I hate PzIVs

[Steiner14]

Hi Weasel,
sorry to hear that your try ended in frustration.
I still have problems to believe, that the hit results are purely engineered calculations and do not follow a predetermination of where the grenade should hit a vehicle.
The turret size seems to have no impact. If a PzIV is full hull down or a Sherman is full hull down, there seems to be no difference.

Also the spotting mechanism itself has some problems.
I have been working on a full battle replay of "Wittmann's Demise" from level 9 and it will contain lots of ground level action. The clue is, it will be in black and white. When I first saw one of the battle scenes in b/w, I was amazed to see, how important the muzzle blast is to recognize from where the shooting occurs.
Because of the colors and because that they are not as bright and contrasting torwards the environment as in reality, and we players usually do not try to recognize enemy guns from ground level, the effect of the mussle blast on spotting a threat IMO so far has been hugely underestimated.
I have read many accounts, where tankers describe that a muzzle blast of a ATG showed where it was, but I could never reproduce the impact of this visual effect in CM. With the black and white movie behind the smoke of an exploded tank, I suddenly recognized, that it's the muzzle blast, which acts like a huge and sudden "Hello, here I am!".
I hope the movie will be available in two weeks.

Long speech short: I hope that with this upcoming video the importance of muzzle blasts on spotting will get a bigger attention from the developers. In the case with unbuttoned and stationary commanders you describe, I think the gun should be spotted at least after it's second shot. This is not the situation where a company of buttoned down T34s are rolling over the battlefield torwards the PAK of Otto Riehs.

Having said that spotting is not perfect, I would recommend, that you try to access CMx2 with a different mindset:
For example, I finally had stopped playing CMx1, because I could no longer stand, that my tanks automatically buttoned up after some time and I constantly had to click and unclick the button.

So maybe you could try, instead to search for reasons, why the result was not plausible, that you search for possibilities how you could find solutions within the game mechanics to win in such situations and forget, what deems realistic to you.

For example, I always try to make the oponent's tanks button down, before I engage them.
Or to be the one who is moving into position is also a huge disadvantage torwards the stationary observer.
This brings up another potential problem in your situation:
We don't know how the spotting mechanism works in detail. For example, it could be determined, depending on the environment, how long the spotting process will take.
So if you have a ATG and move a tank into it's LOS, maybe the spotting calculates the time for the ATG (seconds), and the time for the tank (minutes).
Now with the action taking place, the spotting duration is modified. For example the ATG shooting reduces it's camouflage bonus and therefore results in a reduced spotting time (i.e. from 250 seconds to 70 seconds).
That's all technically perfectly sound, but it could mean, that you cannot get rid of the disadvantage, that your tank was moving, while he entered the area of potential LOS.

To avoid this disadvantage one idea could be to use smoke to block LOS. Then move the tank and wait until the smoke vanishes. With that trick you could remove the moving factor in the equations. Your tank would be as stationary as the ATG. It will spot much quicker.

Another thing I like to do when advancing against an unknown force, is to use infantry with binocs in front of tanks, like feelers.