The World War II Plane America Hated but Finland Loved | Brewster F2A Buffalo

The World War II Plane America Hated but Finland Loved | Brewster F2A Buffalo | History in the Dark

Рет қаралды 47,067

Күн бұрын

The Brewster F2A Buffalo is a plane of mixed reception. While often cited as one of the worst planes of World War II, this is debatable at best. They were outclassed almost immediately, it's true, but they had their uses and Brewster's internal management issues didn't help their case. But when they were exported to Finland, their pilots fell in love with the planes and even nicknamed them "Sky Pearls." What was it about Finland that made them have success with this perplexing aircraft?
0:00 - Characteristics
1:45 - Development
8:16 - Underrated Service
13:50 - Legacy
"The Brewster F2A Buffallo is an American fighter aircraft which saw service early in World War II. Designed and built by the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation, it was one of the first U.S. monoplanes with an arrestor hook and other modifications for aircraft carriers. The Buffalo won a competition against the Grumman F4F Wildcat in 1939 to become the U.S. Navy's first monoplane fighter aircraft. Although superior to the Grumman F3F biplane it replaced, and the early F4Fs, the Buffalo was largely obsolete when the United States entered the war, especially when compared to the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero."
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#history #wwii #plane

Пікірлер: 127

@AllTradesGeorge 5 ай бұрын

Several of the "bad" airplanes of WWII were actually pretty decent planes, they were just used in ways that they weren't really designed for, or, as in the case of the Buffalo, they weren't given accurate design demands, so the finished design couldn't keep up with the practical demands that heaped extra weight on the airframe or the planes were being asked to perform at altitudes or in roles they hadn't been built for.

@DK-gy7ll 5 ай бұрын

The TBD Devastator also received a bad rap due to malfunctioning torpedoes, weak defensive armament and poor tactics. It needs to be remembered that a squadron full of its replacement, the TBF Avenger also got slaughtered at Midway.

@namelesscurmudgeon9794 5 ай бұрын

The problem with the Buffalo was that, after it was designed, the US Navy added all sorts of heavy equipment. An Australian squadron in Malaya and the Fins stripped out everything non-essential to get the Buffalo’s weight down, which transformed the aircraft. The Australian pilots reported that the lightened Buffalo was competitive against Japanese aircraft. One of the things that they replaced was the .50 Brownings with .303 Brownings. As well as being heavy, the recoil from .50 Brownings broke the mountings and a tropical coating on the .50 ammunition sprayed the windscreen with a blinding oily residue when the guns were fired.

@timonsolus 5 ай бұрын

Unfortunately the .303 Brownings only had 1/3rd of the damage potential of the .50 Brownings. Also the RAF and RAAF Buffalo I's didn't have .303 incendiary ammunition in the first few months of the war, severely limiting their ability to down the Japanese aircraft, which didn't have self-sealing fuel tanks.

@Treblaine 5 ай бұрын

@@timonsolus It may not have mattered, while the bullets are much smaller than .50BMG, the Japanese aircraft were notorious for bursting into flame from taking very little damage which was due to a variety of factors both lack of armor and how they were stuffed full of fuel. 7-8mm machine guns worked fairly well at the time, the Bf109 only had a pair of 7.92mm machine guns for the early stages of the war, the 20mm cannon came surprisingly late. The Finns really appreciated the .50 cal against Soviet bombers, it's against large multi-engine aircraft where you need a lot of firepower and you can also shoot from a greater effective range as the .50 has the best ballistic arc of any WW2 automatic armament.

@mpetersen6 5 ай бұрын

Yes, the navy adding weight in terms of extra equipment certainly did not help. On the armor issue. The lack of armor a common trait at the time the Buffalo cam into service. The Buffalo's biggest problem IMO it lacked room fo growth.

@timonsolus 5 ай бұрын

@@Treblaine : Actually, the earliest Bf 109B with only 2 MGs had been relegated to the training role by September 1939. The Bf 109C, D, and E-1 had 4 MGs, and the E-3 with 20mm wing cannons was already in production.

@namelesscurmudgeon9794 5 ай бұрын

@@Treblaine I would be interested to know how the Fins overcame the issue of the recoil from the .50 Brownings breaking their mountings. Have you seen information about that anywhere?

@ronalddevine9587 5 ай бұрын

The Finns are a very resilient people. So glad to have them in NATO.

