RobZ

You might be able to accept that the game has flaws, but some others here can't. Some people seem to defend the game to their grave and that you should just play differently or just "not get hit" in a war game. As you also point out that you want to end up on the enemy flank, that's fair cus that's the best case scenario. But not every game, plan or every unit composition is perfect so you will have scenarios where you can't do what you ideally want to, and this is where the game mechanics can play a huge part in the result.

It's clear to me after reading the responses that very few in this discussion actually understand what the issue is. I'm not saying tacAI should not aim for center mass, I have already stated earlier that this is exactly what they should do. But the issue is their aiming precision, not the gun accuracy. If we put a laser pointer in the tacAI gunner optics, that laser would point constantly on a 1x1 CM square on the targets center mass. That is the issue.  If we did the same with a human, that laser would be very many places on the target, still center mass, but not exact pixel perfect center mass. This is what makes the AI too accurate, and this is the issue I have been talking about all along.
The hull down statistics is more or less a response to the "hull down myth", which we see doesn't hold up in all cases. And part of the reason for this is the perfect aiming of the tacAI that makes the overall hit zone very tiny and locked to a spesific area, in this case the upper hull.
@Saint_Fullers post is infact supporting me on this. They aim center mass cus they are not precise enough to aim for spesific areas, yet the tacAI in this game is so precise they can consistently hit the ball machine gun mount if the game told them to aim there.
For the "advanced calculations" required to make the AI aim different places is an odd response, the game already handles this stuff with zeroing shots. It doesn't even need any advanced calculations, just make the AI have a random offset from the pixel perfect center mass point, so they aim more spread out, but still center mass.
I already Agree on many of the more obvious and logical points you guys bring up as that's not the issue I'm pointing out.
 

It's clear to me after reading the responses that very few in this discussion actually understand what the issue is. I'm not saying tacAI should not aim for center mass, I have already stated earlier that this is exactly what they should do. But the issue is their aiming precision, not the gun accuracy. If we put a laser pointer in the tacAI gunner optics, that laser would point constantly on a 1x1 CM square on the targets center mass. That is the issue.  If we did the same with a human, that laser would be very many places on the target, still center mass, but not exact pixel perfect center mass. This is what makes the AI too accurate, and this is the issue I have been talking about all along.
The hull down statistics is more or less a response to the "hull down myth", which we see doesn't hold up in all cases. And part of the reason for this is the perfect aiming of the tacAI that makes the overall hit zone very tiny and locked to a spesific area, in this case the upper hull.
@Saint_Fullers post is infact supporting me on this. They aim center mass cus they are not precise enough to aim for spesific areas, yet the tacAI in this game is so precise they can consistently hit the ball machine gun mount if the game told them to aim there.
For the "advanced calculations" required to make the AI aim different places is an odd response, the game already handles this stuff with zeroing shots. It doesn't even need any advanced calculations, just make the AI have a random offset from the pixel perfect center mass point, so they aim more spread out, but still center mass.
I already Agree on many of the more obvious and logical points you guys bring up as that's not the issue I'm pointing out.
 

It's clear to me after reading the responses that very few in this discussion actually understand what the issue is. I'm not saying tacAI should not aim for center mass, I have already stated earlier that this is exactly what they should do. But the issue is their aiming precision, not the gun accuracy. If we put a laser pointer in the tacAI gunner optics, that laser would point constantly on a 1x1 CM square on the targets center mass. That is the issue.  If we did the same with a human, that laser would be very many places on the target, still center mass, but not exact pixel perfect center mass. This is what makes the AI too accurate, and this is the issue I have been talking about all along.
The hull down statistics is more or less a response to the "hull down myth", which we see doesn't hold up in all cases. And part of the reason for this is the perfect aiming of the tacAI that makes the overall hit zone very tiny and locked to a spesific area, in this case the upper hull.
@Saint_Fullers post is infact supporting me on this. They aim center mass cus they are not precise enough to aim for spesific areas, yet the tacAI in this game is so precise they can consistently hit the ball machine gun mount if the game told them to aim there.
For the "advanced calculations" required to make the AI aim different places is an odd response, the game already handles this stuff with zeroing shots. It doesn't even need any advanced calculations, just make the AI have a random offset from the pixel perfect center mass point, so they aim more spread out, but still center mass.
I already Agree on many of the more obvious and logical points you guys bring up as that's not the issue I'm pointing out.
 

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.

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.

