The average fighter pilot did that. The aces, especially the ones with great gunnery, took long-range and high deflection shots. Some squadrons did not use tracer at all specifically because of the mentioned discrepancy between tracer and armor-piercing incendiary.
On the other side of the front there were 'aces' galore with 100+ kills, with pilots at 'merely' 20~30 kills coming by the dozens. Many of these guys fought since the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 until VE day, and the sheer amount of combat experience led to the most complete set of studies in air-to-air gunnery; which conclusion was
"get in close, then get in closer" By far most of them, if not all, preferred to shoot at ranges as close as possible. It was a maxim laid out since the beginning of WWI and they stuck to it. Almost every famed pilot one might be able to think of had a tendency to shoot at those specific ranges.
Not to mention most of the airforces had their basic gun convergence distances set to within 300yards tops, with the Luftwaffe using about 200m as a standard and the RAF being 250yards after BoB. The USAAF and USN had their 50cals preferred slightly further out to 300yards or so (1000ft., being 333yds). The Finnish Airforce used 150m, Hans Wind preferred 30m (!).
Quoting Andy from the SimHQ;
"In Aces High, we can set our own convergence values...a typical setting is 300 yards. At the start of WW2, this would have been an accepted value. In fact, the Royal Air Force standard for convergence in 1939 was 400 yards...despite hard evidence from intelligence coming from the Spanish Civil War that the Luftwaffe was using a value of half that.
Let's stop here and understand why the RAF arrived at that 400 yard convergence figure. Simply put, they believed this to be the proper range to gain the maximum number of hits on a target...but you must realize that the "target" in the mind of the RAF leadership in 1939 was not a Me-109. Instead, it was a He-111 or Do-17. Prior to the Battle of Britain, the RAF made the near-fatal error of thinking that any air war with Germany would be against a Luftwaffe operating from German bases. The mission of the RAF would be to intercept bomber attacks over England...and because of the distances involved, that tended to rule out the bombers being escorted by fighters. Few imagined that the Luftwaffe might operate from bases in France and the Low Countries, thereby permitting the use of fighters over England.
The RAF's narrow victory in 1940 may not have immediately changed the "official view" of convergence, but it certainly changed many a pilot's mind. There, and for the remainder of the war, regardless of nationality, the mantra of "get in close" was universally acknowledged. While no one established exactly what that meant in specific numbers, most pilots understood the advantages of point blank firing ranges!
- Andy Bush, "Air To Air Gunnery Revisited - Guns, Gunsights, and Convergence"
The logic that "close distances" were only required by the average, and the 'experts' were free to shoot at much longer ranges with ease, is entirely false. It basically relies on a few tall tales from some of the aces in which they fondly remember how they shot down an enemy fighter at 1000 yards. Unfortunately people often disregard how unusual such a thing was to happen.
It would be fallacy to say all pilots abided by the
"get in close, then closer" rule all the time, and long range shots did happen, particularly in some of the planes with centralized armament which didn't need convergence adjustment. The general convergence distances indicate many pilots routinely shot at targets upto 300yards or so, but like Andy Bush says
"getting in close enough for the kill" is what makes an excellent fighter pilot. Adolf Galland, in his revised Luftwaffe A2A gunnery manual (1944), picks the number one reason why inexperienced pilots miss their targets as;
"1. You shoot from too far away." In other words, it's the 'aces' who preferred close ranges most of all, with those lesser in skill and experience often shooting at distances too far away.
It was NOT the other way around.
Here's one more final quote, from one of the aces of your very own beloved P-38, and arguably one of the best combat pilots there was in the US during WW2. It's from his own words the proverb,
"get in close, then closer" comes from in the first place;
"Go in close, and then when you think you are too close, go in closer."
- TM "Tommy" McGuire, USAAF, 38 victories
Someone dig up Hartmann and Marseille, apparently they took long range sniporz shots
Is that a fact?
"When you begin flying combat and you are a hundred meters from the enemy machine, you get jittery because you are too close to him. That is what you feel in the beginning. By experience you come to know that when you are a hundred meters from the other machine you are still too far away. The inexperienced pilot breaks away for fear of mid-air collision. The experienced pilot brings his machine in much closer, and when he fires, the other machine goes down."
- Erich Hartmann, 352 kills
