Brewster

[THRASH99]

(Image removed from quote.)
for all we know you could have written it...

I thought you left Aces High? You got so mad over it but yet your still here, why?

[THRASH99]

Lets compare apples to apples. The Navy flew the B-339, while the export version was the B-239.

Though I'd have to defer to the Finns for the hard details, I recall that the operational B339 was lightened. And if your implication is that the Buff is modeled wrong, well, you're barking up the wrong tree.

Do you people not know how to read??! I said "in my opinion, I think that the brewster should be look at a bit more due to the claims from our pilots saying is wasn't all that great of a plane." Zeros sounded like they were pretty much equal against the brewster. Sure for finland it was the only plane they even had to fight with, the only reason why it did so well over there. Don't know if it has anything to do with it, but finns pilots say that the weather over there was a plus to the engine.

[THRASH99]

Second, the Brewster variant here is radically different from the one we have in the game.

Ok, one question.....HOW?!! Its claims on the B-239, the one we have in aces high. What is different about the plane? I already know the Brewster could turn good yeah..what I want to know is of all the pilots who flew in the pacific campaign against the japanese and lots were killed in the brewster, hence "flying coffin", so we got rid of it and switched to the F4F, how can it hold up when it doesn't have the power-weight ratio to even do that in the first place and how is it so good in Aces High?

[THRASH99]

Maker speaks!!!!

Thx for back up joach, really help me there   Last time I let you get 7 kills!

[The Fugitive]

Ok, one question.....HOW?!! Its claims on the B-239, the one we have in aces high. What is different about the plane? I already know the Brewster could turn good yeah..what I want to know is of all the pilots who flew in the pacific campaign against the japanese and lots were killed in the brewster, hence "flying coffin", so we got rid of it and switched to the F4F, how can it hold up when it doesn't have the power-weight ratio to even do that in the first place and how is it so good in Aces High?

Now see if you checked other, more reliable sources than wikipedia you would understand these things.

The version we have in the game is based of of the Finnish version (check the default skin). The Finnish version I believe removed a bunch of the armor there by helping the HP/weight ratio.

If you want more accurate info you might want to ask Wmaker. I think he was a big help in providing HTC with documentation in the form of manuals and spec sheets of the Finnish Brewster. 

[LLv34_Snefens]

From one of the other times this was beaten to death, but with good explanations by dtango:

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,290439.0.html

[AAJagerX]

In regards to the Brew, most fail to take into account that in RL it would be a mediocre fighter at best.  AH isn't RL though.  The Brew is just another tool in the toolbox.  It does a few things well, but overall it's not really an issue if ya don't get low and slow with em (exception taken to a very few 10k dives that end with a Temp or Pony dying).

[Karnak]

The only problem I have with the B-239 in AH is that people insist on putting it in Pacific scenarios where it has as much business being there as the Spitfire Mk Ia and Bf109E-4 do, which is to say, none at all.

I have no problems with it used in Finland vs USSR settings.

We need the version the US used at Midway added for that reason.

[Motherland]

Ok, one question.....HOW?!! Its claims on the B-239, the one we have in aces high. What is different about the plane? I already know the Brewster could turn good yeah..what I want to know is of all the pilots who flew in the pacific campaign against the japanese and lots were killed in the brewster, hence "flying coffin", so we got rid of it and switched to the F4F, how can it hold up when it doesn't have the power-weight ratio to even do that in the first place and how is it so good in Aces High?

The Americans never operated the B-239. Ever. Ever ever.
The Finnish operated the B-239. The B-239 was significantly lighter than the F2A-3 operated by the United States Navy, because it wasn't... well, in typical American style, fat and weighed down with crap.

Finnish pilots were the highest scoring pilots in the world outside of Germany.

I believe the ME-109 is the top killer of any plane produced in the history of aviation. Just four German aces can add up to over a thousand kills. I saw the total number of kills scored in the 109 but don't recall what it was and I am too lazy to look it up. Didn't mean to hijack the Brewster discussion sorry.