Thats what i would assume to happen, in all my tests it always takes more shots against a hull down opponent. If the game didn't reflect this then that would be very worrying, but it does that just fine as you show yourself. The point im making with hull down beeing worse for certain tanks is that they have the armor to take hits on the hull, and the AI will aim for the hull when they are on open ground and thus it increases their survivability compared to hull down. Im doing some tests as we speak and will share results soon, it shows exactly what im talking about.

You might be able to accept that the game has flaws, but some others here can't. Some people seem to defend the game to their grave and that you should just play differently or just "not get hit" in a war game. As you also point out that you want to end up on the enemy flank, that's fair cus that's the best case scenario. But not every game, plan or every unit composition is perfect so you will have scenarios where you can't do what you ideally want to, and this is where the game mechanics can play a huge part in the result.

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.

Thats what i would assume to happen, in all my tests it always takes more shots against a hull down opponent. If the game didn't reflect this then that would be very worrying, but it does that just fine as you show yourself. The point im making with hull down beeing worse for certain tanks is that they have the armor to take hits on the hull, and the AI will aim for the hull when they are on open ground and thus it increases their survivability compared to hull down. Im doing some tests as we speak and will share results soon, it shows exactly what im talking about.

Just for the record, I'm fine with the game not being perfect. I'm just trying to help it improve. When I report bugs and discuss various issues, it is not an insult or attack on the developers or anyone on this forum.
I'm happy to be proven wrong - when I am in fact wrong - but it needs to be based on actual arguments, not just assuming I don't know how to play the game.

You might be able to accept that the game has flaws, but some others here can't. Some people seem to defend the game to their grave and that you should just play differently or just "not get hit" in a war game. As you also point out that you want to end up on the enemy flank, that's fair cus that's the best case scenario. But not every game, plan or every unit composition is perfect so you will have scenarios where you can't do what you ideally want to, and this is where the game mechanics can play a huge part in the result.

Oooh boy this thread got petty for a bit.

RE: Scenario Size

Play in CMx2 tends to be smaller across the board. The maps themselves are smaller and the forces are also smaller. But this is almost certainly a direct trade-off between bigger scenario size and detail of the simulation. CMx1 had what... 20 meter Action Squares compared to CMx2's 8 meter Action squares. 2.5 times smaller so that a 2,000 meter stretch has gone from 100 squares to 250.

That increase in detail has a cost and while in most cases I think the cost has been worth it I do miss the larger scenarios (and the ease of creating them) in CMx1. I will also say that Modern titles take the brunt of the hit.

RE: Hull Down

The way the game does targeting makes it inadvisable for certain vehicles to remain in hull-down once they are spotted. Since a hull-down position will guarantee turret hits and if your turret armor is weaker than hull then you are setting yourself up to be penetrated. You also increase the odds of gun damage which is especially pernicious for tanks that are otherwise proof to enemy fire.

Effectively once a vehicle is spotted the shooter has perfect information regarding that vehicles so some of the benefit that hull down would grant you such as blending of turret with terrain and the inability for the shooter to accurately correct fires is lost. This in turn makes the decision whether to go hull down or not an actual one since you are trading away your hull-armor.

To understand something, it helps to read the arguments first, instead of just dismissing them as stupid.

You seem to confuse this game with reality. In reality, hull down is a good thing for any AFV. In this game, it's a bad thing for certain tanks. But play it your way.

If you didn't understand my post, there's not much more I can do to help you.
 

I also wonder about wether the amount of tank gun damage in CMWW2 is authentic or not. Furthermore putting tanks in hull down might be problematic. There was already some discussion and testing done on this topic lately:
 

Does anyone agree on the very high frequency of gun barrel damage by shots especially from the front and at long distance (noticed it even happens even at 500 + m) in CM2 WW2? This is to me very unrealistic; in tank battle detailed accounts, gun damage is always mentioned as an exception. And the few pictures taken show gun hit from the side. From the front would mean they are hit exactly in the muzzle brake or on the recoil mechanism near the mantlet (even the thick additional protection of the Elefant for instance, added in the field precisely to protect the ball mount) . Looks very unlikely to me. What are your thoughts?

Short summary of this thread:
Tank gunners are too accurate because they are able to line up the sight on the exact centre of mass of their target every time.
  The aim doesn't get thrown off with each shot, leading to sustained perfect accuracy.
  Tanks in hulldown spot enemies much worse, because their hull crew members can't see.
  Tanks in hulldown don't get any bonus to avoid getting spotted.
  Tank guns get knocked out from impacts from extreme shallow angles, where in reality the shell would slide off and hit the mantlet.
  The mantlet is way too vulnerable on many tanks.
  In short, these factors combine to making hulldown a losing tactic for many AFVs in this game, whereas in reality it was part of doctrine, especially for StuGs etc.

