Salute!
I go with the ricochet theory.
If you ever see the pattern when you have tracers, it is surprising how high some of those puppies go. And then you run into one doing 400 or 500 knots. Not a big problem with HEI, as they do not richochet 99.9 % of the time.
It's also dependent upon dive angle and such. I sure wouldn't and didn't strafe down in the weeds versus any target that might have a secondary. We used 20 or 30 degree dive and fired way out there.
Gums sends...
ricochets