Were The Brewster F2A 'Buffalo' & Fiat CR.42 'Falco' REALLY Terrible WW2 Fighters?
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- Опубліковано 6 лип 2024
- In the next video in our series of the worst ww2 fighters, we're looking at two very different fighters. One started life at sea and the second was the apex of its type, but just decades too late.
We're talking about the Brewster F2A 'Buffalo' & Fiat CR.42 'Falco', and it's your choice whether they make it on the list of the very worst fighter aircraft to come out of WW2.
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⏱️ Timestamp:
0:00 Were these the worst WW2 fighters?
0:36 Brewster Buffalo
4:44 Fiat CR 42
#aviationhistory#history
![Italy's WW2-Era Biplanes, Part 1 | The 'Peacetime' Fiat Cr.1 & Cr.20 [Aircraft Overview #79]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/hZMuKUm8kjs/mqdefault.jpg)
![Italy's WW2-Era Biplanes, Part 1 | The 'Peacetime' Fiat Cr.1 & Cr.20 [Aircraft Overview #79]](/img/tr.png)
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The Buffalo reminds me of the Australian Boomerang fighter. A bit of an under performer but capable in the hands of a good pilot.
The Fiat CR.42 was, along with the Gloster Gladiator, was the pinnacle of the biplane. and both were excellent aircraft. Unfortunately by this time the monoplane was the way ahead. Ironically the piston engined monoplane would itself surpassed before the war ended by the jet.
Finnish Brewsters were light as possible, lots of things were removed. That helped a bit. Many pilots flying them were aces from the Winter War. Brewsters were given only for the best pilots to fly. Soviet pilots were poor in 1941, their tactic was to fly straight and level when attacked, trying to outrun Brewster. My old man passed away two years ago. He was a pilot and his flying instructor in 1967 was a Brewster pilot with two kills.
I also helped that Finnish mechanics were able to fix one of the Buffalo's biggest faults, namely the unreliable radial engine.
The basic change the Finns made was to remove all the "Navalising" additions to the base airframe which added almost half a tonne (c470 kgs) to the takeoff weight. This meant the power to weight ratio improved, rate of climb improved and wing load was reduced, improving handling. With these changes the Finnish Buffalo's achieved a 33 to 1 kill to loss ratio over their Soviet Opponents and their name for it was "Heavenly Pearl" compare that to the F6F Hellcat's much vaunted 19 to 1 kill ration over the Japanese. (BTW, the British and Dutch never removed the Naval gear either...
I read that Finnish kept the weight of the B.239 - which was the correct designation of the Finnish version of Brewster, not the 'Buffalo' - but as far as I know, they still used at least three .50cal MGs and maybe one .30cal, or all four were .50cal? British crew and mechanics tried to save weight in Singapore and changed the .50cals to .303s, and reduced the ammo count per guns (also reduced the fuel quantity) but still were sitting ducks. Okay, they faced against battle hardened Japanese pilots, but IJN and IJA fighter pilots were seasoned.
One thing often overlooked in commentary about the Brewster is the different production models. The aircraft delivered to Finland were ex-US Navy F2A1. These were light and nimble aircraft and the Finns lightened them further and installed slightly more powerful engines. The next delivery was the F2A2, of which the Navy initially got the version with folding wings (which was why they had agreed to turn over the A1 to the Finns). Orders for the F2A2 exploded far beyond what Brewster was able to produce and as a result unskilled staff had to be employed and this coupled with poor management led to severe quality issues in the delivered airframes. Part of the bad reputation of the Brewster was due to the poor quality of the F2A2 export models that were also overweight after they had been equipped with all kinds of extras. Still, the Brewster flown by the Dutch had a sufficiently poweful engine and less excess weight than the British versions and could go toe to toe with the Ki-43, but numbers were too small to make any difference. Finally, the Brewster version delivered to the US Marine Corps, the F2A3 was what earned the aircraft its reputation as a flying coffin. It was excessively overweight and suffered catastrophic losses in one sortie during the Battle of Midway, when flown by inexperienced pilots against Japan's finest carrier aviators.
The buffalo probably deserves a bit more respect than it gets. It does look like a bit of a pudding compared to its contemporaries, but the Finns proved it be quite good in capable hands.
Finnish pilots actually loved the Buffalo and described it as a gentleman's airplane.
The Fiat CR.42 was a GREAT aircraft, IF you think of it as a contemporary of the Gloster Gladiator and other last generation biplanes. It was simply an earlier generation aircraft forced to fly beyond its time. A similar argument could be made about the Brewster.
Glory to the Buffalo and long live Finland.
@ James Doyle, you do realise that Finland was fighting on the side of the Germans don't you?