So from some long experience with this game its become clear to me that the accuracy of tanks and AT guns are way too accurate once they are zeroed in. The AI will aim pixel perfect on the same spot every shot, only the gun accuracy itself will deviate the hits. Here is some tests i did with and without cover infront of the tank (hull down). The lesson here seems to be that a tank with enough armor SHOULD NOT go hull down cus its a death sentence due to how AI aims and mixed with the unreal zeroed accuracy the main gun will get knocked out very quickly.

Tiger 2, behind a 2m hill (hull down) at 1000m vs 76mm guns. At 1000m i do not expect the hit area to be this tiny. The side and top turret is nearly untouched and the muzzle break is completely perforated from existance.

Tiger 2, at 1000m not hull down vs 76mm guns. Here we can see that the AI targeting has changed to the hull instead and the turret is nearly untouched (only 3 shells hit the very lowest part of the turret). In this scenario the shermans ran out of AP so i deacivated the target arc for the tiger and it knocked out all 5 of them, while in the hull down scenario the main gun was knocked out almost instantly and would render the tank useless.

Here we have a jagdpanther at 600m behind a 1m hill vs 76mm guns. Only the lower front is hull down. Again we see the insane accuracy once the tanks have been fully zeroed that gives a unreal hit area. The only deviation is the gun accuracy, not the "humans" aiming it. The mantlet for tank destroyers also seem unrealisticly weak to get penetrated at those insane angles and thus knocking out the main gun. Another thing with this one is that odd penetration on the barrel. How on earth can a shell penetrate the barrel at that angle, this should not be possible.

Jagdpanzer IV L/70 at 600m behind 1m hill vs 76mm guns. Only the lower front is hull down. Here again the insane accuracy and main gun knocked out instantly.

Jagdpanzer at 600m on flat ground vs 75mm guns. Here we see the targeting area has changed cus it has no terrain infront of it. In this scenario the main gun remains operational cus the AI cannot abuse its accuracy on the mantlet area so this tank would be better off than if it was hull down.
 
The thing im saying is not that the overall accuracy is too good, cus that works just fine. What i am saying is that once the AI gets fully zeroed, they have no deviation what so ever in their aiming. Only the gun accuracy itself shows on the hit area of the target and it gives a unrealistic scenario of hits. All rounds land within tiny areas and if you use terrain to get hull down (which should be a good tactic) you will risk loosing the main gun very quickly. I expect to see hits all over the tanks in these scenarios and not within a tiny circle at +600m, remember there is supposed to be humans actually aiming the cannons, but the AI clearly aims at a single dot on the target with no deviation once the gun is fully zeroed. The few shells you see away from the main hit area is made before the gun is fully zeroed inwhich deviation is fine.
I have only terrible experiences with StuGs for example cus the only thing that gets hit on those is the mantlet. And once the mantlet is hit (even by a stuarts 37mm) the main gun will be knocked out. In my games with stugs i get a unreal amount of main gun damages for shells hitting the gun directly or the mantlet (which should be 80mm like the rest of the front, but still get pierced for some reason)
 
EDIT:

Here is the deviation at 2000m. Notice how all rounds hit in a nice circle at center mass, the few shells that hit the sides and lower plate was before the gun was fully zeroed in and still had some aiming deviation.

For refrence this is how the target would look from the gunners perspective, 5x gunner optics zoom. The target is tiny so managing to hit within that circle every time would be nearly impossible.

Gun damage tests
Tests were done with Tiger as target and sherman 75 as shooter. All tests done at 500m
I did 10 tests of each tiger position and did 2 different scenarios (total 40 test runs). The tests were done within sort of realistic expectations of how many times a tiger would be able to resist hits in a normal scenario, so each test lasts untill the tiger has been hit 5 times.
 
First scenario is testing random shots. This is done by having 5 shermans engaging the tiger at the same time, and since none of them will have time to zero in properly before the tiger is hit 5 times, its more random dispersion.
0 = no gun damage
1 = gun damaged
Tiger hull down 2m hill vs 5 shermans :
0,1,0,0,1,0,0,0,1,1 = 40% chance of main gun damage
 
Tiger in the open vs 5 shermans :
0,0,1,1,1,1,0,1,0,0 = 50% chance of main gun damage (tilted forwards)
1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0 = 20% chance of main gun damage (flat ground)
This one is a bit odd as the first run i had i noticed the tiger was not completely flat on the ground, but slightly tilted forwards which resulted in vastly greater chance of main gun damage. I redid the test on flat ground to get proper results.

This small tilt (left pic) gave 50% instead of 20%. Pretty interesting.
 
