Had the same problem yesterday night, the dude SPAMMED like hell conns and shocks, and it seems that mg42 are useless because as you said, they keep crawling, molotov and mg out.
I went to fast panzer 4 but..no problem, AT nades for the win.
Finally I got my elefant out, but then, the other dude (it was 2v2) created 4-5 T34 and guess what happened? RAM worked effectively. Elefant out and we lost the game.
And as you, I think I should have went to Panthers, people say they're superb, so I will give them a try.
There's nothing more that needs to be said here. Ram is a stupid but presently necessary gimmick. Remove ram and give soviets more AT in other areas, either in the form of infantry AT or upgunning the T34. End of story.
I prefer something that´s good in a small arc rather than borderline useless in a wide arc of fire. Oh, and Maxims don´t have to deal with Oorah and deploy so fast, they can almost be used like a basic infantry squad.