Finland knows how much that plane was a lifesaver, but it’s never going to get proper credit because of the Thunderbolt, Mustang, Hurricane, Spitfire, Wildcat, Hellcat, Zero, ME262, BF109, or FW190
@@bostonrailfan2427 that's is the sad truth
@@samrodian919 Olet nuori mies/Nainen.Suosittelen,lue Suomen historiaa.Suomen lentäjät,oli parhaita.Suomen Ilmavoimien tunnus=Kreivi Rosenin tunnus.Sukutunnus.Sillä mitään yhtäläisyyttä Saksan sittemmin pahaa symbololisoivaa pahuutta..Aadolf Hitler,soti länsirintamalla,kun Suomen ilmavoimat saivat Kreivi Rosenin suvun lahjaksi.Suomen Armeija,kävi pahaa vastaan.Nyt näkee,mitä on Ukrainaissa.Mun Papat,oli Winter War.Aika naivia on sun näkökulma.Igori teurastaa siivelejä,ja valehtetilijoin joukko liehhittee häntä.Älkää laskeko paskoja/muoveja mereen.Varjerkl maapalloa
@@samrodian919 Well... remember that Germany and the Soviets were the best of buddies when WW2 started in the European theatre (cf. Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocol.) The FAF ordered the Buffalos in April -39 but the Buffalos did not make it for the Winter War. By the Summer of -41 when the Continuation War started - which again saw the Soviets firing the first shots - has its roots in Finns trying to get back the land that the Soviets took earlier, now as a co-belligerent of Germany. Simply put, at that point the Finns and Germans had a common opponent, but not a common cause. So Buffalos saw service during the Continuation War fighting for and defending a democratic country.
I especially like your point about the Buffalo. Early WWII english and American aerial tactics were rubbish.
Yep. To illustrate this point, in the final days of the Malaya / Singapore invasion, british Buffalo pilots eventually abandoned their hopeless dogfight tactics and began to climb as high as they could, engaging the enemy in boom n' zoom, with much better results. Alas, it was at a point where they had taken so many casualties that they were outnumbered anyways. Too few, too late. Game over. 😮💨
Statistically speaking, in terms of kills per number of aircraft deployed, the Buffalo was one of the most successful fighters of WWII. Not just in Finnish service, but in use by Australian and other Allied air forces.
Pappy Boyington got to fly the first variant of it before it got weighed down with extras, he said it'd "Turn inside of a phone booth" and would have easily been a match for the Zero.
@@dukecraig2402 wouldn’t be a match for a zero without guns or enough fuel to fly for an hour
Not about Guns or Fuel
Training & Tactics
Plus not weighed down by heavy Armor and Navy Extras
Plus the Finns figured out how to keep the engine from overheating
@@jurispurins8065 All you say is true.( That said Boyington was a well known liar and basically a low caliber individual of limited intelligence , anything he said is of questionable integrity/accuracy.)
Actually, several Navy pilots who flew the earlier version without armor, self sealing tanks and the extra fuel tanks are quoted as saying they could have taken a Zero in a dogfight with the early Buffalo.
I always liked the Buffalo I think had the war started for the US and a couple of years earlier the Buffalo would have been a high rated plane but it was just a stop gap one used to fill until better ones came along. Personally I would love to climb into the cockpit of one and take it up
Well, I happen to have heard of a bloke who was one of the (very few) surviving KNIL Brewster Buffalo pilots in what is now Indonesia. He readily admitted that at the start of the war, there was an abundance of racially motivated hubris within the KNIL about Japanese Aircorps and its estimated proficiencies at aerial warfare. However, his narrow escape after having left his stricken Buffalo and having been (unsuccessfully) strafed by his Japanese victor while floating down on his parachute, gave him in to develop a certain respect (and seething hatred) towards the Japanese Airforces. He made it back over to friendly lines and in the waning days of the KNIL resistance to the Japanese invasion had no option but to fly a hastily restored and provisionally armed Ryan-STM trainer floatplane in order to make an attempt at escaping to Northern Australia. For this undertaking he had to strap a barrel of spare fuel in the forward seat with a manually operated pump rigged to refuel from it when the normal fuel tank would be running empty.
In order to make that last leg of his escape to Australia he had to try to lift off from a rice paddy that was too short for a normal takeoff. So he had the tail of the plane tied to a tree with a stretch of rope and a local helper with a big knife to cut it at his expressed need for such. He revved up the plane until it started hopping and then had the rope cut. He made it, if barely so, and eventually made it to Australia. Evil tongues maintain that due to the many unholy incantations uttered during this enterprise, resulted in the plane not being able to be destroyed by mere mortals and that it, to this day, remains in flying condition somewhere in New Zealand. (apocryphical witness reported: With the outline of the spare fuel-barrel still showing in the forward seat.).
to be fair, the Japanese air force progressed very quickly in rather short time.
That would make a great movie
I like that the F2A was the first monoplane fighter for the US Navy because it feels like a pioneer instead of the somewhat generic feel of the F4F. You can very easily recognize the evolution of the F4F from its immediate predecessor, the F3F.