Now for the secound scenario where i was testing zeroed shots. This was done with just 1 sherman firing untill 5 hits was recieved and this gives it time to zero in and have the accurate zeroing aim.
Tiger hull down 2m hill vs 1 sherman :
0,1,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,0 = 60% chance of main gun damage. This one had 2 tests where the main gun actually was hit but didnt break for some reason so the chance could be as high as 80%.

As pictured here.
 
Tiger in the open vs 1 sherman :
0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 = 0% chance of main gun damage. This one can be assumed to be less than 10%, more tests would eventually lead to atleast one main gun hit during the first shots.
 
Conclusion
Hull down is bad for a tank like tiger and most likely panther aswell vs enemies that has no realistic chance of killing the tank anyway. And for some reason, tilting the tank is also bad, dont know what to think about that one.
For refrence this is how the weapon is hit in order to get main gun damage, the mantlet is too armored for the 75mm gun, so only the muzzle can get destroyed in this way.

So from some long experience with this game its become clear to me that the accuracy of tanks and AT guns are way too accurate once they are zeroed in. The AI will aim pixel perfect on the same spot every shot, only the gun accuracy itself will deviate the hits. Here is some tests i did with and without cover infront of the tank (hull down). The lesson here seems to be that a tank with enough armor SHOULD NOT go hull down cus its a death sentence due to how AI aims and mixed with the unreal zeroed accuracy the main gun will get knocked out very quickly.

Tiger 2, behind a 2m hill (hull down) at 1000m vs 76mm guns. At 1000m i do not expect the hit area to be this tiny. The side and top turret is nearly untouched and the muzzle break is completely perforated from existance.

Tiger 2, at 1000m not hull down vs 76mm guns. Here we can see that the AI targeting has changed to the hull instead and the turret is nearly untouched (only 3 shells hit the very lowest part of the turret). In this scenario the shermans ran out of AP so i deacivated the target arc for the tiger and it knocked out all 5 of them, while in the hull down scenario the main gun was knocked out almost instantly and would render the tank useless.

Here we have a jagdpanther at 600m behind a 1m hill vs 76mm guns. Only the lower front is hull down. Again we see the insane accuracy once the tanks have been fully zeroed that gives a unreal hit area. The only deviation is the gun accuracy, not the "humans" aiming it. The mantlet for tank destroyers also seem unrealisticly weak to get penetrated at those insane angles and thus knocking out the main gun. Another thing with this one is that odd penetration on the barrel. How on earth can a shell penetrate the barrel at that angle, this should not be possible.

Jagdpanzer IV L/70 at 600m behind 1m hill vs 76mm guns. Only the lower front is hull down. Here again the insane accuracy and main gun knocked out instantly.

Jagdpanzer at 600m on flat ground vs 75mm guns. Here we see the targeting area has changed cus it has no terrain infront of it. In this scenario the main gun remains operational cus the AI cannot abuse its accuracy on the mantlet area so this tank would be better off than if it was hull down.
 
The thing im saying is not that the overall accuracy is too good, cus that works just fine. What i am saying is that once the AI gets fully zeroed, they have no deviation what so ever in their aiming. Only the gun accuracy itself shows on the hit area of the target and it gives a unrealistic scenario of hits. All rounds land within tiny areas and if you use terrain to get hull down (which should be a good tactic) you will risk loosing the main gun very quickly. I expect to see hits all over the tanks in these scenarios and not within a tiny circle at +600m, remember there is supposed to be humans actually aiming the cannons, but the AI clearly aims at a single dot on the target with no deviation once the gun is fully zeroed. The few shells you see away from the main hit area is made before the gun is fully zeroed inwhich deviation is fine.
I have only terrible experiences with StuGs for example cus the only thing that gets hit on those is the mantlet. And once the mantlet is hit (even by a stuarts 37mm) the main gun will be knocked out. In my games with stugs i get a unreal amount of main gun damages for shells hitting the gun directly or the mantlet (which should be 80mm like the rest of the front, but still get pierced for some reason)
 
EDIT:

Here is the deviation at 2000m. Notice how all rounds hit in a nice circle at center mass, the few shells that hit the sides and lower plate was before the gun was fully zeroed in and still had some aiming deviation.

For refrence this is how the target would look from the gunners perspective, 5x gunner optics zoom. The target is tiny so managing to hit within that circle every time would be nearly impossible.

Did another test
5 stuart vs 3 panzer IV @700m, no target refrence points used
First 5 rounds was with the panzers in hull down position

This is how much is exposed from the stuarts perspective.
When in hull down position the panzers won 2/5 times, and those 2 times they lost 2 tanks the first time and 1 tank the last time.
 
