Gunnery Settings for IL2-1946 and SOW

[Windturbin]

Machine gun and cannon fire power in IL2-1946.

Concerning bullet destruction\damage......

With cannon fire, usually one accurate shot can cause fire or cut a wing in half bringing down an enemy aircraft. This with gunnery difficulty settings set to difficult.

Machine gun fire, you can damn near empty your magazine on enemy aircraft to were there are all kinds of aircraft particles and debris flying through the air and the target keeps on flying.

For this reason, I pretty much only fly aircraft with cannon fire (is better for ground targets and dog fights).

So, my dumb question is: If the cannon was superior to the machine gun in WWII, why didn't they equip all aircraft with cannons? Who wants a machine gun over cannon fire?

Which makes me wonder how accurate the two are in the game? Should the machine gun be doing more damage and the cannon maybe a little less for SOW to be more accurate?