@rickfarwell4110 5 ай бұрын

Love the swaztikas!

@ronalddevine9587 5 ай бұрын

@@rickfarwell4110 That's sick. The Finns sided with Germany to counter the Russians. That's the only reason that sign of hatred was there.

@rickfarwell4110 5 ай бұрын

@@ronalddevine9587 Learn some history, "In the years before the Russian Revolution, the swastika could be seen on icons, clothes and dinner plates, as well as Romanov dynasty cars. In ancient times, it often popped up in cultures in the Caucasus. And In 1917, Soviet Russia became next in line to make use of the symbol. "

@rickfarwell4110 5 ай бұрын

@@ronalddevine9587 Learn a little history before 1933 "In the years before the Russian Revolution, the swastika could be seen on icons, clothes and dinner plates, as well as Romanov dynasty cars. In ancient times, it often popped up in cultures in the Caucasus. And In 1917, Soviet Russia became next in line to make use of the symbol. "

@ronalddevine9587 5 ай бұрын

@@rickfarwell4110 I know history, having majored in it. I've even seen it in Greece on old buildings. But today it is a symbol of evil and hatred.

@oldgysgt 5 ай бұрын

The Finnish success with their Brewsters speaks volumes about the skill of the Finnish pilots and the poor quality of the Red pilots sent to that area of operation. To gain such a high kill ratio in such a marginal fighter is truly a great accomplishment.

@genekelly8467 5 ай бұрын

Yes, the Buffalo was obsolete by 1940. But so was the Fokker DXXI...but Finnish pilots had good success with both planes. The secret that pilots who altered their tactics to take advantage of these aircrafts advantages.

@elfthreefiveseven1297 5 ай бұрын

Designed and built at a time when a lot of aircraft designs would go from cutting edge to obsolete in a super short amount of time. Also the famous aircraft from World War 2 had the designs updated to help maintain effective performance in combat operations. You can compare nearly every late war aircraft with the early versions on see a large difference.

@SoloRenegade 5 ай бұрын

sometimes the earlier models were superior. At low altitudes the early Allison Mustangs are superior to the later Merlin Mustangs. The P-51B/C models are superior to the P-51D as well. Performance was sacrificed for pilot visibility. And had the P-51 gotten an Allison engine with 2-stage supercharger, it would have blown the Merlin Mustangs out of the water in every way (speed, range, climb rate, acceleration, service ceiling, maneuverability, takeoff distance, etc.).

@fishingthelist4017 5 ай бұрын

One problem Brewster had in making Buffaloes was their original factory did not lend itself to mass production. Instead of an assembly line, they had a multi story factory that required each airframe to be assembled on several floors. It wasn't even top down because some stages required each airframe to go back up against the flow of production. The factory was originally used to build carriages, and was completely inadequate for large scale aircraft production.

@yakhooves 5 ай бұрын

You get extra credit for using my favorite bit of Beethoven. The 7th Symphony in its entirety is haunting, but Opus 92 is on another level. This is a great video. Extremely informative! I only ever thought of the Buffalo as a plane we’d rather forget, but I had no idea it had been exported, or that Finland loved it!

@carloberetta6305 5 ай бұрын

Flying the Finnish Buffalo in flight simulators it’s a sweet ride. It’s almost like the airplane version of a Mazda Miata, unfortunately it’s opposition was often the super car equivalents of the sky. Many early war planes found themselves in this position 😢

@91Redmist 5 ай бұрын

Being a car guy, I love your analogy!

@Munakas-wq3gp 21 күн бұрын

Makes me miss Aces High. The brewster along with BF 110G2 were my favourite planes in it. It was a real challenge to fight late war opponents and sometimes land kills. Sometimes.

@captainsalty9022 5 ай бұрын

The first shoot down of a Japanese aircraft by a U.S. Marine took place near Midway in March of 1942. Captain James L. Neefus of VMF223 and two other Brewsters shot down a Japanese Emily flying boat. Captain Neefus got in two passes and was credited with the shoot down.

@ReviloPua-bn4xi 5 ай бұрын

Thats not true, the first few zeros to go down was in the invasion of the Philippines,,downed by a few resilient Filipino aviators flying the obsolete Buffalos,but over all its really a massacre in the sky, in favor of the zeroes. In the end all remaining planes(Buffalo s) were ordered by McArthur to be scuttled.

