Hapless

You'll have to excuse the double post here, but I feel compelled to share this.
I think some of the misconception about what is happening in the game is coming from the fact that the TacAI always aims for center mass. The real world is not like World of Tanks or War Thunder, where shot placement on specific 2in by 2in spots on a tank has been developed into some kind of gamer science. In reality, all gunnery (small arms, AT, tank, autocannon, missile, etc) is based on the principle of always aiming for center mass. This is as true today as it was back in 1944/42/insert warfare date here. The modern training doctrine, ie standard gunnery in an Abrams tank, it to ALWAYS laze a target at center mass, and then immediately fire. This is called 'lase and blaze' by gunners. There are many reasons to do it this way, but the most important two are 1) if you do not lase the center mass of the target, you can get a bad laser return, which gives you an incorrect range to target, meaning your shot will miss. And 2) because even in an M1A2 SEP Abrams tank, which has a gunner and tank commander sight that is 1080p resolution with a x50 zoom, it is still hard to pick out individual parts on a tank in combat conditions. 
To illustrate this, here is a video of an actual Abrams on a training range. You can see the thermal sights they are using, the targets and everything. The gunner does not look for a specific part of the target to shoot at, he fires center mass after a quick and successful lase:
 (Btw the comments on this video are pretty hilarious)
This second video shows an actual battle position (BP) engagement on a training range. Note that the tank pulls up into the firing position, scans for and engages targets (fires twice) and then reverses. All in the span of 20 seconds. This is irregardless of return fire in a real life combat situation. Tanks train to constantly reverse out of and advance into firing positions to reduce the chance of them being shot at at all:
In summary: tanks always fire at center mass. Even in good hulldown, tanks still reverse out of line of sight to prevent themselves being shot at at all, and to greatly reduce the chances of them being ranged in on/hit if they are engaged. 
Edit: Ninja'd again, by @Saint_Fuller who makes an excellent point which my post helps to illustrate as well. 

Tank gunners aim center mass because that is the only practical option.

Aiming for specific parts of the tank is some gamey **** straight out of some arcade tank "sim" game like War Thunder, where distances are compressed hilariously and engagement ranges are consequently stupidly short.
 
This is a modern thermal gunsight. That object at 0:12 that gets shot at? That's a T-55, skylined, in the open, on a hill, under 12x magnification.

Good luck finding let alone hitting comparatively tiny "weak spots" when the reticle is the same size as the entire damn target, with your WW2 daylight optics and fire control methods amounting to "estimate the range and then adjust by observing fall of shot".

Test results
Tests done in a more "natural" map instead of flat ground. Shermans are at 900,1030 and 1050m. All shermans are placed in light forest with trees. Shermans are of variant M4A3(76)W. Panther is of variant Panther G mid.
20 tests done with panther hull down, 20 tests with panther open ground. At test start the panther will drive to its correct position so it is not exposed at the start, all shermans stationary. Disregard the forward observers, they are behind terrain and does not see anything. At this range and angle the shermans can penetrate the lower glacis and the front turret, only the upper hull plate is immune.
Skill: regular, normal, 0 for all tanks

The map.

Panther hull down/open from sherman's perspective (one of them).

Panthers perspective.
 
Results:
Panther in hull down position:
4/20 times success; 20% win rate
failures:
12 times by main gun destroyed: 4 times muzzle hit, 2 times barrel hit, rest are mantlet/weapon mount hits. Rest of failures is crew dismount and tank destroyed.
Panther on open ground:
11/20 times success; 55% win rate
1 success had the panther immobilized by lower glacis penetration, engine destroyed
failures:
4 times by main gun destroyed: 1 time muzzle hit, rest mantlet/weapon mount.
1 time destroyed after +50 hits, crew panicked earlier, but the tank was still operational
rest is lower glacis or weapon mount tank destroyed
 
So after all that i did another 10 tests in each position with shermans all beeing elite crew to see what happend
Panther in hull down position vs 3 elite shermans: 0% win rate
Panther on open ground vs 3 elite shermans: 40% win rate
 
I got many pictures from the different successes and failures, but i dont want to clutter the post, but in general this is why the panther wins open ground scenarios:

The AI will always aim for the upper hull plate, which is the only place they can't penetrate. This is the aiming issue im talking about, the AI aims for the exact same location every single shot and will never deviate at all unless terrain forces them to. Once they are zeroed in, there is almost no hits to the turret or lower glacis at all, these lower glacis hits was two of the first shots fired. The panther won in the scenario that picture is taken from.

