Machine gunners clear jams all the time, overheating is just one factor. If the breech is exposed to manipulations air crew would be trained to do it themselves, otherwise they wouldn’t expose the breech face at all.
Machine gunners and plane gunners have more proper access to manipulate the guns they are handling
most plane cockpits with direct gun access only allow the pilot to clear and cock the gun while in the air at best
this does not take into account that maybe the barrel or the breech were damaged by overheating and could cause a catastrophic failure
OP mentions A6Ms as example
how would you clear and shoot again a heat damaged breech or barrel there?
sure you can try cocking the gun but you might risk it blowing on your face
For MG151
push a button to clear the loaded round → OOPS your overheated gun malfunctioned and made the barrel be obstructed → try to shoot it → best case scenario the gun becomes unusable
worst case, it blows up and takes a chunk of your plane
you seem to forget what heat and soot can do to guns
and thats just a small arms example with breaks in between reloads and in a cold enviroment
imagine trying to do that with continuous fire on a 20mm cannon, yeah if it stops shooting i wouldnt even try to unjam it mid flight
TL;DR: if you dont want to deal with overheating learn how to let go of the trigger
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I don’t have a problem with holding trigger for more than 5 seconds. I don’t even know how long it takes to jam guns in this game because I never face the issue.
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Depends on the weapon.
Most planes don’t. You’re looking at specific examples with nose-mounted guns that are exposed to the pilot. However, most planes didn’t have this. Some planes did have a button that could attempt to reset the cycling by rejecting the casing that failed to eject however this wasn’t always the case. Some planes such as P-47s, Mustangs(Depending on the variant/model), Spitfires, and Hurricanes didn’t have such features. Till later on and that’s if they did or not.