I think the main reason ground sim is dead is because it’s almost the same thing as ground rb. The only major differences are no 3rd person view, no allied markers and actual gunner’s sight… and that’s it.
You also get some bigger maps, but very often you still play at the tiny maps you get in rb. The matchmaking is also practically the same, but you can’t play the vehicles you want all the time, because of the rotation.
Why would i play sim over rb? I get the same corridor maps where you just run around and kill people. I still can meet 400mm pen HEAT-FS in my WW2 tank. The match still ends pretty quickly. I still get the same arcade game modes, air sim at least gets EC.
Ground sim would make sense if it was more similar to air sim. You would get to play for 3 hours, advance the frontline yourself, capture supply hubs, kill ai anti tank guns that are defending a point or something. And for the love of god, at least in sim realism should be more important than balance. I don’t want to meet time traveler’s tanks or a Russian object 123456 that looks like a UFO.
On a side note it would be a good quality of life change if there was an actual command to report your location, instead of the “on me”, that would stay on the map permanently until you report a new location.
Edit: I left out the controls and tank models aspect, because in my opinion it is less important than maps, game modes and matchmaking, but they also have to be made more realistic. They are probably even more important than what I have mentioned.
They are basically the same as in rb. The commander’s view is just a zoomed in 3rd person view, commander isn’t exposed when using that view, tanks are lacking their interiors etc.