Gentlemen I knew 40 years ago flew against CR42's in Gladiators with the SAAF at the beginning of the desert war. He said their fighters could best the Italian biplanes one on one, the problem was if they were outnumbered.
I like the Buffalo for one silly reason, It is cute. And it is a little funny to think about it in the evolution of planes. And the peanut shaped planes started with the Gee Bee, To the Buffalo and on to the Wildcat to end with the Hellcat. The planes seem similar but they just lost some of the lard along the way. Actually i thought as a child that the Buffalo was developed purposely from the Gee Bee race plane.
I think the same about them as well.
I made a few videos about the Buffalo and it’s variants knowing for years it’s issues and bad name. But when I did the research I had no idea on the Finnish accomplishments in the F2A, great video!
One problem referred to in the book 'Buffaloes over Singapore' related to the wing mounted .50 cal guns. These hard-hitting guns would regularly break their gun mountings and the bullets would then damage the internal wing structure. The British were forced to replace them with .303 inch guns that did not break the mounts but were much less effective against the Japanese aircraft they were up against.
Nimble, rough and surprisely fast the CR.42 Falco was a good airplane in its biplane formula, it was simply outdated for the period.
Maybe the main weakness of the Falco was the lack of any kind of radio on board.
Pappy Boyington said the original Buffalo was a sweet little ship that could turn in a phone booth. and then.....
Then it was weighted down with stuff the Zero lacked, armmor, sealed tanks, a huge radio etc until they even collapsed the landing gear on touchdown at times.....
One of the biggest problems was added weight from radios and armor added to a good basic design. Early radios could be quite big with manual tuning in the cockpit and the radio mounted behind the pilot seat on some aircraft.
In my youth I made a small model of the, cute Buffalo, and I remember a mention of it abilities: "It would dive like a brick!"
I read an Osprey Duel book about the Fiat CR.42 vs the Gloucester Gladiator. It was a reasonably even match. The Falco was a bit faster and a bit more versatile, according to the author.
I think both airplanes had the bad luck of being in the wrong place and the wrong time. If the Buffalo had been given more of a chance with more experienced pilots it could’ve lasted longer, and as for the 42, I feel like it did the best it could with outmoded technology and actually did rather well for itself.
Hi ,you’re channel was recommended to me, good info. You have a new subscriber .
Thanks for watching Mike.
I'm lead to believe the Falco was a very good version of what it was, a late model biplane. If the British and Germans had not ummed and awwed and faffed with the jet engine from the get go the Spitfire and Messerschmitt 109 may have been seen in the same light as the Falco by say "43, good fighters who's time was short and are now outdated tech.
many years ago...
in 1:72 scale I built the Airfax models of both... CR 42 & Gladiator...... both excellent craft
G.50 Freccias also were used to extremely good effect by the Finnish achieving a pretty good K/D ratio of 33/1. I don't like this list, I love both the Brewster AND the Falco. Although they weren't really terrible I would say they were definitely bottom tier. At the end of the day it comes down to the pilots who fly them and not so much the machines themselves. The Italian radios were so bad that Falco pilots would ditch the radio for a sandbag for protection, this reduced their effectiveness and coordination.
Oh and the same bloke also stated that the Brewster Buffalo was a fine plane, but its main defect was the pilot's (including himself) incapability to mentally fathom and act on his opponent's strengths and weaknesses.
I think a mention of the Belgian Falco's would be fair, the Belgian falco pilots hit it out of the park in 1940, shooting down several german planes including 5 (2 confirmed, 3 more claimed) Bf109's...
Excellent work bro
Thanks ✌️
I love your video format- subscribed and I'm getting a mug. -
Thanks for watching mate, appreciate the support!
To me, the Brewster Buffalo serms to have more in common with the P35 & P36 of 1935 in overall design, HP, and armament, with slight performance improvements cancelled out by the equipment needed for carrier ops.
So if you look at it as a 1935-era aircraft and compare it to the P36 in the opening stages of WW2- it's combat outcomes seem to match.
The Cr42 was designed with another war in mind, but I think that with good pilots it could've performed well against similar models, naturally against a Spitfire or a Bf109 it was dead meat, but against a Gladiator or a Ki27 the fight was more even. Most of the aircrafts that the Buffalos had to fight weren't Zeros, but older Ki27 or A5m, we could add the fact that a lot of allied pilots were (criminally) undertrained, contrary to the japanese ones, expecially from Navy's.
It did in fact perform well against "fair opponents". The CR.42 Prooved superior to the Gladiator in pretty much any scenario with the exception of low altitude slow engagements.
The Falco was a beautiful airplane and among the best biplane fighters to see service -- it just sadly happened to be behind the times.
Best looking biplane ever was the Fairey Fantome, but the CR-42 is not far behind.
