Help needed with Indien Pz!

After playing on the test server I have decided I really want to push for a Leopard 1. There is a major hurdle on the way though: The Indien Panzer.

I am really struggling to make this tank work and pull wins. The results are 44% WR over my 54% overall and I just don't really see what I am doing wrong. Sure, I see the small mistakes I am making, but there must be some major flaw in my gameplay that I am missing here.

Please critique these replays of three consecutive losses that I feel are indicative of my current gameplay in this tank:

http://wotreplays.com/site/324535#fisherman_s_bay-nilzatron-indien-panzer
http://wotreplays.com/site/324520#highway-nilzatron-indien-panzer
http://wotreplays.com/site/324533#airfield-nilzatron-indien-panzer

I'd love to help but I found the sell option much more attractive than the battle button

Same, I am seriously considering just to gather up a bunch of xp and use gold to skip it. I will be pestering you for E-75 help soon though

I have watched the first 2 replays and i couldnt find major faults in your gameplay, only sucker teams. In the first game you had lots of people on the left side. If all of them would have pushed the 2 tanks in front and then keep pushing, your team would have won. In the 2nd replay the city team fucked up and the is3 was basecamping. All in all no problem with the tank in my eyes(liked the indien a lot).
My only advice is that you have to wait longer for the aiming circle, since you missed/bounced some shots because of that.
You probably just had some bad luck i guess...

Bad luck doesn't explain the appalling WR though  

Some of those early shots were taken to at least get the shot in before popping back into cover, as I felt exposing myself longer I would have taken damage. I was running Vstab/Vents/Optics yesterday, but replaced the Optics with GLD this morning. Does help me get shots off a bit quicker it seems, was happily nibbling a passive IS-3 to death earlier without him being able to hit me even once.

It suffers from the same "problem" that a lot of the tier 5 & 7 mediums do in that it's pretty fragile and doesn't pack much punch; therefore, if you're in with a less than good team, it's much harder to have a significant impact, because you're more reliant on your team-mates actually pulling their weight and letting you do your job. Of course, in random battles, that can be a tall order. It's not the fault of the tank itself, just an unfortunate side effect of the nature of the game.

New players seem to be rushing up the tiers much faster than previously as well, making it less and less viable to play specialized tanks even in tier 8. The change in meta since 8.6 has made it harder to play the Indien Pz. IMO. Before 8.6 you could risk exposure for a second longer to wait for that gun to fully aim, because your opponent was likely to miss his first shot. Now, almost everyone will have their gun aimed at you faster, so they invariably get their shot off first, unless you can remain hidden.

This is by no means a whine about the increased accuracy, because I absolutely welcome the change to less randomness. Nothing frustrated me more previously than doing everything right. You get on the flank, find a good place to set up an ambush, carefully aim, wait for the enemy to fully drive into the open...only to see your first three shots fly off to the edge of your reticle.

Anyway, back to getting my daily doubles on the Indien Pz. for now. Grinding the T-43 first, so I can get the T-44 on discount.