Brewster Buffalo in Blood Red Skies - the little plane that mostly couldn't.

I run a Facebook page for fans of Blood Red Skies called "The Ready Room". I've been lucky that through that and the kind assistance of the author Andy Chambers and Roger Gerrish, plus Rich Carlisle at Warlord I've had the chance to playtest some BRS stuff and had access to the beta stat list of planes for the game that was not for general publication at that time.

As the game has grown in popularity there have regularly been requests to add more planes to the available list. This has proved quite challenging as Warlord really don't have the capacity to meet every demand for models, some of which have been quite obscure (really). In their credit they realised that the game needed to expand faster than their capacity would allow at present, so in addition to allowing me to "leak" some stats they were happy to release new "expansion" sets containing the data and trait cards needed to play some of the major planes that they had yet to get around to, either by using proxies or third party models. Two of these sets are now on the shelves, with more due in the coming months.

I think it is fair to say neither Andy, Roger, Rich or myself had any idea of the popularity of what Andy once described as a "Clown Car" of the skies. Frankly we expected one of the iconic sleek and fast late war fighting machines like the P38, Tempest or Fw190 Dora to top the wish list, but instead, very much to our surprise, it has been the Brewster Buffalo. You lot are weird.............

I knew a little about the Buffalo of course, but initially we all had discounted it as a possible inclusion into the game - who would want to fly this death trap?, so it was really just a rough beta stat. It was often sighted as one of the quirky mysteries of WW2, The Brewster performed so badly in the Far East that it was thought of as a death trap, yet did great service with the Finns against the Soviets. Why was this? Why could a single type be so bad and yet seemingly quite good at the same time? When you look into it however the answer becomes clearer. The Brewster we think of was really a number of quite different aircraft and the changes made by the different operators sheds what I think is a fascinating side light on how WW2 fighters developed and the requirements of the different users. So here is my take on the Brewster F2A\B239\B339\Buffalo in Blood Red Skies. I should stress this is just my thoughts - the others may disagree.

The US original F2A2 & F2A3
The US operated two different versions of the Brewster, so it is probably best to start there. The USN bought a few Brewster F2A2 to operate off their carriers. It actually was preferred initially to the Grumman F4F Wildcat. Generally it was ok (faint praise) and pilots thought it handled quite well, with a very handy turn and rate of roll. Unfortunately the spec didn't call for any armour or protection - not that unusual pre war, and also some other essentials such as radios were pretty much optional. By the time of Pearl Harbour it had been retired from USN service, probably because the Brewster plant was having problems making the thing in any numbers and the basic design could not be upgraded very much. The USMC however also operated the Brewster as the F2A3. The F2A3 was upgraded with a slightly better engine, wing mounted fuel tanks, radios, pilot protection and the like, which improved the range and theoretically improved the chance of survival but adversely effected handling. This is going to be a repeated theme. The Marine F2A3s saw action against the Japanese during the Battle of Midway. VMF221 has twenty F2A3s based on Midway but they proved totally outclassed by the Zeros they met there and were pretty much annihilated in their first encounter.

USN F2A2 

USMC F2A3

That could have been the end of the story, but there were other customers for the tubby little fighter.

Buffalo Mk I
Belgium had been looking for a more modern fighter before the war broke out and had placed an order with Brewster. The Germans arrived first. Britain was now desperate for any sort of modern fighter plane so grabbed the chance and bought up the Belgian order, giving the plane the name Buffalo which is now universally applied, if incorrectly. It did make some sense. Britain was producing Spitfires and Hurricanes as fast as it could, but these were needed for home defence. It was reasoned that the Buffalo could be used as a trainer or out in quiet parts of the far flung empire such as the Far East where the threat was not as great, allowing the Hurricanes and Spitfires to be concentrated at home. Anyway what would the Japanese have that could beat a reasonably modern US design? That lack of foresight was then compounded because the Brits did know quite a bit about modern air combat at that point, and understood what a modern fighter needed was some protection, radio and the like. They therefore made several modifications to the Belgian specs, all of which added weight. Unlike the USMC they didn't get the upgraded engine, in fact due to Brewster production being so badly managed and the urgency of the demand they settled on refurbished engines that had come off air liners. This was a recipe for disaster. The RAF MkIs were totally overloaded and under powered to the point where some pilots found they lacked the ability to loop. When the Japanese arrived in Burma and Malaya with their nimble Oscars it was a foregone conclusion. Almost. A couple of RAAF Squadrons that survived the initial contact decided that their only chance was to lighten the Buffalo. They stripped out most if not all the added equipment, and reduced the ammo and fuel load. In this configuration they at least felt they had a slim chance.

G'day - RAAF Buffalo's

Dutch Courage - the B339C\D
The Netherlands had ordered some F2s from Brewster for use in the Dutch East Indies, and around 70 had arrived when the Japanese invaded. These had improved engines and didn't have all the extra equipment of the British machines. As soon as they made contact with the Japanese the Dutch set about reducing the weight of their planes, flying with reduced fuel and ammo loads, and in these configurations they managed to survive for a while until the Dutch East Indies surrendered, the remaining planes flying to Australia to join the RAAF.

ML-KNIL B339

Bucking the trend - Finland
So that is the story of the Brewster  - except for one other user - Finland. The Finns also bought the Brewster - in this case they seem to have got hold of the ex USN F2A models that were "de Navalised" by removing the tail hooks and other equipment. With typical thoroughness they stripped and modified their Brewsters, rearming and re equipping them. The extra equipment made the Finnish Brewsters the slowest of all the variants, but they retained good handling. There is some suggestion that the cooler climate also helped prevent the overheating that the Brewsters were prone to in the Far East. They went into service against the Soviets during the Continuation War, and were surprisingly successful. How much this was a reflection on the quality of Finnish pilots or the poor quality of their Soviet opponents is difficult to tell, but they undoubtedly were effective, achieving kill to loss ratios of over 25\1 and producing 36 Aces. When you add that to the four Commonwealth Aces who achieved that status flying Buffalo's that makes 40 Aces out of a production run of just over 500 of all types, giving the Brewster possibly the best ratio of Aces to aircraft in WW2(!)

Finnish B239

So the Brewster in Blood Red Skies. As I mentioned, we don't really have a real Beta test stat, so these are extrapolations, but I think they're worth a try if you are so inclined.

Brewster F2A2 Buffalo USN Speed 6 323mph Ag 2 FP 1 Rapid Roll, Vulnerable 17 points

Brewster F2A3 Buffalo USMC Speed 6 321mph Ag 2 FP1 18 points

Brewster B239E (Finland) Speed 6 297 mph Ag 2 FP1 Rapid Roll 20 points

Brewster B339E Buffalo Mk I (UK\CW) Speed 6 313mph Ag 1 FP1 Sluggish 8 points

Brewster B339C\D (KNIL) Speed 6 307mph Ag 2 FP1 Rapid Roll Poor Quality 18pts - this last one is a bit of a stretch as the Dutch took out a lot of equipment to keep the weight down to a minimum, and that may have included radios and other bits, hence Poor Quality.

At the moment Warlord are not planning a model of the Brewster, however if you are so inclined, Armaments in Miniature do a very nice one that will happily fit in for any of the versions mentioned above, and Misc Minis do decals to cover the USMC VF221, 67 Squadron RAF, LeLv24 (Finnish) and I'm sure that if asked they will do Dutch too.

Links
Misc Minis
Armaments in Miniature