buffalo success of finland

As for JägerMarty’s claim for Finns having had a well trained air force compared to Russia, well, maybe, but in the beginning of the war at least the Germans did not have any part of its training. I remember the late head of CAA Finland K.J. Temmes, ex MS.406 pilot himself, once saying that in the war between Russia and Finland there were two bad Air Forces against each other.

At work, not going into lenghts here, later maybe 🙂

The training varied a lot, to what I’ve understood. LLv24’s pre war cadre was definitely very well trained and motivated group. They had had the luxury of time, good trainign and even “sparring” in peacetime with Soviets just before the war broke out (source: Mauno Fräntilä’s interview). They did also train younger pilots well.

Training was different in different squadrons. LLv32 was, to all my sources and interviewed vets, a good place for young pilots because their CO did all he could to train the young pilots. Training was very systematic. LLv24 was quite similar. But then there were also squadrons,where young pilots got little to none training from the older pilots.

I am closely studied usual ratio overclaims at air battles. It seems that in Germany usual overclaims on Eastern front was from 1 to 5 up to 1 to 3. Russians gave overclaims usually from 1 to 4. Such ratio was very much frequently. I believe as Finns with their system of the account really have brought down 20 % from the declared figures. But certainly it is possible that hardly more – for example 25 % or even 30%. I studied archives, but only with the purpose to find out places of falls of airplanes. Which unique archive I have studied completely was the air buttle at Nomonhan – but there from Russian party overclaims was from 1 to 2, and with Japanese from 1 to 15!

I have to disagree with Oleg on 80% inflation of the Finnish kill numbers. Assuming there is same amount of exaggeration of the numbers in all air arms, the Brewster’s success still is nothing short of amazing.
On the same token, Grendel, I do not believe that 80% of the kills have been verified from Russian archives. Mr C-F Geust has done a great job on studying the Russian archives and comparing them to the Finnsh claims. I haven’t spoken to him for a long time, but I wish he would contribute here and give his educated opinion on this subject. On the other hand, he may not want to do it until the last ace has passed on to the next squadron…
As for JägerMarty’s claim for Finns having had a well trained air force compared to Russia, well, maybe, but in the beginning of the war at least the Germans did not have any part of its training. I remember the late head of CAA Finland K.J. Temmes, ex MS.406 pilot himself, once saying that in the war between Russia and Finland there were two bad Air Forces against each other. I am afraid he may have been right, considering the lack of equipment and funds in Finland especially just before the war. But the motivation of Finns was probably far superior to that of Russians.
I am sure there were lots of inflated victory claims in all aerial combat units, some of which are kept alive by well intended, and often well-written biographies, memoirs and novels. There is a legend of the last flight of one of the top-scoring Finnish aces which has been repeated in a great number of books about aerial war in Finland, a great read, but it bears no resemblance of the description of the flight that can be found in the official war archives in Helsinki. But again, this subject is obviously so sensitive that no aviation historian has dared to publish the facts. Neither dare I here. Grendel, maybe you will? Or wait another 15 years..?

Cool stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Anything about Finn experience with the Hurricane?

Here:

http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/WW2History-Ilmasotakoulu03English.html

Careful, though, he didn’t really like it, mr. Siro preferred his Fiat G.50.

I got plenty more from Siro, but that material isn’t even on paper yet.

The other Finnish Hurricane pilots aren’t available for interviews anymore, unfortunately. Two of the chaps, who brought Hurricanes from Britain in 1940 and were in RAF’s training are still alive, but in too poor condition for interview. But here is a great story about their trip to Britain:

http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/WW2History-HC-English.html

A: Pinkham was a skilled trick pilot, right? He came to me one day and asked if we’d have the contest that afternoon, and if I want to fly in front or behind. All the same to me, I said. We agreed on the matter, and I went out to tell the guys that Pinkham had challenged me to a contest. Paavo Aikala went nuts, goddamn you’re not going there, it was agreed with him and Pinkham has confused our names, Aikala and Alitalo. So Paavo was the one who flew.