1. Hartmann   352
2. Barkhorn    301
3. Rall           275
4. Kittel         276

Total            1195

There were also 33,000 Bf 109's produced and operated by one of the world's largest airforces, as opposed to 44 operated by... the Finnish Air Force

[waystin2]

The version we have in the game is based of of the Finnish version (check the default skin). The Finnish version I believe removed a bunch of the armor there by helping the HP/weight ratio.

Was it field modified from factory standards or was it produced this way in Finland?

[Wmaker]

That must be why in "EACH" variant of the F2A-Brewster, its pilots called it a flying coffin, other varinats took very heavy losses,

As it is you who's implying that something is overmodelled, please, provide actual direct quotes from pilot saying it is a "flying coffin". Not that it changes anything anyway, though. AH doesn't have an "F2A-variant". It has a Model 239.

why do you think we got rid of it and switched to the F4F?

There's plenty of reasons for it that have nothing to do with B239 being over modelled. This right here is a very illogical way of trying to argue this issue.

Even if it does have a 1000hp engine, where does it get that power-weight ratio to even hold itself up it vertical for a long time?

Well, I could say that it doesn't hold itself up long time in the vertical at all and we'd both be just as wrong or just as right.

Saying I showed practically nothing is kind of stupid way to say it don't you think..?

Not stupid at all. You just weren't able to provide a solid argument.

Ok, one question.....HOW?!!

If you have to ask, you should by now have gotten a hint that maybe you haven't quite read enough about the subject?

But before you start reading more about the Brewster I suggest you start your reading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentation

[Motherland]

Was it field modified from factory standards or was it produced this way in Finland?

IIRC
The B-239s were produced in the US stripped of carrier gear, armor, guns etc. for shipment & legal reasons, and then reassembled in Sweden and flown to Finland, the only things being replaced being the guns and the pilot's armor.

[Ack-Ack]

Brewster pilots called the zero better than the brewster and said that it should be a training plane rather than used in front line. If my info not that great to you, why don't you go look some up and see what better info you can find. 

The problem with you is that you can't get it into your mind that the Brewster the Finns flew was very different than the Brewster flown by the US, RAF, Commonwealth countries and the Dutch East Indies Air Force.

If you really want to know how the Brewster version that flew with the Finns compared to the other versions of the Brewster, this is a good site and a far better resource than your Wikipedia article.  The author of this site, Dan Ford, is a long time write on warbirds and former editor and writer for Smithsonian Air and Space Magazine.

Annals of the Brewster Buffalo

This is an article from that site.

Brewster 239 in Finnish service
by Jukka Raustia

Q: Why did the Finns achieve so much with the Buffalo?
A: First off, the Finnish Brewsters weren't Brewster Buffaloes, or Brewster 339's, or F2A-2, which were very bad fighters. They were Model 239's much closer to the original USN F2A-1, which were reported to be delightful to fly. Finnish nickname "Taivaan Helmi" "Pearl of the Skies" reflects this.
Also, Finnish Brewsters had reflector sights and reliable armament of three heavy machine guns and one rifle-caliber mg. (later on four heavy MG's) and seat armour.

The Finnish Air Force also used innovative modern air combat tactics, such as largely relying on finger four / Thach Weave / Schwarm, whatever you call it, against doctrinal Soviet tactics, such as using three plane flights and "Spanish circle" described later on.

In 1941 many of the Finnish Buffalo pilots had had combat experience during the Winter War, and air combat tactics were modified and developed. Mock dogfights were made against captured russian planes. Training with Brewsters hadn't been so good as it might have been, since the severe shortage of aviation fuel in 1940-1941.

The quality of Soviet planes in 1941, when the best kill ratio 67.5 - 1) was achieved, was lower than Brewsters, most common types being used were SB-2, DB-3, I-16 and I-153.

