially easy prey) and LaGG-3.

In 1943-44 enemy fighters with superior performance (Hey - what you expect ?? - more than double amount of horsepower than in war-weary R-1820 Cyclones !!) started causing troubles for Brewsters. But even then - La-5s and Yaks had every reason to take Brewster very seriously - like victory statistics prove.

What Brewsters of Fighter Squadron 24 did to I-153s and I-16s in summer-autumn 1941 i don't care to discuss further, as it was more slaughter than aerial combat.


Regards, Mark V


PS. But hey, i guess some explanation why inferior race orientals with poor eye-sight shot US and Brit pilots down by dozens must be found. And the easiest is the equipment.

[Mauser K98k]

I didn't say it was a bad airplane. It was fine in 1935. But in the 1941-42 Pacific theater, it was OBSOLETE. Hence, INEFFECTIVE. (see thread title)

Ridicule US and British pilots if you like, but I'd like to see how your Finnish pilots flying Buffalos would have done against Saburo Sakai, Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, Toshio Ota, et. al. flying their Zeros.

[Harri]

In the summer and autumn 1941 Soviets didn't shoot down any Finnish Brewsters. But Soviet losses in turn were significant.

The basic point in flying with fighters is tactics used and for sure Allied pilots must have used also wrong tactics agains Zeros (or Zeros have had a suberb one). I don't think Soviet La-5 fighters in 1943 for example would have been worse than Zero of 1941 /42. Finns also had to develop fighter tactics during the war to avoid losses. Finnish radio intelligence was also developed very effective for informing Finnish pilots beforehand. The one who has an advantage in aerial combat usually wins the fight.

It is said that Finnish Brewsters would have been much manoeuverable than later models. Perhaps they were but Finns have anyway proved that good training and working fighter tactics may give good results even if the planes weren't the best ones or better than opponent's ones.

(BTW These planes should be compared:
During Winter War (1939 - 1940): Fokker D.XXI vs. I-16, 1-15bis, I-153
During Continuation War (1941 - 1944): Brewster, Morane-Saulnier 406, Curtiss Hawk 75A, FIAT G.50 vs. Yak-1, -7, -9 MiG-3, LaGG-3, Hurricane II, P-39, P-40, La-5)

----

So, also from the Soviet point of view Hurricanes and P-40s were bad but they liked a lot of P-39s which Americans had found too clumsy. Any planes Soviets used against Messerchmitt Bf 109G fighter weren't better including also Soviet Spitfires and Mustangs.

[alf]

The Buffalo was an exceptionaly bad aircraft in 1941 against the Japanese, the Japanese had a pool of extremely skilled pilots, they had first rate aircraft, the Buffalos were shot from the sky.

The diference in tactics was critical in fighting, in the Pacific Theatre, the Japanese would normally operate their bombers at 20,000ft, their fighters at 25,000. I suspect the Russians operated at a much lower height, under 10,000ft? . The Buffalo's engine pump failed to deliver adequate fuel pressure above 18,000 ft, pilots had to resort to a manually using a hand pump to get fuel to the engine. A fatal disadvantage in a dogfight.

There is a book Defeat to Victory of the Royal Australian Airforce No 453, Royal New Zealand Airforce Squadron 488 and Royal Airforce Squadron No 21 operating in Malaya, Dec 1941-Jan 1942 flying Bufflaos.

from the book

With combat experience it was decided drastic measures were necessary to improve the performance f the Buffalo. The radio mast was removed, and all excess weight such as verey tubes, parachute flare bins and cockpit heaters taken out. Drag was reduced by removing the gun blisters, pilots relief venturi tubes and rear vision mirrors. The two 0.5inch wing guns were replaced by 2 .0303 inch guns and the mountings, port openings and ammunition bins were modifed to suit. Fuel load was reduced by 4 gallons, and the the ammunition load was also reduced. Apart from the much cleaner lines resulting, the weight of the aircraft was reduced by a 1000 pounds. This produced a remmarkable difference in performance. The Brewster Buffalo could now even loop.

