“Despite their superiority in numbers and their losses, the Soviet’s never gained air superiority. That belonged to the Finns.”

By Marc Liebman

BY THE END of the Russo-Finnish War in March 1940, military planners in Helsinki were desperately looking for a modern fighter. The country’s armed forces fought the Russians to a standstill in what is known as the “Winter War,” but ultimately were forced to sue for peace rather than risk being overwhelmed by the Red Army.

At the time, the primary fighter in the Finnish Air Force was the fixed-gear Fokker D-21. These Dutch-made fighters were not a match for the Soviet Air Force’s Polikarpov I-16s with retractable gear, a model that had proven itself in the Spanish Civil War.

Anticipating that the conflict with the Soviet Union was not over, the Finns wanted a new, radial-engined fighter and in late 1939, turned to the U.S., which was not yet a belligerent in the Second World War. Their choices were the Grumman F4F-3, or the Seversky EP-1 (P-35A in U.S. Army Air Corps service) or the Brewster F2A-1. The Swedes bought Seversky’s (later Republic Aircraft Corporation) excess production of the EP-1 which made it unavailable.

When the Finns contacted the U.S. government, the U.S. Navy had already decided to replace all its Buffalo F2As with Grumman F-4Fs, which the Brewster airplane had beaten in a competition just a year before.

The Buffalo, it was discovered, had quality problems, forcing the Navy to reevaluate the aircraft. Its landing gear was not suited for rough carrier landings and as additional armour and armament were fitted, the airplane’s performance deteriorated remarkably. The decision was finally made for the Finns when the U.S. Navy decided to sell 44 Brewster Buffalo F2A-1s it no longer wanted.

The price for the Buffalos designated B239Es was $54,000 each. Before they left the U.S., the guns, gunsights, self-sealing tanks, armour and tailhooks were removed. The crated airplanes arrived in Bergen, Norway for shipment to Finland in February 1940 before the country was invaded by Germany two months later.

The B239Es were taken to Trollhättan, Sweden (the home of Saab Aircraft) where the Finns replaced the flight instruments with metric calibrated units, installed four 12.7-mm machine guns, armour plate behind the pilot’s seat and self-sealing tanks. The B-239Es came with the supercharged Wright Cyclone R-1820-G5 that produced 950 horsepower.

Variants of the reliable R-1820 would ultimately power more than 40 different makes of airplanes and even Sherman tanks. Oddly enough, the engine in the I-16 – the Shvetsov M-25 – was an earlier version of the R-1820 with a float carburetor and built in the Soviet Union under license.

To put the story of the Finnish Buffalos into context, one must understand the long-term animosity between Finland and Russia. Ever since the days of Peter the Great, Russia claimed that Karelia – a forested area with large lakes roughly northeast of Leningrad (now again St. Petersburg) — as part of Russia. When the Finns didn’t give in to Stalin’s demands for territory, in November 1939, the Soviet dictator ordered his army to invade Finland under the pretext he was protecting Leningrad from Finnish aggression.

This became the Winter War of 1940 — the first of three wars Finland fought between November 1939 and May 1945. Two were against the Soviets and one against the Germans.

The second was the “Continuation War” which began on June 25, 1941, when the Finns, allied with the Germans, recaptured most of the territory lost in 1940.

For Finland, still smarting from the armistice that gave nine percent of its territory to the Soviet Union, this was an easy decision.

The Continuation War ended September 19, 1944, when the Finns switched sides and declared war on Germany. As part of the deal with the Soviet Union and the Allies, Finland agreed to force the Germans out of its territory. This is known as the Lapland War and lasted from September 1944 to April 1945, just before VE-Day.

By the time of the 1941 Continuation War, the Finns had transitioned two squadrons – LV 24 and LV 26 – to Buffalos which were operational when the Germans invaded Russia.

Enter the ‘Rata’

Facing the Finns, the Soviet Air Force’s frontline fighter was the Polikarpov I-16. This small, stubby airplane was first flown in combat during the Spanish Civil War, where it earned the nickname the Rata or “Rat.” Russian and Spanish pilots in I-16s fought against German pilots from the Condor Legion in their early model Bf-109s.

Designed in the early 1930s, the I-16 made its first flight in 1933. Deliveries to the Soviet Air Force began in 1935. Production ended in 1942 as more modern, higher performance fighters began to roll off Lavochkin’s MiG’s, and Yak’s production lines.

To keep the airplane light, the I-16’s airframe was made of wood and covered with fabric. The only lightweight tubing and aluminum skin was forward of the cockpit.

When originally designed, the I-16 had an enclosed canopy but problems with glazing of the Plexiglas caused the Soviet Air Force to leave the airplane with an open cockpit. Warmth came from radiated heat from the engine forcing Soviet Air Force pilots to wear fur lined flying suits, goggles, thick gloves, and masks to protect their faces. The bulky flight gear made it difficult to bail out of the airplane unless the pilot was able to roll it upside down and fall out.

Most I-16s carried four 7.7mm machine guns – two in the nose and one in each wing – with just 450 rounds per gun although some later models had a 20mm cannon in each wing with 60 rounds per gun. If it was being assigned a ground attack role, the Rata could carry six, 82mm diameter RS-82 unguided rockets or up to 500 lbs. of bombs under the wings.

Equally matched

When one looks at the numbers, the performance of the B-239E and the I-16 are about equal. Their top speeds are within eight knots. The Rata has an edge in rate of acceleration and climb along with much better visibility from its open cockpit. Even though the Buffalo was heavier, its larger wing brings its wing loading down to that of the I-16s.

