Often it can be.
But in this case, I know the IS-4 driver and he told me after the match that it wasn't an ammo rack hit.
My Su-14 maxes out at about 24-2500 damage. Still, that has to be lucky (to hit the high end of the range), it needs to be a direct hit, and it probably needs to penetrate. Otherwise, it's not going to oneshot him without an ammo rack hit. The highest thing I can recall oneshotting is an IS.
Speaking of, I'll try and get you some screenies tonight.
And that's proof right there that artillery is currently unbalancing the game.
That's only part of the problem. They can keep nerfing artillery accuracy and so on, but very, very soon, arty will cease to be fun to play (except when your reload time is <15 seconds). I have a 38 second reload time, and I miss maybe half my shots on good targets, at least, through no fault of my own. Making that worse isn't going to make me want to play.
The way I see it, they have several options to fix this:
1) Nerf arty into oblivion. Almost no one plays it. It wouldn't take all that much nerfing to accuracy to make anyone above a Su-26 not even bother.
2) Remove arty completely. Mostly the same effect as above.
3) Rework arty. Maybe make it fire a lot faster, do less damage. Allow low damage barrages, or something. Suppressing fire. Some sort of debuff that happens on hit. SOMETHING.
Also, artillery needs a nerf to their overhead view. Big-time. If you can't see a tank at 3000 yards, I don't see how you see a fence getting knocked down at 3000 yards. Tracing an artillery shell should get you to maybe a 2x2 square area around the artillery. Too many times, I've been oneshotted by artillery from across the map, with no scouts, simply because I fired once, and they traced the round. My arty has been on the Russian chain, which is worse at move-and-shoot at the high end than the Germans, and I get outranged by even mid-level German arty. Not only can they oneshot me, but I
can't shoot back.
There's a reason I have a long-running hatred of Hummels.