A World War 2 Ace

don't worry actuallly-ive just found it out.

So... What did you find out?

I know that in WWI a German pilot had to have 20 victories to his name in order to earn the Blue Max (medal) as an official recognition of being an ace.

I guess in WWII the number differed per country. US pilots did not have an equal amout of sorties as their German counterparts, for example, so it was harder for them to notch up any larger number of kills.

Did you know Finland had its aces too? Eino Juutilainen scored 94 victories against the Soviet Airforce during the Winter War and the Continuation War, making him the highest grossing non-Luftwaffe ace of the Second World War. He scored most victories with a German Messerschmidt 109 and the rest with an American Brewster Buffalo and a Dutch Fokker D-XXI.

I found out that to be regarded as an ace in World War 2 u had to shoot down 5 fighter planes.

A Brewster Buffalo?...brave man!

Well, the Finnish air force did not have much choice. They started off with a number of Ducth Fokkers, which were good sturdy planes, but no longer modern in 1939 and the fall of the Netherlands in 1940 cut of that supply line, so we had to go shopping elsewhere. The Brewster Buffalo's were possibly even more obsolete, sold by the US as "scrap" and subsequently restored and refitted with more powerful engines and guns in Finland. The Buffalo's were kind of a stop gap solution. All countries not overrun by the Germans were rearming themselves and had no modern planes on offer.

The Messerschmidts were acquired after Finland went to war with the Soviet Union to regain the territory lost in the Winter War. The allies declared war on Finland and thus Germany was the only country left that would supply Finland with weapons.

Brewster Buffalo....I see its only weapon is a machine gun in front of the pilot.

Actually, that is the targeting device. Brewsters had 4 machineguns mounted in the wings.

The Brewster Buffalo got a bad reputation due to its total ineffectiveness agianst the Japanese Zero fighter in 1941. But that was largely due to the Zero's superior speed and the excellent training of the Japanese pilots. In the hands of the experienced Finnish pilots and used againts the inferior Soviet pilots and tactics of the Soviet airforce the Brewster planes performed quite well.

Very good observation Pesky..the Zero frightened the heck out of the Army Air Force and forced the development of much faster planes.

Thanks Paasky


One more question: Are all four machine guns controled by a single trigger? Or do all machines guns fire at the same time?

Normally, in WWII fighters, all guns are fired simultaneously in short bursts (since this increased the chance of a hit more than firing single guns in longer bursts).

Certain fighters had guns of different calibers (for example a combination of machine guns and one or more cannon). In that case, the cannon would often be fired separately (i.e. it would only be used against harder targets like bombers, but not against other fighters). The firing rate of cannon was lower than that of machine guns and less ammo could becarried for them.

The Brewsters in the Finnish configuration had four fifty caliber machine guns, which gave them a more powerful punch than the Fokker D-XXI which had 30 caliber guns, but not as powerful as the Messerschmidt (109 E) which had two 8 mm machine guns in the nose and a 20 mm cannon mounted in each wing.

Thanks Paasky
Good explanation