It was perfectly suited to combat in the Spanish Civil War, where it excelled, though it wasn’t introduced until the tail end of the conflict. It’s predecessor, the CR.32, saw much more action during the war, and was arguably a better fighter in its later variants. The CR.32 Bis variant was given two 7.7mm machine guns in addition to the two 12.7mm, which gave it impressive firepower at the cost of maneuvering. Even after the Falco was introduced, it continued to see service, with both planes serving in the Spanish Air Force until 1953.
The Finish Air Force did pretty good with them against Russia
Great topic about these 2 fighter aircraft, maybe it's interesting to do a topic about the Russian Mig 3 and the French Bloch MB.150
*ahem* Regarding biplanes, don't forget the Swordfish of the Fleet Air Arm put in a superb showing, and in Malta (according to Wings Day's biography) Gladiators initially did a great job against the Luftwaffe. My initial thought agrees with your comment that an experienced pilot was able to make good use of even an under-performing aircraft. Regarding the Falco it was being flown by Italians, and with the greatest respect to them, the Regia Aeronautica wasn't as experienced as say British pilots who had probably fought the Luftwaffe in France so had combat experience against more modern aircraft. That said they made the best of what they had, and as you said were initially successful.
Don't forget either that in the FWW all combatants continued to create biplanes /after/ the Fokker Eindecker was introduced, including Fokker's own triplane.
Il capitano Mario Visintini, asso dei biplani nella ww2, con il cr 42 ha abbattuto 16 aerei, 5 probabili e 32 al suolo .
The Grumman FF-1 was given a name, in fact it was given two, the Canadians license built 52 of them and named it the ‘Goblin’, and the Spanish purchased 34 and called it the ‘Delfin’, in fact it was a Spanish one that recorded the only kill that was credited to this Grumman biplane.
Thanks for the extra info!
There is a common theme in these worst fighter lists. They are uniformly the best of a fighter generation replaced by the British, German, Japanese and American fighters that actually fought the war. Many of them suffered from additional weight added by requirements that made them worse than their original configurations. The Brewster Buffalo is in this category. The Finnish variants were light weight and could defeat anything the Soviets brought to the table. Mostly the fighters with bad reputations were fought badly by pilots who hadn't understood the nature of modern fighter war or the relative strengths and weaknesses of their planes vs their opponents.
I'd enjoy a video about the Italian raids against Britain. Thus far I've only seen them referenced in Robert Stanley Tuck's memoir but nothing really concrete or detailed.
I've also only ever heard of a few raids right at the end of the Battle. I'll have to put it on the reading list!
@@CalibanRising Best of luck, and please share if you can. I have limited research/history resources so I rely on channels like yours to learn.
Thank you for all you do, I very much appreciate it. 😁
I know a video in Italian, you have to look for Disastro italiano nella battaglia d’Inghilterra
@@Giovanni-eu1jx Thanks! My Italian is quite rusty (Used to live near Bari) but I'll check it out.
Aviation technology was accelerating very rapidly by 1940. Both of these planes simply had the misfortune of being obsolete by the time they saw combat in WW2. I've always found it amazing that the first powered flight and the first moon landing are only separated by a span of 66 years. Well within a single human lifespan.
The Brewster Buffalo does not look that bad on paper. According to Wikipedia its top speed was 321 mph, not bad for the early part of the war. The armament was 4x 0.50" machine guns. That was good for early WW2. Its wing loading looks like it would be pretty bad, but that depends how heavy it was.
TY🙏🙏
My first flight was on a Tiger Moth aged 15 as well!
It's a very nuanced topic, isn't it? It's not like either were bad aircraft in a technical sense. Both were developed in a rapidly evolving field of technology, and anticipated incorrect needs. However, since neither could undergo further development, they were outclassed. I think it's more rare to have a platform that has that special quality of being able to be continually updated to the needs of current doctrine. The Spitfire is probably the best example
A perfectly good airplane designed to an outdated requirement is still a good airplane. It isn't the planes fault the customer asked for the wrong thing.
Howabout the bolton paul defiant? A fighter with a bulky bomber turrent and no forward firing weapons?
In my opinion, the Buffalo was a decent fighter, but with the exception of the Finns, it was used in the wrong fashion by Allied pilots; hence, it’s high losses against the Japanese.
The CR.42 was a great biplane from the get-go, but was outclassed before long and became easy meat for Allied fighters as the war dragged on.
So, no and no for each plane being among the “worst” of WWII.
I spoke with zpsppy Boyington at an sir show. He said the Brewster was a sweet machine until overloaded with armor, life raft etc.
The RAF noted its outstanding pilot visibility and positive rudder control besting the Hurricane and Spitfire.
An unspoken problem was the terrible quality control from a workforce not drawn from the industry or properly trained.
The Brewster made Corsairs
We’re so bad they were quickly scrapped , cannibalized or used as static trainers.
They also got a bad rep based on one battle with the Japanese engaging from an advantage of altitude and position. The Devastator torpedo bomber suffered the same fate. Both planes were built in small numbers with replacements on the way.
Christopher
Really?!? You spoke with Pappy? I spoke with Jesus so I beat you. Sure buddy, we believe you.