M: Pity they didn’t have the drag lines for Aikala to pull, inverted with the tailfin.

A: It was fun time, when we flew. There were no flying of flag, giving signs or shouts of any kind. When we left from the hangars, we started from two sides of the field, gathered downwind and took off in order. Same thing with landings, so it went fine. There were British students too. Once Jussi was on the field with Pinkham, when a HC came with the propellor set on steep angle, gear and flaps up, and landed on the field. The plane ended up near the hangar wall. “Let’s go and see first,” said Jussi. It was a Canadian who emerged from the plane.
Jussi patted Pinkham on the shoulder and said, “your boy!”

Cool stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Anything about Finn experience with the Hurricane?

Here’s some my interviews with Curtiss pilots:

http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/WW2History-JarlArnkilEnglish.html
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/WW2History-MaunoFrantila2English.html
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/WW2History-KyostiKarhilaEnglish.html
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/photoreports/overdose2002/

Mr. Jarl Arnkil on Curtiss:

– How did Curtiss do against different Russian planes?
Well, in the Karelian isthmus we flew against I-16s and I-153s and we did quite well. There were no IL-2s or Pe-2s at that time. But like in there, it was tough to shoot down an IL-2, because the pilot and gunner sat like in a bath tub with a damn thick armor. Pe-2 was a bit too slick. Pe-2 flew many times over the western bank of Aunus isthmus. I don’t know where they flew those reconnaissance flights. They kind of came down over the west bank, following the shoreline of lake Ladoga. We caught some of them there when we happened to be around at the right time. But if you started to chase them, you couldn’t catch them.
– It was that much faster?
Yes.
– Then against these newer fighters?
Well, they were… I didn’t fly anymore because I was an intelligence officer. But when we encountered Airacobras, La-5s and so on, we were in trouble. Like in that story, Colonel Rekola had agreed with 6 AK that we should avoid dogfights so that we could help the ground forces with reconnaissance flights. So that we would not waste the last Curtisses we had.
– Not necessarily related to Curtiss, do you remember which was considered most dangerous opponent, Airacobra or Lagg?
My opinion is that Airacobra was more dangerous.
– On what basis?
It had a bigger cannon, I think it had a 37 mm cannon and it was pretty fast.

– How should you dogfight with a Curtiss? What kind of maneuvers did you use?
For example in Suursaari, where we had a lot of Russians going around in a Spanish circle, we could get them by diving after a plane and then pulling up again. Then attacked from above again. We chased the last plane, a Tsaika, with Manu Fräntilä. That guy either had a really flexible neck or he was sitting backwards in the cockpit. He was like an owl. Whenever we got him in our sights he kicked the plane to the side. We should have attacked from below, but he was hugging the treetops, so we couldn’t get him from there. We got him in the end anyway.
– It was normal pendulum (zoom&boom) tactics then?
Normal pendulum, yes.