If you put two tanks in the open and have a duel. Then your math showing how hull down or not hull down is likely perfect. And I agree, in that case, being exposed and not hull down might be safer since more enemy rounds will hit the hull.
So yes the game is not perfect.
But what you guys seem to forget is that when playing. I am not wanting to challenge the enemy in such a manor. I will be rolling my tank up on the enemy flank, in hopefully a hull down position. Wanting to get the spot and first shot off before they can spot me, then if they do spot me, I hope for the hulldown position to help in their first shot being a miss. In otherwards,  playing smart has nothing to do with where the enemy round hits and relying on my thickest armor to save my butt. That concept is for those that are focused too much on one aspect of the whole matter.
In my example, the imperfect targeting mechanics of the game does not impact the outcome nearly as much. What is a bigger factor in all this is how good is the game at representing getting a hit or a miss on target and how realistic is this in the game.
So I could sit and complain about first round hit and misses at different distances, but I dont. Why.
Because I am smart enough to understand that its a game, with many limitations and as a whole it does a good job of representing what is real. Could it do better, heck yes.
But I sure am not going to be a jerk and go on month after month, year after year about some of its short comings. Like that is helping the situation
I hope that when a engine 3 system does get developed, that it will be even better at these concepts, but until then, I can accept this game for what it is.
 
If you want to be of any value on this forum. Come up with data and calcs as to what the game should be trying to represent in different situations. 

Here are some original statistics from Lukas Friedli's excellent volumes Repairing the Panzers (my bold):
Volume 1 pp190-191 a section on Losses of s.Pz.Abt 503 makes for interesting reading. A 10 October 1943 report for the period 5 July 1943 - 21 September 1943 showed 18 total losses of Tiger I, with 240 Tigers in and out of the Werkstatt (ie recovered or broken down vehicles). Damages/Repairs listed included: 142 technical failures (engine burn outs etc); 227 damages due to shelling (incl 35 turret damages, 19 caused by mines and 2 friendly fire by a StuG, the rest hull damages); 52 weapons damages (6 turret jammed due to PaK hits, 3 turret jammed due to HE hits, 10 KwK 36 inoperative due to PaK hits, 2 mantlets inoperative due to 7.62cm PaK hits, 1 commander's cupola newly adjusted, 12 commander's cupola exchanged, 4 optics inoperative due to shelling, 5 optics inoperative due to normal use, 7 ball mounts due to PaK hits, 2 by friendly fire from a StuG).
If anything this example shows that damage to the main gun by the enemy was more common than, for example, damage to the optics and mantlet, in this report almost 20% of damages to weapons are to the main gun itself. And what was that StuG up to!!
Another report, this time in Volume 2 pp60-61, from s.Pz.Abt 506 on 1 January 1944 covering repairs carried out from 20 September 1943 - 31 December 1943 shows Weapon damage: (where the turret needed to be lifted for 40 Tigers in total) 6 gun barrel replaced caused by enemy, 3 mantlet replaced caused by enemy, 2 turret replaced caused by enemy, 1 muzzle brake replaced caused by enemy, 6 elevating gear repairs caused by technical issues, 3 traverse gear repairs caused by technical issues, 12 cupola repairs caused by enemy, 3 visor repairs caused by enemy, 2 visor repairs caused by technical issues, 7 ammo racks replaced caused by technical issues, 6 ammo racks replaced caused by enemy, 12 hydraulic drive fluid renewals caused by technical issues, 5 hydraulic drive control repairs caused by technical issues, 9 MG mounts repairs caused by enemy, 4 hatch lid repairs caused by enemy, 4 firing mechanisms replaced caused by technical issues, 2 recoil brake repairs caused by technical issues, 27 turret traverse mechanism repairs and checks caused by technical issues.
An experience report by the commander of the same unit dated 30 September 1943 for action over seven days and nights from 20 - 26 September stated that: "6 Tigers were lost from direct hits" (unrecoverable) and "8 guns and 4 gun mantlets were damaged by hits, 3 of them heavily" whilst other damage included "the intercom system failed on17 Tigers due to vibration caused by shelling" (I assume from their own main gun!).
Again these examples show that main gun damage was quite common and enough to at least require a visit to the Werkstatt.
The PanzerWrecks series of books does feature a few images of damage to main weapons which appear to have occurred from frontal hits ie chunks taken out of muzzle brakes and glancing blows along barrels. Great source for all you damage nerds out there.
LS
 

