why dont the machine guns shoot like machine guns?

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by Kamak86

Did you know that actual WW2 pilots of the P-51D rarely used all 6 machine gns at the same time.... When i find the video from the show dogfights there is a WW2 pilot talking about how they used 2 at a time (one of each wing) and they moved inboard to outboard. Ill post it.

I think it depends on the pilot too. I'm told some pilots would even stagger the zero points so that each would converge at a different range, but I'm given to understand that the high scorers generally used all six guns converged on a single point pretty close to the plane.

Also, on the P-51D model the inboard 0.50's have ~425 rpg, while the four outboard have, I think ~275, so when the outers run out, you've still got a good bit of firing time left on the inner pair.

I also recall, with the Wildcat, when it went from the F4F-3 four gun model, to the F4F-4 with 6 guns, the firing time dropped by something like 13-14 seconds, and some pilots started keeping to two inboard guns in reseve for when the 4 outboards ran out of ammo.