Long bursts more effective than multiple short ones?

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

Those planes carried oxygen as well as fuel.

Oxygen systems were generally low pressure and oxygen cylinders (or globes) were small. That meant that a hit to a pressurized O2 container would do some secondary damage, but not enough to blow the plane apart in the same way that an explosive hit to a partially full gas tank, bomb or ammo magazine would.