Below is a thread discussing buddy aid that may be interesting.  Many questions were asked, discussed and answered in the thread.
 
 
 
The below was copied from the above linked thread:
WIA (red base) can turn to KIA (brown base) from additional hits.
Buddy Aid is one on one however a team can treat multiple casualties in the same A/S concurrently.
A team administering Buddy Aid will recover ammo including ammo for weapons they do not have in the team.
Buddy aid on KIA (brown base) was about 15 - 35 seconds. On WIA (red base) about 1 minute – 2 minutes 30 seconds.
Casualties only disappear if they receive Buddy Aid. I tested 2 KIA & 2 WIA for 1½ hours game time. They never disappeared.
Experience of the teams administering buddy aid did not affect the length of buddy aid or the amount of equipment recovered.
Lightly wounded (yellow base) are not counted as casualties on the AAR screen.
To share ammo recovered in buddy aid the medic team must be part of the unit (“highlighted” unit) needing the ammo.
During testing on average about 2 grenades and 170 rounds of ammo were recovered per casualty. I know from playing the game other                                equipment (radios, binoculars, some weapons etc.) can also be recovered but I did not try for that in the experiments.
WIA (red base) incapacitated wounded are not counted in Parameter/Condition but are counted in Parameter/Casualties.
Buddy aid does not make a difference to the score in Quick Battles or in Scenarios.
Buddy aid does not make a difference to the score in a Campaign.
Buddy aid may only make a difference as a tie breaker in a CM tournament . 
A little disappointed that Buddy Aid has no affect on the score. 
Buddy Aid will keep a WIA from becoming a KIA.  However both KIA and WIA are counted as casualties so the score does not change.  The AAR screen will count KIA and WIA separately but they are both counted as casualties for scoring purposes.  
Below is a method you can use to encourage your troops to administer Buddy Aid I learned this from @IanL  
If the casualty is not in or near the center of the action spot give the unit to perform buddy aid a Slow order to an action square that takes them directly over the casualty. Then I give them a pause of 20s, 30s or 45s depending on how far away the casualty is. Push the BRB. In the next command phase they will be directly over the casualty.  Then cancel the remaining Slow order and issue a Face command.

Waiting for the Hammer to Fall... With a Dash of Crazy
Not much happening on my end these last ten minutes or so. There is still the odd firefight between squad sized elements but not much. I am causing more casualties than I am receiving however. The only major casualty was a paznerscreck team in the south that crept into a building (full of wounded comrades) as they tried to take a shot at one of Elvis' remaining tanks. The shot was on target but went a few feet over the turret. A jet of flame from the OT-34 came back at us as payment, wiping out the panzershreck team and killing all the wounded men in the building in the process. So... Elvis likes to commit pixeltruppen war crimes.

Not a lot in the south but the thin yellow arrow in the centre right of the map is perhaps to most suspenseful moment.
The remaining PzIV from JG @DoubleD was ordered forward to apply more pressure to the Soviet platoon(?) that was pressuring KG @benpark and KG @Bootie. It arrives and starts laying down the hurt but takes a few AT Rifle rounds. I think it got spooked and it's commander decided to retreat to behind the line of friendly buildings. TO do so it decided to charge down the main road towards the Soviets.