@Mr.MurdochTimothySchmidt 5 ай бұрын

I have seen that buffalo that was pulled of a lake in the Finnish aviation museum.

@MrCateagle 5 ай бұрын

Grumman's XF4F-1 was an extension of their FF/F2F/F3F series of designs. The redesigned XF4F-2 was an all metal monoplane that gave us the Wildcat (though it took until the F4F-4 to get folding wings).

@awommack1994 5 ай бұрын

First, love that you covered the Buffalo! Second, since you did the Buffalo, are you gonna go a video on the Wildcat including the late war FM2s?

@jamesdalton2014 5 ай бұрын

Between 3:55 and 4:54, the images shown are of a P-36 Mohawk, not a Brewster Buffalo. The Buffalo has an undercarriage that retracts into the fuselage, while the Mohawk had an undercarriage that folds rearward into the wings. The images clearly show the latter type. (Sorry for nit-picking; it must be hard to find good footage of the Buffalo.)

@AbelMcTalisker 5 ай бұрын

There is also an issue with Brewster using reconditioned rather than new engines in many of the late-production aircraft. A lot of the F2A3s sent to the Pacific were not only heavier but some of them had engines that were not delivering the power they were rated for and the general build quality was just "bad". The Finns got in the main early production airframes that were just better built. The "Buffalo" (only called that by the RAF) was the best product from a small aviation company that just wasn`t able to meet the demands of the US Navy and other countries as the world headed into war. They adopted some very suspect practices to meet production needs and eventually failed as a result.

@Treblaine 5 ай бұрын

That many .50 cal machine guns were also way more firepower when of the time period it was still mostly just 7-8mm machine guns and 20mm cannons were still rare.

@bobpowrie5970 5 ай бұрын

Starting at the 4 minute mark, until 5 mintue mark, you are showing the P-36 Curtis Hawk ...not the Brewster Buffalo...

@craigpennington1251 5 ай бұрын

I like them. Like the I-16s/ short fat stubby fighters that surprised everyone. The Buffalo was another & the Fins exploited its characteristics to the limits with great success. Great info from this video. Thanks for posting. Too bad that there isn't more in flying condition.

@poowg2657 5 ай бұрын

It had one of the highest kill rates in the war flying for Finland. The Fins got rid of all the armor and self sealing tanks and were able to get the best performance out of it.

@mtlb2674 5 ай бұрын

Armor and self sealing fuel tanks were never fitted into Finnish Brewsters, they were originally model F2a1 that never had those. Later production models had those features.

@brealistic3542 5 ай бұрын

The original version before all the added weight was very good indeed.

@lugatzmajr4714 5 ай бұрын

From 3:57 to 4:56 U show a Hawk 75 instead of the Buffalo - why?

@patsmith8523 5 ай бұрын

The Buffalo may have been a decent fighter after they were stripped of non essential equipment, but were slaughtered in every engagement in the Pacific. Besides the equipment issue, tactics also were a problem. The Allies were all learning a hard lesson: you don't dogfight a Zero.

@marktercsak9728 5 ай бұрын

A number of years ago now on the History Channel a Marine Corps Aviator loved the Brewster Buffalo , he stated for example the Buffalo had electrical landing gear you hit either toggle switch, the gear went up and when landing hit the switch it lowered the landing gear, and had a back up manual crank for the gear The wildcat was strictly manual operated gear, and there were a number of other options , as he said all planes have their pluses and minuses. You take it into account and what the enemy planes can do then you have an advantage and you can turn your minuses into an advantage.

@91Redmist 5 ай бұрын

The Brewster was for most the wrong aircraft at the wrong time. I think the poor performance of early Soviet fighters had something to do with the Finns love affair with the plane. The Brewster still deserves some love. It laid the design groundwork for what would become some of best carrier based fighter planes of ww2.

@Pectopah123 5 ай бұрын

Soviet pilot training and management was the key issue for poor results. Not the planes. And they had a lot of planes.

@MrCateagle 5 ай бұрын

The BUFFALO was likely Brewster's best effort. Their SB2A dive bomber was unsuccessful and their licensed produced Corsairs, as F3A-1, were canceled due to problems.

@andrewfischer8564 5 ай бұрын

still one brewster corsir flying

@MrCateagle 5 ай бұрын

@@andrewfischer8564 Excellent!

