And doesn't have to get as close to them and stay as long there, with free repairs while reloading next to truck...
Targeting AT guns with the ST became a bad idea back when they removed the ability for the ST to kill the gun, so AT guns have been the go to counter against the ST for a while, especially since it doesn't really get vet from killing the crew.
Considering how the shot of ST kills more than AVRE one...
No it doesn't, the AoE of the AVRE and ST for killing infantry is almost exactly the same.
ST bounces a hell of shots from Zis too.
At max range the ST has the change to bounce a ZiS gun shot only 19% of the time. At mid range it's 14% and close it's 10% so no the ST does not bounce a hell of a lot of ZiS gun shots.
What's your point? ST/AVRE are not supposed to be countered with pak/zis wall.
Ever since the removed the ability for the ST to destroy the actual gun ZiS wall's have been the most efficient counter.
The only diference is that ST can blow up jackson (which is supposed to be the counter to ST in USF army)
Except the much smaller AoE means you need to land a direct hit, easier said than done.
and AVRE does not with same profile tanks on axis side.
The AVRE is much easier to use, sure it might not be able to pull off 1 shots against tanks but you don't need to baby sit it as much and the ST has to get lucky multiple times to kill enough enemy tanks to pay for itself. With the OKW fuel penalty is worth the equivalent of 242 allied fuel.
EDIT: For reference the ST has a infantry 1 shot radius of up to 6, the AVRE has a 1 shot radius of up to 6.75