I find the Mk V Hispanos on Tempests, etc. to be very good. The Mk II on Spitfires are atrocious. The .50 cals on Spitfires are atrocious compared to US .50 cals for some reason. I can literally sit behind an AI plane and empty all my ammo into it in a Spitfire and do zero damage. They don’t even hit, it’s as if the belts are entirely ghost shells.
The best performing guns are (shockingly…) the Russian 12.7 and 20mm in Yaks. One little tiny burst obliterates anything it comes within 100m.
US .50 cal and AN 20mm are very, very good. I flat out refuse to believe the US AN 20mm or .50 cals are the same as what’s on the British planes, they could not be any more different in performance.
German 12.7 and 20mm are very, very good. (Except in their bombers, the defensive guns on the JU288 might as well not even be there they are so bad these days).
They definitely used to have a reputation as Hisparko’s, though in the last few years I havent really had any issues with them specifically compared to other 20mms.
There was that bug they had recently where cannon shells were doing weird stuff and under performing, maybe they havent fixed it properly yet? Havent actually flown a Hispano plane in at least a month or so so cant comment much on recent performance or potential bugs
When realshatter was first introduced Hispanos were hit hard and during the dark days of realsh!tter, they did bugger all damage.
When that was fixed, they were excellent. I do recall them being a dodgy after that update that broke HE, but im fairly certain they have been fixed.
I think the biggest issue is that each round type has wildly different performance, with some doing great damage and others not doing much. So unless you are running something like stealth, you can just get unlucky and have rounds that dont do all that much damage hit the target