@dramjet7 5 ай бұрын

Loved your presentation. Turned a pig into a pearl!

@douglasstrother6584 5 ай бұрын

Fighter development from 1935 to 1945: biplanes to jets. Quite a revolutionary time.

@Kieffer52 5 ай бұрын

Gosh I used to see them coming out of the factory in Warminster Pa they were what was around !

@patrickporter1864 5 ай бұрын

Different planes at different times. I wonder how much is down to training and attitude.

@alexwilliamson1486 5 ай бұрын

The Finns flew a lot of different aircraft, but I read they stripped a lot of weight out? And to be fair, they did fly against the early Russian Air force, it was a different matter against the IJAAF/IJNAF over Burma…

@Pectopah123 5 ай бұрын

Pilot training is the key factor here not planes. Japanese had already fought many years against chinese ...

@joechang8696 5 ай бұрын

the A6M Zero had 940/950 hp engine when most contemporaries were 1200 hp. it did have a big wing to fly the large distances suitable for Pacific island hopping. It also meant the Zero could really turn. Any opposing pilot who could not get it through his head to not get into a turning engagement with Zero became a dead pilot.

@HarborLockRoad 5 ай бұрын

Pappy boyington said the buffalo was a good, aerobatic plane....however, once it was armed, and filled to the brim with all the excess junk the navy demanded, it had added so much weight, that the aircraft couldnt cope. The dive bomber/ torpedo bermuda was even worse, and nobody wanted it. Even the brits immediately put them in some inactive area of Scotland. Brewster bought used commercial dc3 engines and rebuilt them, and got caught by the feds installing them in production aircraft. The factory was a multi - story building which hampered production immensely. War contracts found Brewster building corsairs which were of so bad quality, all were rejected by the military. Brewster was closed for good soon thereafter.

@bobbysenterprises3220 5 ай бұрын

It's so cute. Almost like a cartoon plane

@calvingreene90 5 ай бұрын

The Finns flew unarmored buffaloes (the best performing of the type) against Russian planes that were notably inferior at the end of the Spanish civil war. Then the USofA Navy added armor and other heavy items to the plane without enough additional power to compensate for the extra weight resulting in a sluggish death trap.

@conservativemike3768 5 ай бұрын

A buffed Buffalo with some modern tech would be a handy horse in the stable.

@lambastepirate 5 ай бұрын

I liked the War Thunder music in the background HAHAHA

@Plainview200 5 ай бұрын

One might wonder if the Thatch Weave (or something like it) was ever employed using the Buffalo. I believe Thatch came up with it after the Buffalo's time in the Pacific and Far East, but I'm sure the British and Dutch operators pondered ways to address the Zero. In any case, would the Weave have made a difference?

@awommack1994 5 ай бұрын

I doubt the weave would have helped purely because the Buffalo couldn’t just sit there and take punishment like the Wildcat could. Plus, its strength was a turning fight….the same strength the Zero had.

@ukulelemikeleii 5 ай бұрын

Part of the problem with this aircraft was its name; you expect something called a buffalo to wallow around and be slow in the sky. Perhaps they should have named it the bobcat instead? Feisty and with a nasty bite!

@johnwright9372 5 ай бұрын

The Brewster Buffalo was used in Malaya in WWII. It overheated in the tropical climate and proved no match for the Japanese Zero.

@marktercsak9728 5 ай бұрын

Brewster also manufactured Corsairs for a short time from what I'm told they never saw combat though.

@maxwaller734 5 ай бұрын

😮 *¡Brewster Aeronautical Corporation existed from the early 1930s to 1946!* 😮 - 11:21 pm Pacific Standard Time on Monday, 8 January 2024 😮

@Kieffer52 5 ай бұрын

Brewster also made a bomber the Buccaneer not much better but still used them , when I was in the navy I flew in a sb2c Helldiver not too much better Oh Well the good old days

@bizjetfixr8352 5 ай бұрын

It was designed as a carrier fighter. In which case, it's primary opponent was the A6M. Too fragile to operate from carriers. And we have Midway to illustrate how it fared against the A6M, even given the advantages of radar and an altitude advantage. Much like the P-39 and P-40, it just illustrates that any fighter is better than no fighter.

