Most overated bomber

[kool kitty89]

Originally Posted by Ramirezzz

...and pretty all other a/c types as well.

Yes, quite true, I wasn't trying to make the Il-2 out as weak. (hence my previous comment on how difficult it would be with the lighter armaments and why the oil cooler would be a favorable target)

My point was that a burst of 30mm shells were sufficient to do major structural damage to the Il-2, so aiming for the oil cooler was not necessary.

[pbfoot]

I believe most pilots would be fairly estatic just to get a few hits on anything they flew against aiming for a specific area would be for the top 1%

[SoD Stitch]

Originally Posted by pbfoot

I believe most pilots would be fairly estatic just to get a few hits on anything they flew against aiming for a specific area would be for the top 1%

I quite agree; I believe the statistics show that the average pilot of WWII only scored hits with about 1-2% of his ammunition fired (I'll dig my source up tonight); the pilots who eventually became aces were able to score hits with a much higher percentage of their ammunition (Marseille was a good example of this). So actually being able to target a particular part of an a/c was only for the best pilots (of course, Hartmann got so close that he couldn't miss; he nearly killed himself several times with flying debris from his victims).