...all vCoH factions have remained completely the same, with no change whatsoever.
From 1.7 Changelog:
Wehrmacht
* Tiger Ace health increased to 1500hp
* Fixed some penetration bugs with the Tiger Ace crack shot
* Set Pak38 penetration vs KV1 to match Churchill.
* Increased dmg of Panzerschrecks & PaK 38 against IS3 to 0.9.
* Increased penetration of Schreck against KV1 armor to match Churchill armor.
* Added the following changes to StuG IV gun:
- Set penetration vs. T34/76 to 0.75.
- Set penetration vs. T34/85 to 0.6375.
- Set penetration vs. KV armor to 0.5804.
- Set damage vs. KV armor to 1.2
- Set damage vs. SU85 to 1.3
- Set penetration vs. SU85 to 0.65
* Set penetration modifier of Panther gun vs. KV1 armor to 0.84675
* Set penetration modifier of Ostwind vs armor to:
- KV1: 0.00075
- T34/85: 0.00085
- T34/76: 0.0009
* Switched penetration modifier of WH Panzer IV gun vs. KV1 and T34/85 armor
* Lowered LMG42 accuracy vs Sturmovie to 0.85
* Added HMG42 from the Community Model Project
* Normalized dmg from pak 38 vs SU85 cage armour
* Panzerfaust penetration vs SU85 cage armour set to 0.75
* Tiger gun penetration vs ISU-152 now matches Panther
Panzer Elite
* Increased dmg of Panzerschrecks against IS3 to 0.9
* Increased penetration of Schreck against KV1 armor to match Churchill armor
* Set penetration modifier of Panther gun vs. KV1 armor to 0.84675
Perhaps you should look at the fights directly, cover, location and other stuff. Where all of your strelks in cover? Where they in cover at all? Or worse, where they in red cover? Maybe the Random Number God just hates you and every shot made against your infantry hits?
I did state in my first post that cover etc... made little difference. But you could be right in sayng I just had atrocious luck!
Another thought, has the axis ai been modified to be smarter? Maybe that could also explain some things.