@LJDeMeo-gn4pc 2 ай бұрын

If one were to list the highest scoring WWII aces flying American fighters in combat, that list would look something like this: (1) Lockheed P-38: 40 kills, (2) Bell P-39 and Brewster Buffalo: 39 kills each, (3) P-38: 38 kills, (4)Grumman F6F Hellcat: 34kills, (5)Republic P-47 Thunderbolt: 28 kills, (6 & 7) P-47 & Vought F4U Corsair: 27 kills each, and (8)the vaunted and alleged war-winner (it most certainly was NOT!) North American P-51 Mustang: 24kills! Even the Curtiss P-36 Hawk/Mohawk is up there in double digit kills with 16! Gen. Chuck Yeager claimed that in aerial combat, it is almost always the pilot and not the plane that determines who wins and goes home and who doesn’t. You’ll note that the two fighters that American pilots early in the war trashed and hated most of all were the 2nd-place finishers on this list, the P-39 and the Buffalo. That is because early in 1942 they didn’t know how to fly them in combat and they knew even less about whom they were flying them against! They were still using the ridiculous mass formations and even more useless attack modes (single file, one after the other) they had been taught in flight school and are there for all to see in the pre-war Hollywood aviation movies still shown on TV.

@cartersmith8560 5 ай бұрын

Green USMC pilots at Midway went up against seasoned IJN Zero pilots ...... one sided massacre ....... 21 buffaloes and Wildcats took off , 7 landed, and only 2 of these ever flew again

@Franky46Boy 5 ай бұрын

Still... a Curtiss Hawk 75 /P-36 did creep into your generic footage...

@davidcole6058 5 ай бұрын

FIve Commenweath pilots would become Ace`s flying the Buffalo over Malaya and the pilots of 67 Squadron RAF operating the Buffalo over Burma in 1942, actually preferred the Buffalo to the Hawker Hurricanes they received to replace them.

@greggweber9967 5 ай бұрын

Was it better than its competition?

@MGower4465 5 ай бұрын

The Buffalo was simply the result of nobody really knowing what worked in combat with these bigger, faster, heavier machines - WW1 tactics may or may not apply. Nobody knew what made a good plane. Some makers made good guesses, Hawker, Messerschmitt, Focke-Wulf. The US still had a few biplanes on active duty in 1941. It took trial and error to make airplanes that could go into combat and survive. The Buffalo was just nowhere near agile enough to keep up with the Zeros, and unlike the P-40, lacked the power for slash and zoom maneuvering. They worked in Finland because Finland wash't fighting Zeros, and the Nazis were not employing their very best units, thry wre just kerping the Scandinavian region off their northern flank. The thing is, the US government actually walked into Brewster in 1941 and ordered them to stop making the Buffalo, flat out. With war essentially inevitable, when fighters were in extremely short supply already. The Buffalo just used up too much strategic material for too little performance. Ironically, the Buffalo was replaced by the Grumman F4F Wildcat, the same aircraft the Buffalo beat in 1939. Grumman had made improvements, Brewster had not. H

@davidmiddleton7958 5 ай бұрын

From material I have read, the Brewster Buffalo was a contriversial choice. Yes, an all metal monoplane, but, performance would soon be found lacking. In the case of the Buffalo in Finland, alot of Soviet planes were inferior even to the Buffalo. The Buffalo's of the RAF were given to the far east command. Up against the Japanese Zero outclassed it in every respect. The RAF attempted to lighten the Buffalo to increase performance, regretably, these proved futile.

@ugk1106 5 ай бұрын

The B-239 (export F2A-1) was advanced compared to the soviet opponents who often flew bi-planes. ln 1st winter war and the finnish akso flew against poorly trained soviet pilots. Thats why that strange 25:1 kill ratio. Its obvious that finnish pilots would not had reach that kill ratio if they would had to fight highly trained and highly skilled japanese pilotots in their A6M2s. To win a fight you have to have the edge on one aspect. Either speed or turnung radius, which the latter is just a defensive one. The faster plane could also chose to break the fight for the other day. The A6M2 were suoerior in both aspects, so a F2A had not option that to pick the fight which was offered. Once entered the F2A had no option to abort the fight for the other day. The Zero did.

@bluelionsage99 5 ай бұрын

The Finns could not get any more Brester Buffalos from the US or allied powers because they accepted German help fighting the Russians. I don't think they ever had more than 30. They failed to build their own version because they did not have the infrastructure to do it - especially the ability to make engines.

