Worst aircraft of WW2? (Continued)

[the lancaster kicks ass]

well i couldn't have you beating me.............

[cheddar cheese]

Hehe, I doubt very much whether I would actually have looked anyway

[the lancaster kicks ass]

well the mere thought that you might have been out there looking was enough to get me moving........

[cheddar cheese]

UGH, that sounds a bit dodgy

[the lancaster kicks ass]

well i was moving in the opposite direction to you..........

[GT]

Thank´s Lanc for the Swordfish story and thank´s CC for the offer.

Cheers
GT

[the lancaster kicks ass]

that's ok glad i could be of help.........

[FLYBOYJ]

Don't forget the Demon CW-21B - These things got mauled!

All CW-21 Demons: The CW-21 was a development of a Curtiss air racer. It had speed, power and fair agility, but was quite fragile and under-gunned by 1940 standards. Two wing spar hits destroys the aircraft.
CW-21: 30 built for China. Chennault used a few for recon after destruction of Dutch Demons.
Combat record (like many Chinese WW2 air combat records) sketchy at best.
CW-21b: 24 Built for Netherlands East Indies Air Force. Armed with two
7.7mm (.303) Browning MGs (N1 only). All were destroyed in combat or the ground by December 1941 - February, 1942.
Wright Cyclone problem: Poorly designed oil system stopped lubricating
under heavy G. If a/c uses HT or higher turn or dives from inverted bank, roll1D10: 1 = engine seizes; 2-3 = engine coolant crit (w/o white smoke).

[FLYBOYJ]

BUT DON'T FORGET THE BUFFALO!

Early on June 4, 1942, radar picked up Japanese planes closing on Midway Island. Capt. Philip Renee White, one of 21 Buffalo pilots stationed there, scrambled into his fighter and met the enemy at 12,000 feet. The Battle of Midway was a stunning victory for the United States. But White's Buffalo squadron was slaughtered: 13 pilots died in minutes. Five other planes were wrecked. White filed a damning report:

"Any commander that orders pilots out for combat in a [Buffalo] should consider those pilots lost before leaving the ground."

[the lancaster kicks ass]

but they served well over singapore and the rest of asia, they're not the worst...........

[cheddar cheese]

And when the Finns recived them (redesignated B-239) they used them extremely well, amounting in the highest kill ratio for any plane of WW2.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

i would like to see more information about that claim...........

[cheddar cheese]

This is an edited copy of a news article posted by Jyri-Pekka Järvinen (jyrtsi@vipunen.hut.fi) on the infamous subject of the worst fighter in WW2.

-- Begin quote --

Fair and well-deserved praise has been given to our fighter pilots in some (thanks to the posters ) of the articles dealing with this "the worst fighter" subject. But it seems that many people underestimate the opponent our Brewster pilots were facing or have some misunderstandings of the FAF at war. This may be due to the fact that our *three* separate wars in 1939-44 are not too well known outside Finland.

For example, FAF did *not* use Brewsters in the Winter War. The first four planes were flown to Finland on 1.3.-40. Before the end of the Winter War two more planes arrived, but none of these saw any action in the Winter War. True, some Soviet plane types were old - but there were so large numbers of them.

To clear up any possible misunderstandings and offer some all-round education, here is a list of all the planes that the Finnish aces (i.e. the list is not complete) shot down using Brewsters (Ref.1):

67.5 I-153's
60.5 I-16's

48 Hurricanes (of which 7 by Lauri Pekuri, 6 by Eino Peltola,
5.5 by Lauri Nissinen and 5 by Eero Kinnunen
- 23.5/48 by only four men)
41 LaGG-3's
40 MiG-3's
27.5 Yak-1's
24 SB-2bis's
18.5 Pe-2's
13 LaGG-5's (* see note at end)
13 Spitfires (* see note at end)
10 La-5's
9 Il-2's
7.5 DB-3's
7.5 R-5's
6.5 I-15bis's
5 DB-3F's
5 MiG-1's (* see note at end)
4 ARK-3's
4 Tomahawks
3 AR-2's
2 Yak-7's
2 He-111's
1 Ju-87
1 Li-2
1 SB-3
=====
421.5 kills by "the worst fighter of WWII"

I wonder what would have happened if our aces had encountered at least some modern fighters instead of those obsolete pieces of junk like Hurricanes and Spitfires...
Ref.2 gives gives the total of 472 kills with Brewsters. 83 FAF pilots gave their contribution to this number.

It was our luck that the Soviet pilots were not too skilled. But what can you do with a plane that may be considered inferior to those of the enemy?

