Rifle caliber hits are extremely ineffective against self sealing tanks. I have a Russian testing result against Bf 109 s-s tank, and they found that up to 20 (!!) hits were sealed when hit my RCMG fire. That's a lot, and the Heinkel fuel tanks are larger and more massive.. getting 20 hits on the same tank so that fuel would start to pour out to everywhere is also very unlikely to me.
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