ive been playing coh1 and coh2 for a very long time yet i dont know what target tables are. someone explain
Basically until now every weapon had fixed damage, penetration and accuracy, regardless of what it was shooting at. Relic relied on armour, hit points and target size, and a single set of equations. It is a nice and streamlined system.
A "target table" is adding the ability to tweak these values (and others like supression related vars etc.) based on what the weapon is shooting at.
Until now a conscript squad only ever dealt 8 damage per shot to anything it penetrated. With target tables you can make them do 40 damage per shot to Panzerfusiliers but keep normal damage against anything else (for no reason but for lulz).
The best example where this will be useful is the PTRS. Since it got buffed accuracy to be able to hit infantry every once in a while (so Guards don't suck), now it cannot ever miss even the lightest of vehicles (because they have much larger target size than infantry). They will also be able to make the PTRS inflict less damage to infantry than armour (IIRC they already did this, 27 base dmg + 13 bonus versus armour but I think that was a hack, and now they are making it into a full feature).
If used sparingly, target tables will allow adding many little balance tweaks. Just an example, if they want to they could now change the Stuka divebomb against ML20 to leave it at 10% hit points, but keep its effectiveness against other targets. Or they could make the Zis get bonus versus the Jagdpanther. Or the t34/76 ram could inflict more damage to kingtigers. Etc.
In CoH1 target tables were the only way to tweak a weapon, it was used to a ridiculous degree. Every single weapon in the game had to have values against every single tank in the game. I expect they will not be going down this route, but simply add the possibility to change damage or accuracy here and there. You couldn't just increase the "damage" of a cannon; you had to go through its target tables and increase the damage for every enemy armour. Adding an armour type (ex. vehicle) meant having to go through every single weapon in the game and adding a target table for that new armour type. Adding a weapon meant populating it with target tables against every single goddamn armour type already in the game.