– So, Curtiss pilots didn’t develop any own tactics adapted specifically to that plane type?
Guys had to fight quite fierce dogfights with it too. Sometimes the Russians had really superior numbers. Now I remember one time when I was somewhere there – more and more Russian fighters came in from near Lotinanpelto. I think we had five or six planes in the air and they started to call for help, because the density of Russian planes started to become too high. But we bagged that situation too. They were in a furball. And once someone even had a dogfight against some Lagg above our airfield.
– You mentioned that it could turn well. How fast was the roll?
Yes, it was…
– So you could change directions quickly?
It was quite agile. Very pleasant to fly.
– How about the armor in Curtiss? Did it have a back plate?
It only had a back plate.
– Was it standard equipment from the beginning or were they installed later?
I think it was standard equipment. FR (Fokker D.XXI) didn’t have a back plate. It was installed in Tampere (State Aircraft Factory) and then the fixed head plate was added. The armor consisted of two pieces and we lost one pilot during training in Siikakangas. He was doing aerobatics and lost control while doing a loop – or immelmann – at high altitude and crashed into a lakelet. We wondered what the hell happened, because he was pretty high when he lost control. When the war began, we installed the machine guns and started to adjust them. The tail wheel was lifted on a barrel and the weapons were adjusted. I don’t remember who it was, it might have been the squadron commander himself, who tried to raise the seat but it wouldn’t move. The back plate should have risen in front of the head plate, but it didn’t. It jammed against it. We inspected the problem and noticed that the seat brackets had almost broken off. That’s when we realized what had happened to the unfortunate pilot. His seat fell on the control cables when he was pulling an immelmann. It was an uncontrollable situation. The control cables ran beneath the seat. The airplane factory had not noticed that when you add armor to the seat, you also add quite a lot of weight and the brackets should have been strengthened too. I think we had many similar accidents.

– How rugged was Hawk considered by the pilots, in respect of structure stress or damage endurance?
I felt it was a sturdy plane. The worst spot was the gas tank behind your back. You didn’t want any bullets to hit that.
– It wasn’t protected? It wasn’t self sealing?
No, it wasn’t. Pretty big tank right behind your back.
– Were self sealing tanks then later installed by the Finns?
No. That kind of advanced contraptions were not installed in these planes. They remained as they were received from Germany. We only got the bigger guns, 12,7 mm.
– There is a rubbered Curtiss gas tank in Hallinportti aviation museum.
It’s possible.
– How about the engine? How good was the engine durability and how well was it liked?
We had two kinds of engines, Mercurys and Wasps. Mercury had a little more power than Wasp. I considered Mercury better, but there were sow few planes equipped with Mercury that they wore out quickly. In the end all the engines were Wasps.
– Kössi Karhila said, that with Mercury engine Curtiss was as good as Brewster
True. It was a completely different machine, but we ran out of engines. The fifteen planes which we retrieved in the summer of -43 all had Wasps. They were in crates. The Americans had sent them to France and they were found from some harbor in their packing crates when Germany occupied rest of France. The first planes we got came from Norway. America had sent them to Norwegians as military aid. When the Germans invaded Norway, they gave the planes to us.

Mr. Karhila, quite likely the highest scoring Curtiss Hawk 75 ace in the world alive today:

Your opinion is that the Curtiss was in principle a high class plane and pleasant to fly?

It was indeed, flying and mechanical quality. I used to admire the cockpit plexiglass quality. Sunlight did not affect it unlike that of the Messerschmitt. There was not even the blue tint. Comparing that with a Messerschmitt canopy, through that you could see but… .

The Curtiss windscreen did not include any bullet proof glass, it was just one piece.

What kind of gunsight was the Curtiss equipped with?

It was a reflector sight, a little offset from the center line, the pilot is sighting with one eye. The German planes also had off-set gunsights, but just a little. The supports for the Curtiss gunsight were placed inside the cockpit.

The first WW pilots had a fear of burning and some carried a pistol to get a more “pleasant” death in case. The planes of the Second WW must have been better “fireproofed” and fire was not such a fear factor, was it? A Messerschmitt pilot was sitting on the fuel tank, in fact ?

That is true but the fuel tank was covered with rubber that after penetration by a projectile sealed the hole. Only if the fuel exploded was the end at hand.

Did the Curtiss have self-sealing tanks?

She did.

There have been arguments about the Curtisses equipped for the French service. The ones in the Finnish Air Force had been used by the French.

And by Norwegians. Quite a lot of them were delivered from Norway (by Germans, tr.rem.) They were still in crates, brand new ones.

There are very exiting things about the Curtisses. For example the Curtiss Aircraft Company promised that a Curtiss (A-75)would do 511kmh with a Pratt-Whitney (P-W) engine which is quoted in all books. What is your view on the matter?