@marckyle5895 5 ай бұрын

3:40 Maybe if I squint my eyes the Buffalo will look kinda superior to the Wild nope, doesn't help

@tonzelle2720 5 ай бұрын

Film shows Buffalo s in the Dutch Indies

@woodpurposedmechanic8299 5 ай бұрын

The word is obsolescence!

@Cuccos19 5 ай бұрын

Bad about the type: 1. The F2A3 was slugish aircraft, indeed. 2. British and Dutch pilots were rookies, Japanese IJN and IJA pilots were at top of their success in better (turning, climbing, top speed) aircrafts. So I think, if these Allied pilots would sit in the Spitfire Mk.I or Mk.II, they would be beaten as well, no matter Buffalo or not Buffalo. The Bell P-39 Airacobra was hated by USAAF pilots at the PTO and loved by Soviet pilots at the Eastern Front. Same here, not for everyone, not for everything, not for everywhere.

@chuckokelley2448 5 ай бұрын

The Buffalo's problem, what's like that of many planes during this time. I As Bob Dylan said The Times they are changing

@RUHappyATM 5 ай бұрын

I think the Buffalo got its poor reputation after the debacle of the British during the Malayan campaign.

@robertwilloughby8050 5 ай бұрын

Now do the Bell P-39 Airacobra. A partial failiure in American and British service, although we the British said it would make a fine "hit and run" plane rather than the pure fighter it was designed as. Well, the Americans wanted rid of them (but they had to keep the Bell production lines moving) so they invited the Russians to take some. The Russian took A LOT, just over half of the production run, in fact.... and used them exactly in the hit and run tactics the British suggested, at which they were a MASSIVE success. A handful were even fitted out as tankbusters, despite Bell warning that to do so would "Rip the plane apart". Well, it did, just very, very slowly!

@markogronfors3826 5 ай бұрын

Russian pilots really didn't like Pyllyvaltteri 1/33 the drop list is not flattering

@davetomlinson9063 5 ай бұрын

They were what they were when they were.

@neilfoster814 5 ай бұрын

I suppose when you have nothing, a crap fighter you do have is better than a brilliant fighter you DON'T have.

@ReviloPua-bn4xi 5 ай бұрын

Finns made F2A Buffalo look good because they also fought obsolete Soviet figther planes!!!! Look at the Philippines theatre of war,, Buffalo's was an easy target for zeroes, made a lot of Japanese Aces.

@Fearless1247 5 ай бұрын

I heard warthunder music

@Hawkeye2001 5 ай бұрын

Logistical Question. If the Finns were flying US built aircraft, with German swastikas against the Russians, who were US allies; and the Buffalo needed repairs, how were parts sourced? Thru neutral Switzerland or Spain perhaps....?

@HistoryintheDark 5 ай бұрын

That was actually one of the reasons they tried to make their own, cheaper, copy. They ran out of parts. But by the time the Sky Pearls wore out they were obsolete even for Finland anyway so that issue was never really a major factor.

@RoyalMela 5 ай бұрын

Finland bought Buffalos in early 1940, when Finland was in war against Soviets. At that time Germany and Soviet Union were allies and together occupied Poland and decided how to split Europe between them, under Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Soviets were just as bad as Germans were, as both nations occupied smaller nations. USA was not even at war for another few years. USA, UK, France, Italy and several other nations wanted to aid Finland but Germany halted all ferries to ever reach Finland during Winter War, as they wanted to keep Soviets happy. So, none of 50 Fiats from Italy never arrived on time, and most of the Brewster were late for Winter War 1939-40. Finland was able to buy the planes, despite USA laws prohibited to sell planes delivered to Navy or Air Force. So, Finland bought them directly from manufacturer, as they were not property of US military. But also they were sold without US military equipment, like guns. Finns manufactured the spare parts themselves. Engines were older models too. Finland had Swastika already in 1918, when Finnish Air Force was established. First plane was a donation from Sweden and it had a Swastika painted on it. For good luck, as it was a good luck symbol. Germany took the Swastika as their own two decades later, and when German war crimes came public, Finland started to paint them away and took the modern blue and white roundel. Finland bought planes from every possible source. They had Brewsters, Fokkers, Fiats, several different British planes, some Czech planes, French planes as well. Later in the war some German planes also and dozens of captured Soviet planes too.