At that point Elvis decided to rush a lend lease Sherman back across to my left after my halftrack took out his remaining T-34. It speeds past my JzPzIV and also past my armour on this main road.

It shoots but barely misses both the spooked PzIV and the armoured car behind it. Just.

My vehicles also missed their rushed shots.
A minute or so later Soviet infantry are swarming the PzIV. I'm pretty sure they are Engineers as building walls are being blasted around me. Bow guns come in handy at close range!

This is by far the stupidest thing I've read on the forums in a goddamned long time. 

Someone here is failing to understand, that's for sure LMAO

It's a lot harder for your troops to desert when they can't leave their vehicles. Plus, if the troops never leave their BMPs, they'll never see all the fancy consumer products in the average European house that only the party elite seem to have back home.
 
There was an article floating around here somewhere with words to the effect that the Soviets were historically willing to accept a tactical disadvantage to gain an operational advantage (look at some of the terrain they attacked over in Manchuria, for example).

No.
I've had many scenarios featuring the mass use of tanks, examined literally thousands of damaged tanks over my many years of play, and I notice no unreasonably high incidences of gun damage.
In fact, the one tank in the Company that does have to trundle around as a glorified mobile machinegun pillbox is the sad exception to the rule that once you get shot at, you usually die, or bail out of your immobilized tank.

Does it ever occur to you that the OP might not know what they're talking about?
Just because someone complains about something, doesn't automatically mean that complaint has merit.
Do I have to go through the whole song and dance about "show me some examples or video evidence" before we actually talk about said complaints every single time?

Citation Needed.

The Avenger
Very small update.
@DoubleD has been avenged by one of Josey Wale's remaining vehicles. The Cannon Halftrack SPW 251/22. A half track with a giant tank gun somehow mounted onto it. This was the same T-34 that surived Double D's side penetrating hit before taking out his Panther with a catastrophic hit.

(Yes crew positions is likely bugged - It's a beta people. )

This is the first or second shot fired by this vehicle during the battle. What you see in the UI is pretty much it.

This is why I can't come to the forums anymore. You people make my brain hurt.
If you park two stationary tanks across from each other on a flat surface under perfect weather conditions, and allow one tank to range the other and sit there plinking away at it's target, then that is TRAINING CONDITIONS. The observed accuracy of the guns is here demonstrated under TRAINING CONDITIONS. This is no different if you'd hung a paper target and told the gunner to shoot it. The American 76mm gun is wickedly accurate, and at 2000 meters range can easily bullseye the center of mass on a 2 meter target under TRAINING CONDITIONS. I mean, Jesus Christ it can plaster a FIVE INCH circle at 1000 meters no trouble at all. That's a target about the size of my hand fully stretched out, so a 2 meter target at 2000 meters is no trouble at all.
We're not shooting smoothbore cannons firing round shot here. Sheesh.
If you want to test accuracy under combat conditions, then create COMBAT conditions, and record your results. This game doesn't automagically create combat conditions just because you load a scenario and let it play. Load up a random map, put forces on both sides, and order them to attack each other. Then you can see how effective your gunnery is. When your targets are maneuvering, evading, popping smoke, shooting smoke, and shooting back to hit and kill, you'll likely see a reduction in your accuracy.
Of course, you might be having too much fun to come onto the forums and complain about gunnery, but that tends to happen when you just play the game.

See title.
Anyone else got simple advice for new players?
Here's a short list of mine:
Do not get shot at. Shooting makes you easier to see. Cover arcs are not magic. Maybe allow your troops to wait a minute before flogging them onto their objectives. Don't call in that airstrike. No seriously, don't. It'll hit your own guys. It doesn't matter how thick your armor is. You don't assault a position by running straight into it. Use more ammo, you don't get bonus points for frugality. Limit your leaders exposure. Split your squads. Three guys in one action spot are not as vulnerable as six. Maybe we can make a community contributed list Murphy's Laws of Combat Mission.
At the very least, let's have a fun thread for once.