As a fighter, the Buffalo had four advantages. Its four .50 caliber machine guns with 400 rounds per gun was superior to the four rifle-caliber machine guns in the most common versions of the Rata.

Two, thanks to the servo tabs on all three control surfaces, the control pressures were easily handled, even in dives. According to Finnish pilots, the B239E was a delight to fly and could easily outturn an I-16 whose controls stiffened noticeably above 250 m.p.h. making the Rata harder to maneuver.

Three, the R-1820’s pressurized injection carburetor isn’t affected by positive or negative g’s. At anything less than 1 g such as a sudden pushover or rolling inverted for more than a few seconds, the float carburetor in the I-16 didn’t feed fuel to the engine causing it to cut out for a few seconds.

Four, when struck by 12.7-mm tracer bullets, the wood and fabric structure started to burn forcing the pilot to bail out.

The fight

After the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, the Finns allowed 67,000 German ground troops into Northern Finland who were assigned the difficult task of taking Murmansk and cutting the railroad that ran south from the port into the Soviet Union east of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

In the south, the Finns had 475,000 soldiers in 14 divisions with the mission of protecting Helsinki and Southern Finland and retaking the land lost in 1940. In June 1941, the Finnish Air Force had 235 aircraft of all types and its 44 Buffalos were its principal fighters.

Against them, the Red Army began the Continuation War with roughly the same number of soldiers and 700 aircraft, about one third of which were fighters. The advantage the Soviets had was that they could readily replace planes and pilots. The Finns could not.

As the Red Army retreated in the face of the German onslaught, Stalin wanted to keep Leningrad from being captured and he wanted the vital rail line to Murmansk kept open.

What evolved is unique in the annals of air-to-air warfare. Between June 25, 1941, and May 1944, Finnish Air Force Buffalos shot down 477 Soviet aircraft for a loss of only 19 B-239s. About a third of the Finnish air-to-air kills were bombers, the rest were fighters – mostly I-16s and then Lavochkin LaGG-3s, MiG-3s, Yak-3s that were just coming into service along with some Lend-Lease Hurricane IIs.

So the question is why?

Conventional wisdom offers three reasons. Number one is training and experience. The Soviet Air Force suffered, as did the Red Army, from the purges of the 1930s. About 70 per cent of the Soviet Air Force’s leadership at all levels was killed. This affected how the Soviet Air Force prepared for war and how pilots were trained. Just like the Red Army, the air force was not ready for war when Germany invaded.

When the Continuation War began in 1941, the average Soviet fighter pilot had 100 to 150 hours of flight time when he reported to their squadrons. What little air-to-air training Soviet fighter pilots received came in regimented engagements where deviating from the script was frowned upon, even punished.

On the other hand, when Finnish pilots took off on their first combat missions, they had more than 300 hours. In addition to scripted engagements to teach gunnery and basic air-to-air skills, they had flown many unscripted, free-for-all dogfights, pushing their aircraft to the limits.

Reason two is tactics. The Finns took advantage of the Buffalo’s turning ability. If a Finnish pilot could not quickly get into a firing position, he would dive away and then climb above the Ratas before diving and re-engaging.

Reason three is that the Finns had better command and control — maybe. The Finns had a network of listening posts that could alert them of approaching airplanes, but it was not as effective as England’s Chain Home network during the Battle of Britain. It was not until 1943 that the Germans provided radars. By then, the B-239s were no longer in frontline units.

So, what really separated the Finnish Air Force from the Soviet Air Force? One word encapsulates why the Finns were so successful – culture.

In the years leading up to the three wars Finland fought between 1940 and 1945, its pilots had the advantage of growing up in a free society in which, from an early age, they were taught to think for themselves. When they were trained as fighter pilots, initiative in the cockpit and flying skills were valued. Leaders – section, flight, squadron – were selected based on their experience, skill, and track record.

In the Soviet Air Force, political orthodoxy was prized. Pilots were promoted based on their political reliability not their skill as a pilot or a leader. In the Soviet Air Force, orders were passed down from higher commands and were expected to be followed to the letter, no matter what the losses. If planes and pilots were lost, there were always more in the pipeline.

Under the Tsars, the Soviets and now under Putin, the Soviet/Russian way of war is to wear opponents down by brute force and overwhelming numbers regardless of the number of casualties sustained in the process. This happened in the Winter War where between 315,600 and 375,500 Soviet soldiers were killed or wounded versus 69,500 Finnish casualties. It also enabled the Soviet Union to prevail on the ground in the Continuation War, which cost the Soviet Union 890,000 to 935,000 casualties versus the Finns 221,200 dead.

Yet despite their superiority in numbers and their losses, the Soviet’s never gained air superiority. That belonged to the Finns.

When Finland switched sides in 1944, the Lapland War began as the Finns forced the Germans out of Northern Finland. It was only then that the threat of air strikes to the Murmansk Railway was alleviated.

 

Marc Liebman is a retired U.S. Navy Captain and Naval Aviator and the award-winning author of 14 novels, five of which were Amazon #1 Best Sellers. His latest is the counterterrorism thriller The Red Star of Death. Some of his best-known books are Big Mother 40, Forgotten, Moscow Airlift, Flight of the Pawnee, Insidious Dragon and Raider of the Scottish Coast. All are available on Amazon here.

A Vietnam and Desert Shield/Storm combat veteran, Liebman is a military historian and speaks on military history and current events.

Visit his website, marcliebman.com, for: past interviews, articles about helicopters, general aviation, weekly blog posts about the Revolutionary War era, as well as signed copies of his books.

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