Well, talk about difficult question!
While the Buffalo was nowhere near as bad as its reputation, i think i have to say that it deserves the title of "worst" far more, simply because although the Falco was an obsolete fighter, it wasn't a BAD one, while the Buffalo WAS a plane with some serious flaws.
But it's a really hard question to answer due to how unsuitable the Falco was overall for WWII.
Try and remember that Brewster had serious production problems. The British order was a bight that was bigger than what Brewster could manage. Shortcuts were taken such as the engine blocks that were sourced from refurbished engines taken from DC-2/DC-3 engine swap outs. These engines were not intended for fighter performance and haemorrhaged oil and overheated at full power when in combat.
Brewster''s management incompetence amounted to Buffalos supplying machines with parts missing . The factory location in New York saw it employ many Italian Americans, of whom there was a few who had sufficient sympathies to sabotage planes destined to the RAF. What didn't help was the RAF wanting extra armour and self sealing tanks, all of which added weight to a power plant that was crap. While they knew they were substandard it was assumed the Japanese had worse planes, so only numbers mattered when orders were placed. You could argue that the British and Dutch models were almost a different model to what was supplied to the USN and Finland.
After this production Brewster went on to build the Corsair under licence. There manufacturing problems persisted until management was taken over by Vought.
Pretty sure the FF1 was often referred to as “Fifi”.
The Buffalo looks like a heavily truncated P36 or P40, IMO
There’s always someone who leaps to the defence of the Buffalo, citing Finland. The fact is that the Finns were fighting against an Air Force that didn’t have a lot of radios. Against the Japanese, it was a disaster. In its intended role as a fleet defence fighter, it was a sad joke. One F2A pilot who flew it at Midway said that anyone sending out a Buffalo on a mission should consider the aircraft lost.
That cited kill ratio is Finnish propaganda, nothing less. No one should believe that, not even against the Red Air Force. That figure goes up every time I hear it (last time it was 33:1). Even at its best it was never more than about 5:1, which, in case anyone is losing their sense of proportion, is still pretty respectable.
We in Australia hated the Brewster and were grateful when we got out-of-date Kitthawks.
No. You are a joke.
The F2A Buffalo is definitely not the worst fighter of WW2. The Buffalo pretty much had the same problem as the early years of the P-40, green pilots, lack of spare parts, the missing of some equipment on exported models and so forth. Plus with the final model the F2A-3, new fuel tanks were added to increase range, but this also increased weight and the F2A-3 never got a new more powerful engine to compensate for the added weight. This with out surprise decreasing the Buffalo’s performance and handling, which seems to be a common trend with early war American fights. If the F2A-1 and F2A-2 had the proper equipment installed or modifications, properly trained and experienced pilots, and the spares parts available to keep the plane flying, the Buffalo provided to be a effective and formidable plane, little bit on the slower side but agile. Plus you have to put the fact commonwealth and American F2A Buffalo’s mainly faced A6M2 Zeros which the Buffalo no change against. But when in Finland the F2A fought soviet planes that were equal to inferior to the Buffalo depending on the model of Russian plane it fought.
Green personel can ruin every equipment. I could sit in a Formula 1 car but Hamilton would beat me with a Ford Model T even. I would hardly survive even the first two bends on the racing track, IMHO.
Yeah, many UA-cam videos would be like 'Buffalo worst fighter ever, yadda yadda', but actually I think it was simply the unluckiest fighter of WW2 : almost always at the wrong place and put in the hands of the wrong pilots (Finns excepted).
TBH it's so universally hated that I finally like it. I'm the type of guy who tends to support the underdog. 😇
You could put the Fulmar in this category, it was fine against bombers and patrol craft, but against land based fighters, not so good.
Really cool video but what is the game in the background
The CR. 42 is from IL2 Cliffs of Dover and the Buffalo is from IL2 1946
@@CalibanRising Thank you mate
Ah yes, the Buffalo fighter. Here in Singapore we remember it well as the lousy fighter plane that didn't stand much of a chance against the Japanese KI-43s but that was with the Commonwealth forces; the Dutch East Indies Air Force was a slightly more successful story.
That's because you Blokes used Turn & Burn tactics against Lighter & more Nimble Fighters, instead of the Proper Zoom & Boom that the Brewster was Best at!
The Dutch faired far worse than the RAAF/RNZAF/RAF with their Buffaloes, successful, not in the least.
Biplanes had an advantage in clawing their way into the air at slower speeds off shorter (or hotter) runways hauling heavier loads than their contemporary monoplane "rivals". Ideal for the likes of a slow, low, Swordfish torpedo bomber doing a night raid or teamed with numerous protective air superiority fighters in much riskier daylight efforts.
Neither were bad, certainly not in the same category as the Caudron C714, and context for these is everything, in the right place, right time and in the right hands they were good or good enough
As with any aircraft you get. You must exploit it's goods & bads to your advantage. We all can't have Mustangs.
