“WHERE WILL WE BURY THEM ALL?” FINNISH ARMS OF THE WINTER WA

[TwoRivers]

There was a mutual non-aggressian pact with a division of "spheres of influence", but I would not go as far as them having ever been allies, except for the Polish campaign. Even then there was no joint planning, with Stalin grabbing eastern Poland before Hitler could change his mind about later giving it to the Russians.

As to the Finns not caring for the Russians, or Communists, they had after all fought a civil war against Finnish communists after gaining independence. As for the Swedes, they at least did not prevent their volunteers from joining the Finns during the Winter War. And since they maintained neutrality, German ball bearings magically found their way into British bombers.

[timmy]

There was a mutual non-aggressian pact with a division of "spheres of influence", but I would not go as far as them having ever been allies, except for the Polish campaign. Even then there was no joint planning, with Stalin grabbing eastern Poland before Hitler could change his mind about later giving it to the Russians.

Yes, but the dividing of the spoils went much further than Poland; it stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea. When Stalin grabbed a larger piece of Bessarabia than he was allotted, threatening the German access to the Ploesti oil fields, for instance, Hitler did become concerned.

There was a significant trade arrangement, where the Soviets exchanged huge quantities of grain, oil, and raw materials for finished German goods and technology, including the unfinished heavy cruiser Lützow.

Up until the Germans invaded in June 1941, the Soviet arrangement was certainly a lot more beneficial than German alliance with Italy. It is true that Germany was a co-belligerant with Italy against France (in France), Britain (in Africa) and the Balkans, but it should be noted that the Soviets were, for all practical purposes a co-belligerant with Germany in the invasion of Poland, even though this was actually a claiming of the spoils. Still, the Soviet invasion on 17 September did drive the nail into Poland's coffin, where the outnumbered Poles, who stood off the Germans for about as long as the British, French, Dutch, and Belgians, did so with a second large army, the Red Army sticking a knife their back.

As for Sweden, yes, there were little anomalies, such as you mention and such as individual Swedes who rescued Jews. But Sweden, overall, had sympathies for fascism and profited a huge amount by its vast trade with Germany during the war, which by far dwarfed any other economic arrangements.

You are correct, the German-Soviet relationship was not an alliance, but it was far more than a Non Aggression Pact. It was a grouping of two bloody dictators; an arrangement that suited their cynical, power-hungry attempts to dominate and impose their wills on other nations. While Hitler practiced a studied genocide, Stalin was much more broad-minded in his killing, and ended up murdering at least 3 or 4 times more people than Hitler ever did, and he ended up earning a place as our fraternal ally.

[TwoRivers]

Absolutely.
The Swedes had no love for, and feared, the communists; with a traditional close relationship with Germany. The choices left to them were not pleasant. Their government did what they could to keep Sweden from being drawn into the war, and Sweden becoming a battleground as well. They did not want to have happen to them what had happened to their neighbors. They did provide clandestine help to both the Danish and Norwegian resistance. They preferred to preserve their nation, rather then joining a crusade.

[xl_target]

I think that other factors were also at play here (but please don't take my comments as lessening the skill of the Finnish pilots): One thing that Brewster was notorious for was the poor quality control of their products. I'm sure that this hardly endeared them to the men who flew them. Why these complaints don't seem to come from Finnish sources, I don't know (maybe I just haven't read enough about Finnish experiences, and maybe they prepared the aircraft differently). Also, the Brewster company was connected with financial shenanigans and nazi sympathies. Whether this affected their products or not, I'm sure that such things did not put them in a favorable public light.

Some say that the Buffalo was a superior fighter to its contemporary, the Wildcat. However, it must be remembered that in the early part of the War, the Wildcat, which actually was a fairly capable aircraft against the Zero, also faired badly until US forces revised their combat tactics. Japanese pilots were intensively trained from a pool that was "the best of the best," and many had extensive combat experience. The Dutch would also, I think, have found themselves at the mercy of such pilots as the Japanese, along with the British.

On the other hand, I'm not so sure about the quality of the Soviet pilots at the outbreak of the War, in the 1940-41 timeframe.

I'm not sure that the real truth about the Buffalo is all good or all bad -- at least, that's my opinion.

There are several reasons why the Buffalo performed so well in Finnish hands. First of all the Finnish copy of the Buffalo was the B-239. (The RAF received B-339E's and the Dutch received B-339D's).

