beet, most of the destructive power a cannon round holds derives from its HE content. Kinetic energy is not much of an issue for cannon rounds even at longer distances. (Ofcourse, even cannons had mixed ammo belts of AP ammunition and HE ammunition, thus an AP round fired from a cannon would have lost some potential).
However, from what I've seen people present as data, it seems that even HMGs like the M2 Browning holds much of its kinetic potential easily upto over 1000 yards - thus, fluke shots and lucky snags are very possible as people have previously mentioned.
Ofcourse, I'm not sure if AH damage model deals in "bounced" rounds - as a matter of fact, I don't think anyone knows just how exactly AH deals damages.(I do recall Pyro saying kinetic difference according to speed is modelled in the game - a long long time ago, that is).
Typically we hear three types of "pings" - a smaller 'bouncy' sound for MGs, a 'thunk!' sound for cannon hits, and a 'clunk!' sound indicating damage.
So, when you are assaulted by a barrage of the 'bouncy' pings, or receive a 'thunk', does that mean the bullets are bouncing off? Or does it mean that you are hit and the shells did penetrate, but the damage was not enough for the game to deal out "damaged" status upon the hit part? No one really knows.
....
But one thing is certain, is that if a fluke or a lucky shot hits your plane, and the game deals out the "damaged" card, the whole part will be utterly destroyed - which often results in catastrophic structural failure of flight surfaces, which immediately brings down the plane(typically when it's the vertical stab or the horizontal stab being damaged). Thus, the simplicity of this damage model is partly responsible for the "fluke shots", or even the mentality behind the people attempting that shot(since they know if they succeed in damaging a plane somehow, it will almost definately go down, or be seriously rendered incompetent to fight).
Basically, the problem of people attempting long range shots, succeeding in it regularly, and even mastering that particular aspect as a required skill, has a lot more to do than just gunnery alone - since, as said by others, in theory the ballistics suggests that such shots are very possible.
The problem is that in real life, despite what the ballistics suggest, long range shots were both rarely attempted and rarely effective. This is due to a number of reasons, which exists in reality but does not reside in AH. People have come up with a compelling argument mentioning "pilot experience" as a factor, but while it may explain some of the difference in real life gunnery and in-the-game gunnery, there is more to it than just skill factor alone. The 'effective range' of aerial gunnery is different from the 'effective range' specifications following a gun design. If we accept Mr. Anthony Williams as a trusty expert in this, his opinion is that 200m(218yds) was generally the maximum range which kills could be expected against fighters, and upto 400m(437yds) max for larger targets like bombers. Anything further than that simply did not wield effective results. (600~1000 yards shots are indeed, according to my own experience, very rare and not very likely to happen in AH1. Mr. Williams' opinion would suggest that being able to drop a fighter plane at ranges between 200~300yards, should be as hard as 600~800 yard shots which occur in AH1. If we take in the 'pilot skill' factor into the game, and double the effective range of what Mr.Williams suggests, it would suggest that to be 'fairly realistic', a 400~500 yard shot should be as hard as 800 yard shots currently seen in AH1, with most of the kills occuring within 250yards, 300~400 yard shots being considered as "long range", and 400~500 yard shots considered "lucky".)
I'm not aware of what WB3 did to change the gunnery, but I seem to recall someone saying that it was artificial neutering of the gunnery. If that's the case, while I'd understand it as a gameplay concession, and even admit it as something better than what is current in AH, still, I'd not feel comfortable about it.
The best way would be to try to implement as much real-life factors that were in real-life as possible into the game, so the effective range of gunnery naturally falls lower than what it used to be. One certain method would be to remove ammo counters from planes that did not have them - the IL2/FB experience teaches me that my trigger-happiness is greatly influenced by whether or not I can keep accurate track of just how much ammunition is available to me. Other things like limiting maximum convergence tweaking to 400yards would also help. There are various factors which are not present in AH that should be. (The seemingly more difficult gunnery in AH2 is partially due to the fact that the tracers have changed, and the 'hit sprites' are much less visible than it used to be - which is indeed a good thing)
All in all, I agree that 800yd+ shots are bullshi*. But to be frank, I really don't see much of it happening. It's a rare thing to happen. The 'average' ranges where kills normally occur in all occasions - around 400~600 yards - is the larger problem. Honestly, no matter how much a pilot sucks, I can never feel safe as long as he is within 600yards because I know I'm gonna die if I don't jink hard enough.
We'll just have to see what happens with AH2, but frankly the harder the gunnery is(or rather, the more close to real life ranges it drops down to..) the more intense, and more ACM oriented the game becomes. One thing for certain, is as I've said in the past, people will start finding planes like Spit9s or N1K2s hugely unattractive if effective gunnery ranges(ranges which a pilot can expect to bring a plane down) drop down to something like 300yards maximum.