You are welcome. I do like the Buffalo. It's kinda like the I-16 - maybe. I do like that one too.
I don't really consider them WWII fighters. I think of them as pre-WWII fighter designs used in the early stages of the conflict. That may be considered a technicality but that's my opinion on them.
Wow, by your standard the Bf-109 wasn't a W.W.II fighter either!! Please rethink your opinions, thank you.
Sounds like the buffalo is an instance of "it's not the plane, it's the pilot."
It seem to me that they were out classed not that they were that bad.
The G-50 has to be tied with the Caudrons.
Imagine if the Fiat sunk the Bismarck , the swordfish would be considered bad.
Fit for purpose should be criteria.
Swordfish didn't sink the Bismarck either, they just disabled the rudder. Setting it up for sinking later on.
34 Finnish pilots got 5 or more scores with Brewster. Best was Hans Wind, who got 39 with it
Both are dated as of their introduction. That's very clear. The BF-109 was in the air flew before either airframe, as were the Hurricane and Spitfire. But, the Buffalo at least had a monoplane design on its side. There really wasn't much excuse for a biplane in the late 1930s. The Fairey Swordfish at least had the cop-out that it was a torpedo bomber and was first flown in 1934, 4 years before the Fiat. I'd like to compare it to the Gladiator but that first flew in 1934 and was on the way out before the war kicked off.
Looking at the boom-boom, or in layman's terms the guns, the Fiat has a rather competitive 1x.303 ans 1x.50 later going with 2x.50. That's decent boomage for an interwar fighter, but not really competitive by the late 1930s. The Buffalo kicked it off with 4x.50cal and stuck with it. That boomage was quite competitive all the way through the war. The iconic BF-109 had 2x13mm and 1x20mm, later 1x30mm boomage. So, the Buffalo at least can boast a pretty middle of the road armament. The Fiat trails a wee bit.
It's no contest, the Buffalo wins on visibility. It doesn't have a wing in the pilots way, trick category, not even fair.
I'd give the Worst Plane trophy to the Fiat. It just wasn't a modern airframe. Sure it did stuff but it could do that stuff as well as its contemporaries. Building a bit of a dog is expected if you're the pioneer, the first to give it a bash but the Fiat was a 1928 design being put skyward in 1938. It's just not excusable, even more so for a nation whose ally was sending BF-109s, HE-112s etc up into the air.
No. Even Pappy Boyington liked it.
The Finnish AF liked them!!
The Buffalo is definitely the worst model kit I've ever built. It was probably 1979 as an 11 year old that I built the Matchbox kit. It took less than an hour. I had a look at the instruction booklet on Scalemates. It's 8 steps over two pages of a mini booklet. It was worse than I remembered. 😢❤😢
😀
So the Buffalo in the hands of the fins did quite well in fact the fins also boasted the highest scoring non German ace and flew a Buffalo we Americans added a lot of shit increasing the weight significantly to an underpowered engine And of course adding said mass slowing the airframe manuevarability significantly
for me in my experience if a good well trained pilot were to fly these aircraft they would have a better chance with fighting like me I flown these in warthunder and at first I kept getting killed until I found ways to exploit the maneuverability or armament of these aircraft maybe even tricking enemy pilots to fly Infront of my guns.
Neither of these was all that bad - in the context of early war aircraft - they just were superseded by better planes.
The Biggest Problem the Brewster's had - was that they were severely outnumbered.
The Brewster's got a bad rap with the Americans at Midway - but - the F4F's didn't do all that well either. They were just all out numbered.
The thing with the Italians - was that they were perpetually just behind the leading players technologically. Thus - they would develop tanks and planes that weren't bad - but - when deployed they were a generation behind what their enemies were using. Their Navy wasn't bad - but - they didn't have Radar ... what can I say?
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Buffalo and Falco stay off the list as they were effective against Polikarpovs and Gladiators respectively.
The LaGG-3 and Caudron definitely deserve their places though (and the Bloch MB152). You could add the Roc and Me210 but calling them fighters is a bit charitable.
Well, the MB 152 wasn't that bad. The problem was nobody in 1939-40 had the mentality to use it correctly. It was a heavy interceptor with a powerful 2x 20 mm autocannons armament in an era where dofight still reigned supreme.
The LaGG-3 was hampered by being underpowered. Once it turned into the La-5 it was Dynamite 🧨. The Soviets just kept building this outclassed fighter because their need for aircraft was so desperate. Instead of the superior Yak Fighters.
Had the LaGG-3 been made up lightweight alloys and with a a couple hundred more horsepower it would have been a contender
Historians should use the 'the most misused' instead of 'worst' when talking about equipment. For example a the Reising SMG was a wonderful gun, but not under the harsh tropical climate of the South Pacific but rather in the hands of prison guards and policemen as urban use, in the USA.
You're right, that's probably a better way to categorize these types of aircraft!
My buddy has a Reising, it's a pretty smooth shooter.