In its original incarnation, the F2A1 won a competition against the F4F to become the US Navy's fighter of choice. However, by the time it was navalised and the gear was strengthened, armor plating was added, life raft containers attached, naval radios installed and a retractable tailhook was added (etc), the tubby little fighter gained a tremendous amount of weight. That in itself was fine but it never received an uprated engine with enough power to compensate for the added weight. Consequently, it rate of climb, max speed and max ceiling all suffered. As more "stuff" was added to the successive incarnations; F2A2 and F2A3, each variant turned out to be a worse performer than the previous version. What the Marines ended up with at Midway, the F2A3, was a pretty poor performer and a shadow of the original aircraft. The Dutch with their later variant, which was analogous to the F2A3, even tried flying it with half the fuel and half the ammo load but they couldn't do much against the sheer numbers of Japanese fighters.

The Dutch and the British in the Far East were simply out numbered when they went up against the Japanese. There could only have been one result for the few Buffalos out there.

The Finns originally ordered F2A2's but their immediate need for fighters caused the US Government to exchange de-navalised F2A1's in exchange for their F2A2's (which were being produced later). This was a huge boon to the Finns as the later variants of the Buffalo turned out to be so mediocre. In the early years of WW2, there was a shortage of engines on the American side. The Finnish B239 ended up with refurbished Wright R-1820 G-5 which was the same engine used by the DC-3 airliner. So by a quirk of fate, they ended up with very reliable engines in a lightweight fighter. The B239 was a de-navalised version of the F2A1 and was a light, lively and reasonably fast (for the time) fighter to fly. That was one reason why the Finns loved their "Sky Pearls".

The second reason as Tim rightly pointed out was tactics. The Finns had already discovered the Schwarm formation. They also used tactics similar to the Thach weave. They also flew in pairs with two high as cover and two low as bait. The Soviets, hampered with a more rigid doctrine of air tactics, had a had time combating those tactics.

Another reason that the Finns did so well with the portly little Buffalo was that the B239's were given to Squadron 24 (LeLv. 24 = Lentolaivue 24) which was commanded by Major Magnusson, who is considered the father of Finnish Fighter tactics. Squadron 24 was a pre-war squadron and did very well in the WInter War using their Fokker DXXI's (89 kills to 8 losses). There were a large number of experienced aces like Ilmari Juttilainen (94 confirmed kills) and Hans Wind (75 confirmed kills) in LeLv. 24. When LeLv. 24 pilots later received Me109G's in 1944, they did phenomenally well against their opponents.

We must not forget that the best kill ratios was achieved in 1941 when 135 Russian planes were shot down against the loss of 2 planes and 2 pilots, so the kill ratio was 67.5 to one that year. When the Karelian Isthmus was recaptured by the Finns in 1941, they found 42 unaccounted Russian aircraft that had clearly been shot down by Finnish Fighter planes.

After evaluation of claims against actual Soviet losses, aircraft number BW-364 (a B239), was found to have been used to achieve 42½ kills in total by all pilots operating it, possibly making it the highest-scoring fighter airframe in the history of air warfare.

Kill ratio comparison:
The Finnish B239's had a kill ratio of 26:1
The Grumman Hellcat had a kills ratio of 19:1
The Vought F4U corsair had a kill ratio of 12:1
The F86 Sabre in the Korean War had a kill ratio of 10:1

An interesting aside:
Now for the big one. If we look at the most successful fighter plane in the history of aviation. If we count the Gulf War's and Israeli use in its various wars; the highest fighter aircraft kill ratio is the F15 Eagle with a kill to loss ratio in air combat of something like an estimated 110:0

[timmy]

In its original incarnation, the F2A1 won a competition against the F4F to become the US Navy's fighter of choice. However, by the time it was navalised and the gear was strengthened, armor plating was added, life raft containers attached, naval radios installed and a retractable tailhook was added (etc), the tubby little fighter gained a tremendous amount of weight. That in itself was fine but it never received an uprated engine with enough power to compensate for the added weight. Consequently, it rate of climb, max speed and max ceiling all suffered. As more "stuff" was added to the successive incarnations; F2A2 and F2A3, each variant turned out to be a worse performer than the previous version. What the Marines ended up with at Midway, the F2A3, was a pretty poor performer and a shadow of the original aircraft.

This makes a great deal of sense, XL, and I think explains a lot.

The Dutch and the British in the Far East were simply out numbered when they went up against the Japanese. There could only have been one result for the few Buffalos out there.

OK, but I'd still propose that, even if the Dutch and the British enjoyed a 2 to 1 advantage, the Japanese would not have had much more trouble than they did, disposing of them all.

