I try not to do "point/counter-point" responses usually, but you raised a few distinct issues, so I'm breaking my usual rule here. Apologies in advance for bad forum etiquette on my part.
Yes, early Stug's were considered mobile arty, but mid to late war they were primarily anti-tank units. And I have argued you are more likley to see a Stug than you would ever see a PzIV and especially Tiger and Panther on the eastern front.
That may be so, but the distribution of tanks is generally done in an abstract way. As I've posted elsewhere, you won't usually see realistic individual units portrayed. For example, you won't see a platoon of tigers up against a platoon of T-34s, even if that's what you would've seen in the battle. The loadouts, at best, are an abstraction of the forces that took part in the battle, so even though you see "54th Armored Regiment vs. 139th Armored Cavalry" on a map, it's not as if you're actually seeing a perfect one-to-one matchup of individual tanks. I doubt it'd be much fun to do the perfect matchup anyway, for game balance and fun.
My argument is that RO ascribes to realistic WWII sim rather than Day of Defeat. It just seems silly to put so much effort into infantry and yet leave a integral aspect of close combat as simply as an arcade game. Its like running around as an infantry and then this magic toad comes out of the wood work and defies the laws of physics and kills people with his tounge. It is just a sore on the aspect of real combat...
Here I disagree with you. I don't think RO purports to be a realistic WWII sim. Nor do I think you have a black-or-white choice between "realistic WWII sim" and "goofy DoD/CoD/BF1942 arcade-style-action". RO is simply a MORE realistic FPS than the other FPS games on the market today. No other game bothers to model penetration at all (arguably aspects of Forgotten Hope include this, but even then it's pretty abstracted). RO is the only game that I know of that bothers to model ballistics in ANY way, and that models ANY kind of "instant-kill zone" for armor. That's a damnsight better than the competition can offer, even if RO's particular representation isn't realistic.
Of course the real war wasn't fair, but simply leaving it as two hits and the tank blows up just makes me cringe as far as realism. Maybe I played WWII Online too much (and believe me those forums were very alive with arguments) but two hits for a kill regardless just feels so wrong.
It's not always 2 hits for a kill. Sometimes it's one. Sometimes it's many ricochets before you reposition and try again. But generally speaking, given the ranges at which we engage on official RO maps, most of the time you'd actually expect one-hit kills pretty much all the time. We mostly engage at ranges of about 300-600m. On RARE occasions you get people who want to "snipe" on Arad, at which point they're firing at maybe 700-800m. All our tank maps are close-combat maps as far as armor goes.
Personally, I think the issue has to be addressed mapwise more than anything else. Simply allowing infinite spawn of tigers on map should be addressed to have a limited amount. (like Leningrad with the KV tanks)
Remember, RO is an infantry game but infantry did have to deal with tanks in close combat situations all the time.
Absolutely, and I think maps like Berezina show that, in combined-arms actions, RO's armor system works like a dream for the most part. Personally, I think the all-armor maps are always going to be a bit of a problem, mostly because the system ISN'T perfectly realistic and you'll see that a lot more on maps like that. But with combined-arms maps, there's usually so much going on that it's a lot less of a problem.