Average distance depends on the average effective range of the gun your firing and what your firing at. If its a .50cal against a soft skinned vehicle then in game you want to be firing at 800m or less. You'll have to eyeball it. The closer to your convergence distance the better....I have killed trucks at maximum .50cal range (around 1200 meters) but that was more of a fluke and sheer number of rounds than something I'd do seriously.
Get down low and fire in an effective burst. Don't try to hit everything...aim for a single target and sweep across it. If its a row of trucks then maybe try to get them all...but you start by aiming at one.
Also don't make the mistake of not pulling out in time. Your objective is to deliver ordinance...not to kill everything in the first go. So plan your attack, shoot at the target and plan when to pull out.
Versus tanks the general rule is to always attack from above and behind. Thats where the armor is weakest. Do not use machine guns against tanks. Use rockets or bombs preferably or heavy cannons if you have an aircraft so equipped. A single hit from properly armed 37mm cannons will penetrate the top rear armor completely both in IL-2 and in real life. But that round has to be an AP round...HE rounds explode on contact. So that means that the German MK108 cannon will kick up allot of dust and smoke but is totally useless against tanks.
Tiger tanks are killable in IL-2 but they require a full on hit by a bomb or rocket.
In practice during the war...it was unlikely for a tank to be completely destroyed by an aircraft. The flak and inaccuracy of rockets tended to make it unlikely. Proximity hits would potentially throw off the treads or cause more superficial damage but rarely completely destroy the tank. Airpower was best used against lighter targets although bomb and rocket hits made tank movement difficult as they would chew up fields and roads pretty badly.
By far the most powerful weapon in the aircrafts arsenal was its impact on enemy morale. When one sides aircraft are constantly firing at anything that moves and another sides is not...such as during parts of the Normandy campaign...the effect is immense if not direct.
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