In the early years of WW2, there was a shortage of engines on the American side. The Finnish B239 ended up with refurbished Wright R-1820 G-5 which was the same engine used by the DC-3 airliner. So by a quirk of fate, they ended up with very reliable engines in a lightweight fighter.

This is a bit odd -- The Buffalo did come with a Wright Cyclone R-1820. These engines were also used in the first DC3s, however the later ones (by far, most of them) came with Pratt & Whitney R-1830s. All of the US airlines went with P&W engines, because their 14 cylinder design (two rows of seven) were smoother than the Cyclones single row of 9. Both engines were quite reliable and one or the other were used in the Navy's Fighters. For instance, the F4F Wildcat used an R-1830, but the FM2s made by General Motors ( a later Wildcat version designed by Grumman) used an upgraded R-1820. It is said that the shorter, lighter Cyclone gave better climb and maneuverability, but that the smaller diameter of the Twin Wasp gave a higher top speed.

As a point of reference, the B-17 used turbocharged Cyclones and the B-24 used turbocharged Twin Wasps.

When it comes to reliability, there really isn't anything to choose from, as both were excellent power plants. The only thing I can make of it is that, perhaps, the DC3s the Finns had were using Cyclones of a Mark that allowed them to swap parts or engines with the Cyclone Mark used in the Buffalo. I will try to look some of that up, when I get a chance.

The second reason as Tim rightly pointed out was tactics. The Finns had already discovered the Schwarm formation. They also used tactics similar to the Thach weave. They also flew in pairs with two high as cover and two low as bait. The Soviets, hampered with a more rigid doctrine of air tactics, had a had time combating those tactics.

Another reason that the Finns did so well with the portly little Buffalo was that the B239's were given to Squadron 24 (LeLv. 24 = Lentolaivue 24) which was commanded by Major Magnusson, who is considered the father of Finnish Fighter tactics. Squadron 24 was a pre-war squadron and did very well in the WInter War using their Fokker DXXI's (89 kills to 8 losses).

The Dutch didn't do so hot with their Fokker XX!s…

However, your point of the Finns using the German Finger-Four tactic (which is still used today) explains a lot, as well.

I can't say that I have read a lot about Soviet fighter pilots and tactics, except for some women aces. That would be an interesting subject to compare with this! Thanks, XL. This makes things more clear.

[essdee1972]

Great discussion, gentlemen! Learning a LOT!!

Another factor which might have impacted Allied performance v/s the Japanese might be the willingness of the IJAF pilots to embrace a fiery death for the Emperor. The Dutch, British, and American fliers, though undoubtedly brave, wouldn't have faced these kind of opponents before or been trained about them. Wouldn't that be a factor?

[xl_target]

This is a bit odd -- The Buffalo did come with a Wright Cyclone R-1820. These engines were also used in the first DC3s, however the later ones (by far, most of them) came with Pratt & Whitney R-1830s. All of the US airlines went with P&W engines, because their 14 cylinder design (two rows of seven) were smoother than the Cyclones single row of 9. Both engines were quite reliable and one or the other were used in the Navy's Fighters. For instance, the F4F Wildcat used an R-1830, but the FM2s made by General Motors ( a later Wildcat version designed by Grumman) used an upgraded R-1820. It is said that the shorter, lighter Cyclone gave better climb and maneuverability, but that the smaller diameter of the Twin Wasp gave a higher top speed.

You've got to remember that Congress had passed the Neutrality Acts in the 1930's. This made it difficult to sell military items to anyone already involved in a war. The Russians did not declare war against Finland but just invaded them. So "technically" they weren't at war. With a bit of political sleight of hand, the US Government was able to sell the Finns their Buffalos, basically making an end run around Congress or at least violating the spirit of the Neutrality Acts. I'm making this observation without any comments, as to who was right and who was wrong.

The legacy of the Neutrality Acts is widely regarded as having been generally negative: they made no distinction between aggressor and victim, treating both equally as "belligerents"; and they limited the US government's ability to aid Britain and France against Nazi Germany. The acts were largely repealed in 1941, in the face of German submarine attacks on U.S. vessels and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

LInk

The Brewsters that went to Finland were actually Navy aircraft. They were meant to be F2A1's but they were labelled B239's for the sale. The Finns had originally ordered F2A2's but the Navy gave them F2A1's (meant for the Navy) and accepted the Finnish F2A2's when they were built later.The Navy F2A1's were stripped of Engines, instruments, guns, radios, etc and declared surplus so the Finns could purchase them. They were basically just airframes. The Finns had to acquire engines from another source. By buying DC3 engines, I suppose they could buy engine parts as "airliner parts". As luck would have it they received the only really viable variant of the Buffalo.