The Brewster Corporation never made any successful aircraft that were loved by the pilots who flew them. Their wing loadings were too high and all of Brewster's designs used a mid wing which made using a reliable landing gear difficult if not impossible. The Buccaneer dive bomber was also plagued with handling problems. The Navy bought but found they could never really depend on Brewster and finally took over the factory. They were lackluster performers. Finns used them successfully, because they recognized the Buffalo's limitations and devised hit and run tactics. They were also used against aging I16s that were not the fastest fighters of the day. The Fiat CR 42 was a sensibly designed biplane but was too slow for anything except close in dogfights. It was dangerous in duels and there were some notable biplane aces.
Yeah i do think they are definitely among the “least good” of a War filled with amazing Fighters 😉
Kill ratio of 62-1!? Where they figgting LaGG-3s?
lol
I would like the throw the DI-6's hat into the ring... The """"Beautiful"""" Kochyerigrin DI-6 was developed as a fighter... A bi-plane of course, two seater with a turret with a R-1820 Radial, terrible field of view, horrible arc of fire for the rear gun. It makes the CR.42 look like a F22. :p It is like the bastard inbreed child of a Defiant and a Swordfish.
Honestly i don't think either are truly awful and deserving of the title, the CR.42 and Bi-Planes in general still had a use in the early days of the 2nd world war, it was such a weird tipping point for technology but they performed well as well could be, And as you said many pilots got thrown out with the manuvrability of the enemy bi-planes. It was not ideal but considering the enemy Italy was facing (if we don't put the French or British in there) the Falco was way ahead of the majority of their first line fighters.
The Buffalo was below average it was not the worst, but no where near great either I think one major tick to the name is the armament on the F2A, when most fighters were still using rifle calibre having two 0.50's onboard was a huge bonus the weight of lead it could fire to an enemy compared to it's rivals is a big big advantage. funny enough same engine as the DI-6 :p but it was not a bad engine.
Definitely don't think the buffalo should be on the list.
I think of it like the Gloucester Gladiator/Sea Gladiator and the Fairly Swordfish, outdated when war broke out, but in the right hands were still a force to be reckoned with.
I mean it's kill ratio from Finland speak for themselves.
Putting these two planes in a discussion for "the worst planes of WW2" it's both a shame and kinda disrespectful.
I'd like to remind you that there were far (and/or slightly) worse planes still in service at the start of the war.
The I-15, I-153, Gloster Gladiator, Fokker D.XXI, Ki-27(debatable), Norwegian J6, I-16 (with the exception of the latter models), C.714.
Good video just came across your channel. My vote is neither. You can’t blame the plane for being obsolete and not being replaced in a timely manner.
But here is another question.
What was the most successful bi plane of WW Two? bomber ,torpedo bomber, fighter or transport.
Has to be the Swordfish.
After decimating the Italian navy and crippling the Bismark it is a short list of more decisive WWII weapons. Of course it was outdated and slow and had no business being involved but damn, it worked!
Thanks for watching Blaine
In Finland the Buffalo faced which Russian fighters? The Polikarpov I15 and I16! A performance and armament comparison could justify the reason for the Buffalo's success.
Really russia had nothing else 1939-45? Really. When you are right then you are right. How worlds biggest 3rd world country could develope? Check again and don't miss Allied aid.
@@Pectopah123 I have the book War in Finland: Winter of Blood, by Richard W Condon, Ballantines Books, 1972. In this book, it describes the Russian I-15 and I-16 fighters only. Was there another Russian fighter available that served in 1940? Let me know the bibliography please.
@@ulissessimondasilveira225 if you would have listened you would know that Brewster didn't fight in winterwar. Later 1940-45 Brewsters shot down russian built aircrafts and American and british aircrafts like Hurricanes, Spitfires, P40,P39,P63, Mustangs etc. which were delivered to russia to help war effort. And late war russian aircrafts were very exellent indeed.
Brewster buffalo was great in its role for its time!!
Both fighters were doomed by military intelligence, excluding the Fins of course. The Fins got rid of the cumbersome things made mandatory by the US military.
5:39 rudder graphics should incur the death penalty, unless it is a more serious repeat offense!
Gotta thank the AI there, annoyed me too!
The CR 42 is a controversial one. It depends really on what your definition of "worst" is. If you mean an aircraft that was just bad then it should certainly not be on this list as it was actually a very good design and, from what I can gather, flew very well. If, however, you mean an aircraft that was not as effective as it's competitors then yes, absolutely it deserves to be here. But then of course you should also include the Gladiator (which you did mention in passing) which was also a very fine aircraft but was an out of date design at it's time of operation.
I don’t think the Buffalos actually ever engaged zeros? Might be wrong.
You are probably right. In that theater they would have been fighting Ki27s ant Ki43s.
@@howardlittman269 cheers - army units and not navy units which the Zeros would have featured?
Marine Buffaloes did fight Zeros at Midway. They performed badly.