@esajuhanirintamaki965 5 ай бұрын

The Finnish swastika was not a relative of German nazi swastika! The Finns got their first aircraft from Swede count Eric von Rosen, whose personal good-luck insignia was a blue straight standing swastika. This happened during Finnish Civil War in 1918 winter. Nazi Hitler designed their point-standing swastika flag during "Kampfzeit" (Struggle time) well before "Beer hall putsch" in1923. Why nazis then used swastika? It was strongly different compared to the six-pointed jewish David Star, at first glance. So, easily recognizable. Thanks for the video. That pilot, who smiled, when putting his harnesses on is Warrant Officer Eino Ilmari "Illu" Juutilainen (February 21st 1914 - February 21st 1999), who got 94 air victories, also 34 with Brewster (58 with Messerschmitt Bf109G). There is 96 Finnish ace pilots, whose grand total was 1 435,5 air victories (Winter war and Continuation war), and with Brewsters: 424. Nine pilots got highest decoration, Mannerheim Cross, of these was two given twice. Ace is a pilot, who got five air victories.

@Hawkeye2001 5 ай бұрын

@@esajuhanirintamaki965 Thanks for the additional information.

@tommiatkins3443 5 ай бұрын

Oh those times they met a Zero. Ok. So they never met a Zero. But they did so badly those times they met them in imagination land.

@4501productions 4 ай бұрын

No Ilmari Juutilainen??????

@paulweston2267 5 ай бұрын

The F2As at midway had 1 .50mg and 1 .30mg. They were dreadfully underpowered. The ones Brewster sold to Finland had 4 .50mgs. BIG DIFFERENCE.

@mtlb2674 5 ай бұрын

No. Yhe Brewsters that were sold to Finland had originally 3x12,7mm+1x7,62mm. The fourth 12,7 mm (Lkk42) was fitted in the Finnish Buffalos 1942-43.

@paulweston2267 5 ай бұрын

That is just quibbling.

@paulweston2267 5 ай бұрын

BTW, the 12.7mm is the Browning M2, .50 cal. The 7.62 is the M1919 Browning, >30 cal.

@mtlb2674 5 ай бұрын

Again no. The 12,7mm is Colt mg53

@mtlb2674 5 ай бұрын

And yes, I know. It is the same gun but manufactured by Colt 😇

@stephenwhitemore1519 5 ай бұрын

What the difference between a buffalo and a bison? You can't wash your hands in a buffalo! 😅😅😅 stay well, stay safe. Happy New year.

@LastGoatKnight 5 ай бұрын

In the intro did I hear the launch OST of War thunder or I just imagine things?😅 Nvm, it IS😊

@stanleybest8833 5 ай бұрын

Wrong. The Long Island Brewster Buffalo was fatal dogma. It's real enemy was the landing strip. A comic book copy of a real fighter.

@markstott6689 5 ай бұрын

I built a Matchbox model kit in the 1970s. I disliked it immensely. It was so small compared with anything else I built as a child. It was built so fast that I felt cheated. 😮

@Alte.Kameraden 5 ай бұрын

It isn't how good the Buffalo was, it's how bad Soviet planes and pilots were.

@Pectopah123 5 ай бұрын

Soviet planes were good, powerfull, well armed, but Soviet tactics were really bad.

@Alte.Kameraden 5 ай бұрын

@@Pectopah123 hardly, I-15 and I-16 which made up the Bulk of the Red Airforce in 1939-1941 were grossly obsolete.. even when compared to the early Bf109B/E models from the mid/late 30s. Even the LaGG-3 which started to get introduced in early 1941 was a replacement wasn't a match for German or Western designs at the time and lets say was a huge failure but was all they had for a while. I'd go so far to say even the Yak-1 Yak-3, La-5 and La-7 were still not. To be blunt, for the amount of aircraft the Red Airforce had, the Luftwaffe shouldn't of been able to operate in 44/45 yet they could, almost freely. Fighter Squadrons were also wracking in kills vs Red Army planes/pilots even late in the war because German Bf109/Fw190 pilots could choose their engagements because they could operate at higher altitudes. Red Army pilots were always at a disadvantage as a result. Kudos to the ones who did well inspite of the Red Airforce's short comings. Basically, if the Red Airforce had to face the USAAF it would have been absolutely annihilated, in almost any period of the war. The Buffalo as a result was more than a match vs I-15 and 16 fighters which the Finnish faced.

