The 38 guns in aces high do have a real issue (and undoubtably any other plane with high refire rate nose guns like the .303's in the mossie):
The guns do not all fire when the trigger is 'tapped'.
You can, 'tap' the trigger and get it to shoot just ONE bullet (aka 1 gun) rather than lose 4 bullets (aka all 4 guns received the 'fire' command).
Why is this a problem?
The nose gun package loses a LOT of effectiveness.. a lot of its 'punch'.
How?
Imagine a 38 doing a non-6 o'clock pass at an enemy aircraft.
In fact, make it even simpler..imagine the 38 is flying straight and level and an enemy aircraft will fly right across its nose from left to right.
To use simple numbers:
Enemy aircraft speed: 200mph (200 miles=321,868 meters per hour = 89.40 meters per second.. for this we'll use 90 meters per second to use easy numbers)
M2 .50 cal ROF: 600 rnds per minute per gun (10rnds per second) *** I KNOW this number may be higher or a bit lower for WW2 38 guns but its in the ballpark and I want to have a nice simple number like '10' in here.***
The enemy AC... say an ME 109 has a length of 9 meters engine to tail (we'll use 10 just for easy numbers)
So..
We have an enemy airplane 10 meters in long, flying at 90 meters per second across a plane that will be firing 10 rounds per second per gun.
That means the plane crosses the bullet stream in 0.11 seconds.
So in this case, the P38 should hit the enemy AC with at least 1 bullet per gun for a total of 4.
But...
in AH the gun does not receive a 'fire all 4 guns' command when you press that trigger. Only a 'fire gun 1 then gun2 then gun 3 then gun4' depending on how long you have your finger pressing the fire button.
I know this is a bit stupid but when the guns hit the enemy AC in the current AH, the enemy plane is likely to get hit by just 2 bullets rather than 4. Whereas if the game had the command for all 4 guns to fire, it'd be hit by 3 or 4 (there is an infinitesimal delay between gun firing in 'IRL' 38's .. Widewing explained the firing Selenoid thing a long time ago).
The example above is rather extreme and absurd to think that 4 bullets would make a difference from 2 in that situation. It is there to merely illustrate the problem.
In a 'real' scenario in the game that shows how much of a 'punch' is lost from this can be seen when you attack bombers in high speed passes and you try to aim for the wing roots or engines. Or when you are doing a high-speed pass from below/above and from a 3o-c / 9o-c position (I call it a 'slash-pass').
Your nose mounted plane comes in FAST at a target that is probably slow, the time on 'target' for the bullets to hit is not that much. Firing a 1 second burst from one side of the plane to the other side as you fly by at high speed at the very best.
In that 1 second... you should've been hitting that plane with 40 bullets.
in AH though.. at best you're firing off 26'ish due to the guns not receiving the fire-all-guns-of-this-type command (aka .50 cals in 38 and .303's in the mossie).
Sincerely,
Your resident P-38 whinefuhrer.
