Well, you have to be careful with your armor against late war Germans. Stay as close to 6-hex range as you can. The closer you get, especially in urban terrain, the easier it is for the Germans to flank you. That's if you're screening with infantry, which you need to be in the city. If necessary, you can turn your hull to train your BMG on adjacent building hexes that would otherwise be uncovered. Do that when you move into the hex - look ahead at what part of your screen is the most vulnerable, and where disaster might occur. If you have good AAMG, consider going CE (depends on situation, as does all of it). A cheap way (in manpower) to screen in depth is to stack a HS, directly with a stopped AFV. Otherwise it's good to screen in depth on each flank if possible. That can mean deploying and moving HS out front to point positions. It can also mean you have to consolidate your armor, at least early on.
I do agree with you that PF is a little OP, at least compared to historical. However, in ASL, it's really not game-breaking. And the potency of the ASL PF is not lost on scenario designers, you can bank on that.