@ClarenceCochran-ne7du 5 ай бұрын

The Finns loved the Brewster simply because it replaced the WW 1 era Biplanes their Airforce had before getting Brewsters.

@mtlb2674 5 ай бұрын

Nope. Finns didn't have ww1 era biplanes when the winter war started.

@andrewbowen4544 5 ай бұрын

The Buffalo has plenty of aces in the Finnish Air Force, The Buffalo was up against the Red Army air force.. I mean a WW1 Spad could shoot down a WW2 Soviet fighter in the early days of the war. Till the YAK came into the fight. Was wondering why the Nazi symbol was on the side of the Buffalo, before the Moscow Agreement the Finnish was on the side of the Germans. Till the Battle of Leningrad and Kursk. The Finnish was trying to find a way out of the agreement with the Germans.

@HistoryintheDark 5 ай бұрын

As I understand it, early they sided with the Germans because they hated the Soviets just that much due to the preceding Winter War, only later deciding that siding with literal Nazis was probably a bad call in the grand scheme of things.

@Ah01 5 ай бұрын

Finns had a blue swastika as an air force wing emblem from year 1918 on, when no one had even heard of the nazis. Later on the symbol of course got much more notorious and was changed after the continuation war..

@Ah01 5 ай бұрын

@@HistoryintheDarkFinns sided with the germans because the soviet foreign policy remained very hostile after the Moscow peace treaty which ended the winter war. There was imminent threat of repeated invasion and annexation, if the finns had to fight on their own again. So it was a matter of choosing lesser of two evils. Nazis were without a doubt bad guys, but they were not the lethal hazard of existence that russia was, and has been for the last 600 years. If you are about to drown, you take help from wherever you can, and at 1941 Germany was the only straw to clutch for the Finns. And besides that, there were also ideas of revenge and karelianism. After all the winter war was widely felt as an unprovoked peace of thievery, as Finland was stripped of 17% of it`s soil. In 1944 the Finnish army was stronger than ever, due to massive armament and could prove to Stalin that it would not be worth the effort to take Finland, and thus getting an honourable peace without capitulation was made possible.

@stevencox1651 5 ай бұрын

The Finns for the most part were going up against Russian aircraft that were even worse than the Buffalo. No big mystery there.

@petrim3413 5 ай бұрын

You are wrong. True that in 1941 Russian equipment consisted largely of I-153 Chaika and I-16 fighters from the winter war, especially Chaika was completely inferior to Brewster, excluding pure turning. The I-16 was again close to Brewster both in the curves and in the climb, but underpowered in the dive and in the amount of wing. This was good enough for the Finns and the I-16 was just a piece of cake for the Brewster pilots. But from the beginning of 1942, new types of aircraft such as Hurricanes, Tomahawks, Lagg-3 and Mig-3 began to appear. But the tactics of the Soviets did not change much. Except for the Hurricanes, the other plane types were clearly faster than the Brewster, but the Russian pilots engaged without any second thoughts in a turn fight against a more agile enemy because they had not been taught otherwise. They were usually competent pilots in their own right to handle their machines and spectacular aerobatic maneuvers, but they were of no help when adjusting to air combat and the lack of adjusting tactics and thus teamwork was lacking. Also the Finns' simple training system and tactics gave them the edge. During 1943, the enemy's equipment only improved when new La-5 and Yak fighters and later models of P-40 planes appeared on the front. However, the core group of pilots was already very experienced and Finns still managed to hold their own even though the opponent's equipment was constantly improving and their own equipment was constantly shrinking in numbers and wearing out. Of course, the burden was shared by the newly established Flight Squadron 34 in their Messerschmitts. The Finnish version B239 was much better plane than the US Navy version. Probably the RAF and RAAF pilots would have survived with less losses against the Japanese if the fleet had been B239s and not the B339E.

@brooksbrown580 5 ай бұрын

Buffalo's were good planes, well designed, well built, sturdy, and could take large amounts of damage and still fly. In Finnish Service they performed very well, in Dutch Service they performed as well, The Dutch had Trained Pilots, capable of adapting to the Buffalo quickly, The Dutch Pilots did tremendous damage to Japanese ground Targets, The Dutch using them as fighters and ground attack aircraft, as did the Finn's.