No, no. It was four hundred and fifty. A Cyclone powered Curtiss did 485kmh.

Do you have any idea how is it possible that the Curtisses in Finland were found to be so much slower than the manufacturer claimed? Was it a case of plain lying?

Look, a plane custom made for representation could be polished as well as possible, all the cracks were filled up and so on. A lot of advantage could be gained that way. The planes used in the front were not similarly treated, it cut the speed. And when testing there was no limits in using the engine. An engine could be worn out just to get good performance readings.

I have read the brochures sent to the Finnish Air Force by Curtiss and it is a real shame that these planes were not purchased before the Winter War. The offered planes were equipped with the Cyclone, by the way. The brochures mention that the top speed has been gained with the “max 5min” power setting, the climbing rates likewise: the first 5 minutes with emergency power setting. This could explain the matter partly.

In those days she climbed pretty high in five minutes. It could have been five minutes fifteen to 5000m. I could do it below four.

I didn’t know the Finns had such success with the P-36 (i.e. Hawk 75). When you go and look at how the French did with this plane in 1940, you could arguably put it on a list of underrated World War II fighters….of course its younger cousin the P-40 is my vote. 🙂 Funny how both the P-36 and P-40 did much better than most people give them credit for.

I am afraid I don’t know that much about the Continuation War. What were the success ratios of the other Finnish fighters?

Morane-Saulnier 406
LLv 28, 25.6.1941-4.9.1944, claimed 104 Russian aircraft, losing 36 planes, of which 16 in aerial combat.
LLv 14, (recon squadron), 28.7.1942-4.9.1944, claimed 17 Russian aircraft, losing 6 planes, 2 in aerial combat.
Highest scoring Morane pilots were V. Karu (2 kills) and M. Linkola (2 kills)

Curtiss Hawk 75
LLv 32, 14.7.1941-4.9.1944, claimed 190 1/3 victories, losing 24 planes, 8 in aerial combat
Highest scoring Curtiss aces were K.Tervo (15 3/4 victories), K. Karhila (13 1/4 victories, alive today) and E. Koskinen (11 1/3)

Fokker D. XXI
LLv 32 25.6.1941-7.10.1941, claimed 5 victories, losing 3 planes, none in aerial combat.
LLv 12 15.7.1941-8.8.1944, claimed 10 victories, losing 7 planes, five in combat (AA fire etc, not aerial)
LLv 30 25.6.1941-27.3.1943 claimed 40 victories, losing 11 planes, 6 in aerial combat
LLv 10 21.9.1941-1.11.1941, claimed 5 victories, losing 2 planes, 1 in aerial combat

Fiat G.50
LLv 26, 25.6.1941-27.6.1944, claimed 88 victories, losing 12 planes, 2 in aerial combat, 1 to AA.
Highest scoring Fiat aces O. Tuominen (23 victories), O. Puhakka (11 victories) and N. Trontti (6 victories).

(52 of Fiat victories were claimed during 1941, against the loss of two planes., and most of the rest in 1942. 1943+1944 included very little activity for the Fiat squadron, who had only limited number of planes serceable, were totally outclassed to new Soviet planes and were positioned in a quiet sector)

Bloody BIG ball’s

Sound’s like really ballsy stuff guy’s 😀 .

Very interesting, Thank’s guy’s 😉 .

I will now go look at the Buff thread again with even more respect, and try to imagine just what these guy’s really did do 😮 .

Cheer’s all far and wide 😀 , Tally :dev2: Ho! :dev2: Ho! Phil :diablo: . (p.s where’s Finny :confused: )

I am afraid I don’t know that much about the Continuation War. What were the success ratios of the other Finnish fighters?