The Buffalo did perform well with the Finnish Air Force, but a totally different war, different enemy equipment, levels of training and tactics (even climate was crucial)

I have read of the significant local modifications they did to it,

Meanwhile, the Brewster export fighters had become the mainstay of the Finnish air force. The Finns admired the Model 239, regarding it as simply constructed and easily repaired. (It helped that their state aircraft factory was close to the front, and their mechanics were inventive. Finding that oil didn't circulate freely through the engine, for example, they inverted a cylinder ring and solved a problem that plagued the Brewster wherever it served. It probably also helped that Finland was colder than Malaya or even Britain.) To bring the 239s up to snuff, they added armor plate and modern gun sights. "The more we played with it," recalled Joppe Karhunen in 1982, "the more we liked it."

The Finns called their Brewster Taivaan Helmi (Sky Pearl) and made a copy they called the Humu (Distant Storm). Their variant had wooden wing panels and a captured 1,000-horsepower Russian engine, a Cyclone lookalike that was also used to re-equip some 239s. For a recognition mark, the Finns used a blue hakaristi, a bent-leg cross that signified good luck in Nordic lands

http://www.airspacemag.com/ASM/Mag/Inde ... /ssbb.html

A simple question to ask is who here would have wanted to been assigned to a Buffalo Squadron in the Pacific Theatre in WW2?

[Mark V]

I don't think Soviet La-5 fighters in 1943 for example would have been worse than Zero of 1941 /42.

I think Harri found my point also - exactly....

The Buffalo did perform well with the Finnish Air Force, but a totally different war, different enemy equipment, levels of training and tactics (even climate was crucial)

True. Some of it inferior, some of it equal, some of it absolutely superior compared what Japs had.


Regards, Mark V

[Mark V]

Ridicule US and British pilots if you like, but I'd like to see how your Finnish pilots flying Buffalos would have done against Saburo Sakai, Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, Toshio Ota, et. al. flying their Zeros.

Would had been fight between worthy opponenets. And pilot skill would had been the determining factor - differences in equipment were insignificant compared to that.


Mark V

[Juha Tompuri]

http://www.airspacemag.com/ASM/Mag/Inde ... /ssbb.html

"(Midway, J.T.) As in Malaya, the Brewster was blamed for the disaster that might better have been attributed to faulty tactics, inexperienced pilots, and poor command decicions"

A simple question to ask is who here would have wanted to been assigned to a Buffalo Squadron in the Pacific Theatre in WW2?

Is serving in Australia counted in?

Regards, Juha

[ChristopherPerrien]

I think you all are missing something , comparing the Buffalo to Zeros or calling it a bad aircraft is not the right thing to do. There is a big difference between an obsolete aircraft and a "bad" aircraft. The Brewster in 1938 was comparable to other 1st generation carrier planes, of course it would be a dog compared to later airplanes but the same can be said of alot of military equipment.

Here is a link of aircraft comparisions, it is a good link and you could spend days looking at the info for aircraft , it also has , tanks, planes, and guns,

http://users.belgacom.net/aircraft/edit ... tml#204549

Here is a lilttle blurb from there

Buffalo I
Type: fighter Nationality: Great Britain
This version gave a major contribution to the bad name associated with the Buffalo since the war. It was an export version of the F2A-2, withouth the naval gears. The mounting of equipments on request of the British (gunsight, armor, ...) added a half ton to the overall weight. That seriously impaired both the performances and the maneuvrability of the plane.
They were all assigned in the Far East in early 1941. When the Japanese landed in Malaysia, the Buffaloes had the better for a short while against the ageing Japaneses Nate and Oscar. But with the arrival of the Zero, they were completely outclassed. After the fall of Singapore, the same scenario repeated itself in Burma. Within a few months, the losses rate approached 100% of the engaged planes and only six examples could return to India at the end of the Burma campaign.
If the losses were high and the battle in the air, in the end, a defeat, it had much to do with the impossible conditions where the Buffalo had to operate. Even under those circumstances, they managed to score almost two victories for each loss in combat, not such a bad performance for a plane with such a bad name.
Built by Brewster Aeronautical Corporation
Other designation(s): B-339E