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Myth Busters


Guest Mike

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Thought I'd take a bit of time out from my hectic schedule here at work [yawn] to write up a couple of myths that I keep hearing from wherever.

Myth #1 - the P39 was crap.

Put briefly the P39's combat history in the USAAF and RAF was not outstanding, but the Russians loved it, so how come the bad press?

Let's put one thing to bed first: the RAF LIKED the P-39!! they thought it would make a fine low level fighter and ground attack a/c. It served with 601 sqn for 1 month in late 1941, but was taken out of service because firing hte guns screwed up the compass, making it a bit more difficult getting back from France than it needed to be!!!!

They thought it was a good performer below 20,000 feet and it compared well to the Me-109's they tested it against, although it was not quite as good as the Spitfire V.

but when they were testing it the sov's & US Pacific forces were screaming out for fighters and so they were sent there - the RAF had plenty of Spitfires anyway so they were not hanging out for the a/c.

In USAAF service the P39 was no match for the Zero in 1942 - but then neither was any other allied fighter of the time!!

USAAF useage of the P39 didn't peak until 1944, when 2100 of them were in service, mainly through the Nth African and Italian campaigns.

Certainly the type was not as good as the P47's and P38's that tended to replace it, but that's not a surprise either - I mean come on people - of course the later designs are better!!

And of course hte Rusians waged all their war at low-medium altitudes so the high altitude shortcomings of the type didn't concernt them at all!!

All users considered is particularly rugged, and of course with the 37mm it had massive firepower to go with 4 x .30's and 2 x .50's. Later versions substituted 2 more .50's for the 4 wing mounted .30's, but the Russians often took them off too - they were happy enough with 2 hmg's and 1 cannon with all their other fighter a/c and the Airacobra was good enough with that too. They sometimes replaced the 37mm with a 20mm, and many of their early ones were ex-RAF Lend-lease P-400's that had the 20mm fitted anyway.

So should we ever see the Airacobra in DiF here's what I expect it to look like:

Airframe 4/3

Performance: 6 (7 for later Russian models with wing guns removed)

Power 2

Firepower 1/+1 if with 20mm

1/0 with 2 heavy cannon if with 37mm

-1 burst for later Russian models with wing guns removed.

Wingman: 2 att, 2 def (+1 def for later Russian models with wing guns removed)

Joe Baugher's P39 page

Myth #2 - the Buffalo was crap

One of the worst regarded fighters of the war, mainly because of the experiences of the RAF in Malaya and Singapore, yet the Buffalo did sterling service with the Finns - was that because the Russians were so bad??

No it wasn't!

the Buffalo actually competed against the Wildcat for the USN contract in 1938 - and beat it!

the problems in Malaya and Singapore were many - but they were suffered by all the British and Commonwealth forces ther - insufficient training, parts, suplies, etc.

and for the Buffalo there was an even worse one - no Radar!! unlike the BoB the British fighter force in the Far East didn't get the advantage of warning before raids came over. They would have to scramble as the Japs were already in sight, meaning they had little hope of reaching them before they bombed, and Jap fighters nearly always got the "bounce".

Even Spitfires would have had a hard time of this!

the Buffalo was a lovely plane to fly, and was considered very manouvreable and forgiving by its pilots - one biography I have says the pilot preferred the Buffalo to the Hurricane in every deparment.

RAF Buffalos were, however, also overloaded. They were model 339E's that had added equipment and heavier guns than earlier models - over 1000lbs weight, without any additional horsepower. Hence they did not perform as well as the 239's that were sent to the Finns - they were 30mph slower and had 460 feet/minute less initial rate of climb compard to earlier models.

Some of the British 339's were diverted orders from Belgium that lacked self-sealing tanks, pilot armour and reflector gunsights - as was reasonably normal when they were ordered pre-war. It was these lacks that made them unsuitable for combat in Europe - but they were not fixed when they were sent to the Far East!!

The Finns OTOH fitted reflector gunsights and added pilot armour after their 1940 Winter War.

The Dutch had ordered armoured glass, self-sealing tanks, reflector gunsights and armour for the 72 339's they ordered for the Far East forces in 1940, but most of this was not fitted before delivery - some went to Singapore fitted with armoured glass.

but even with these shortcomings Dutch Buffalos claimed 55 japanese a/c destroyed for 30 losses in the air (and another 15 on the ground plus some accidents).

So the story of the Buffalo is not a nice one, but little of it has anything to do with the a/c itself. it was used in a tactical situation where even the best a/c of teh day would have struggled - it was outnumbered, almost always started at a disadvantage, and it was of course also definitely ourtclassed by hte latest Japanese fighter - the Zero - but then so was every otehr allied fighter of the time!

Given some more sensible decision making the Buffalo should have made a more notable impact on the war in the East than it did - as is often the case the problem was the people making hte decisions, not the a/c itself.

Joe Baugher's Buffalo page

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The a/c the Brewster Buffalo (F2A) beat out in the Navy competition wasn't actually the Wildcat. The name was awarded later. It was the XF4F-2.

Grumman's original entry, the XF4F-1 was a BIPLANE -- a direct developement of the earlier F3F. When it became obvious that a biplane couldn't compete with the Brewster, the project was restarted as a monoplane, which was built around the fuselage and tail of the biplane. The Brewster was determined to be superior, but the Navy felt that the Grumman had more developement potential and encouraged a more complete redesign, resulting the the F4F-3 which had superior performance to the Buffalo.

Pilots who flew both, generally reported that they'd much rather fight in an Wildcat, but that the Buffalo was a much nicer a/c to fly.

It did, indeed, give very good service to the Finns, and it's unlikely that Hurricanes would have done any better in Malaya given the lack of radar, and the tactics (lack of tactics, really) the pilots had been taught. When the first Spitfires (Mk Vs) arrived in the far east in early 1943, they found themselves on the short end of the kill-to-loss ratios until they learned to stop trying to turn with Zeros and Oscars.

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Just a little more on the Buffalo.

On Dec. 7, '41, the US Navy and Marine Corps each had one squadron equiped with Buffalos. The Navy squadron was based on the carrier Lexington, and was re-equiped with Wildcats before seeing any serious combat. In fact, this is why Lexinton was carrying VF3 (borrowed from Saratoga) at the Battle of the Coral Sea. The regular squadron, VF2 was the one re-equiping.

The Marine BUffalo squadron lost most of them defending Midway Island in June.

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Saying hte XF4F-2 wasn't the early version of the Wildcat is a bit silly Zanadu - not like you at all.

it was the initial prototype, therefore deserves it's place in the lineup!

aec00777.jpg

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Yes, it was the prototype, but it wasn't the Wildcat. The man was applied initially to the production F4F-3.

Yes, that's a technicality, I suppose, but the XF4F-2 was very much a quicky conversion effort, developed in much less time than Brewster had with the F2A.

One thing about the F2A that the Navy didn't like was the landing gear, which was considered barely strong enough for carrier landings. The rate of deck crashes was considerably higher than for the Wildcat. One the other hand, every account I've seen insisted that the early F2A were extremely pleasant a/c to fly, and the pilots generally liked them.

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