Primary fighters, alongside Brewsters, for the early/mid COntinuation War were CUrtiss Hawk 75s, with Morane Saulnier 406s and Fiat G.50s struggling along. I’ll look for the ratios later, when there’s time, but all had positive victory ratios – though all were most successful in 1941, efficiency dropping fast in 1942 and later. Reasons were logistical as much as how Soviet pilots and equipment got better – Finns had only limited supply of spare parts, fuel for these planes built far elsewhere. It wasn’t easy life with those squadrons using Moranes and Fiats.

The Curtiss squadron, LLv 32, was anyway the second most successful of Finnish fighter squadrons, after LLv 24. They’re the “forgotten aces”, as the Messerschmitt squadrons (LLv 24, LLv 34) usually grab all the glory.

Messerschmitts victory ratio is generally accepted as 25:1 in aerial combats (Brewsters 32:1) based on official scores, but the Messerschmitt ratio has more or less overclaiming in it. Reason is that they arrived in 1943 and mostly fought either over Gulf of Finland 1943-1944 (no wrecks as proof at sea) or over enemy territory in 1944 in huge defensive battles, intercepting Soviet bomber formations and engaging in fighting in bomber escorts or recon missions etc. And even when they fought over own territory, well that land was lost in the initial retreat phase of summer 44 battles, so no solid proof available there either. Very messy period, confirmation-wise. But they *were* successful in their missions, whatever the overclaiming percentage, which is what counts.

But imagine that FiAF pilots were still flying ancient crates like Hawk 75, MS 406 or Brewsters in summer 1944, against first rate Soviet equipment, and only two squadrons had top equpment like Me 109 Gs. I’m most amazed how the Hawk/MS/BW pilots managed to survive, at all, even after talking to many of them.

As one chap I interviewed put it:

Which was your most frightening experience?

Well (thinking). It’s kind of hard to compare them, but it was scary when I had to play against larger numbers in a Brewster for the first time. There were four Brewsters up, it was in the beginning of June when it was worst (the summer battles of 1944 “summer war”). When suddenly there are dozens of them around, you do have to be careful. But otherwise, I can’t say what was worse than that.

I should say, that in the beginning of June during the offensive of Karelian Isthmus the numbers were really overwhelming and we were flying obsolete planes. Brewster was already so damn soft even though it had been a good plane in the beginning.

Once I was flying with Ate Lassila, Olli Riekki and Matti Kukkonen (here started a long discussion about the family Riekki, as we find a relative of the mentioned Olli Riekki, WarBirds pilot -koko-, from the table) as fourth and flew through a cumulus cloud there was this stream ahead. According to air control center there were 124 bombers on their way to Viipuri. Ate Lassila, who was kind of cautious and thinking just watched as Olli Riekki took off out wing, dived and shot down one DB continuing straight to low level because there were at least 40 La-5s above. And in between us with four old Brewsters. That’s how it was then, just insane.

From:
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/WW2History-OlliSarantolaEnglish.html

More articles:
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/

And heres a search on the pages with Brewster as keyword:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=fi&sitesearch=www.virtualpilots.fi&q=hist+brewster&btnG=Hae&lr=

Interesting links, Grendel. They seem to say the success was a combination of the quality of the Finnish pilots, the predictable Russian tactics and the fact that the Brewsters were earlier versions which were lighter and more manouverable than later versions.

Ironic also the comments that Hurricanes were the easiest thing to shoot down given that the Hurricanes that were sent out to Singapore and Dutch East Indies were regarded as a great advance on the Buffaloes.

I am afraid I don’t know that much about the Continuation War. What were the success ratios of the other Finnish fighters?

Have you read these online articles?

http://www.sci.fi/~fta/BWtoFAF1.htm
http://hkkk.fi/~yrjola/war/faf/brewster.html
http://www.warbirdforum.com/faf.htm

Also, it is incorrect to say the Buffaloes were wiped out elsewhere. Only place where they were indeed wiped out was battle of Midway – with green pilots trying to dogfight with veteran Japanese in Zeroes.