If we concentrate on the non-Soviet enemy planes, the FAF pilots proved that the following predator-prey combinations were possible:

Predator: Prey:
--------- -----
Fokker Hurricane
Fiat Hurricane, Spitfire
Morane Airacobra, Hurricane, Tomahawk
Brewster Hurricane, Spitfire, Tomahawk

One popular belief is that the Brewsters were totally useless after 1941 or so. That is not true: our pilots scored kills with them during our whole Continuation War 1941-44. They had to: we had so few Me-109's.

Tha last aerial victory by a Brewster at the Karelian Isthmus was scored on 17.6.-44 and after that one of our pilots managed to shoot down a Ju-87 on 3.10.-44 in the Lapland War against the Germans.

Two FAF units used Brewsters: Lentolaivue 24 and Hävittäjälentolaivue 26.


Lentolaivue 24 (Flight squadron 24)
Between 25.6.-41 and 31.12.-41 LeLv 24 scored 135 kills with BW's with the cost of two BW's and two pilots. On 13.2.-42 5 Hurricanes were shot down and 8 more on 30.3. by the 2nd Flight. One week later they surprised a large Soviet formation and scored 11 Hurricanes and 1 DB-3.

On 14.8. 3rd Flight met 6 Hurricanes and got them all. Later during the day 4th Flight shot down three more. Two days later 3rd Flight destroyed 11 I-16's.

On 18.8. 60 Soviet fighters fought against 16 BW's. One BW was lost and 16 Soviets downed.

In April -43 Pe-2's, LaG-5's, Spitfire V's and Tomahawks arrived to the front.

On 21.4.-43 two BW's were lost for 4 LaGG-3's, 4 LaG-5's and 11 Yak-1's in a battle between 16 BW's and 35 Soviets.

Then La-5's and Yak-9's arrived. Despite of the high number of air combats against them, our BW's managed to shoot down only 4 of them.

Between 25.6.-41 and 21.5.-44 LeLv 24 scored 456 victories with BW's. 21 BW's were lost: 15 in combat, 4 in accidents and 2 in air raids. FAF pilot losses: 12 KIA, 2 POW.


Hävittäjälentolaivue 26 (Fighter squadron 26)
LeLv 24 gave its BW's to HaLLv 26 when they changed into Me-109's in -44.

Between May -44 and 4.9.-44 HaLLv 26 scored 17 victories against superior Soviet fighters. 7 BW's were lost: 4 in combat and 3 in air raids. Pilot losses: 2 KIA.


The Lapland War
In Lapland our BW-pilots learned the power of German AA-fire. 4 BW's were shot down by German AA and 2 more were lost in accidents. FAF successes: 2 Ju-87's shot down and one Ju-88 damaged (later crashed).


About individual BW's
*41* aerial victories were achieved with BW-393, 7 of them by Capt Luukkanen and 26 by Lt Hans Wind.

36 aerial victories achieved with BW-364, 28 of them by Eino Juutilainen.

Capt Jorma Karhunen scored 7 kills in 4 days with BW-388.

BW-373 flew its last flight on 30.6.-48 after 955 hours 45 minutes of flight time. The last BW-flight in FAF was performed by BW-377 and BW-382 on 14.9.-48.

References
1. Keskinen - Stenman - Niska: Hävittäjä-ässät/Finnish Fighter Aces. Suomen Ilmavoimien historia 11. Tietoteos 1978, Espoo.

2. Keskinen - Stenman - Niska: Brewster B-239 ja Humu. Suomen Ilmavoimien historia 1. Tietoteos 1977, Espoo.

-- End quote --


Notes:
LaGG-5 should propably be LaG-5.
"Spitfires" were most likely Yaks (Yak-1 and Yak-7 had tapered wing with rounded wingtips and high back similar to Spitfire).
MiG-1's were propably MiG-3's as there was no MiG-1 produced. Anyway the wartime flight reports mention those aircraft, propably due to either misidentification during air combat or erroneus intelligence information about new enemy aircraft types encountered.
John "Shady" Lane of 35FG 39FS, sums up the problem of assessing air combat in his combat report pretty well: "One definite, one probable, one damaged, one possible, twenty impossible and hell knows how many I didn't see."

Another story of the identification problem: this is about a RAF pilot who was telling a story about being attacked by a "Fokker". When he was told that there were no Fokkers present in the action, he said "You don't understand, this 'F**ker' was flying a Messerschmitt."

http://hkkk.fi/~yrjola/war/faf/brewkills.html


Alos, by typing "Brewster B-239 kill ratio" into Google you will note that most of the results seem to also say that it had the highest kill ratio.

[FLYBOYJ]

That is so true - even though they fought the Russians ferociously, it seems the Finns knew how to fly them well, maybe the Marines should have gotten training from the Finns!

[dinos7]

i think the german rocket plane was the worst beacasue it ran on two guns with 50 rounds each and a sucky glider effect when the rocket engine ran out. but there is the japanese suicide bomb aircraft too