OK, but I'd still propose that, even if the Dutch and the British enjoyed a 2 to 1 advantage, the Japanese would not have had much more trouble than they did, disposing of them all.

Quite! The Japanese had a quantitative and qualitative superiority at that time and in that area.

I can't say that I have read a lot about Soviet fighter pilots and tactics, except for some women aces. That would be an interesting subject to compare with this! Thanks, XL. This makes things more clear.

Their formations had been described as "gaggles" early in the war.

I found an interesting video here that gives some statistics. You can see how lopsided they were.

[youtube][/youtube]

[xl_target]

Great discussion, gentlemen! Learning a LOT!!

Another factor which might have impacted Allied performance v/s the Japanese might be the willingness of the IJAF pilots to embrace a fiery death for the Emperor. The Dutch, British, and American fliers, though undoubtedly brave, wouldn't have faced these kind of opponents before or been trained about them. Wouldn't that be a factor?

Certainly that was a factor. The Japanese pilots pressed the attack when most other pilots would have broken off.

Just to clarify a point there was no Imperial Japanese Air Force. There were Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) pilots and there were Imperial Japanese Army pilots. They did not share training programs. A rather bitter inter-service rivalry existed between the two, almost to the point of impacting operations.

The pre-war Japanese pilots, especially the IJN pilots were very highly trained and a lot of time and resources were spent of them. So at the beginning of the war, the Imperial Japanese Navy pilots were experienced pilots of a very high caliber. They also had an aircraft, in the Zero, that no one could match at the time. The range of the early USN WW2 carrier borne aircraft was barely 400 miles. The Zero was capable of a 1000 miles.

However, the Japanese never ramped up their pilot training programs like the US did. IJN pilot training was completed at the same pace as before the war but these programs soon fell apart as the war progressed. Also remember that the IJN, like the Germans kept their pilots in for the duration of the war. They were not cycled back to the home country, to train new pilots, like the US did. By 1945, the US was producing 100,000 trained pilots a year. The problem was that as their experienced pilots were lost, the Japanese replacements were not of the same caliber. Towards the end of the war, many Japanese pilots had everything they could do just to take off and land their fighters. The Zero, the main IJN fighter throughout the war, was soon superceded by better allied aircraft.

It took the Japanese decades and a lot of National Treasure to build up its Navy to where it was when the war started. As combat losses occurred, they could not replace those ships. The US, on the other hand built up a huge fleet of warships in the four years of the war. The WW2 Pacific war was mainly an aircraft carrier war. If we look at aircraft carriers, the Japanese started the war with ten aircraft carriers. The US Navy had seven. For the invasion of Okinawa (April - June 1945), the last big stepping stone before the proposed invasion of Japan, there were 60 allied aircraft carriers in the invasion fleet and hundreds of ships. The Japanese had no aircraft carriers operational by then.

For the Leyte invasion (December 1944), the last Japanese carriers had very few or no operational aircraft. The carriers were offered as bait to pull Halsey's fleet off its role of protecting the landing forces.

During the earlier two day "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" (June 1944), US Navy aircraft shot down somewhere between 450-650 IJN aircraft. The IJN by then had lost the bulk of its carrier aircraft and could never mount meaningful carrier operations after that. they had neither the pilots nor aircraft for it.

[timmy]

The pre-war Japanese pilots, especially the IJN pilots were very highly trained and a lot of time and resources were spent of them. So at the beginning of the war, the Imperial Japanese Navy pilots were experienced pilots of a very high caliber. They also had an aircraft, in the Zero, that no one could match at the time. The range of the early USN WW2 carrier borne aircraft was barely 400 miles. The Zero was capable of a 1000 miles.

However, the Japanese never ramped up their pilot training programs like the US did. IJN pilot training was completed at the same pace as before the war but these programs soon fell apart as the war progressed. Also remember that the IJN, like the Germans kept their pilots in for the duration of the war. They were not cycled back to the home country, to train new pilots, like the US did. By 1945, the US was producing 100,000 trained pilots a year. The problem was that as their experienced pilots were lost, the Japanese replacements were not of the same caliber. Towards the end of the war, many Japanese pilots had everything they could do just to take off and land their fighters. The Zero, the main IJN fighter throughout the war, was soon superceded by better allied aircraft.

The whole Japanese doctrine was one that stressed a highly trained small force that would surgically decimate the enemy in a short, quick campaign. Their lack of resources, compared to the projected enemy, was even more severe than that faced by the Germans, who also needed quick victories that minimized the shortcoming of their economy's inability to match that of the Soviet Union's or the USA's.

