Bug or feature? (bis)

[Xerxes77]

Hey folks, you may have seen the recent discussion about the assaulting capabilities of hard vehicles in titles like Red Victory.

In a nutshell, the issue is that "hard" vehicles are invulnerable in assaults, i.e. they cannot be killed. Although not always feasible depending on the scenario, this makes the simple tactic of running tanks up to the nearest infantry cluster and chain-assault them a very profitable one.

First off, I need to point out that I think this is not a Red Victory issue but likely affects all titles in the series. If it's more noticeable in Red Victory it's because the "Vehicle Infantry Value" parameter is set to 20 in the main.pdt, which increases the lethality of assaulting tanks by one order of magnitude over other titles like Advance of the Reich (10), and hence it can yield results more likely to leave a player scratching his head.

Leaving the matter of overall lethality aside, I'm currently working on a general overhaul to the assault system so I wanted to put out this question: 

** How likely is it that this hard vehicle invulnerability is not a bug, but a deliberate —if undocumented— design decision? **

At first I thought of an issue with the calculations (especially after discovering the other issue affecting infantry), but now I wonder-- maybe it's just that medium-heavy vehicles are intended to overrun infantry in the context of a 40-m hex? Vehicles are still very vulnerable to AP fire from one hex away, and yet e.g. Panzerfausts have an Assault Value of 0, so they're useless in an assault.

Another example: a Stuart tank (Armor 30) can steamroll a full 13-strong squad and potentially wipe them out without worrying about taking casualties. Is it maybe because a close assault (< 40m) by a medium tank is SUPPOSSED to be unstoppable and devastating to defending infantry? (note that assaults ignore terrain, so this applies to flatlands and cities. The only difference being that the vehicle has a chance to become immobile in the latter, and is more likely to produce a retreat in the former).

I really would like to know the opinion of more knowledgeable folks, especially from a historical perspective.