I think you try to see a connection where is none. The fiction from the manual and novels isn't connected to the ingame mechanics by any means, except the name.
Novel/Fiction:
Written to be cool. Including roughly realistic values but 70% coolness and 30% realism.
Game-Designers:
These guys do everything to sell a game. If the fiction dosn't fit to that they tend to ignore it or at least bend it to the most extreme possible.
Like the WC1 Hornet was pretty effective while you can't hit a carrier with the Standoff version. Its a matter of the developers makeing it possible in there game to you, as the player, to have fun with the ship they have designed. Only exception would be if they try to create a physic simulation.
Mod-Designers:
They do everything they can to reproduce what they like but don't necessarly have the resources, skills, time, whatever to do so.
Because of that they are even more forced to make design choices that not necessarly are what the original game was like.
I can't speak for Standoff but possible scenarios are that it might have been a design choice to make the Hornet extra difficulte to fly, it could also have been that its not possible to change the gamecode to give the guns a convergence point or that they just didn't had the time, will, whatever.
IF EA or anyone they contract today would create a new WC game they would most likely not have the problems you encounter with Standoffs gameplay or ours because they have a big budget, a team of professionals and would build up things from the ground.
So keep things in their respective "realm". You can compare fiction to fiction (manual vs novel) and you can compare gamedesign to gamedesign (game vs game) but don't try fiction vs gamedesign or even fiction/gamedsign vs realism. You will only get a headache from that ^_^