Hi all,
I belonged to the RAAF453 Squadron in CFS1 and 2 when they were around and we had a lot of info on the various planes that squadron flew druing WWII both in the Pacific and European theaters. The Brewster Buffalo was one of those planes, so here's some info that we had on it:
The Brewster Buffalo was originally designed as the first carrier-based single-wing US fighter. That was called the Brewster F2A. The land based models were the B339 and B439. These variants were flown by the RAAF, the RAF and the Dutch. The B239 was the export model of the 339D that was sent to Finland and Europe. The B339E that the RAF flew had the 900 hp engine with armored canopies, and that was the version with the worst performance.
The Dutch (Royal Dutch Indonesian Army or KNIL) flew the B339D and 72 of those were delivered to them in March 1941, but only 30 were airworthy on December 8, 1941. The B339D had the Wright G 105A engine rated at 1100 hp. The B439 had the Wright GR-1820-G205A engine which delivered 1200 HP at the start and 1000HP at 14,200 ft. The Dutch had both the B339D and the B439, but there only had about 20 of the higher performance B439 model. The RAAF flew the B339D. The B239 was the lighter weight export version that was sent to Finland with the same basic engine as the B339D. That model had stripped out some of the landing gear reinforcement that was originally designed to handle the shock of aircraft carrier landings, as well as other weight saving reductions. This stripped down lighter weight version had better performance than the standard B339D.
The B339D was the variant that was flown by the Australians in Malaya and Singapore. The RAAF453 as well as other squadrons flew them there and did well against the Japanese Oscars that were most common early in the war. They could also turn with the zeros when they appeared, but they couldn't climb with them, out-dive or outrun them. MOST of the B-339 Brewsters that the RAAF and Dutch flew were destroyed on the ground when the Japanese located their airfields and bombed them, not in aerial combat.
One of the big problems with all the Brewsters, a reason it was called unreliable, was that they all used cables instead of steel push-rods to connect to their control surfaces. Granted, it may be a little difficult to hit a cable, but one bullet would snap it and you'd lose control of an aileron, elevator, rudder or trim controls. Even a bigger problem at the start was that they Aussie and Dutch Buffaloes didn't have bullet-proof glass in the front windshield. They had armor on the back but not the front. The RAF versions had it and eventually the Aussie and Dutch ones got them too.
The P-40 was sent to the RAAF after the fall of Singapore and Malaysia, and that became the standard plane for the RAAF in the Pacific. The P-40 couldn't turn with the zero, but it could outroll them, outdive them, and outrun them. So the Brewster wasn't used anymore in the Pacific once the P-40's arrived. Spitfires in Mark IIa, Mark V and Mark IX variants were also used by the Aussies in the Pacific, though the RAAF453 was sent to Europe.
Spits