Then i repeated the tests at the same range, but now panzers were placed in the open and not in hull down position
In this scenario they won 5/5 times, and lost 0 tanks in all of them. Only lost 1 tank twice to mission kill (main gun damage)
This happens because the stuarts aim low on the hull and once zeroing is taking good effect they will only strike the hull. Meanwhile in the hull down position they will obiously strike the turret and they do miss more, but in this scenario that doesn't matter as the panzers get quickly knocked out when zeroing reaches good levels.
So this is one of the scenarios you do not want your panzer in a hull down position.
 

This is true, but sadly its probably impossble to get real life data on this. When it comes to hull down though, im pretty sure hull down is always positive in real life. As you do have a human aiming so the aiming skill is still the same, but the overall target size is much smaller and that just automaticly makes it less likely to get taken out. The game represents this well with hull down beeing less likely to get hit, but when your tank has enough armor to actually resist those hits then there is a much higher chance of the tank beeing mission killed than if it was in the open. And this is due to the AI aiming, they never aim at the turret if the vehicle is completely exposed. They aim center-low hull which means the turret is very clean like shown in many of my tests. Panther is one of the tanks that has a clear advantage with exposing its full self, as the hull is much stronger than the turret and the AI automaticly aims for the hull.

Yes i know, but the AI does not have any "human" deviation in aiming, it manages to aim pixel perfect center line on the vehicle.
The first shermans had no telescope at all, just a periscope. Then came the 3x12 telescope for sherman 75s and also existed for 76s. Sherman 76 tanks mostly had a 5x13 telescope. You must be refering to the M83 which i honestly don't know where it was used as i find no sources on it, but it was a variable 4x-8x telescope.
 
a)

This shows how the AI aims for the "center line" of the vehicle in all cases. The obvious aiming point for a ww2 tanker in this scenario is to shoot the rear, but they dont. This is sherman 75s targeting tiger 2s rear-side from ca. 1000m, and not just 1 tank, but 3. So either they all agreed on where to aim or the game only tells the AI to shoot the absolute center with no aiming deviation, and this is the issue im talking about. Im not saying gun accuracy is too good, but the AI is too perfect at aiming and add that with the more or less real gun accuracy already in the game, it gives a unrealisticly small hit zone at the exact same area. The only time the AI adjusts their aim is if terrain is infront of the target where they adjust upwards.
 
b) I believe we see this game from different perspectives when playing. I would not have started any of these tests if i did not notice any weird behaviour from actual playing. I know that this is a game so i notice when "gamey" moments happen. Like all my stugs getting main gun damaged cus the AI aims perfectly dead center every shot and thus the gun is more likely to get hit. You mentioned earlier that the game engine might not handle this type of aiming deviation. And that might be true for the horizontal plane. As shown in the pictures the AI doesnt aim sideways at all, but they can adjust up and down. So it might infact be a engine limit for actually aiming around on the target. I already know that all vehicles in the game is just a single vertical line to the AI. I have had situations where a single tree is blocking the AI from shooting an enemy tank while you could clearly see the whole tank stick out around the sides of the tree, but the center line of the vehicle is blocked and thus the AI couldn't fire.
As for reaching maximum accuracy. This can be done with target refrence points. In these tests i have used those most of the time to quickly get max accuracy. And at 2000m it usually only takes 1 miss before every shot starts hitting (occasional miss here and there). Another way is if your units have already engaged a target at that range and a new target appears, they will already know the range and have near max zeroing already. Mix this with the flawless center line aiming of the AI and you get shots landing exact center and not in a more realisticly spread manner.
Why shouldn't the AI be a perfect center aim? That's because in real life its not always so easy to perfectly line up your sights at long ranges. Targets get pretty small through the telescope sight and the "crosshair" in your sight will start to become larger than the target and that makes it way harder to line up a dead center shot like the AI can, which would lead to more deviation on the target.
When it comes to fire controls and if firing the gun moves the point of aim, i don't know the answear to that. But at 2000m the gun doesnt need to move much for the aim point on the target to move. For the gunner it might look like it didnt move at all, but at the target it might have moved 25cm to the right/left.
 

Sherman 76 vs tiger 2 at 2000m

Tiger 2 vs tiger 2 at 2000m
These results doesn't tell me much. It looks rather similar, except the shermans got more rounds on target cus the tiger 2s actually killed their target. Both shermans and tigers missed their first shots and then started hitting. Shermans missed 2-3 times after that aswell while tiger 2s did not, but that might be RNG and the fact that shermans fired more.