The Dutch achieved about 1:1 against Japanese in their Brewsters and the British had their successes too, when they flew using the strenghts of their planes.

Finnish successes were primarily because the training of the pilots, as the Brewsters continued in front line service until 1945 and were still having some successes in 1944, when they were completely outclassed. In 1941 and 1942 it was the best fighters on the front lines. About 80 % of the Brewster claims have been verified from Russian archives, which is quite good result.

1 CRU Cowley

Maestros went like stink,just fell to bits unfortunately.Were Rover in any of their guises ever put to work as airframe / engine manufacturing during the war or post war?

Trumper

No.1 CRU. Civilian Repair Unit. Formed 11 September 1939 by Morris Motors at COWLEY (Maestro production line) as part of the Civilian Repair Organisation.

…and I believe some very interesting finds of the residues have been made by local enthusiasts in recent years.

Mark

Maestros went like stink,just fell to bits unfortunately.Were Rover in any of their guises ever put to work as airframe / engine manufacturing during the war or post war?

An analogy. I learned to drive in an MG Maestro Turbo. I believed the performance was sparkling, until I was taken for a ride in a Sierra Cosworth/Lotus/Caterham..kev35

Kev35.

🙂 For my sins I was the engineering project manager of the ‘MG Maestro Turbo’. Rover sub-contracted the whole ‘shooting match’ over to the consulting company I worked for. We also final assembled all the cars at our manufacturing plant from part built and modified stock on the Cowley line. Though lacking charisma, I would point out in its defence, it was the fastest/most accelerative of the then ‘hot hatches’ although not the best in the handling regime….we also did the last production batch of Sierra Cosworths as well. So as with aircraft – always performance and handling, in combination, for the best result.

Mark

Might it be that if the Buffalo was the “best” aircraft the Finns had in their inventory that the pilots had greater confidence in the machine and therefore utilised it to its best advantage? In the RAF, there were numerous aircraft with superior performance, therefore a Hurricane or Spitfire pilot transferred to a Buffalo Squadron would instantly realise the inadequacies and inferiority of the aircraft and that might have affected the way the way in which they operated.

An analogy. I learned to drive in an MG Maestro Turbo. I believed the performance was sparkling, until I was taken for a ride in a Sierra Cosworth/Lotus/Caterham……

Regards,

kev35

There was a good article in Air Enthusiast, I think it was the first article in issue 1. Certainly weight was a problem in RAF Buffaloes. As often happened when foreign aeroplanes were ordered, the RAF required numerous equipment changes – armour, more ammunition, extra equipment – which made a marginal airframe overweight. It was reported that when they stripped a Buffalo of extra kit to try to squeeze more performance, they reduced weight by 1,000 pounds.
It wasn’t only the solenoids that were affected by the heat and humidity. The test report said that it was prone to overheating in an English summer! However, the report said, it might make a good fighter trainer.
Another preformance difference compared to the Finns was tht performance did fall off badly at altitude, whereas most of the fighting on the Eastern Front was at low altitude.
In the end, though, I tend to the view that whatever fighters had been available in Malaya and Singapore, there were so many factors against them that they would have performed poorly.

Paul

I wondered how these Buffaloes compared with the ones over Singapore.I have just finished reading “Buffaloes over Singapore” where they were flown against the Japanese.
These model Buffaloes were very outdated and clapped out then and when armour plating was added to protect the pilot they became even more inadaquate.Having said that they still had some success against a far more numerical Japanese force.
If the Buffaloes were fighting against forces more evenly matched during the start of the war was their success rate good or bad.

Hi,

This is from memory so I’m not sure how accurate it is.

Weren’t the Finns flying earlier model Buffaloes that were lighter and more manoeverable than the later models the RAF flew?

They weren’t called Buffaloes in Finnish service, they were simply known by their model/export number.

Alex

score of finn’s pilots must be redused on 80% – Soviets AF never lost so many airplanes that finn’s claimed