But if you look at the marine pilots experience, and time in type. It was shocking low.
You can't put inexperienced pilots into unfamiliar aircraft, and expect good results.
I think the overweight series Three and underpowered Series Four were bad and some of the export models suffered poor construction and maybe their one thousand one hundred horsepower engines left them a bit below standard but overall the Buffalo was a good plane which suffered so badly in the Pacific against the Japanese because of poor flight tactics which though doing well over European skies were not so good in Asia's that and many of the pilots were fresh out of flight school. In Midway the Marine pilots were just out of flight school and they did quite poorly whether they flew Buffalos or Wildcats against the well trained and Combat Experienced Japanese Zeroes.
When you have pilots with less than 25 hours in type flying against a unit with some pilots having over 400 hours in combat what do you expect?
The Dutch Fokker D.XX1 was the worse monoplane designs for sure. Even many biplanes were faster. The Finns had these too but ditched them almost as fast as their Gladiators!! I'd also say that the PZL P-11of the Polish Air Force made the French aircraft the Luftwaffe encountered in France look really good. So my two choices are way better than the two video maker chose. Both the CR-42 and Brewster were not bad at all compared to my two choices. So I'd be better at making this video that the person who did.
What about the boulton Paul defiant
That was considered an decent night fighter in the blitz years ,daytime was another matter.Sometimes it’s about niche.
@@oscarsusan3834 it's one of those things if it had forward facing guns it could have been both
Tactics and the lack of forward facing armament saw to the Defiant as a day fighter. It had decent initial success where experienced pilots basically formed a circle and covered each other with the turrets against enemy fighters, aided by the enemy mistaking them for Hurricanes and attacking from the rear. When the Germans came at them from the front and inexperienced aircrew did not keep formation, they were easy meat. As a night fighter, the Defiant had a fair record before being replaced by more advanced aircraft such as the Beaufighter and Mosquito
It was at least better than the Blackburn Roc.
the Brewster wasn’t the worst by a long-shot, it did its job fine in places where it was facing like-era planes and with capable pilots. it’s just ridiculed because it’s the unwanted already obsolete plane that wasn’t fully withdrawn before the US entered the war so got forced to fight what was built to best it!
Hi. I have thinking one odd thing.
Finns was excelent with all kind of " looser planes".
SO WHY HAWKER HURRICANE WAS NOT SUCCESFULL IN FINLAND???
Can you make video for that?
That's a very interesting question. I'll put it on my research list, thanks!
@@CalibanRising Lack of spare parts for RR Merlin meant that Finnish Air Force assigned the few Hurricanes it had to a second line home defence squadron that almost never saw any action.
Yeah I would not want to fly either of them with Zero's and P 51 Mustangs flying around.
The P-51 came into service _much_ later. That's as comparable as a Spitfire Mk. I versus a TA-152; a few years made a *_huge_* difference in WWII.
@@mbryson2899 There were Mustangs in service as early as 1942. The Spitfire was also introduced earlier than the Falco.
Finland 🇫🇮 lived their buffaloes!!!
I always thought the Buffalo had a bad rap. As designed it was a perfectly adequate if not outstanding performer. The United States Navy loaded it down with armour and self-ceiling fuel tanks bulletproof glass and a supercharger. The first thing the Fins did was strip most of that stuff off. What they had was effectively an American designed Zero.
Sometimes, People who look at facts subjectively and derive their opinions from these facts (ie the right way to do it:) look at the Buffalo and make a tiny wee mistake by giving a bad plane which gets a hard time from reviewers a better report than they should. Not always though. Just sometimes. I think the Buffalo is a good example. It’s more there were other reasons why it was bad not just the obvious ones but there were a couple of over looked points which weren’t so bad (note - still not great, though). I mean, there are a few planes that have poor or average reps from modern reviewers and commentators which were actually pretty decent. The Fairey Fulmar is a good example. Then there’s planes like the BP Defiant which was a decent turret fighter it was just the idea of turret fighters turned out to be a dud. And then there’s planes like the Roc which were just shite. Utterly shite. No excuses. Shite.
The Finnish Buffaloes were better aircraft than those used by The US Navy, The RAF, or Belgium as they had their armor stripped out, no radios, and were about the original weight specified by the US Navy specifications, so flew the best of all versions. The other country's versions had under-powered engines, armor added, radios added, all of which added weight to a set size of engine. As they were not as fast as advertised, were a little temperamental until you learned how to fly it properly, they were seen as ineffective. This was proved wrong by the Finns, but the overall reputation preceded it. The Grumman Wildcat and later aircraft were better than the Buffalo in that they learned the lesson of Brewster's limitations. They also were not restricted in development like the Buffalo was. The Wildcat, for instance, had folding wings and room for more weapons, as well as armor, and, it had a larger engine.
Much like the Douglas Devastator torpedo bomber, being the first, doesn't mean it was the best.
Simple answer No