It might just be a perspective problem.
Looking at it sideways- how many times do US players run up against Tigers in Combat Mission? A lot, right? Because Tigers are cool and popular. But its shockingly unrealistic. That Pershing-Tiger engagement there is 1/3 of all the times the US Army fought Tiger Is in Western Europe. The Americans basically never fought Tiger 1s in the entire period covered by CMBN and CMFB up to the end of the war. It's a historically negligible event. But in games, of course, it happens all the time.

Leaving aside the fact that we've already seen enough photos spread out around the threads to show that gun barrel damage is more common than US-Tiger engagements in the historical record, it stands to reason that any reliance on "it seems like a rare event in real life" is about as effective an argument as "my panzer's mighty armour should let me do whatever I want with it."

The bottom line is that the enemy has to be shooting at you to damage your gun barrel. If you've put your tanks in a position where they're getting shot at, either accept the risk or work out where everything went wrong.

... if you play as the Germans! Don't think I've ever had an Allied tank with a destroyed main gun.

Obviously this has a lot to do with German anti-tank weapons slicing through Allied armour like a knife through hot butter but acknowledging your tanks are fragile makes you play them better.
On the other hand, the mythic allure of superior German armour might encourage people to play more aggressively and recieve a face full of subverted expectations when they inevitably get damaged.

Its been joked before that CM players would have made excellent WWI French generals, considering how cheaply they value their own men's lives.

I just looked it up. The muzzle hit to 'Fireball' caused the chambered round to cook off and as a result the barrel swelled at the midpoint. So the gun was toast. Page 18, Hunnicutt's 'Pershing'.
I've got the 1996 Feist recreation of that book. The original plates for 1971 Presidio Press book had been destroyed in a fire so Feist had to painstakingly recreate the book from an existing copy.

No. What @c3k said is the game doesn't give you any information other than gun damage. So it doesn't matter if it is the barrel, the muzzle break or ANY component of the main gun system that gets damaged, the game will only show the main gun is damaged. Somehow this thread has lost sight of the fact the main gun is more than just a barrel and is in fact a complete system of complicated parts all of which can be damaged and render the gun inoperable. 

What Tiger? You were just rolling down the street when suddenly there was a huge bang and the turret filled with smoke, screams, shrapnel and blood. It would be nice to have more details on the actual engagement, but I seriously doubt the surviving crew were either still inside the Pershing or in any kind of mental state to do anything by the time the second shot hit the muzzle brake. It seems unlikely that they had any idea what was going on.
But we're getting a little sidetracked from the main point. It might be profitable for people to start sharing turns when they take gun damage so we can see how often it happens and what common factors there are. Because I know it barely ever happens to me, nor does it seem to happen very often when I specifically try to do it to my opponents.

What Tiger? You were just rolling down the street when suddenly there was a huge bang and the turret filled with smoke, screams, shrapnel and blood. It would be nice to have more details on the actual engagement, but I seriously doubt the surviving crew were either still inside the Pershing or in any kind of mental state to do anything by the time the second shot hit the muzzle brake. It seems unlikely that they had any idea what was going on.
But we're getting a little sidetracked from the main point. It might be profitable for people to start sharing turns when they take gun damage so we can see how often it happens and what common factors there are. Because I know it barely ever happens to me, nor does it seem to happen very often when I specifically try to do it to my opponents.

What Tiger? You were just rolling down the street when suddenly there was a huge bang and the turret filled with smoke, screams, shrapnel and blood. It would be nice to have more details on the actual engagement, but I seriously doubt the surviving crew were either still inside the Pershing or in any kind of mental state to do anything by the time the second shot hit the muzzle brake. It seems unlikely that they had any idea what was going on.
But we're getting a little sidetracked from the main point. It might be profitable for people to start sharing turns when they take gun damage so we can see how often it happens and what common factors there are. Because I know it barely ever happens to me, nor does it seem to happen very often when I specifically try to do it to my opponents.