I have had a F4U pull up right in front of me in a P-47 about a year ago. I pulled the trigger on all 8 of the .50's at alomst perfect convergence, I hit him with concentrated .50 fire in the canopy for about two seconds & raked the entire fuselage from prop to tail back & forth twice & the guy flew off, not trailing smoke or fuel or the tell-tale flying straight for a few seconds to indicate a pilot wound.
That incident caused me to write a post about the under-modeling of the .50 cal. Because I know 100 rounds of .50 cal into a cockpit would turn the pilot into a grease spot. That was before I knew about "rubber bullets" & packets arriving slow etc. It's like the collision model everyone agrees is not 100% perfect, but is the best that can be done with current technology; those bullets are colliding with the plane, so the differences in the F.E.'s & lag & all that play a part in what you see vs. what the other guy sees vs. what really happened right?
I still say there are some weird & hard to explain things that happen, but it's a game & those aren't real weapons you are firing; basically - nothings perfect & there will be problems with anything & everything at one time or another.