Finally, there was element of luck. The fighter squadron the Brewsters were in most of the war, 24, was commanded by an excellent commander, Major G. Magnusson, a great organizer and tactician who is considered to be "Grand Old Man" of the Finnish fighter aviation. By almost sheer luck, some of the finest pilots of the Finnish Air Force were in the Brewster Squadron when the war started, such as Hans Wind, Ilmari Juutilainen, Joppe Karhunen and Lauri Nissinen, each one of them later on gaining huge kill numbers also with Messerschmitt 109G-2's and G-6's.

The Brewsters probably could have made even more kills, but the Finnish fighter control system during the Brewster's golden age in 1941-42 was abysmal. For an example, sometimes the alert messages were only somekind like this: "Village of Inkeroinen is being bombed" and arrived as much as 15 minutes too late. But by the summer 1944 it was excellent.

Criticism against Finnish ground control system and FAF brass in general has been extremely harsh by Joppe Karhunen, a Brewster ace and an aviation historian.

Q: How was it possible to achieve victories with Brewsters over the Soviet planes even as late as 1944?
A: Tactics, especially using Brewster's good dogfight qualities, excellent command and control, high quality of Finnish pilots and low quality of Soviet pilots.

Q: Is there a Buffalo in a Finnish aviation museum?
A: No. A Finnish copy of Brewster-239, Humu, is on display in Keski-Suomi Aviation Museum in Jyvaskyla.

Q: Is it true that USA sold the Brewsters to Finland only with formal cost of 1$ apiece?
A: No. More about it follows soon.

Q: Why did the Finnish Buffaloes have swastikas?
A: No. Swastikas were used as Finnish AF national insignia, and as symbol in numerous decorations etc. since 1918. In fact, if you look at the modern Finnish decorations you can notice the swastika.

In 1st of April 1945 the swastika insignia was changed into present white-blue-white roundel. Insignia was changed because the Allied High Commission in Finland wanted it. And since swastika didn't get very good P.R. during the WW II the roundel is still the Finnish national insignia.

Q: How was it possible to maintain Brewsters with virtually no spare parts coming in?
A: That's the real miracle. As many FAF pilots have said, the real heroes of FAF were in fact the mechanicians.

Q: What were the nicknames for Brewster Buffaloes?
A: Most common was simply Brewster. They were never called Buffaloes. Some other nicknames were Pylly-Waltteri ("Butt-Walther") and more poetical Taivaan Helmi ("Pearl of the Skies").

Only BW-367, BW-378 and BW-384 [were individually named] as far as I know. BW-367 was named "Tre Bröder" since the money for it was donated by three swedish brothers. BW-378 was named "Otto Wrede" but I don't know why. And BW-384 was nicknamed "Noka" since money for it was donated by workers of Nokia. (The same firm which makes cellular phones nowadays.)

In general, only a few FAF planes have ever carried anykind of nicknames or personal paintings. However, victory markings were painted, usually as white stripes in the tail. (Major Luukkanen used labels of Karelia beer instead...)

PURCHASING BREWSTERS
When the Second World War started and Soviet Union asked Finland to start "negotiations" with Soviet Union about Finnish territory, the Finnish Defence Forces were mobilized and suddenly the shortage of money which had troubled all kind of equipment purchases during the 30's was over. Finland was trying to buy military equipment from all directions.

Why Brewsters?
In the USA, the Brewster Export corporation offered Brewster Model 239. It was one of the three US candidates, others were Grumman F4F and Seversky EP-1. The Brewster wasn't considered to be strong candidate in light of US Navy's experience with deliveries, but the Grumman couldn't sell F4F and Sweden had bought all planes in the production line of EP-1.

