The stubby little Brewster Buffalo is generally considered one of the most unsuccessful Allied fighters of the war. The British partially blamed it for their defeats in Singapore and Malaysia. The U.S. Marines lost 13 of 21 Buffaloes at the Battle of Midway and never used it in combat again. However, the Finns, using a variant of the initial production model, racked up 496 kills against the Soviets to a loss of only 19 planes. Additionally, many pilots who flew both the F2A and F4F preferred the Buffalo.
The Buffalo (named by the British) was the result of a competition for the first monoplane fighter for the U.S. Navy in the late 1930’s. Grumman’s entry (later produced as the F4F Wildcat) suffered engine difficulties and Seversky’s design (a navalized version of the P-35) fell well short of the 300 mph required top speed.
Part of the failure of the Buffalo must be placed on the Brewster corporation, which was slow in turning out the aircraft that were contracted for; in the end, the company president was replaced, but the U.S government had already soured on Brewster by then.
In 1941, shipments of the F4F Wildcat (with engine problems fixed) began to arrive. Existing F2A’s were then shifted to the Marines. After Midway, all F2A’s were pulled out of combat service and used as trainers until 1943.
The Buffalo burns 44.8 gallons of fuel per hour at routine usage.
Subassemblies: Medium Fighter chassis +3, Medium Fighter Wings
+2, three retractable wheels +0.
Powertrain: 895-kW aerial turbocharged HP gas engine with 895-kW
prop and 240-gallon self-sealing tanks [Body and Wings]
Occupancy: 1 CS. Cargo: 2.1 Body, 0.1 Right Wing
| Armor | F | R/L | B | T | U |
| All | 2/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 |
| Cockpit | 0/0 | 0/+10 | 0/+20 | 0/+10 | 0/+10 |
Weaponry
2¥Long Aircraft HMG/M-2 [Wing:F] (400 rounds each)*
2¥Long Aircraft HMG/M-2 [Body:F] (200 rounds each)*
* Linked to fire in pairs, plus additional link can fire all four at
once
Equipment
Body: Medium range radio transmitter and receiver, arrestor
hook, navigation instruments, autopilot. Wings: 100-lb hardpoint
each, life raft in left wing
Statistics
| Size: 28'x35'x12' | Payload: 0.9 tons | Lwt: 3.19 tons |
| Volume: 200 | Maint.: 36 hours | Price: $30,300 |
HT: 9
HP: 120 [body], 80 [each wing], 12 [each wheel]
| aSpeed: 321 | aAccel: 8 | aDecel: 21 | aMR: 5.25 | aSR: 2 |
Design Notes
Design aSpeed is 330 mph; the historical speed, as well as actual wing
area (209 sf), has been used.
Variants
The F2A-1 lacked self-sealing tanks and pilot armor. Fuel tankage was
only 160 gallons, in the body. It was powered by a 701-kW engine with a
top speed of 311 mph. Nose armament was one .50-cal HMG and one .30-cal
LMG (600 rounds). The wing HMGs were optional; when fitted, they often
caused problems with stress on the landing gear.
The B-239 was very similar to the F2A-1 and was used by Finland (p.W:FH19). The planes were only able to legally be sent to Finland because the USN had “rejected” them (in effect, the Navy let Brewster sell them to Finland in exchange for an equal number of F2A-2’s under the F2A-1 contract). Top speed was 297 mph with a 709-kW engine. Loaded weight was 2.91 tons. The arrestor hook, life raft and catapult harness were removed and an armored backrest was added (DR 30 from rear for pilot). Six managed to fight in the Winter War. In the Continuation War, they gave a good account of themselves early on, but a lack of spare parts and improvement of Soviet fighters by 1944 had greatly reduced their effectiveness. A few were still around for the Lapland War, where they shot down a few Ju 87’s. Only eight B-239’s were left at the end of the war.
The F2A-2 replaced the .30-cal in the nose with a .50-cal HMG and standardized the two .50-cal wing guns (with stronger landing gear struts). A 100-lb hardpoint was added to each wing, outboard of the landing gear. A 895-kW engine was fitted, raising speed to 323 mph. Fuel tankage was increased to 242 gallons with the addition of wing tanks. Loaded weight was 3.45 tons.