Regarding the Japanese pilots, the Japanese military had a much smaller pool of suitable candidates from which to draw than the USA -- men with the industrial, technical, and physical capabilities suited to operating military aircraft. The Americans set up a system that played to their strengths: the ability to sustain a long war of attrition favored rotating combat pilots into training roles from the battlefield, which produced a broad force of competent pilots, rather than a few highly trained "warriors." Men who developed into such highly trained "warriors" were the sort the Americans rotated back for training, where the Japanese left them in combat until they were destroyed. The American system worked very well, but the Japanese never would have been able to implement such a scheme -- their pool of manpower was too shallow.

Similarly, the Americans developed an aircraft that fit this role perfectly: The Grumman F6F Hellcat. It was not the "razor's edge" tool of war like the F4U Corsair, but, in the hands of a reasonably competent pilot, such as the American training turned out, and using "formation" tactics, rather than the tactic of an individual samurai, the Hellcat was able to sweep Japanese fighters from the sky.

It should be noted here that the Japanese, and indeed, much of the world, did not have a deep pool of engineering expertise for designing large radial air-cooled engines. By WW2 only the Americans and the British had a native engineering pool for large radials. The Germans, French, Italians, Soviets, and Japanese large radial engineering bases depended on all of them having manufactured Pratt & Whitney, Wright, or Bristol engines under license and then developing from that. Of these nations, the Soviets and Germans "made a go" of this. The further the Japanese evolved their designs from their American roots, the less competent their designs became.

Thus, the Nakajima Sakae power plant of the famous Zero was a 1000 hp engine, reliable in service, and possessing an uncanny ability to run on very lean mixture settings, was about the high point for the Japanese, and none of their later big radials were truly satisfactory. So, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, their Zeros, with engines of barely 1000 hp, were all that the IJN hand in the "pipeline" of development, while the Americans were already testing prototypes using the 2000 hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800.

Such a tactic fit the Japanese plans for a short war of up to a year, but proved inadequate for a long war, just as their pilot training scheme did.

An interesting note regarding the Zero, it achieved its performance in a manner similar to that which XL has pointed out for the Brewster Buffalo: By eschewing any kind of armor protection and self-sealing fuel tanks, the Zero was quite light and didn't need such a powerful engine for excellent performance. But as the war dragged on for the Japanese, the lack of defensive measures cost them dearly in the lives of their highly trained pilots, and was not a good performance strategy for a long war.

Also, to match the new Hellcats, the Japanese up gunned the Zero, which negated its performance because of the increased weight.

It took the Japanese decades and a lot of National Treasure to build up its Navy to where it was when the war started. As combat losses occurred, they could not replace those ships. The US, on the other hand built up a huge fleet of warships in the four years of the war. The WW2 Pacific war was mainly an aircraft carrier war.

Like their aircraft, Japanese ships were designed to be superior to any individual opponent and tested engineering envelopes (along with violating naval arms limitation treaties) to achieve this superiority. In the end, the stress on offensive power also proved to be an undoing when facing the Americans, as the US Navy stressed damage control and protective measures for fuel storage that the Japanese ships lacked. Much has been said about the wood flight decks of American carriers, but they proved to work quite well, being easily and quickly repaired, in battle service until the kamikaze threat presented itself from the Philippines on. Bombs dropped through US carrier decks and were stopped by the armored deck below, which preserved the ship's vitals.

The Japanese, like the Americans, were torn between those who favored battleships and the traditional "line of battle," and the naval aviation proponents who favored aircraft carriers. The Japanese ultimately settled this argument for the Americans at Pearl Harbor, and the fleet that XL mentions, which cost Japan so much to build, was not especially well-suited for a Pacific War. Neither was the American fleet, but the USA could build a new fleet, while the Japanese could not.

[miroflex]

The most successful sniper ever, Siimo Hahya, fought in the Winter War. The Soviet conscripts, underequipped and badly-generaled (all the good ones having been executed or Gulag-ed by Uncle Joe), died in their thousands. But then, as another Commie said, God is on the side of the big battalions, so the Finns were forced to surrender.

It was Napoleon who said that, when someone remonstrated with him on his invasion of the Papal duchies.

[miroflex]

To digress I came across this article and it piqued my interest because my uncle was captured as POW at Bunji / Gilgit in 1948 by treacherous act of Maj Brown of Gilgit Scouts and 6 Kashmir rifles.

I wonder if you could shed more light on the role of Major Brown and the Gilgit Scouts in 1948.

Regards.