During the time Finnish Embassy was negotiating with plane makers, the Soviet Union attacked Finland _without official declaration of war_. Only modern fighters in Finland were 36 Fokker D.XXI's, the Soviets had about 2000 fighters and therefore Finnish embassies were instructed to buy any modern fighter planes at all costs, directly from storage. In the USA laws about selling war materials to a country in war weren't an issue, since Finland wasn't in war _de jure_, and there were 44 Brewster 239's just about to be completed for the USN. (Finland hadn't declared war on Soviet Union, and Soviet Union considered their own puppet "People's Government of Finland" being the legitimate government of Finland.)

But there were laws prohibiting selling of armament headed for the USN or the US Army. But with clever lawyers a plot was made; the fighters headed for Finland were declared surplus by the USN, and so they could be bought by the Finland after all USN equipment, such as machine-guns, sights, emergency rafts and instruments were taken away.

And so 44 Brewsters were bought in 16th of December 1939, with a price of 54000$ a piece + delivery costs. (compare this with modern fighter costs...) The Finnish Brewsters weren't equipped with standard Wright R-1820-34 -engines since they weren't available for foreign sales, they were equipped with refurbished R-1820 G-5 -engines instead, taken from DC-3 airliners.

Delivering Brewsters
Three Brewsters were completed and test flown in the USA, the rest 41 planes were assembled and test flown in Trollhattan, Sweden. First planes left New York harbour in 13th of January 1940, and the last planes arrived Sweden in 13th of March. As always with the Brewsters, they were late. The unassembled planes were assembled by Swedish, Norwegian and British volunteers, and were equipped with three Colt MG 53-2 .50 cal machine guns and one Colt MG-40 .30 cal machine gun (.30 cal MG was later on changed into .50 cal), instruments originally bought for licence-made Fokker D.XXI's and British Aldis telescopic sights. (replaced with Finnish copy of German Revi 3/c deflector sights before the Continuation war) Since the Brewster test pilot Robert A Winston arrived in late February, the first test flights were made by Finnish pilots without anykind of advice. The Brewsters were coded with numerals BW-351 to BW-394.

Only six planes arrived to Finland during the Winter War which ended in 13th of March, and they didn't get into anykind of action. The last ones were in Finland by 1st of May 1940.

ack-ack

[Ack-Ack]

Since I exceeded the word count with my previous post, here is the rest of my post.

This is an excerpt from the autobiography of Ilmari Juutilainen, titled "Double Fighter Knight.  Out of the official 94 kills he's been credited with (he claimed the number was 126 total kills) 34 were scored flying the Brewster.  I don't think you'll find any mention in his autobiography or anything else he wrote that mentions the Finnish Brewster being a "flying coffin."

A Finnish pilot's view of the Brewster

I just thought the following forum thread was interesting, it's a daily war "diary"  of Lentolaivue 24 describing a brief encounter between a couple of Brewsters and Soviet MiGs and Hurricanes.

War Diaries of Lentolaivue 24

One quick note before I go about the Brewster that served in the USN, USMC, RAF/Commonwealth air forces and Dutch East Indies AF. The early Brewsters (F2A-1 and F2A-2) were well liked by their pilots and as noted by "Pappy" Boyington, " "But the early models, before they weighed it all down with armor-plate, radios, and other [equipment], they were pretty sweet little ships. Not real fast, but the little plane could turn and roll in a phone booth."

It was the weighted down F2A-3 that saw action with the USN and USMC and the Brewster Model B-339E, served with the RAF and Commonwealth air forces while the Brewster Model B-339C and Model B-339D (B-339C, D, E comparable in performance with the F2A-3) that gave the Brewster its much maligned reputation as a fighter.  

The Brewster Model 239 that we have in game is not overmodeled, at least no one has been able to provide any evidence whatsoever that the plane is over modeled.  Those that cry that it is over modeled are the ones that find themselves being shot down by the Brewster and since they think it's an old plane and they are in some late war bird, there is something with with the flight model of the Brewster.  Identical to your claims about the Spitfire Mk XIV.

ack-ack

[Krupinski]

How many did Krupnski have?

196 or 197 if you include his 'somewhat' confirmed kill on a B17 I think it was.