Brewster

[Motherland]

Brewster did not see action in Winter War, only 5 birds active in the last weeks of Winter War.
These achievements were done during the Continuation War, before Brewster's were replaced by 109's.
LeLv 24 was the most successful squadron scoring 460 kills in Brewster's.

Scores for Brewster in Continuation War.
 http://www.warbirdforum.com/scores.htm

Oops, sorry.
I knew I'd screw that up...

[Saxman]

Gav,

I was thinking exactly along those lines as well. The Japanese at the beginning of the Pacific War were much more experienced (arguably one of the best-trained and hardened air forces in the world at the time) and flying far more advanced machines than anything the Russians had in significant numbers when the Finns were starting to really rack up victories.

[oakranger]

It is dam ugly but served a large portion of the war.  Defiantly fills a large gap in our events

[Squire]

Joe Foss (USMC, 26 kills), said the Brewster was an adequate fighter, and that they would have scored just as many kills in it during the Solomons/Guadalcanal campaign as the F4F Wildcat had they used it, which had similar performance. Its not remembered with the more famous Allied fighters because of its more limited use. If you really look close at an F2A-3 (the version the USMC used), its not any worse than say a Hurricane IA, or a P-40B, or an F4F Wildcat.

It gets its bad rep amongst the US services for its rather tough stand against a huge IJN air strike over Midway in June 1942, where 15 Brewsters and 7 Wildcats fought a large defensive engagement against 108 IJN fighters and attack planes. The Japanese, were impressed by the defense they put up, according to their accounts, but the defenders did suffer more than 1/2 attrition. The rest is a lot of post war "remembering the P-51 and Corsair" and fogetting anything that wasn't super glamourous.

In the hands of the RAF, and RAAF and the Dutch, it was used at a time in the war when they were retreating, spares and proper supplies were lacking, as was training, and despite that it had a respectable kill-loss ratio, but again, it was not going to be remembered with the Spitfire, Typhoon, Mosquito, ect, that gave them victory in WW2. 

In other words, the reality is more interesting than the myths.

[Karnak]

I also wouldn't be surprised if Japanese pilots in 1942 were, on the whole, more experienced than the Russians who fought the Finns in the early part of the Continuation war.

At the beginning of 1942 the Japanese were quite probably the highest trained pilots in the world.