Player plane in autopilot does not fire guns rockets or bombs away.

[IckyATLAS]

When I design a mission, I do it such that it can be executed in autopilot mode. It won't be successful but it can be done. The idea is that you have to act in the mission to reach the mission target. Anyway I saw this issue in a mission where the player leads a flight of 7 IL2 planes that at a certain point attack a number of ships and barges, torpedo boats doing a landing operation on the shore. There is an Attack MCU that is used to attack all the ship fleet, barges and torpedo boats being around. 

No problem all the AI wingmen attack the best they can with all what they have, rochets bombs, machine guns an create a nice mayhem in the landing operation , they get also shot down by cover fighters ground artillery. A very nice scene, except for one thing the, Player Il2 that is in autopilot mode will do attack runs on ships, barges etc. but never fires a round. It does a dive to unload the bombs on a ship in a perfect run, but does not let the bombs go, same for rockets or machine guns. 

He the AI are excellent but the player plane has an issue with just firing the guns. Sure I can take control and then I just fly the plane attack and fire guns, rocket no problem.

But why this strange behavior in autopilot mode ?