anyone else ever notice in vintage guncam videos that the german pilots never dropped their externals? makes me wonder if it was from being stupid or stubborn or both...
I think it has more to do with the one you don't see gets you. No time to react as the shells are thudding into you. In the JG300 history there are some stills of a 51 getting hit by a 109. Straight and level, tanks still on.
Late in the game I imagine just the inexperience of some of the pilots the LW was sending up didn't help.
There's a book by a former 190 pilot called "Betrayed Skies". I'll have to find the part where he describes that moment where he got hit. Best description I've read. He was one of those later in the game replacement pilots. Absolutely in love with the 190. His descriptions of getting in and flying it are enough to make you want to fly a 190.