some thoughts and points

[BBrus]

What you describe has happened to me a couple times, without losses, though. It looks like the gunner has an unclear LOS and doesn't fire even though it does have LOS to the aiming point.

As for the Panther thing, well, Panthers are pretty expensive, and so are the Mark IV variants when compared to M4A3s (which IMHO are significantly better at short-med ranges). If I remember correctly, there are mark IV and Stug III without rarity points. It depends on the version or series. With the same amount of points, the axis player will always deploy less armored vehicles than the allied player.